Acts 1:1-11 | Ps 47 | Eph 1:17-23 | Mt 28:16-20

The Ascension of the Lord is never an easy moment to preach about. The biblical accounts lack the same detail and narrative attentiveness that other major moments like Christmas, the Passion, or Easter receive. Part of this might have to do with the grief the apostles associated with it. In the same way a teen or young adult might find it difficult to talk about a breakup, perhaps the apostles found it less than easy to talk about Jesus’ return to the Father.

But the more we think about these retellings of the Ascension, especially the one we are given in our first reading today, the more we realize this story is the perfect analogy for our liturgical experience, today and every Sunday. Here in this place, we’ll spend the bulk of our time contemplating our love for the Lord, repenting of our sins, hearing his teachings, and signing his praises. Then, for a brief moment, we will encounter him in his risen, sacramental glory. In our Eucharist, Christ will unite himself to us and become part of the very fabric of our being.

Then, we are told to leave.

Of all the biblical verses about the Ascension that didn’t make it into our Sunday liturgy, this might be the most important: “Why are you standing there?” (Acts 1:11).

You have repented, you have heard the teaching, you have encountered the Lord. Now it’s time to get to work—to bring Jesus’ Gospel of love and mercy into a fractured world, to invite others into the community that celebrates the sacraments and lives out his justice.

This doesn’t mean we need to start preaching on street corners instead of going to brunch after Mass or prepping Sunday dinner for our family. Rather, the invitation to leave this sacred place—this communal encounter with Christ—is a reminder of the significance of our own lives of faith.

Not one person in this church is called to a passive approach to faith. Instead, each of us is called to witness actively how God has blessed us and challenged us throughout our own lives. When we own this responsibility, what the Second Vatican Council called “the universal call to holiness,” it grants the perspective we need to understand the confusion or grief we experience when we’re invited to leave after the reception of Holy Communion.

Like the apostles who stood dumbfounded looking at the sky after Jesus’ Ascension, our encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist calls us not to a sort of passive piety but to a renewed zeal to live in the world with justice, mercy, and compassion.