One of the greatest - yet perhaps underrated - feasts in the Church is almost upon us - the Ascension.
I say "underrated" because it sometimes feels like the Ascension is lost in the waning ebb of Eastertide.
Marking a liturgical transition into Ordinary Time, it's easy for Pentecost to overshadow the solemnity celebrating Christ's homeward journey to heaven.
And even when you do think about it, if you're anything like me, there's a tendency to focus mostly on the mechanics of how it all went down.
I do this a lot when praying the second Glorious mystery of the rosary. I try to get inside the physics and the metaphysics of the Ascension.
At what point did Christ actually disappear?
How long could the Disciples actually see him?
Did he kind of dissolve into another dimension?...And so on.
But the real focus of the Ascension, said Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), is “what is the measure of being human, not how many floors the universe has. The issue,” he says, “is God and man, the true height of being human, not the position of the stars.” (Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts).
Of course, the Holy Father wasn't divorcing the Ascension, or any other part of the faith, from the created order.
He wasn't over-spiritualizing.
Anyone who understands Catholic teaching knows we relate to God through the created order.
After all, the Creator gave us five senses we can use to apprehend his presence and we recognize a unity between the created and uncreated orders.
In fact, oftentimes the things we can see, taste, touch, hear and smell are signs that point to deeper realities.
This is especially true of the sacraments.
The sign of Baptism, for example, is water, which points us to the deeper reality of the "cleansing" of the person – the reception of sanctifying grace.
Similarly, the sign of Christ’s physical Ascension – his rising – points to a deeper reality of our destiny.
Namely, that we are made to rise in Christ.
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"My chin is still on the floor..."
"Seriously, why weren't we taught this before?"
We are made to "ascend" into heaven – not under our own power – but in and through Christ.
That's the final goal.
So isn’t it interesting that we often tend focus more upon the Passion, death and Resurrection (and Pentecost), than the Ascension?
Obviously it’s not wrong to elevate these other, very seminal events.
Certainly the Resurrection has a kind of pride of place as the culmination of the story...and yet there is a real sense in which it's not...not for Christ and not for us.
Jesus didn't just rise from the dead to keep hanging out with us on earth.
He was always going back to the Father. He was always going to return to his rightful place.
But that's not all.
He went so as prepare a place for us.
"In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also" (John 14:2-3).
This was always the point.
His plan was always to create the pathway for us back into heaven, back into the family of God.
Through Christ, humanity has penetrated the Godhead.
And the Ascension has created the path, the bridge into eternity has been completed.
If we die in Christ, we'll follow our risen and ascended Lord to new life in heaven.
So don't overlook the Ascension.
Keep your eyes focused above. And don't just look up, but begin your ascent up the divine ladder right now.
Don't forget that the spiritual life is a constant upward move. Through God's grace, we have to strive for holiness.
We have to strive to detach ourselves from the things and habits that weigh us down so we can ascend toward God and the place Christ has prepared for us for all eternity...an eternity that is going to blow your mind.
As St. Paul declares, "No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Cor 2:9).
Happy Solemnity of the Ascension!
Matthew
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