Feast of the Ascension 2026 Reflection: Heaven, Eucharist, and Mission
Readings and Virtual Homily for May 17, 2026, Feast of the Ascension; One Week to Go at O'Dowd; Twentieth Anniversary
Readings for Mass this Sunday:
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47:2-3, 6-9
Ephesians 1:17-23
Matthew 28:16-20
Dear Friends and Family,
Apologies for the late arrival with this one; it has been one crowded week!
We celebrate the Ascension this Sunday. And I need to say this before I say anything else. For most of the dioceses in the United States and throughout the world, this Sunday is not the Feast of the Ascension; it is the Seventh Sunday of Easter (with its own set of readings). The Feast of the Ascension is observed, in those many, many dioceses, on that day we here in the western US used to call Ascension Thursday. Sometime thirty or so years ago the bishops of the western dioceses in the United States made the decision to switch the observance of the Ascension from Thursday to the Seventh Sunday of Easter.
I have heard various explanations for this decision. With the exception of the explanation that this change put us in alignment with the Church in Latin America, I am not going to repeat any of them here since I so thoroughly disagree with the decision. I am strongly persuaded that it was based on a lack of faith in the Catholic people themselves: "Ask our people to go to Mass on BOTH a Thursday AND the following Sunday? Can't do that."
Ascension Thursday was, in my childhood experience (and later, as a young man who had returned to the practice of the faith after most of a decade away) one of only a very few really special Thursdays throughout the year (Holy Thursday and Thanksgiving being two others). There was, for me, in those days, something special about a Thursday where there was a major liturgical celebration. I remember slipping into the crowded back of the church at St. Joseph in Marysville, in my late twenties, in my early thirties, for the 530 PM Mass of the Ascension, the parish providing that Thursday, the full Sunday schedule of Masses, the Feast of the Ascension being a Holy Day of Obligation.
As I say, do not get me started. What? We can't ask Catholics once or twice a year to attend Mass on Thursday?!?
Whatever.
In any event, we Catholics in the western US and in Latin America are celebrating the Feast of the Ascension this Sunday, and the readings reflect that fact. So, my pre-Vatican Two tirade above having been expressed (and no, really, I LOVE the Council!!!) let us proceed to a consideration of the readings for what may as well be called Ascension Sunday.
The first reading gives us Luke's second description of the Ascension (the first, of course, is provided in his Gospel, chapter 24). The account in Acts of the Apostles is a bit more detailed. Here, we get the description of Jesus receding from the disciples into the sky, and of the appearance of the angels, who reassure the disciples that Jesus will return just as they have seen him leave (vss. 9-11).
The psalm is one of the Enthronement Psalms. It describes the Lord's triumphal entrance into the heavenly courts, where he sits, "king over all the earth" (vs. 8). He has "gone up with a shout," the psalm says, "amid trumpet blasts" (vs. 6). The imagery is bright, joyful, triumphant, regal. It bespeaks the reality of the Ascension, and of Jesus taking his place "upon his holy throne" (vs. 9).
God, the reading from Ephesians tells us, raised Christ from the dead and seated him "at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power and dominion... and he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church," (vss. 20-22). The reference to principalities and so on is a reference to the angelic hierarchies and it is echoed, maybe I should say, it is underscored, in the opening verses of the Letter to the Hebrews, where the author assures us that Christ is far above any rank of angels (Hebrews 1:4-14).
The Gospel does not describe the Ascension. There are two brief descriptions of the Ascension in the Gospels, they are to be found in Mark 16 and Luke 24. Matthew's Gospel ends with the Great Commission. Jesus instructs the disciples to "Go...and make disciples of all nations," (vs. 19). And with regard to the Ascension, this might be the take-away we want to focus on. Between the Resurrection and the Ascension, Jesus appeared, body, blood, soul and divinity, to the disciples numerous times. He ate with them; made breakfast for them; counseled them; instructed them.
Then, he ascended. He is with us today, as he promised he would be, in the Eucharist, until the end of time (vs. 20). But as of the Ascension, Jesus is no longer appearing to us, as he did to the disciples after the Resurrection and up to the Ascension. Rather, he is with us in the Eucharist, and he has sent us his Spirit, to empower us to carry out the Great Commission of Matthew 28 (see John 14-16).
I could go into some detail, with regard to our responsibilities, as disciples, given the Great Commission. But this homily is about the Ascension, not the demands of discipleship.
The last thing I want to say here is something I know I have emphasized before, but it is worth emphasizing again. The Ascension underscores for us the value and the importance of the material creation. Heaven is a physical place. Jesus and Mary both are there, right now, not just spiritually but physically. One day, all of us will be there, bodily, as well. The material creation, having come forth from the hand of God, is good. It is so good that God decided to rescue it; to rescue it by entering into it as a material being -- Jesus Christ, God incarnate, the Second Person of the Trinity. One of us.
The material creation, we recite every Sunday in the Nicene Creed, came into being through the Second Person: Through him all things were made. So it is fitting that through him all things are saved. That salvation, the rescue of the material creation, is a huge part of what we celebrate today, in the Feast of the Ascension.
I am this coming week wrapping up the semester at O'Dowd. Friday the 22 is the last day of classes, and my students are not taking a final; they are doing a final project due the 22. I will have grading to do after that, but for most intents and purposes, my summer vacation starts next Friday. As I have said before, I am NOT panting to cross the finish line, this May. I am still relaxed and rested from the sabbatical. Very cool.
Finally, next Wednesday, May 20, marks the twentieth anniversary of my ordination. I will be with dear friends in Brentwood that evening, celebrating. But I have already celebrated this milestone anniversary with friends in Brentwood and Pleasanton, this week, and will do so in Pleasanton again, this coming week, and there are plans for a party or two or three beyond that. The main celebration will be here at St. Clement in July, and as I have said, more on that as we get nearer to it. This anniversary really does matter to me. I am delighted that it is being marked in so many ways.
Especially after the sabbatical, which was a good deal more quiet and reflective than may have appeared in these reports, it is encouraging to be celebrating this anniversary. Twenty years. I stop, occasionally, as I did, especially while on the sabbatical, and I think about my years at the Dominican School at the GTU in Berkeley, about my years as youth minister in Marysville, about my years at the seminary, my summers leading pilgrimages in Europe, the encounter with my young people in Caracas, and then years later a very similar encounter with the young in Casablanca, I think about eleven years at Bishop O'Dowd, and maybe far more than folks might think, I reflect on my eleven years here at St. Clement, my beloved home, which has sustained me, in my work at the high school, in my work at San Gabriel Media, in everything that has happened in my life since I arrived here eleven years ago next month. Especially, as I consider twenty years as a priest this spring, especially am I thinking of St. Clement.
I think of all that and more, much more (Pleasanton, anyone? Fremont? Brentwood?) and...I am a bit overwhelmed. I am reminded of something I often said my first astonishing summer as a priest, 2006, in Pleasanton: "God could take me now," I said many times, that bright and joy-filled summer, "and I could only go home rejoicing; praising the Lord for having made me his priest."
There is something of that early priestly joy at work in me this May, as we approach another summer, and I think back on twenty years of priestly ministry in the East Bay.
I am this coming week wrapping up the semester at O'Dowd. Friday the 22 is the last day of classes, and my students are not taking a final; they are doing a final project due the 22. I will have grading to do after that, but for most intents and purposes, my summer vacation starts next Friday. As I have said before, I am NOT panting to cross the finish line, this May. I am still relaxed and rested from the sabbatical. Very cool.
Finally, next Wednesday, May 20, marks the twentieth anniversary of my ordination. I will be with dear friends in Brentwood that evening, celebrating. But I have already celebrated this milestone anniversary with friends in Brentwood and Pleasanton, this week, and will do so in Pleasanton again, this coming week, and there are plans for a party or two or three beyond that. The main celebration will be here at St. Clement in July, and as I have said, more on that as we get nearer to it. This anniversary really does matter to me. I am delighted that it is being marked in so many ways.
Especially after the sabbatical, which was a good deal more quiet and reflective than may have appeared in these reports, it is encouraging to be celebrating this anniversary. Twenty years. I stop, occasionally, as I did, especially while on the sabbatical, and I think about my years at the Dominican School at the GTU in Berkeley, about my years as youth minister in Marysville, about my years at the seminary, my summers leading pilgrimages in Europe, the encounter with my young people in Caracas, and then years later a very similar encounter with the young in Casablanca, I think about eleven years at Bishop O'Dowd, and maybe far more than folks might think, I reflect on my eleven years here at St. Clement, my beloved home, which has sustained me, in my work at the high school, in my work at San Gabriel Media, in everything that has happened in my life since I arrived here eleven years ago next month. Especially, as I consider twenty years as a priest this spring, especially am I thinking of St. Clement.
I think of all that and more, much more (Pleasanton, anyone? Fremont? Brentwood?) and...I am a bit overwhelmed. I am reminded of something I often said my first astonishing summer as a priest, 2006, in Pleasanton: "God could take me now," I said many times, that bright and joy-filled summer, "and I could only go home rejoicing; praising the Lord for having made me his priest."
There is something of that early priestly joy at work in me this May, as we approach another summer, and I think back on twenty years of priestly ministry in the East Bay.
God be thanked. God be praised.
Ascension joy to you.
Love,
Father Brawn