The Ascension of the Lord

Today we are celebrating the Ascension of the Lord. We are nearing the completion of The Great Fifty Days, the annual celebration of the Pascal Mystery, containing its four integral parts: Passion/Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. Our present norms governing liturgical celebration state, "The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated in joyful expectation as one feast day, or better, as one 'Great Sunday',"  (so named by St. Athanasius in the fourth century). Next Sunday we shall complete this fifty-day period which has its roots in Jewish tradition by our celebration of Pentecost, the "seal" of the Easter Season, celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit as promised by the one who was crucified, the one who suffered death but who then rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.

Most of us are used to thinking of the Ascension of the Lord as taking place forty days after the Resurrection according to the chronology set forth in the Acts of the Apostles. But if we leave the Acts of the Apostles aside, all the other Scripture texts suggest that Christ's Ascension was an Easter occurrence - an event which, although distinct from the Resurrection, took place on Easter day itself. Furthermore, on the evening of Easter Day, Christ gives the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, something which, according to St. John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, is not possible if Christ is not yet glorified with the Father. Therefore, many Scripture scholars place the actual Ascension on Easter Evening, and it was so celebrated in the Early Church.

St. Augustine often preached stating that Christ's Ascension is our Ascension. He bases it on his ecclesiology of the Church's being made up of both Head and Members. In his Sermon on the Ascension of the Lord, he states: "Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him……These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ……Out of compassion for us, he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are one in him by grace. Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head."

Where he has gone, we hope to follow! Yves Congar, O.P. would often write that the Risen Christ can never be thought of apart from his body! How powerful, and how consoling for us, this is!

Let me conclude our meditation on the Ascension of the Lord with another helpful insight from St. Augustine, who so frequently wrote and preached on our intimate relationship with Christ viewed from his key idea of the unity of members of the body of Christ with the head of that body, Christ Himself. St. Augustine urges us to view Christ as Emmanuel, "God with us."

We do not have to look far for God, for God is right there within us! He writes in his Confessions: "Christ departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find him. For he departed, and behold, he is here!"  [Book IV, Chapter XII]