In looking back over the life of our Lord while on earth, we see that all the mysteries refer to the Ascension as to the end and completion of His work. As every mystery of His life began with the Incarnation of our Lord, so they all end with His Ascension into heaven. After that the work of the Holy Ghost begins. And how glorious an ending His Ascension was! His humble birth, His humility when insults were heaped upon Him and when He was condemned to death, His humility and love when He cried out on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” all are finished by the majesty of His Ascension, than which nothing can be more noble, nothing more glorious. He ascended to occupy the throne and to possess the kingdom He had purchased by His passion and death, and in order to show us that the kingdom He spoke of was not of this world, for the wealth and power of this earth is but perishable, while the riches our Lord spoke of are above the natural and are eternal.

Our Lord’s Ascension leads us to think of Him and to follow Him in mind and heart. By His rising from the dead and ascending into heaven He gave us a model to follow no less than by His suffering and death. By His Ascension our Lord would show us that although we are in this world we should not be of the world, that our minds and thoughts should be directed heavenward. By the Ascension of our Lord the gates of heaven, so long closed against us, were opened and a place was prepared for every one of us, for He said, “I go to prepare a place for you”; and there we shall find Him, ready to be our Advocate before the throne of God, provided we be converted and repent of our sins. Is there anything that should give us greater joy or fill our hearts with more earnest love than the thought of our Lord’s Ascension? Should the thought not fill our hearts with gratitude? Should it not compel us to forget ourselves and our surroundings — should it not make us think of God and our eternal home? Our Lord says : “Where one’s treasure is, there is his heart also.”

But now, my dear brethren, have you followed this advice? Is it not the case with too many of you that your thoughts centred on things of this life? Do you seek worldly happiness, often at the expense of eternal happiness? And yet those who have been the most successful and most ardent in the pursuit of the riches and the joys of this world have finally become the most severe in condemning them. Perhaps, too, you seek those pleasures and enjoyments which are yours in common with the brutes, and not only momentary in their duration and bitter in their end, but filthy and disgusting. Our Lord’s Ascension teaches us to seek the joys of heaven and such as lead to them and are worthy a rational man. All others are below our level, and to think of following them, of satisfying ourselves with them, is an insult to our regenerated nature, to that nature that our blessed Lord deigned to take upon Himself and to bear aloft with Him to Paradise.

A day like this is a favorable occasion to store one’s soul with the virtue of hope. Our Lord brings into His Father’s presence the five wounds and the recollection of all the agony that they mean, and He does so on our account. Those wounds shine resplendent in heaven, and they are the jewels with which our Saviour has purchased our salvation. Let us be full of courage, then. Let us call out to our Lord, “Remember me, now that Thou art come into Thy Kingdom. I am a lustful man, but I am sorry; give me the grace of purity. I am a drunkard; oh! cure me of my dreadful appetite for drink. I am a worldling; teach me the value of eternity. I am quarrelsome; give peace and good will to my stormy soul.” Such a prayer as this on Ascension Day will move our Lord to give us the proper dispositions for a good Confession and Communion for our Easter duty.

Five Minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year 
Volume 1
Imprimatur 1893