In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle writes that it is his prayer that the Lord God Almighty will enlighten the eyes of our hearts with the wisdom to

know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe . . .

It is the Apostle’s prayer that the eyes of our hearts be enlightened by God.  . . . Not the eyes of our minds so that we can see clearly enough to understand, . . . but that God will enlighten the eyes of our hearts.  Now, why do you suppose the Apostle prays that our hearts will be enlightened?  . . . Well, I imagine that he desires that we love the wisdom he desires God to give us; . . . not just understand the wisdom he desires us to have; not just comprehend it so as to look at it with intellectual enlightenment.  . . . No, the Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, desires for the Church to love the wisdom he wishes for God to give us.  The Apostle desires for us to have an emotional investment in God’s wisdom; to feel passionate about it; passionate enough to cherish it . . . and treasure it . . . and live it.

    And what is the wisdom the Apostle desires that God give to us?  . . . It consists of three things.  First, the Apostle desires that God give us a knowledge of the hope which the Lord God Almighty has in the call . . . in the vocation . . . He has given each of you.  . . . You see, each of us, at our conception, were endowed with the unique gifts that make each of us who we are (not at our birth, mind you, but at our conception) . . . and then the Lord God Almighty calls us to live out those gifts in order to fulfill the hope He has that your living and speaking and doing will effect the graces with which He has endowed you to bestow upon the human family.  It is the journey of the soul and a mark of spiritual maturity . . . for an individual to passionately know not only what God is calling you to become . . . but to know the hope that God has in calling you.

    The second wisdom for which the Apostle prays to God to give you is a knowledge of the riches the Lord God Almighty has inherited from us when we became the Church; . . . when we became God’s children.  . . . Now, that’s a rather odd thing for the Church to seek to know, don’t you think?  . . . To know what God gets; . . . to know the profit God makes from us being the Church.  Does such a thing even exist?  . . . Well, yes it does, and I think it is discovered by a soul immersing herself in the Word; . . . by the soul loving Jesus.  Because, it’s Jesus, you see; it’s Jesus Who has told us what God longs for; . . . Jesus has told us what the heart of God desires which only we, the Church, can give.  . . . There are things, you see, which the Lord God Almighty cannot have; cannot make or create . . . unless we give those things to Him.  . . . And it is the Apostle’s prayer that the Church be so steeped in the Holy Scriptures that the Word of God permeates the soul of each one of us . . . so that we know the riches for which the Lord God Almighty yearns . . . and so that we not withhold any of them.

    And finally, the third wisdom for which the Apostle prays God to give us, the Church, . . . is to know the “immeasurable greatness” of divine power which resides in the Church; . . . in this Parish Family.  . . . You see, just as Jesus promised the apostles before His ascension, . . . at the baptism of each one of us we received power -- divine power -- when we were “sealed by the Holy Spirit . . . and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  We became a kind of human hybrid.  We can run on the gas of earthly things, but our chief power source is from the sacred battery installed at our rebirth; . . . our chief power source is from the Holy Spirit.  . . . But the purpose of that sacred power is not to manage God; . . . the purpose of our sacred power is not to convince God to do things for us.  The purpose of God’s power implanted in us is so that the “immeasurable greatness” of the divine power of God can be communicated through us and electrify the world!

    These three things were accomplished, the Apostle says in his letter to the Ephesians; . . . these three things:  the possibility that God’s hope will be realized in your life’s calling; that the Lord God Almighty has become rich in what He inherits from the Church; and that God’s power will electrify the world; . . . these three things were accomplished

in Christ [the Apostle writes] when [God] raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places . . .

These three things were made possible because the ascended Lord Jesus works with the Church, Saint Mark tells us; . . . the ascended Lord Jesus works with the Church to confirm the message and ministry of the Church by the miracles which attend them.

    And that is what we celebrate today on the Feast of the Ascension.  We celebrate the fact that the Risen and Ascended Jesus makes possible, in us, the hope and wealth and power of God.  . . . But in the midst of our celebrating, . . . remember to pray, with the Apostle, that the Lord God Almighty enlighten the eyes of our hearts to know the wisdom of God’s Heart, . . . Who is Jesus.