A couple years ago, I remember at St. Robert Bellerman Parish, where I celebrate mass often, I had the children’s mass on the Feast of the Ascension. And next to the altar I had an enormous red helium balloon tied to a very thin thread. And it just floated in the sanctuary. And I could see that the children were intrigued by it.

As I began my homily, I kept talking and slowly I inched my way towards the balloon, and I released the thread and it went right to the ceiling of the church. And all the kids looked up and as they did so, I didn’t shout at them, but I spoke very loudly, “What are you looking at?”

“Why are you looking up there?” I did to remind them, what was said in their first reading. “Good people of Galilee, why are you looking up into the heavens? This Jesus has been taken from your sight.” This Jesus who came into our lives an into our lives and into the world. This Jesus who went out into the desert during the Lenten season. This Jesus who took his disciples up the mountains for the Transfiguration and said we need to come down. We need to come out of the desert as well. For the work of God, the work that is entrusted to us, through the risen Lord, is done eyeball to eyeball. It’s done face to face.

It’s not looking up into the heavens, it’s not being in the desert for long periods of time, it’s not going up into mountains by ourselves, or with others. The work of the kingdom, the work that Jesus taught us to do, to proclaim the good news, to take care of one another, is truly done eyeball to eyeball, face to face, to help into hands, to build up the kingdom, here and now.