Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Sundays with Bishop Ken, a weekly podcast brought to you by the publishers of little books of the Diocese of Saginaw.
Each Sunday of ordinary time, the Gospel and Bishop Ken's homily are proclaimed by members of our faith community.
During the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. Our Sunday prayer time will be taken from the little book's reflections for that season.
We are pleased to spend this quiet time with you today.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Hello.
It's May 12, Mother's day, and also the feast of the ascension of the Lord. For most dioceses on this day, we remember the ascension of the Lord.
It can be helpful to understand the one at the resurrection Jesus ascended to the Father and that is where he is forever and ever.
This resurrection ascension is not described in any of the gospels.
Two no longer limited by time and space, Jesus was and still is present in this world in many different ways, closer than ever before.
After his resurrection ascension, Jesus manifested himself to the disciples at various times and places in an extraordinary, visible way.
At some point, these special appearances came to an end. The visible ascension that Luke described at the end of his gospel and that he describes in acts was a way of dramatizing the end of these extraordinary visible appearances.
Todays readings combine a concern for worldly, down to earth things and an otherworldly approach.
There is a certain tension in Christianity between these two.
We are a religion of the incarnation, flesh and spirit, human and divine, this world and the next world.
Our natural inclination is to opt for one or the other because the combination is difficult.
We want to be entirely otherworldly in our approach to religion or we want to be entirely down to earth.
Somehow we have to include both.
That is one of the dangers of one liners from scripture.
No single sentence captures entirely both aspects of Christianity.
You can take one line and use it to justify a narrow approach.
For example, St. Pauls statement that we are justified by faith has been taken in isolation to mean that down to earth good works mean nothing.
Another example is the statement that God is love and love is all that matters.
We can take that in isolation and make it a vague, drifting, poetic kind of love that can be used to justify anything. We want.
To avoid this difficulty, always look to Jesus and the way he lived. He combined in his life, flesh and spirit, the human and the divine, to know love is all that matters. Look to Jesus.
It's not a drifting, vague, do your own thing kind of love. It's a love that sometimes suffers, sometimes cries, sometimes deals with people's down to earth limitations.
Jesus was a warm, tender, loving real person.
Yet his love went beyond human logic, reasonable limits.
It had an otherworldly aspect to it.
That is the combination every Christian is called to live.
We are called to be in this world, but not of this world.
Our love can neither be simply divine or simply human.
We are called to live and love as Jesus did, flesh and spirit.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing some quiet time with the Lord today.
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For more information and other prayer resources, go to littlebooks.org.
May your day be blessed.
