05/18/2026
2026 GRADUATION MASS
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
by Father Stephen Hart
cf. Acts 1:1-11 and Matthew 28:16-20
Dear brothers and sisters, in today's transferred feast of the Ascension, the Lord Jesus takes everything of His human life and triumphantly enters Heaven. Faithful to the Father in everything, He takes the merits of His innocent Incarnation, birth, and childhood...the merits of His quiet years in Nazareth as the son of the carpenter...the merits of His teaching the crowds, His loving those who were poor or sick or wayward...the merits of the obedient suffering of His Passion...and the merits of His victorious Resurrection, and He brings all these merits and places them at the Father's right hand so that He may be the mediator between God and all humanity.
But this does not mean that He has left us orphans. His Spirit—whose powerful coming we will mark next week at Pentecost—remains among us, forming and binding us into His one Body. His human life and human ministry have now passed over into the sacraments, most especially the Eucharist, the principal way that He completes the promise He gives us today that He will remain with us until the end of time. In a word, just as Jesus did not leave Heaven when He came down to earth in His Incarnation, neither has He left earth as He bodily ascends back into Heaven. We are His Body, and if we have life in Him—and as we can see by this evening's mass, we do indeed have life—then it is because we are still connected to Him, our Head. Moreover, as we heard in today's opening prayer,"where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow inhope." Just as a body has to follow where the head leads, our destiny is to follow where He our Head has gone. By sharing in His merits, we have hope to join Him one day in Heaven.
It is fitting that today's feast, which focuses so much on the victory of Jesus' completed merits, should coincide with our school's graduation and commencement exercises. Dear class of 2026, over the course of many years, you too have acquired merits—academic merits—and now, having completed all the requirements placed upon you, you graduate with your high school diploma. Although you have come to this campus and left it thousands of times over the course of your life, today you will go forth from this place, this school, in a new way, you will "go forth into all the world" (Mk 16:15) to pursue further education, training, or business expertise as you begin the young adult phase of your lives. It is truly an exciting thing to "go forth"!
Even here, however, Jesus speaks to you in today's readings. He commands His apostles in the Gospel to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. He calls you, too, to be His disciples, no matter what the future holds for you or where you go. So whether it is college or vo-tech, trainings or certifications or businesses or work, white collar or blue collar, traditional or non-traditional, rich or poor, married or single...your call to be Jesus' disciples as He expresses in today's Gospel will not be one of those things that you can leave behind at the door of the church this evening. Each of you, by your baptism, is marked by Christ and for Christ...by His love and for His love...by His service to you in reconciling you to God the Father, and by your service of thanksgiving and love to Him. Whether you are faithful to it or not, as you "go into all the world", Jesus will pursue you with the call to be His disciples in all things.
Therefore, let me give you a different kind of exhortation than the one you may see at other graduations. At other graduations, the speaker focuses on the hope for thefuture and the hope for change that the graduates will bring to society. So far so good. But by their gifts and their efforts, their merits—it is said—the graduates will change the world. This is not totally wrong, but it is incomplete without Christ.When left to our own efforts apart from Christ, when we make ourselves the masters of our fate, when we think that things are up to us, we human beings will always royally screw things up: "hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions…and thel ike," as St. Paul says (Gal 5:20-21). Soon-to-be-graduates, you need only look at the world that we adults are giving you, a world filled with discord, war, and here at home, an entrenched belittling and even hatred for people of the "other side"—however we define that—in society, culture, and political discourse...you need only look at this world to see what happens when Christ is not kept as the center, the gravity, the Head of human efforts.
Recognize that you are members of His Body, and He is your Head; so place yourself at His service as you "go into all the world" and pursue the gifts and talents that He has given you. I do not ask you to be afraid of the world; I do not ask you to batten down the hatches against it or to circle the wagons. As Christians, we do not stick our heads in the sand. On the contrary, we go into the world, involved with the world, even though we are not *of* the world. I encourage you to go into all the world as Jesus commands and to face the problems that our world has, to use your gifts and talents—your merits—in the service of humanity, but I caution you not to lose Him as your center lest you lose yourself in the process. Just as a body part will be dead unless it is connected to the Head—indeed, just as a whole body with each part connected to each other would still be just a co**se without its Head—you will not be effective in your efforts to bring change to our poor world without Him as your Head. In fact, if you stay separate from Him, you might even find yourself fighting against Him: “He who is not with me is against me, and he does not gather with me, scatters,” He warns.
Instead, keep Him as your Head in all the things you will do in your lives. There will be frustrations, but He can console you, if you turn to Him. There will be doubts, but He can counsel you, if you turn to Him. There may even be sin, but He will be ready to reconcile with you, if you turn to Him. There will be a cost, as He says, to follow Him and to use our gifts and talents—your merits—for His service as you go into all the world. Yes, there is the cross, but remember there is also the resurrection. There are the daily trials you will be asked to bear, but remember His promise: “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age...and eternal life in the age to come.” Remember His promise, “See first the Kingdom…and everything else will be given you besides.” Remember the promise He makes today: “Behold, I am with you always, even till the end of the age.”
