What is the
Ascension? Is it a movement to that infinity that we call “the cosmos”,
Paradise? That is not too important. The important thing is that it is to the
heart of the Trinity. The Ascension is an arising, a moving upward—beautiful,
joyful. Behind it is the Spirit, the Spirit which we receive in Confirmation. He
shows us how to live in order to ascend with Christ, providing we open our
hearts again and again to his influence.
In the second
reading for this feast, St. Paul says, “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and perception of what is
revealed to bring you to full knowledge of him.” (Eph. 1:17-18) “The full
knowledge of him”—now Christ has power over everything, for that is what his
Ascension means. He is king, he is glorified, he is at the right hand of the
Father. And as the song says, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”
That is exactly what is happening: all of us are in there in the hand of Jesus Christ. We come to the essence: the Father loved us so much that he sent his Son, Christ God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, who becomes man for love of us. This love cascades constantly over all of us since we were created, like a million Niagaras. Picture that immense Niagara falling over us, with all the graces and the love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then realize that this love is in a hand, where the world, the cosmos, rests—a hand pierced with a nail. Who can be afraid of God when he knows that he is held in the hand of Jesus Christ, in the hand of mercy? I am in the pierced hand of the Lord!
Catherine de Hueck
Doherty, Season of Mercy
Reflection – And so we come to the feast
of the Ascension, beginning tonight with First Vespers. I think this feast, and
this aspect of the mystery of Christ, is among the least understood generally.
In part this is because of our modern scientifically informed cosmology: Christ
ascends into heaven; the space shuttle ascends into orbit. Simple locomotion
upwards off the face of the earth does not connote to us anything of spiritual
significance.
In the ancient world which had a radically different
understanding of the heavenly realm as opposed to the earthly realm, the
meaning of Christ’s ascension was clear and obvious, and that meaning is exactly
what Catherine communicates very beautifully and simply in this passage.
Christ returned to the Father. The man Jesus, who of course
is the Divine Son, eternally begotten of the Father and never separated from
Him for one moment of his Incarnate life, now goes into the heart of the
Trinity. The Eternal Logos of God carries his human body, soul, nature, into
the very heart of God.
An ancient person understanding the whole business of
earth and heaven, ascent and descent according to the cosmology of the day,
would have gotten the symbolism immediately and obviously.
For us in the rocket age, we have to translate. But it all
means that this man Jesus, pierced hand and
wounded side and all, is the road
to the Father, which means the road home. It is this whole business of the prodigal
son and the great journey of humanity to its true home.
The ascension shows us that the way home, the road from the
pig sty and the misery of our current condition to a life of joy and bliss
forever, is the way of Christ. The following of Christ, the life of
discipleship and communion laid out for us in the Gospels and in our Sacred
Tradition.
In other words, it is all an intensely personal matter of
love and communion, not simply some mechanical question of locomotion and
transfer of a body from one place to another. Where is the ascended body of
Jesus? I haven’t a clue, nor does anyone else, nor does it matter in the
slightest. The Lord Jesus is with His Father, and our path to the Father is the
path of following the Lamb wherever he leads us. The Ascension is truly the
feast of the way home, the ‘map’ given us so we know where we are and where we
are going.
Happy Ascension to you!
ReplyDeleteThis morning I was thinking of the heavens, the world, the everything opening up to receive Christ Jesus. Incredible image. It is all do amazing.
This I remembered this passage: "For we have the certainty that heaven, which opened three times on the unfolding of the mystery of salvation, remains henceforth forever open. Nothing and no one can recomstruct that barrier that the sin of the first man erected between God and man. No one can excavate again the abyss which Jesus has filled between heaven and earth"
(Maxine Egger in Compassion of the Father)
Bless you
Amen, and beautiful.
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