Ascension Sunday
This weekend we celebrate Jesus’ Ascension into heaven – that after rising from the dead and appearing to His disciples for a number of days, Jesus ascends to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. The ascension is not just a one-and-done event of history, though: creation is called to follow where its Master has gone before. The ascension is still happening – heaven is waiting for it to be complete in three distinct ways! Can you name them?
5th Sunday of Easter
Every Christian, by their baptism, is anointed priest, prophet and king. Peter challenges us this weekend to that first anointing: “be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.” There is the ordained priesthood by which priests in the Church offer to God the sacrifice of Christ and offer to God’s people the sacraments, but there is also the priesthood of the baptized by which every Christian, in Jesus, is called to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. Every day we can offer these spiritual sacrifices, and at Mass we have the opportunity to collect them all from that past week – our thoughts, words, prayers, actions, and intentions…even our anxieties, worries, concerns, hopes, and dreams – and place them on that altar as our sacrifice to God in the power of our baptismal priesthood! And like He does with the bread and the wine, He can take what we offer to Him and transform those sacrifices into something even greater.
Note: At the beginning of the COVID-19 response when public Masses were cancelled I was recording and posting the homilies of my Deacons on this podcast as well to help everyone stay connected with the weekend homily. Now that we are live streaming weekend Masses and you can both hear and see our deacons preach right on our website (www.stjoseph-hayward.org), I will no longer be posting the audio of my Deacons’ homilies on this podcast.