As we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord this week, I can’t help but think the apostles may have been asking themselves a question: Well, now what? What are they to do? Go and baptize and make disciples they are told. Well, that’s all well and fine. But how do they go about it?

The answer is that they needed to remember that Jesus would still be with them, and wasn’t disappearing from their lives, and that they were being empowered with the Holy Spirit to be a witness.

When we think of the Ascension, perhaps you think of Jesus going up in the clouds and away. We shouldn’t overly literalize that. Yes, Jesus goes into the realm of heaven and ascends. But this doesn’t mean that He is gone to a distant place. We have to remember God is everywhere; it’s why we can say God is with us but is also in the heavenly realm. He is at the Father’s right hand, words we say in the Creed, which is where a leader would sit next to a king, and it’s there that He remains with us to intercede for us and govern. Ascending in the clouds, the ascension reveals Jesus’ divinity, but we see the humanity too in His physical body ascending. This gives us the hope for heaven too as Jesus, like us, is a human being with the Father now in heaven.

But He is still here too with us; and on our part we seek Him out to guide us. He is in the bread and wine, His body and blood. Jesus brings that sacrifice into heaven; His Body and Blood are brought to the Father having taken upon Himself the sins of us all. In Mass, we partake in that sacrifice, joining our sacrifice to the eternal one offered by Christ in heaven. It’s why we say “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory,” joining in the words of the angels. In Matthew’s Gospel, He says “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” God is truly with us always, and we need to be with Him, and talk to Him. For God is there. To give us strength, to give us guidance, to give us comfort. And, as we’ll celebrate next week, Jesus sends us the Spirit to give us further strength to carry out our mission. On top of this, there are the saints too, who hear our prayers and intercede for us with God. So on one level, this feast gives us both the hope for heaven seeing Jesus go to the Father, but also the reassurance that as Jesus was with us, He is still with us too albeit not in the physical form, but through the sacraments and by now being both with the Father but still with us too on our journey.

Jesus gives the apostles a mission now to be His witnesses. That’s also you and me. We are now Jesus’ voice, hands and feet. We are His presence in the world. If Jesus were still here physically, we might expect Him to do everything for us. But He wants you and I to work in His vineyard. So, we have to ponder, what is the work Jesus is giving you and me to do? The “what next” part is what the apostles wonder as the angels tell them to not look at the sky anymore but to essentially get to work means you and I are being called now to action. It’s not easy, but what great things we can do with God.

One of the early heresies in the Church was to focus entirely on heaven to the point where earth was seen as an awful place to escape. God could have remained other, but instead He becomes one of us, creating us, redeeming us, and continuing to sanctify us and make us holy. Let us learn from that, remembering that as Jesus chose to be in this world and to die for us all out of love, we are each given the commission to be people of hope; people who want to go to heaven one day but want to leave our footprints on earth by leaving the earth a better place than it was when we came into it.

The Ascension is the end of Jesus’ earthly mission, but the mission continues through you and me – so may we remember our job is to go out into the world with the Lord empowering us every day to be true fishers of men. Jesus is not just “up in heaven” waiting for us, but is continuing to strengthen and empower us daily, joined with the Holy Spirit – on our part may we not be afraid to run the race of life, knowing that He is at our side every step of the way, not just waiting at the finish line, and help others to cross it.

Have a blessed week,

Fr. Paul

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May 17, 2026