Feast of The Ascension of the Lord – Year A
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: May 17, 2026
Sometimes a person comes to me, feeling upset about something happening in their life or something happening in the world. They will say, “Why doesn’t God do anything about this?” Sometimes a person in our parish will ask me, “how is your parish going?” I feel uncomfortable with this because I do not feel that this is “my parish.” In fact, most of you will be here longer than me. This is our parish. We are the Church, all of us.
St. Paul, in the Letter to the Ephesians, refers to the church as “his body.” It is the body of Christ. A parish is the body of Christ in a local area. All of you are members of the “body of Christ.”
In both cases, they are seeing themselves as separate from God and or the Church. God and the Church are things outside of themselves. God is some distant figure only referred to when I need or want something. The Church is something over there, perhaps the Bishops and Priests, but not something for which I have any responsibility.
The Feast of the Ascension is not about Jesus leaving us. Rather he is leading us into a deeper unity with God and forming us into the church, as the body of Christ Just before the experience of the Ascension, Jesus promises, “remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” We need to be the body of Christ that allows the presence of Jesus to be with us always.
Think of all the Christians over the past two thousand years, who have kept the promise of Jesus alive in our world. Think of the great Saints who allowed the promise and presence of Jesus to remain alive through the Church over the many centuries.
Now, it is up to us. We are to be the ones who keep the memory of Jesus alive today, we are to be the body of Christ keeping the presence of Jesus alive today. You need to be the presence of Jesus in our world today. In your family, where you work or study, in our parish. You might think that you are not important or that you have nothing important to do. But, in the eyes of God, it is never too small. St. Therese of Lisieux said, “Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God.”
There is a story of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew in Auschwitz. He tells how an Italian layman, Lorenzo, would give him a share of bread everyday. He wrote, “I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today; and not so much for his material aid, as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, … a remote possibility of good…” The small piece of bread saved his soul.
What small act might you do that keeps the presence of Jesus alive for someone today? On this Feast of the Ascension, do not ask, why is God not doing something? Ask, what does God want to do through me?
Do not ask, where is the Church? Wherever you are, there is the Church. Ask, what is one small thing I can do to keep the presence of Jesus alive for one other person?
