May 16, 2010
Feast of the Ascension
By Rev. Joe Mc Closkey, SJ
When they had gathered together they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:6-8
Just as it is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment, so also Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him. Hebrews 9:27-28
Then he led them (out) as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God. Luke 24:50-53
Piety
The Feast of the Ascension is the greatest goodbye feast in the Church. Jesus is leaving his apostles behind. He is saying goodbye. He has passed on to them the baton of his mission from the Father. He takes their love of him with him. He will be in heaven the best part of the apostles and of us who have come to believe because of the disciples. We become his presence here on earth by our willingness to see him as the best part of ourselves. We are created in his image and likeness and we live in him because we have been given his life in our rebirth by Baptism. Christ ascends into heaven with his great love of us to become the drawing power of our future total reunion with him. Christ went to prepare a place for us with him in heaven. He had to go so that he would be able to live in all of us by our baptism. Our baptism is the umbilical cord of our life in Christ.
Every time we say goodbye to a friend we are living out our own vision of the Ascension. How holy an event this can be! Every goodbye in our lives can relate to the Ascension. We are watching each other go and at the same time wanting to hold on to each other. Life has many goodbyes. Few goodbyes are as great as a funeral. You have shared your lives in ways that make you an ongoing part of each other. You have learned from them. There is much you carry away that will dim as a memory that loses importance as years go by. Life goes on. Christ by his Ascension puts a period on his physical human life here on earth. We become the visible presence of his humanness in how Christ-like we are.
Study
Friends leave as special friends that have had an important part in the lives of each other. But the going of the Ascension is a taste of the Resurrection. Whether we realize it or not, Christ takes us with him. He shares with us the destiny of the Resurrection even as he leaves us to be his presence in special ways here on earth. Eucharist says thank-you in the incredible reality of the God-man who has given his life for us every time we celebrated Mass. We say thank-you to Christ by Eucharist, the greatest thank-you possible to us. We are grateful to God for all the ways we have had togetherness with each Christ. There is a gift given in love that is the forever of Eucharist. Christ died once and forever that our love would never be wasted.
Action
Every celebration of Eucharist brings the humanity of each of us to oneness with the Christ of the Resurrection. Eucharist is the big action of Christianity because it brings together the humanness of Christ in heaven with his humanness in us as his ongoing presence here on earth. Eucharist gives Ascension ongoing reality here on earth as Christ takes us and feeds us in his life in heaven that we may be his life on earth.
