A middle-aged Protestant named Keith was visiting his dying father in a Catholic hospital, sitting quietly in a corner of the room, overcome with helplessness and grief. A Catholic nun came into the room, nodded at him, then went to the dying man’s...
Outside Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, is the Mosque of the Ascension—a 900-year-old Crusader church built on the site at which Jesus is said to have ascended into Heaven. (The church was later turned into a mosque by the Moslems, who honored...
There is a famous phrase written by St. Leo the Great about the Ascension of our Lord: “When Jesus Christ took flesh like ours to come among us, he never left the Father’s side. And when he ascended back to be at the right hand of the Father, he...
A Maryknoll Mission priest wrote, “Over my last eight years in Egypt, I have been visiting foreign prisoners serving 20- to 25-year sentences in Egyptians prisons for [selling or possessing] drugs. On my first visit to Qanatar Prison, some of the...
The solemnity of our Lord’s Ascension into heaven is a unique celebration and, as such, it can be best understood only within the context of our being the Body of Christ, of our being Church. Its uniqueness, I think, lies in the purpose for which we...
Just after Easter Sunday 1994, a group of spectators gathered on the roof of the Launch Control Center at Cape Canaveral to witness the launch of STS-59, the official mission given the astronauts who would ride space shuttle Endeavour into the...
In the Gospel for this seventh Sunday of Easter, Jesus is quoted as saying, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:15) In this week’s Gospel for the Ascension of the Lord, Jesus outlines...
There were only eleven of them, eleven disciples. Judas had betrayed the Lord. Matthias had not yet been chosen. So just eleven men went to Galilee following the message Jesus had given to them on Easter Sunday through Mary Magdalen. They were told...
