Solemnity of the Ascension
45th Anniversary – Our Lady of the Chesapeake
May 31, 2025
Jubilee of Hope
Pope Francis dedicated the final year of his pontificate to hope. He designated 2025 as a special holy year, a Jubilee of Hope. Even as we commend our beloved Pope Francis to the Lord of life and love, so too, we continue, under the guidance of Pope Leo XIV, to celebrate this Jubilee of Hope together with the whole Church. The beautiful prayer Pope Francis wrote for this Jubilee captures its spirit: “May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven. May the same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth. To you our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise forever.”
Let our celebration of the 45th anniversary of Our Lady of the Chesapeake take its inspiration from the Jubilee of Hope and from today’s solemnity, the Feast of the Ascension which is, above all, a celebration of the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus.
The Hope of the Apostles
In today’s readings, we meet the Risen Lord instructing his Apostles. Christ Jesus who suffered, died, and was buried, shows them that he is alive. He continues to instruct them about the Kingdom of God. Before being taken up to heaven, he promises to send them the Holy Spirit so that they could be his witnesses even to the ends of the earth.
Jesus blessed them and they did him homage as he ascended into heaven. He disappeared from their sight but he did not disappear from their lives. On the contrary, the disciples returned to Jerusalem full of joy, praising the Lord as the watched and prayed for the Holy Spirit. They were filled with hope and trust in the Lord and in his promises. And after the Holy Spirit came upon them they did indeed bear witness to Christ the Lord to the ends of the earth. They proclaimed the Christ who died and rose for the forgiveness of sins, and who ascended into heaven, bringing our redeemed humanity to the right hand of the Father, where he is throned in glory.
The Hope of Our Forebears
On this day when we celebrate your 45th anniversary, let us recall the faith and the hope of those who went before us. What prompted Father Fannon, Pastor of St. Jane Frances, to begin offering Mass for Lake Shore residents in the summer months of 1968? And what drove the School Sisters of Notre Dame and lay catechists to begin a system of neighborhood, home based-catechesis on the peninsula? Surely it was pastoral love and a desire to be of service, but at base, it was hope in Christ, risen and exalted, that drove them to expand the Church’s reach. So too, it was hope in Christ Jesus that prompted Msgr. Muth to agree to offer Mass in the Lake Shore area year-round in 1975. How many here remember helping to transform the Bodkin Elementary School gymnasium for Sunday Masses? Why did you do it except that Christ filled your hearts with hope of life eternal! And from what I know of your history, it took a lot of hope and perseverance as you awaited your first pastor, Fr. Walter Paulits, and labored to build first the Church, and later, the Pastoral Center. Hope fueled the long and lively leadership of Fr. Rafferty in your midst! Because of hope, that first group of 100 has blossomed into a vibrant parish of 2,500 individuals and some 900 families . . . and so we celebrate!
To reiterate, the deepest reason for such hope-filled, preserving toil was not merely to construct buildings or to establish an organization. Rather, it was the same hope that drove the Apostles to remain in Christ Jesus even after he disappeared from their sight and to proclaim him in the power of the Holy Spirit, thus building up the Church, the Body of Christ in love.
The Mission Continues
In this afternoon’s reading from Ephesians, St. Paul, “the theologian of hope”, points to Christ, risen and exalted, as the foundation and core mission you share with the whole Church. He prays that we will understand the glorious future to which God has called us in Christ, for where Christ has gone there we are called to follow. He prays that we will understand the greatness of God’s power on our behalf.
For the presence and saving work of Christ has passed into the sacraments and is abundantly available to us in the Church’s life of liturgical prayer.
When we truly and personally know Christ by faith, when we realize we are invited to share in God’s love partially now and fully in the life to come, our hearts are flooded with hope, a hope we want to share with others. When we realize that the very power of God – the divine power by which Jesus was raised from the dead and exalted – is at work in our lives, especially through Word and Sacrament . . . then it is we grasp ever more deeply the immense value of our faith and learn anew how to express our faith ever more fully in works of charity, outreach, healing, and hospitality… and above all in works of evangelization.
That is exactly what you are doing here at Our Lady of the Chesapeake with the guidance, encouragement, and example of your priests, Father Hook and Father Bilenki – let’s express our thanks to them! And let us also express our gratitude to their good co-workers in the vineyard, to Deacon Clemens, Deacon Klohr, and to those involved in lay ministries of word, worship, formation, and outreach to the poor and wounded. Even as we thank them, so I thank you, the parishioners, who have sustained this parish in hope for nearly half-a-century. Through the intercession of Mary, Our Lady of the Chesapeake and indeed, Our Lady of Hope, may this parish be “a light brightly visible” on this peninsula and beyond for many, many years to come!