“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you." (Luke 24: 46-49)
An Ascension - To Where?
The Ascension of our Lord – one of those Thursday holidays that make difficulties for the economy and that many people would like to do away with, as has already happened in other countries. Why should we celebrate this day – what is, in fact, its original meaning? Is not the picture of Jesus’ Ascension a concept that is long obsolete in the space age? Do we have any use at all for the idea of a heaven in which Jesus Christ is sitting “at the right hand of God” [Mark 16: 19]? The whole point of this feast seems to be fading from view. And yet a holiday for the Ascension will survive in the long run only if its religious meaning remains a living thing. How can this meaning be understood in a new way for today?
First, a word on the subject of heaven. Luke reports that "while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven." The heaven being talked about here is not outer space. Where could there be a place, in the inconceivable vastness of the universe, that we could call "heaven"? The Ascension of our Lord is not a journey into space. Jesus said, in another place, what it means: "I go to the Father." Ascension is going home. It is not to his earthly home that Jesus is returning; his Resurrection was not a return to earthly life. Rather, he went back to the place from whence he had come: into the world of God. That is also the true home of man. It is the goal of the pilgrimage, often arduous and laborious, of life in this world.
What does God's heaven look like? We do not know; we can form only the vaguest notion of it and believe that God has, as Jesus once said, "prepared a dwelling for us" there [see John 14:2-3]. A man's way through life has been well accomplished, not if he has been successful, become famous, or made a lot of money, but only if he has not failed to reach his eternal goal.
Jesus himself is at the same time signpost and path to this goal. That is what his Ascension shows. First Jesus had to suffer. His disciples found it hard to cope with this at the time, and they still do. Why did the suffering happen? What was the Cross for? That is the way that leads to conversion. We are purified through the suffering. No one can find a way to "slip in to" heaven, without reflection and repentance, without changing his life and his heart. That is why Jesus talked very seriously about the restricted entrance, the narrow path, that leads to eternal life. He even used the image of the eye of a needle. It is obviously not so simple to find one's way home through all life's wrong turns.
Yet Jesus knows what great dangers we run. He knows our weaknesses as no one else does. That is why he came, why he became man, as our brother and our Master, so as not only to show us the way but to go before us, on our behalf, upon it. He took on himself all the weight of our failures and overcame it. His Ascension is our way home. "He did not hide himself behind the clouds", says Saint Augustine, but "he has installed heaven in the hearts of his friends". We no longer see him, but "he is beginning to breathe in us".
Perhaps that is why, after his Ascension, his disciples are so filled with joy. They now know at what they are aiming, and they know that Jesus will be their constant and invisible companion on their journey. With him, we will surely reach home.
Reprinted from:
Jesus, the Divine Physician
Encountering Christ in the Gospel of Luke
By Christoph Cardinal Schönborn,
Archbishop of Vienna, Austria
Ignatius Press, 2008
www.ignatius.com
What Does the Ascension Mean?
Forty days after his Resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven. During this period between his Resurrection and Ascension, He actually gave the primacy He had promised to Peter, as we read in John 21. The many events between His resurrection and ascension preclude the theory that He ascended on Easter.
His ascension does not mean that heaven is somewhere up in space. This was a way of making clear that He was leaving the present mode of existence. St. Paul in Colossians 3:1 urges us to live our lives now as if we had already died, had risen, and had ascended with Him. In a mystical sense we have done that, in that our Head has done that. In the physical sense it is still in the future.
He ascended to receive the glory due to Him as conqueror of sin and death (Philippians 2:8-11); to be our Mediator and advocate with the Father (Hebrews 9:24); to send the Holy Spirit as He had promised at the Last Supper (John 16:7); and to prepare a place for us as He also promised (John 14:2).
Now He is seated at the Father's right hand, which means that, as He said, "all power has been given to Me in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). He always had that power as God, but now He exercises it as man, as King of the Universe, with His Mother beside Him as Queen of the Universe.
As God He is everywhere, but not as man, though He is present on earth most widely in the Holy Eucharist, even as man.
Besides this real bodily presence in the Eucharist, Christ is present on earth in other, lesser ways. Vatican II explained the various forms of presence, in the Constitution on the Liturgy, # 7: "Christ is always present to His Church, especially in liturgical actions. He is present in the Sacrifice of the Mass in the person of the priest; 'He is the same one, now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the Cross [citing the Council of Trent].' But He is most greatly present under the Eucharistic species. He is present by His power in the Sacraments, so that when anyone baptizes, Christ Himself baptizes. He is present in His word, for He speaks when the Sacred Scriptures are read in the Church. He is present, finally, when the Church prays and sings the Psalms, He who promised 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst'"(Matthew 18:20).
Taken from The Basic Catholic Catechism
PART FOUR: The Apostles' Creed VI-VIII
Sixth Article: "He ascended into heaven; He sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty".
By Rev. William G. Most. (c) Copyright 1990 by William G. Most