Homily for May 24, 2009, The Feast of the Ascension and Memorial Day

The homily for this Sunday, the Feast of the Ascension, was an interactive homily. Our Church has a beautiful stained glass window depicting the ascension. It is the last picture on the right wall as you face the front of the Church. I talked about the stained glass windows in our church and what they depict.
1. The Nativity
2. Jesus in the midst of the teachers and doctors of the law in the temple.
3. The Wedding feast at Cana.
4. The sermon on the mount.
5. The sinful woman washing the feet of jesus (she is not Mary Magdalene)
These are the windows on the East Wall.
6. Jesus blessing the children.
7. The Last supper (Jesus is standing in the midst of the disciples with a ciborium)
8. The Agony in the Garden.
9. A blank wall because the bell tower is on the other side. A large crucifix is here.
10.The Ascension.

I talked about how these windows depict the life of Christ and asked if the story ended with the Ascension. The answer was no.

I asked, What comes next.
Pentecost and the coming of the spirit.
What comes next?
The disciples did what Jesus did.
What comes next?
This led to the question of, if our church were large enough and we could complete the windows with another set of windows, who would we put in the windows. Here were some of the answers.

Dorothy Day
The first woman priest.
Franz Joegenstatter, an austrian peasant who, despite the pleadings of his bishop and priest, defied the Nazis and chose to be executed rather than serve in the Nazi army.
Someone mentioned the Cathedral in Los Angeles which has pictures of modern people living out the Gospel.
Others --
Caesar Chavez
Marrtin Luther King, Jr.
Someone mentioned a woman from our congregation.
Nathan the prophet who spoke the truth to power. Who are our modern Nathans?
We closed with the invitation to people to consider how the story continues in our midst.

Also, we mentioned that the beautiful window of the Ascension was the gift of those who served in the World War. (That was WW I) The title under the window was Pro Deo et Pro Patria. For God and Country. We had a brief excursion into the meaning of Memorial Day. Asked for a show of hands of how many had served in various wars. I shared how I grew up in WWII and patriotism was beautiful and simple. My movies were the great war movies with heroes like John Wayne.
Patriotism became more complex as I grew up. How do we "support our troops" and honor the sacrifices our brave young men and women make when we do not agree with the decisions of our leaders to send them in harms way. I mentioned how two Popes pleaded with George Bush not to start the war in Iraq. We concluded with the need for fair minded and charitable dialogue on this topic Also mentioned was the fact that the origin of the word Chauvinism is after a French Veteran of the Napoleonic wars named Chauvin, who was excessively patriotic. Can we be patriotic without being chauvinistic?

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