Sunday May 24 The Ascencion of the Lord

First Reading  Acts 1:1-11 Jesus is taken up inot heaven

Second Reading Ephesians Christ is the head of the church

Gospel Matthew 28:16 - 20 Jesus sends forth the apostles with the promise to be with them always.

HOMILY by Richard Leonard

When I was a boy, Sir Edmund Hillary came to speak at my school. I can remember the fuss surrounding the visit of the first person to scale Mt Everest. And though there is now a school of thought that holds that he was beaten to the summit by Tenzing Norgay, his Tibetan colleague, there was an aura around this New Zealander who had been to the top of the world.

Some of my usually dour teachers were in awe of Sir Edmund. There was more than a little hero worship going on that day. Rather surprisingly in his address Sir Edmund did not say very much about his adventure to the peak. He was much more interested in what we do to each other on the plains than what he did on the mountain top. He spoke about justice, peace and the dignity of humanity. I can vividly remember him sending us out at the end of his speech to create a better world for all people everywhere. When questions came, there were several about whether he felt closer to God at the top of Mt Everest, and although he said he did, he mentioned there were life and death moments on the way up and down, where God's presence and companionship were much more real to him.

Hillary's visit to my school is not far from what happened to the disciples in today's Gospel. Matthew tells us that the eleven men who worshipped Jesus were commissioned by him to go out to the world and they were promised that he would stay with them until the end of time.

Worship is a word Catholics don't use all that often. While other denominations describe their liturgy as ‘worship’, we tend to use it only in a more secular way like in ‘hero worship’ or ‘not an altar at which I worship’. The concept behind this word, however, is an important one. To worship God is to admit that we are not God. We are creatures and our worship is directed toward our Creator, Saviour and Sustainer.

Whether we realise it or not we are commissioned to go out to the world at the end of every liturgy, ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.’ This changes our worship. We are not here just for ourselves. Mass, which comes from a word meaning ‘to be sent’, indicates that our liturgy is about celebrating what God has done in the world in and through us, and is a preparation for what God still wants to accomplish.

Finally, we continue to experience the abiding presence of Christ in our daily lives or else we wouldn't be here. God, as revealed in Jesus Christ, is not distant to our lives or impervious to our needs; we believe in a Companion-God who seeks our company as much as we need his.

In this Mass, then, let's thank God for the mountain top of Christ's Ascension that lifts us up out of our everyday life to celebrate that we are creatures, not the Creator. Let us hear again Christ's call to each of us to move away from the complacency of a spiritual cafeteria to a church moving out to change the world. And let's rejoice in Christ's presence which abides before us, behind us, over and in us, within and without, now and forever. Amen.