Dear Friends:

Thursday of this week brings us to Ascension Thursday. As a holy day of obligation, there will be four Masses celebrated in the parish, two in each church. At St. Mary’s, Masses will be celebrated at 7:00 AM and 12:05 PM, and at St. Agnes’ the Masses will be at 9:00 AM and 5:30 PM.

With the celebration of the Ascension of the Lord, the Easter Season takes a sharp turn toward its completion when we will celebrate Pentecost on May 19. The departure of Jesus into the heights of heaven, where he is seated at the right hand of the Father, sets the stage for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Gift of the Father, who bestows power, strength, courage and the multiplicity of needed charisms so that the mission of the Church, a mission entrusted to all of us by virtue of our being baptized and confirmed, might be accomplished until the end of the time when the Lord will return in glory and gather all his holy ones to himself.

The mystery of the Ascension is not just about Jesus himself. In Jesus being taken up to heaven, we ascend with him as he goes, enrobed in human flesh, to God’s right hand. The Ascension is a feast of longing and of hope, for where the Lord himself has gone ahead of us, each of us one day hopes to follow.

In his Regina Caeli message, given from the window of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican on May 20, 2012, the late Pope Benedict XVI spoke these words about the Ascension:

“The Ascension tells us that in Christ our humanity is brought to the heights of God; thus, every time we pray, earth is united to heaven. And like incense, burning, its scent is carried on high, hence, when we raise our prayer to the Lord with confidence in Christ, it travels across heaven and reaches God himself and is heard and answered by him.” And again in that same message, the Pope says, “The Ascension of the Lord marks the fulfillment of salvation that started with the Incarnation. After he had instructed his disciples for the last time, Jesus was taken up into heaven. He, however, was not separated from our condition. Indeed, in his humanity, he took us with him into the intimacy of the Father and thus revealed [to us] the final destination of our earthly pilgrimage. As he descended from heaven for us, and for us suffered and died on the cross, so for us he rose and ascended to God, who, therefore, is no longer far away.”

I issue a gentle reminder to all who have not yet made a gift or a pledge to the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal. The needs of so many are great, especially given the state of the economy and the ever-increasing cost of just getting by day to day. Those of us with some means are asked to make a sacrificial gift so that many in great need in Hartford, New Haven and Litchfield counties can be assisted. I have made a pledge and I hope many in our parish will do the same.

Finally, as regards the Archbishop, by the time you read these words, I expect that Archbishop Blair will be officially retired, his resignation being accepted by the Holy Father. Archbishop Coyne will succeed him, and in perhaps the most noticeable effect of that, we will be saying “Christopher, our bishop” instead of “Leonard, our bishop,” as we have been saying for over a decade now. As we should always do, we keep Archbishop Coyne in our prayers.

Have a good week!

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