As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension this weekend, I can only image the waves of grief the disciples felt during this time. In our first reading, they are left looking upward trying to understand what happened. What do they do with their grief?

This weekend, I believe the disciples are on a grief journey. When we grieve, we remember what we had and miss those things, but more importantly we are grieving the future…what we had hoped for and what could have been. To move through grief, we must stop grasping and reaching for the past. We need to let go of our hopes, fears, anger, resentments and heavy burdens that we carry.

Jesus’s ascension is not about His absence and leaving them (and us) behind, even though that’s how it feels. Through His ascension, Jesus gives us the gift of Himself and completing the resurrection. We are transformed through our relationship with Him and He is asking us to let go of earthly things and focus on our relationship with Him. The disciples needed to let go of their fear, confusion and burdens to continue their relationship with Him.

What are we being asked to let go of this week? In letting go, Jesus is drawing us closer to a relationship with Him. We must trust in the gifts we have been given and that He will guide us. Don’t stand looking upward in grief, look inward and forward knowing you are equipped with many gifts and blessings, and you are not alone.