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| "The Ascension," by J. Tissot. Brooklyn Museum / Public Domain. |
With the words of
the Creed at Mass every Sunday of the year, we proclaim our faith that after
Christ rose from the dead he:
... ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the
Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead....
We might ask what
value there is for us in the fact that Christ rose BODILY from the dead and ascended BODILY
to sit in unseen mystery at the right hand of God.
We get an answer
by first turning the question upside down, as it were.
What value does GOD
recognize in the human BODY— what value does God recognize in human
nature by having it sit BODILY next to him in the mystery of heavenly
glory?
God has so esteemed
our human D.N.A., our human body, our human intellect, our human will and our
human heart that he has not left these in the grave, but has raised them up in
the person of his Son and given them a throne at his right hand in glory.
What we celebrate
in the Ascension of Christ is not his glory that he never lost.
The Ascension
celebrates the glory and the dignity God has given to us.
In the
mysteriously human, historical fact of the bodily Ascension of Christ, all of
us have reservations booked, written onto the right side of God’s throne.
We have untold
dignity to believe, own, to hope for and to live out.
God has given us
this dignity.
Do we want it?
The conditions of
the world, our own actions and omissions sometimes show us to be anything but
dignified.
What connection
can we have with the mystery of Christ seated in the unseen mystery of heaven?
What is the
connection between Christ in heaven and us on earth?
The connection is
as straight, unbroken, direct and immediate as flesh and blood.
The Gospel tells
us that on the day he rose from the dead, he gave the Holy Spirit to his
disciples by breathing the Spirit right out of his own human lungs.
That is the work
of Christ as he sits in heaven until he returns: Christ breathes the Spirit of
heaven on our behalf.
He breathes the
Spirit with our bodies and our entire human nature.
In the person of
Christ himself, the Spirit of God fills our human nature, flesh and blood.
This is not magic.
We remain free
either to work with the Spirit or to refuse.
God will not do it
without us.
The Scriptures
today— the Acts of the Apostles, the Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, the
Holy Gospel— the Scriptures today join in speaking of the Spirit’s power,
Christ’s work and our work.
They tell us what
we celebrate in Christ’s Ascension.
With
Christ, you and I have one human nature, one flesh, one blood, one Spirit and
one Father.
Christ
who came down to the earth is also the one who ascended to heaven that he might
fill all things.
So
we can speak of the church as the body and fullness of Christ who breathes
forth the Spirit to fill all things in every way.
We
have power from the Holy Spirit to be the witnesses of Christ.
Later on, the
Letter to the Ephesians will say more of the same [4:10-13].
He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the
heavens,
that he might fill all things.
And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets,
some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry,
for building up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God,
to mature manhood,
to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
In the prayers of
the Mass for the Ascension of Christ, we give thanks as we celebrate God’s plan
of glory for the human race.
The two Preface prayers for the Mass of the
Ascension acknowledge of Christ that:
he plainly appeared to all his disciples and was taken up to
heaven in their sight, that he might make us sharers in his divinity. [Preface II]
... we, his members, might be confident of following where he, our
Head and Founder, has gone before. [Preface
I]
Christ sits in
flesh and blood at the right hand of the Father.
There he breathes
the Holy Spirit on our behalf.
As the sign and
the presence of this, he holds out to us his Eucharist by which we eat and
drink his flesh, his blood, his glory and his Spirit.
Our final prayer
after the mystery of Eucharistic communion today will declare the whole reality
for us.
Hear us, O God our Savior,
and grant us confidence,
that through these sacred mysteries
there will be accomplished in the body of the whole Church
what has already come to pass in Christ her Head.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Turn. Love.
Repeat.
