Before the very eyes of his closest followers, 40 days after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ ascended body and soul into heaven.
What exactly does this word "ascended" mean?
Christ is God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity become man. He is both fully God and fully man, a mystery so great that we cannot understand it completely.
Christ's ascension reveals his divinity, just as his resurrection did.
Many people throughout salvation history have been raised or have raised others from the dead with the help of God's power. But only Christ rose from the dead on his own. As true God, he holds power over life and death; he is omnipotent, all-powerful, "almighty" as we say each week in the Creed. And as true man, Jesus used that omnipotence to conquer death for our sake, to win our salvation, to redeem us. By bringing redeemed human nature up into heaven, he showed that along with being all-powerful, he is also all-good, all-loving.
Christ's ascension, then, reminds us that there is no limit to the confidence we can have in our God, because there is no limit to his power and goodness.
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The amazing fact of the Ascension lifts our gaze to heaven.
Because Jesus is now in heaven, body and soul, we are assured that heaven is not just a nice idea, a myth, or wishful thinking. It is a real place where Jesus has gone ahead to prepare the way for us.
One of Aesop's Fables shows just how new this Christian revelation really was.
Aesop was a Greek slave who lived before the time of Christ. He was renowned for his natural wisdom, which was recorded in his famous fables, or short stories with deep lessons. One day he was ordered by his master to go to the public baths (in ancient times public baths were like country clubs) and get things ready. On his way, he was stopped by one of the official judges of the city. The judge asked him where he was going. Aesop, thinking that it was none of the judge's business, answered, "I don't know." The judge was offended by this reply, which he considered disrespectful, and marched him off to prison for punishment (disrespectful slaves could be punished without a trial). When they arrived at the prison, Aesop turned to his captor and said, “Judge, when I told you, 'I don't know where I am going,' I was speaking the truth. Little did I think that I was on my way to prison! You see, it is true indeed that we never really know just where we are going." Faced with this explanation, the judge had no choice but to let Aesop go free.
This ironic story illustrates the absolute uncertainty of pre-Christian humanity about what happens after death - they just didn't know. Neither science, nor philosophy, nor pagan religion could pull back the curtain on the afterlife.
Only Jesus Christ has shined a light on this mystery, by his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
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Today the Church is inviting us to reflect on this great mystery of our faith, Christ's ascension into heaven.
As we do so, we should feel our confidence in God renewed and strengthened.
Jesus is ruling history right now. None of the difficulties, injustices, and problems that we face as individuals, families, and societies is outside of his knowledge or power. He is at work in all things, even if it is sometimes hard for us to see exactly how. As today's Mass prayers remind us: "Mediator between God and man, judge of the world, and Lord of hosts, He ascended, not to distance himself from our lowly state but, that we, his members, might be confident of following where he our Head and Founder, has gone before" (Preface for Ascension I).
How can we express this hope, this confidence in God?
By sharing it with others. Jesus didn't tell his followers that he was "one of the many ways, truths, and lives that are out there." And none of the other founders of world religions rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and let their Resurrection and Ascension be witnessed by hundreds of followers.
Only Jesus Christ is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. Only his mercy can heal hearts that have been wounded by sin and evil. Only his wisdom can untangle the moral knots that today's secular culture has tied in the minds of our neighbours.
And we know Jesus Christ! We are the ones who can share the good news with those who don't! When Jesus ascended into heaven, he didn't take the members of his Church with him.
Instead, he entrusted his mission to their care: "Go out to the whole world...!" he said as he ascended.
That mission, to follow Christ and help others do the same, is still in full swing today.
It's in our hands, and if to fulfil our part we do our best, surely God will do the rest.
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Ascension
Started by cappie, May 17 2012 07:03 AM
1 reply to this topic
#2
cappie
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- Catholic Clergy
- 8,496 posts
Posted 20 May 2012 - 04:35 PM
Congregatio Pro Clericis
After the forty days of Eastertide, during which we have experienced the presence of the Risen Lord with the apostles, the liturgy today introduces us to the mystery of the Ascension and invites us to share in a deep spiritual joy.
The word ‘spiritual’ has almost lost its meaning in our culture which can be so superficial and subjective. What makes our joy truly spiritual in the Christian sense is that it is the gift of the Holy Spirit, rooted in our relationship with Christ the Lord. As Christians we continually ask in prayer that we will be able to receive and live these gifts of the Spirit.
In the Collect of today's Mass we ask Almighty God to "gladden us with holy joys". The Church rejoices in the Lord's ascension into heaven, and it invites the faithful to join their hearts and voices to this mystical exultation. But why do we rejoice when the Lord now seems ‘invisible’ to us? By Ascending into heaven, has Christ abandoned us, leaving us just as before the ‘yes’ of the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation? Where is Christ our Joy now?
The Collect continues: "where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow in hope". We are called to joy because our humanity is now ‘elevated’ in Christ beside the Father. In fact, because of Christ’s love for man He took on our flesh and so all that happens to Christ’s humanity will now also affect us too.
Christ recapitulates in Himself the entire cosmos and draws it to the Heavenly Father, depositing it at the foot of His ‘Holy throne’ (Ps 46). This is our glorious destiny, the ultimate and positive result to which our lives are called.
So great is the mystery of this love that St Paul, writing in chains for Christ's sake, exclaims: "I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received". We are made for heaven: made to live with Almighty God as his beloved children, called from all eternity. There a place has been prepared for us. It is waiting for us, and we must orientate all our energy and action towards this wonderful reality.
Ascending into heaven, Christ gives definitive direction to human history.
Like the apostles we are called to stop looking up at the sky with sadness, but instead to be obedient to the Lord's command: "Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation". This isn't a command that we can carry out alone, no matter how strong our force of will. Without the consolation and beauty of the Lord's presence we will be exhausted by the inevitable struggles and disappointments of life. But Christ is now, more present to us than ever, because by lifting up his own humanity to the right side of the Father, he is now at the very source of all reality. Everything is now present and contemporary to Him, and His presence is there in all of creation calling us to share in his divine love.
How do we approach this familiarity with Christ’s presence? We find the answer in the Post Communion Prayer that “hope may draw us onward to where our nature is united with you”. The familiarity with Christ increases our desire for Him, through prayer. Only in prayer are we able to discover, in the companionship found in the Church, His Presence.
The Holy Eucharist draws us into Christ's loving presence. Through the Blessed Sacrament, the Risen Lord continues to attract us and ultimately the whole of creation to himself. It is through the Eucharist that he prepares a place for us.
Let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was the first to participate, body and soul, in the glory to which all humanity is called, to help us to understand and rejoice in the mystery of Christ's Ascension so that we will look forward in hope to sharing in the life of the Most Holy Trinity. Amen!
After the forty days of Eastertide, during which we have experienced the presence of the Risen Lord with the apostles, the liturgy today introduces us to the mystery of the Ascension and invites us to share in a deep spiritual joy.
The word ‘spiritual’ has almost lost its meaning in our culture which can be so superficial and subjective. What makes our joy truly spiritual in the Christian sense is that it is the gift of the Holy Spirit, rooted in our relationship with Christ the Lord. As Christians we continually ask in prayer that we will be able to receive and live these gifts of the Spirit.
In the Collect of today's Mass we ask Almighty God to "gladden us with holy joys". The Church rejoices in the Lord's ascension into heaven, and it invites the faithful to join their hearts and voices to this mystical exultation. But why do we rejoice when the Lord now seems ‘invisible’ to us? By Ascending into heaven, has Christ abandoned us, leaving us just as before the ‘yes’ of the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation? Where is Christ our Joy now?
The Collect continues: "where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow in hope". We are called to joy because our humanity is now ‘elevated’ in Christ beside the Father. In fact, because of Christ’s love for man He took on our flesh and so all that happens to Christ’s humanity will now also affect us too.
Christ recapitulates in Himself the entire cosmos and draws it to the Heavenly Father, depositing it at the foot of His ‘Holy throne’ (Ps 46). This is our glorious destiny, the ultimate and positive result to which our lives are called.
So great is the mystery of this love that St Paul, writing in chains for Christ's sake, exclaims: "I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received". We are made for heaven: made to live with Almighty God as his beloved children, called from all eternity. There a place has been prepared for us. It is waiting for us, and we must orientate all our energy and action towards this wonderful reality.
Ascending into heaven, Christ gives definitive direction to human history.
Like the apostles we are called to stop looking up at the sky with sadness, but instead to be obedient to the Lord's command: "Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation". This isn't a command that we can carry out alone, no matter how strong our force of will. Without the consolation and beauty of the Lord's presence we will be exhausted by the inevitable struggles and disappointments of life. But Christ is now, more present to us than ever, because by lifting up his own humanity to the right side of the Father, he is now at the very source of all reality. Everything is now present and contemporary to Him, and His presence is there in all of creation calling us to share in his divine love.
How do we approach this familiarity with Christ’s presence? We find the answer in the Post Communion Prayer that “hope may draw us onward to where our nature is united with you”. The familiarity with Christ increases our desire for Him, through prayer. Only in prayer are we able to discover, in the companionship found in the Church, His Presence.
The Holy Eucharist draws us into Christ's loving presence. Through the Blessed Sacrament, the Risen Lord continues to attract us and ultimately the whole of creation to himself. It is through the Eucharist that he prepares a place for us.
Let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was the first to participate, body and soul, in the glory to which all humanity is called, to help us to understand and rejoice in the mystery of Christ's Ascension so that we will look forward in hope to sharing in the life of the Most Holy Trinity. Amen!
Edited by cappie, 20 May 2012 - 04:36 PM.
