Head in the Clouds - Ascension, 2023

When was the last time you had your head in the clouds?

I can hear my grade-school teacher telling me, "Anthony, get your head out of the clouds." The turn of phrase meant to daydream, to be distant from the moment, from reality.

But today we see that our head is in the clouds. Literally.

I do not mean this as a cutesy pun (I leave such puns to the master: our pastor).

When Saint Paul talks about the Church, he talks about it as the body of Christ -- with Jesus Christ as the head (see Ephesians 1:22-23). The body and the head are connected; and our head, Jesus, literally ascends into to the clouds, and beyond them, into heaven.

What astounds me is that Jesus didn't have to do it this way. I mean, He didn't have to go to the top of the mountain with His disciples and then visibly ascend. He totally had the power to simply be in the Upper Room with them and then -- poof! -- disappear. He did this once, remember? When He was with the two men on the road to Emmaus. He walks with them, teaches them, eats with them, and then -- poof! -- He vanishes.

But here at the ascension, He departs in slow, deliberate fashion.

Why?

Because He wants us to look up. He wants us to see where He is going. He wants us to have our lives oriented to heaven.

He wants us to have our heads, to some degree, in the clouds, thinking of heaven.

Heaven -- what is rightly called the Kingdom of heaven -- is very important to Jesus. When He began His public ministry, how did He begin it? He said, "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand." And when He taught us how to pray, He said, "Our Father, who art in heaven... thy kingdom come ... on earth as it is in heaven." And here Jesus ends His public ministry drawing our gaze upwards into the heavenly, celestial realms.

We need this. We need to have our gaze drawn upward.

So often we are weighed down by our Crosses -- what's going on in the culture, or in our families, or in our Church; we can be bogged down by the earthly details -- our retirement, our car, our email box. We can look down so, so easy. We can be pulled down so quickly -- and not only to the things of earth, but things even worse, things below.

In the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer, we pray that we may be "confident in following where He, our Head and Founder, has gone before" (Preface, Ascension I). 

Confident in following.

The via crucis can become the via caelis. The Way of the Cross can become the Way of Heaven. We can be confident, therefore, that when we carry the Cross, we are carrying the Cross to heaven. Precisely because Jesus ascends and draws our gaze upward, He gives us confidence, as though to say: persevere and you will be with me here: in heaven.

So we need to remember heaven -- if at the very least to remind us that we are not home. And we know that we are not home. Gosh, I've moved so many times in my life! As a youth, then in college, and then in grad school, and then at my first job, and then back to Saint Louis, and then to Mexico City for a summer, and then my first parish, and my second, and my third ... I'm a nomad!

When, Lord, I pray, will I finally get some rest? ...

Do you remember one of the prayers that we say when someone dies? We pray: may they "rest in peace." That's a colloquialism. We are praying that they are in heaven. Heaven is the place of rest, of peace. Home.

There is another colloquialism. We call Sunday the ... "Day of rest." There is something going on here.

When our heavenly Father gave us the Day of Rest, it wasn't just so that we would do nothing. The gift of rest was meant as a foretaste of heaven, the place of rest -- the place where we dwell forever in the safety and providence of our loving Father. Sunday itself was meant as a gift to draw our gaze upwards into heaven.

To put our head in the clouds again.

This was commanded us when we were freed from slavery, commanded because our Father knows that we can too easily look down and become enslaved again.

Like to our phones.

When was the last time that you turned off your phone? ... I've asked this of many people and their answers are almost always, "Father, I... don't know." 

For me, when my phone is on, I'm on. I'm available; I'm connected; I'm ... not at rest. But when I turn off my phone, I can literally feel a physical change in me. I can rest. When the phone's off, I'm off.

And I can be off. I'm not that important. I'm not The Savior. And if there is an emergency, I can easily be found. I can be off. I must have times when I'm off.

To do what?

To put my head in the clouds again. To look upwards. To wonder. To be re-created again. And to find strength and direction to carry on.

Sure, life may be all about the climb (thanks, Miley Cyrus). But without the destination, the climb makes no sense.

I've found, in addition to turning off my phone for a few hours each week (particularly Sunday), it is also vital to read books on the Saints -- about those who now live in the clouds.

For us men, particularly, it is important to read the Saints. To study. We used to have a room dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and reflection and putting our heads in the clouds. In the study, we would ponder the things above so as to make better this world below. Now we have man caves.

Can we be surprised, then, if we have so many cave men?

We need to start reading good books again, brothers.

So, I end this homily in the way that I began it: When was the last time you had your head in the clouds?

I have a feeling that if we stop for a bit and look up, we may find that our burdens (and our feet) will become light....

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.