WAITING FOR GOD

A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF ASCENSION

On Thursday, we celebrated the Ascension of our Lord into heaven.  We saw how the apostles accompanied their Master one last time as he took them up the Mount of Olives.  There they saw him rise up into the air, leaving them behind to gaze up after him into the clouds.  They must have been feeling lost at that moment, maybe even abandoned.  It took two men in white, angels sent from God, to shock them back into reality, reminding them that “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”  And they remembered that our Lord had commanded them “that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.”  Don’t leave Jerusalem, he told them, but wait!

And so on this Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, we find the Apostles waiting.  They’re back in the familiar surroundings of the Upper Room where they had enjoyed the Last Supper with our Lord, where he had ordained them priests, where they had hidden themselves during the Crucifixion, and where our Lord had first appeared to them after his Resurrection.  Its familiarity was comforting for them—so many memories—and they were further consoled by the presence of our Lord’s blessed Mother, who joined them there to wait with them.

With the benefit of hindsight we know now that they had to wait nine days for the arrival of the real Comforter, the Holy Ghost, at Pentecost.  At the time, of course, they did not know how long it was going to be, but with the encouragement of our blessed Lady, they spent the time in prayer, waiting patiently for our Lord’s promise to be fulfilled.  Nine long days of waiting.  It was the origin of the Novena, where we pray with patience for nine days for God to answer our prayers.  Our Lady and the Apostles taught us well that God likes us to be persistent in our prayers and steadfast in our faith.  For our own good, he teaches us that we have to wait!

With the first sin of Adam and Eve, the world was turned into one big waiting room.  We started by waiting four thousand years for a Saviour to be born who would re-open the gates of heaven.  That’s a long time!  And we human beings don’t like to wait.  Americans, especially, have a reputation for not liking to wait.   Amazon Prime delivers packages faster than it takes to get in the car and pick something at the local store.  It’s not enough to have whatever we want—we have to have it NOW!  Even if we can’t afford something, we just put it on a credit card and pay later.  If we’re hungry, we won’t wait for dinner, we’ll just reach out for the snack box and feed our faces.  This is not the way of God.  There’s no longer any sense of patiently waiting for mealtimes, of waiting for marriage before we indulge those other appetites, of saving money to buy something when we can afford it.  It’s all about grabbing what we want whenever we want it.

Please try not to let yourselves fall into this way of thinking.  Today we’re all waiting impatiently for things to get back to normal after the pandemic.  For stores to re-open, for the baseball season to start, for the kids to go back to school, for those lovely days spent drinking at the local tavern.  We just can’t wait for it all to come back.  Well, yes we can wait.  We can and we must wait—with patience if you please.  Because God likes it that way.  Patience is a virtue, and it’s one that can only be practiced and perfected by waiting for the things we want.  It’s one of the reasons we fast before going to Holy Communion—so we have to wait for those pancakes and bacon till after Mass.  First things first.  Wait for the money to buy that nice new dress you want.  Wait for Christmas to come.  Wait for your wedding night.  Understand God when he says “Not yet!”

There’s one thing we’re all waiting for that we should be more impatient than anything else to have.  It’s the greatest and most important thing that we could possibly want.  So you’d think we’d be chomping at the bit to get it, wouldn’t you?  This object of our desire is eternal life in heaven and the end of all our earthly woes.  And yet (and how ironic is this?), we not only try to put off having it, we actually dread it!  We are fearful of opening the door of death, and walking through that doorway to an eternity of unalloyed bliss.  We humans are truly strange creatures.  I suppose this fear of death must have been instilled into our nature by God so we don’t all jump off a cliff to be with him sooner.  We might find it hard to believe as we sit here comfortably, but there may come a time when we are ready to die, when we actually look forward to it.  Perhaps we’re in terrible pain with a terminal disease, maybe we’ve lost a loved one and feel we can’t go on without them, or maybe we’re just 110 years old and tired of the food in the nursing home.  No matter what, though, we can’t hasten the process.  We must wait patiently until God calls us.

Like the Apostles waiting for the Holy Ghost, we usually don’t know how long we have to wait for something.   How long will it be till I can get back to work?  Till the right girl comes along?  Till I die?  There’s no little voice in our ear telling us “Your estimated wait time is 3 hours and 45 minutes” like we get when we call Cincinnati Bell.  So we just have to put ourselves “on hold” and carry on with whatever useful things we can find to do until our turn comes.  The last thing the Apostles asked our Lord before he ascended into heaven was “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?”  You see?  Impatient to the very end.  Will you do it now, Lord?  And his reply says it all: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.”  He didn’t say “Never!”  He just doesn’t say when!  “But ye shall receive power,” he says, “after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”  And they waited and prayed for nine days, and the prophecy was fulfilled.

So pray, pray and pray for the things you need, the things you feel you must have.  Don’t ever think God doesn’t hear your prayer just because he doesn’t grant it right away.  Keep praying, keep waiting, and trust in God that if it’s in your best interests, he will answer your prayer in his own good time.  Meanwhile, be patient!