Ascension of Jesus

Today we celebrate the solemnity of the ascension of Jesus into heaven. In most of the world, the ascension was celebrated on Thursday because Jesus in fact ascended into heaven 40 days after He rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. But in many dioceses in the United States and some other countries, the Ascension of the Lord is transferred to Sunday.

During the forty days between His resurrection and ascension into heaven He appeared to His apostles many times instructing them and teaching them. He trained His apostles for their high calling. Comforted them because they had been scandalized by His death on the Cross. He taught them about the kingdom of God which they were to establish on earth. He inflamed their hearts for a longing for His heavenly kingdom and excited them to love God ever more fervently. Perhaps He instructed them on the sacraments and how to pasture the people. Maybe He told them to ask for the advice and prayers of His Mother, while She is on earth and later pray to Her after She would go to heaven. She would help them, console them and guide them to form the early Church.

The apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary gathered on top of the Mount of Olives. It was at the base of the mountain where Jesus had His agony in the garden. Now, from the top of the mountain Our Divine Lord appeared to them. Curiously, though they gazed upon Him, they doubted out of human weakness. Some still mistakenly wondered when He was going to restore the kingdom of Israel thinking he was going to somehow conquer the enemies of Israel by force.

To receive the Advocate, He told them to stay in Jerusalem so they would receive power from the Holy Spirit to be witnesses unto the ends of the earth. They were to be a witness by proclaiming all that He taught them, and most importantly they would witness by their life, as martyrs, except John, whose enemies attempted to kill by boiling him in oil, though he miraculously survived. In Jerusalem, the Apostles with the Virgin Mary would pray for 9 days for the coming of the Holy Spirit in the upper room (the same place Jesus ordained them as priests, the same place they made their first Holy Communion and attended the first Mass at the Last Supper, and the same place Jesus appeared to them, breathing on them giving them power to forgive sins).

St. Luke tells us Jesus gave the apostles His blessing before ascending into heaven. We can picture the loving reverence in which they received His blessing by kneeling, thanking and praying before Him as they gave Him homage.

Their hearts must have been filled with joy when suddenly a cloud appeared at His feet and He was lifted up into the sky towards heaven. By His own almighty power, He rises up to heaven and disappears. In the Old Testament, God was accustomed to appear and speak to His people from a cloud. The cloud which received the Savior at His ascension is the final testimony to His divinity. Catholic tradition is that Jesus miraculously left His footprints on the stone in which He was standing. The footprint on the stone can be seen in the chapel of the Ascension located on the exact place it’s believed Jesus ascended into heaven on the Mount of Olives.

His ascension into heaven completes His earthly work. What a heartbreaking farewell, though at the same time accompanied by a great joy to see their Master glorified. How deep must have been their sorrow at parting from Him, how keen their longing to follow Him. Who can enter into the Heart of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who having once lost Her divine Son at the foot of the Cross and then find Him at His glorious Resurrection when He appeared to Her and now She had to suffer once again to be taken from Her once more!

Though His earthly life was completed by His ascension, the life of His mystical body, the Church would begin.

Let us picture to ourselves as well as we can, what took place in heaven when our Savior entered it. Let us try to obtain a glimpse of this glorious scene. Thousands of blessed souls were in His train, but thousands upon thousands of angels, yes all the Hosts of the heavenly choirs came out to meet Him, the Savior of the world, the conqueror of evil, the King of Heaven, singing with one voice, “Lift up your gates and the King of Glory shall enter in. Who is this? The King of Glory. The Lord of Hosts, the King of Glory” And Jesus, mounting higher and higher, above all the principalities, powers, virtues and dominions, take His place beside the Heavenly Father: He sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty. He sits at the right hand making all His enemies His footstool. The whole court of heaven gives forth that glorious song of praise in the book of Revelation, “The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing forever and ever.”

When He enters heaven with His resurrected body, He elevates the dignity of our human nature. His ascension foreshadows that someday our body and soul, separated at death, will be re-united and we too will have a resurrected body at the end of the world. The two angels who appeared after Jesus ascended into heaven reminded them that just as they saw Jesus taken up to heaven on a cloud, so He will return in the same way on a cloud. This gave them hope that someday, He will return in all His glory to judge the living and the dead.

He ascended into heaven to be our mediator with His Father. It is the great and eternal God, Jesus our Savior, who stands close to God, He who is God, but also man and now intercedes for all time and pleads our cause, pointing to His wounds which He received as a result of our sins, and yet willingly suffered and died for us that we may be reconciled with His Father. He forever atones for us our sins, that we may have life and have it abundantly with Him in heaven.

Before He ascended into heaven, He had told His apostles, “I go to prepare a place for you.” “That where I go, you also may be.” He promised us heaven and then He went to prepare it for us. How our thoughts should be for our future home. The desires and hopes of our hearts should tend ever upward to our heavenly home. St. Paul said, “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God; mind the things that are above, not the things of earth.” The things of earth will have little value for us, if we really have a full of desire and longing for the eternal life to come where our Savior awaits us.

Poverty or riches, sickness or health, sorrow of happiness, what does it matter? All that matters is to possess you O God and be with you in heaven. As you told us, “Eye has not seen or ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him.”

O Lord, our God, and Savior, you who are now glorious in heaven, yet lived a life of poverty, pain, rejection and suffering on earth, we beg you by thy wonderful ascension to fill our hearts with the hope of heaven that we may be consoled in our sufferings, encouraged in good works, and comforted at the hour of death. Amen.