Sunday Homily, 17 May 2026 - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

That’s the last anyone sees of Jesus until the end of time.  The New Testament tells us that interactions between Christ and his Church are spiritual from this point: that is to say, real but not face-to-face.  For example, the next time the Lord appears will be on the road to Damascus.  He says to Paul: “I am Jesus and you are persecuting me.”  And though Paul knows Christ from then on, all he sees of him is light.  There is no human form to lay our eyes on yet.  Certainly, Christ will continue to make himself known.  He speaks in the Spirit to minds and hearts, but not usually from mouth to ears.

All of this is because the Son belongs to his Father, belongs with his Father.  Think back before Christmas, before the tiny Child was conceived in the Virgin’s womb, before the incarnation: we’re told that the Son was with the Father even then.  “He was with God in the beginning,” says John to us.  And then the Word became flesh.  The Father and the Son are always united, before, during, and after the Son’s earthly life.  And so, even the Son’s body must now go to the Father.

It is for the Son ever to present his whole person, including his body, to the Father.  The sacrifice of Good Friday is the clearest example of that.  On that dark day, the Son accepted his Father’s will and put himself into his hands.  Then, after his resurrection, the Son similarly presents himself to his Father in the ascension.  Even in his risen body, the Son still belongs to the Father.

The ascension is the moment when the risen body of Christ is also seen to be offered to the Father.  It is the completion of the sacrifice, the fulfilment of his eternal priesthood.  The Son’s body of deathless life, his immortalised humanity, is now also in the Father’s hands.  This is God’s day of victory: he has overcome all things, even the limitations presented by our humanity.

So, it’s not just that there’s a human body in heaven, though that much alone is joyfully ponderable: through God’s work in Christ, the heaven of the Spirit has received a body of the flesh.  Much more than this: the body which heaven has received is the risen body of Christ.  It continues to bear the wounds of his death but also the weight of his glory.  God’s triumph over death is Christ’s mortal body placed in heaven.

Right now, as we look over life here on earth, there seems to be every reason to think that our resurrection will be only-spiritual.  A bit like Christ’s interaction with his Church at this time, a spiritual resurrection would affect just those parts of us which have a touch of the eternal about them: our minds and hearts.

But such a resurrection is no victory for God or for us.  God loves the hard case, the hopeless cause, the thorny problem.  Those times when we know that it is only God who can act are the times when we shall mostly clearly know him.  What could be harder than making us live with him in heaven, we who are not God?  We shall know God when we see him face to face.

Because our resurrection and ascension will also be bodily, we must be changed.  We who are not God must take on what is God’s in order to live with God.  And so, we must be baptized and therefore the full sacramental life of the Church, and we must be taught all that the Lord taught and therefore conduct ourselves according to the divine plan for human life.  Then, and only then, may we have hope that we ourselves, mortal body and immortal soul, can be brought by the Son into the presence of the life-giving Father.

Every one of us is here because someone else took the Lord’s words seriously: baptize them; teach them.  The Lord means us, both as receivers and givers.  Having received baptism and his teaching, we must now give them to others.  It’s not enough to think that the Lord will do all the talking to minds and hearts.  He has committed his voice to us; he is ready to confirm our action to make it effective.  We have every reason to step forward to baptize so that Christ’s voice resounds in our neighbours’ minds and hearts.  We have every confidence to speak of what was spoken, so that the whole person before us is likewise changed and ready for yet further changes which eye has not seen.

Fr Paul Rowse, OP Parish Priest