For many of us, when we hear about the Ascension of Jesus, we are just as beguiled as the disciples who, as recorded in the Book of Acts, were standing around, looking at the sky. Also, depending on where you live, will depend on when you celebrate this solemnity and for those of us in diocese’s that celebrate it on Sunday may be beguiled on why we don’t celebrate it on Ascension Thursday.
If you live in the ecclesiastical Provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia you already celebrated Ascension Thursday on its traditional day, this past Thursday. For the rest of the country, it is celebrated today, on Sunday. The reason for Ascension Thursday is that the Ascension of Jesus took place 40 days after the resurrection and 10 days before Pentecost. The point of concern for moving to Sunday observance may be lack of attendance on Thursdays. Solemnities are obligatory because we are celebrating the foundational anchor points of our faith.
The event to remember and the readings offered enhance what and why we believe what we believe on an annual basis over the liturgical year and actively participating in these celebrations helps us to grow closer to God and each other as well as have a better understanding about the core tenets of our faith. Just as we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions in the lives of our families, we do so in the life of the Church. I agree with Pope Francis that it is important for us to celebrate our baptismal days as well. Which I still do not do and forget even which day it was. Wait a minute…
I just went and checked my files. I was baptized July 18, 1965, at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield, CT. You may want to check to see your date of Baptism. That I was baptized in the Church of the Sacred Heart I don’t think I ever knew, but it aligns with a teaching I received last evening at a talk with Fr. John Horn. Jesus is present deep in the heart of all of us, in the very depths of our souls. The reality of that truth is activated by our Baptism! Something beautiful to celebrate!
Our baptisms are made possible because of Jesus, who as the Son of God, was willing to be sent by his Father to become one with us in our humanity without sacrificing his divinity. Jesus, lived among us, experienced the joys and sufferings of life like us in all things but sin, yet chose to enter into solidarity with our sinful human condition when he submitted to the baptism of repentance offered by John and then would take upon himself the full weight of our sins on the cross.
Jesus then died, entered into the utter godforsakeness of death, and conquered death. He rose again through the Love of the Holy Spirit, not as a ghost or a spirit, but still fully divine and fully man. His body was transfigured in the resurrection becoming the firstborn of the new creation, embodying the fullness of the humanity that God the Father always intended.
Jesus returned to the Apostles and the close inner circle of disciples and for forty days would teach and prepare them further until the time of his ascension, which we celebrate today. Though those closest to him couldn’t bear losing him a second time, Jesus had to go.
Not so much up, up, and away in my beautiful balloon, or zipping away like Superman to destroy an asteroid hurtling toward the earth. Nor was it that Jesus had had enough of his followers and left them to fend for themselves. After the forty days that he spent gathering his disciples, eating with, teaching, and empowering them to continue his work of making the will of his Father known, Jesus ascended back to the Father still fully human, and with our humanity as well.
This is a type of physical and spiritual physics. God did not create us as autonomous and completely independent. God created to be interconnected and this is why St. Paul can write to the Corinthians, “For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life” (1 Cor. 15:23)!
Bishop Robert Barron has explained it this way: “The Ascension is the translation of this earthly reality into a heavenly reality.” Jesus is no longer limited by the time and space of our present temporal reality. He transcends our recognized three-dimensional reality and now exists at a higher pitch of existence. Just as Jesus was able to pass through a locked door, he is able to be present to us at Mass on Thursday or Sunday or any time that the Mass is celebrated anywhere in the world in his glorified Body made present again on the altar. The priest up the Eucharist, Jesus present in his glorified Body for all gathered to see: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.”
He who did not sin, took sin upon himself on the cross to conquer the power of sin and death so that in each Mass, we can say in the words of and trust like the centurion: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter unto my roof, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.” Jesus is present to all of us everywhere because we are united by our humanity and the humanity and loving embrace of Jesus!
Through the event of the Ascension, Jesus brings something of our humanity to heaven, and at Pentecost, which we will celebrate next week, he will send something of heaven to us in the descent of the Holy Spirit. And who is the Holy Spirit, but the Love that is breathed, that is shared between the Father and the Son.
What the Ascension means for us is that we are separated no longer from the reality of heaven. St Irenaeus wrote that “Jesus opened up heaven for us in the humanity he assumed.” We can see this displayed in biblical accounts such as the sky was torn open at the baptism of Jesus, as the veil was torn in two outside the Holy of Holies in the temple at the moment of his crucifixion, and as Jesus ascended with our humanity, to return to the right hand of the Father. Heaven and earth have been wedded in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
We become part of the Church, the bride of Christ through encountering Jesus in the Sacraments, especially in our Baptism when we become part of the Body of Christ, when we are nourished by the Eucharist, and empowered through love of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation. Jesus did not leave us alone when he ascended, he did not close the door to us. Because of Jesus, there is an invitation to experience intimacy with him and God the Father. By our Baptism, we become an organic part of the Mystical Body of Christ and now as long as we remain in communion and relationship with him, we experience healing, life, and trinitarian love through our participation in the life of Jesus.
We are transformed, divinized, restored to our image and likeness to God through our participation in the life of Jesus. We are made holy, and our commission, the same as the Apostles, is to continue the work of being a bridge for the communion of the human and the divine. We are to follow the will of God, on earth as it is in heaven, to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).
Having heard this Good News of the Ascension, let us not, as the two angels said about the disciples, just “stand around looking at the sky” (cf. Acts 1:1-11), but go forth and share the love that we receive in the Eucharist, when we consume him, or even through a spiritual communion if we are unable to receive the Eucharist at this time. Jesus is no longer limited by space and time, and he invites all to participate on earth what is celebrated in heaven, the love of the communion between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen! Alleluia!!!
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Photo: Beautiful moments God gives us in the Bible as we had from Acts today about the Ascension, and the book of his creation as the sun was setting.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 