Jesus is my GPS: Homily for Sunday, May 17, 2026

Jesus is my GPS. What is the Ascension all about? What is it we celebrate? It is nothing less than the greatness of God who shows us the way to salvation because He is the Way. Readings for Today.

Jesus is my GPS

There is nothing like being lost. There are many of you who will remember the days when, in order to find out where we were going, we needed to use a paper map. The directions were the easy part. Folding the map back into its original shape, not so much. And if you got lost, there was a payphone.

Then came the GPS. Spoken directions. It was easy to know where we were going. No more guesswork. Directions so accurate that without the GPS, we could not find our way. With GPS, we could even send those at our destination the time just when we would arrive.

But this is not the only way that we can feel lost. We can also feel lost when we do not know where life is leading. The death of a spouse or a child. The end of a relationship. The loss of a job. A personal problem we can just not seem to be able to overcome. Where is the GPS for those moments, and others like them?

Today, we celebrate Jesus, our spiritual GPS. And the charge to the GPS we use, the GPS of Jesus, is the Holy Spirit. Jesus leads us in the way, because Jesus is the way. Jesus will give us, has given us, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the advocate to let us know that there is always a GPS which will lead us to heaven.

How does this spiritual GPS work? Because life is so hard sometimes, we often face problems we simply cannot always see our way out of. We’re still, we can sometimes believe, we can sometimes feel so lost that we lose hope. We can sometimes believe that our problems, our sins, are simply too big for Jesus to overcome.

Today, we are called to embrace hope. Not simply the naive hope that we will win the lottery, but the deep and vital hope that Jesus will save us. For St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, there is absolutely nothing that can keep us from the love of God. Nothing. And we have this hope because God gives us so many gifts. So many things to help us to not only face the difficulties of our lives, but to know that we are never alone in facing them.

But just what are these gifts that God gives us? St. Paul, in today’s second reading, helps us to know just what they are. And the Holy Spirit helps us to know just how to use them. St. Paul tells us the gift of God to us is a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in the knowledge of him.

The first gift we are given is a God who loves us. And more importantly, because of this love, our God allows us to be known. To know God. The founding fathers of this country often believed in a God that was distant. A clockmaker. One who created the universe, including us, but never much interacted with us. Didn’t really seem to love us.

But we do not believe in such a God. In fact, just the opposite. We believe in a God that is intimately interested in every aspect of our lives. We believe in a God who makes us in his image and likeness. And because of this, we believe in a God who loves us in every detail. More than that, even when we commit sin, God still loves us. Even though God hates the sin.

So the first resource we have is that because of the Holy Spirit, the sacrifice of Jesus, and the love of the Father, we can know God. God allows himself to be known. And every time we come to know God, even in a limited way, we have an experience of the power of love that is beyond anything else we can experience. God makes this possible. God not only allows himself to be known, but gives us the help and grace to know him as well.

God enlightens our eyes. God helps us to know the hope that enables us to accept the salvation of God. We have hope because of the surpassing greatness of God. In the Gospel, Jesus gives us his assurance. “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” All power. Jesus is not a weakling. Jesus is all-powerful. Jesus is the one who won the victory over sin and death. Jesus is the one who has triumphed over evil.

All of these triumphs arise from the love of God for each one of us. So, listen carefully. God loves you. The proof of this is simple. You exist. You can only exist because of God’s love for you. Because of God’s love, you exist. Because of God’s love, the promise of our salvation is sure. This is the good news. The good news is that we will never be alone. We will, with the Holy Spirit’s help, be able to overcome evil.

Consider what this means. Consider the power of God’s love. For after the statement Jesus makes about the depths of his power, he gives us something to do as well. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I command you.”

Just as God’s love moves him to create, to create us, we too are called to create. We are called to cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit in creating disciples, followers of Jesus. Who is it in your life that needs to know they are loved more than they realize? Who is it in your life that needs to have the hope of salvation? Today’s gospel is referred to as the Great Commission. It is what Jesus asks us to do. The good news is that Jesus helps us. He saves us. And he doesn’t want us to be saved alone.

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