We are still assembling the finishing touches on the church. This week the floors = were completed and the cabinet work was installed. Next week we expect the remaining interior doors and the first delivery of the new pews. Some of the other furnishings are = not yet ready, so I still do not have a date for us to move back home, but it is coming soon.

We’ll be suspending a crucifix over the main altar = to help our prayer during mass. = Our statue of the risen Christ has been moved to the other end of the building.= On exiting the church now, we̵= 7;ll see that image of the triumphant Jesus who remains with us each day.

Today we celebrate the Ascension. After Jesus rose from the dead that first Easter morning, he appeared several times to his followers to reassure them that he would remain with them each day. According to Acts of the Apostles,= Jesus made his last bodily appearance 40 days after the resurrection when he asce= nded into heaven. Now he is spirit= . Still, today’s second readin= g from the Letter to the Ephesians uses physical images for Jesus in glory to help= us understand it. Listen to these body parts: God put all things beneath Jesus’ feet; God gave him as head over all things; the church is his body; Jesus sits at God’s right hand in the heavens.

Apologies to those of you who are left-handed; you may no= t like this last idea. It’s bad enough you need special scissors and golf clubs. Why couldn’t Jesus sit at God’s left? Many left-h= anded adults were taught in Catholic grade schools to write with their right hand. The Latin word for left is sinister, showing how left-handed p= eople used to be treated with some suspicion. <= /span>Ephesians says Jesus sits at God’s right hand; so do other passages in the New Testament; so does the Creed we recite each Sunday. Does that mean God is right-handed= ? Well, no; God doesn’t have a= ttributes like a beard, a crown, a throne or a right hand. We use those physical images to he= lp us express spiritual things: that God rules over all, and that Jesus acts in history as God’s strong arm.

Ephesians uses a different bodily image for us who receiv= e this news: it calls us to open the eyes of our heart. Hearts don’t have eyes, but = there are things we come to know more with the heart than with the eyes. Our loves and beliefs are hard to explain, but we know that they are there.&= nbsp; We come to believe in the power of Christ through the eyes of our he= art. After the ascension, that kind of = belief became all the more important. Jesus was no longer physically there, but he remains with us always.=

The eyes of the heart help us when the eyes of our head f= ail us. Sometimes we need the eye= s of the heart to see the goodness of other people when it isn’t too obvious, or the presence of a loving God when he is ha= rd to find. Above all, they help us affirm our belief in the risen Christ, who can help us each day because he = has ascended and reigns forever in heaven.