What does the Feast of the Ascension reveal to us about God\u2019s will for us all? What did Jesus tell his apostles before he ascended?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are blessed to have a most beautiful depiction of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven in our main apse. God lowered himself and became man so as to lift us up with him in heaven. In the Ascension, Jesus completes the Paschal Mystery and takes our own human nature to heaven in glory. Human nature is divinized in Jesus Christ. His Ascension then becomes a great source of hope for us all. The catechism puts it this way (661-662):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This final stage [ascension] stays closely linked to the first, that is, to his descent from heaven in the Incarnation. Only the one who \u201ccame from the Father\u201d can return to the Father: Christ Jesus (cf. John 16:28). \u201cNo one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man\u201d (John 3:13; cf. Ephesians 4:8-10). Left to its own natural powers humanity does not have access to the \u201cFather\u2019s house,\u201d to God\u2019s life and happiness (John 14:2). Only Christ can open to man such access that we, his members, might have confidence that we too shall go where he, our Head and our Source, has preceded us (Roman Missal: Preface of the Ascension).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself\u201d (John 12:32). The lifting up of Jesus on the cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven, and indeed begins it. Jesus Christ, the one priest of the new and eternal Covenant, \u201centered, not into a sanctuary made by human hands… but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf\u201d (Hebrews 9:24). There Christ permanently exercises his priesthood, for he \u201calways lives to make intercession\u201d for \u201cthose who draw near to God through him\u201d (Hebrews 7:25). As \u201chigh priest of the good things to come\u201d he is the center and the principal actor of the liturgy that honors the Father in heaven (Hebrews 9:11; cf. Revelation 4:6-11).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So, Jesus our high priest has entered the heavenly sanctuary where he intercedes for us. That saving action is made present to us at every Mass, where Jesus prays through his Body, the Church, and in particular through the action of the ministerial priesthood. The priest at Mass acts in persona Christi<\/em>, in the person of Jesus Christ. So, Jesus himself is present at every Mass, drawing us up to himself through the gift and offering of his own Sacred Body and Blood. United to Jesus, we all are even now participating in the divine life. Have a blessed feast!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This diocesan campaign<\/strong><\/a> to raise $70 million to support Catholic education is now underway in our parish. The diocese has encouraged us to combine the diocesan campaign with our own goals for St. Thomas Parish and School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Steier Group is helping run the campaign and will be spending a good amount of time with us over the next few months as we prepare to launch the campaign at our parish. As a part of our campaign preparation, we are being asked to fill out surveys or participate directly in interviews to help assess the scope and the needs of this campaign. <\/strong>Interviews have already begun. We will all have an opportunity to have a virtual interview or to fill out a paper or online survey<\/strong><\/a> if we cannot do a personal interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am very hopeful for this campaign. We want to make Catholic education affordable for all families who desire to send their children to St. Thomas School or any Catholic school. We also want to support our teachers and school faculty who sacrifice so much to serve in our Catholic school. We need to provide them with a living wage so they can actually have families and grow in our community of faith. Let\u2019s all pray for the success of this campaign in our parish and diocese.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question of the Week What does the Feast of the Ascension reveal to us about God\u2019s will for us all? What did Jesus tell his apostles before he ascended? The\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":8350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-pastor"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8351,"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions\/8351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sta2.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Stewardship for Saints & Scholars<\/h4>\n\n\n\n