He Has Ascended... Or Not Yet

So, folks, welcome to the most confusing day of the ecclesial calendar on these shores.

Here at the desk, this 40th day of Easter is Ascension Thursday – a holy day of obligation....

Drive about 25 minutes south, however, and it isn't.

This year marks two decades since the split first took root. In 1993, the five Western provinces – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Anchorage – were permitted by Rome to shift the observance to the Seventh Sunday, the petition citing low attendance on the work-week feast and the scarcity of priests.

Five years later, at the close of the trial run for the change, the bishops of every US province were granted a binding vote on the holy date for their respective turfs, and 26 of the then-32 jurisdictions chose Sunday, the Thursday celebration – and, indeed, the holy-day collection – being retained only in the provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Omaha.

To be sure, the split exists elsewhere. In the Vatican, this is a holy day and the Curia is closed. Cross the city-state's border into Rome, meanwhile... and bupkus – like most of the Catholic world, Italy likewise moved for the Sunday transfer, the option initially offered to the episcopal conferences in the 1970s (for Epiphany and Corpus Christi) in those places where it was determined that the work-week observances were on the wane.

In Ascension's case, it's intriguing to note that the generation of leadership which voted in 1998 has almost entirely passed, and considering both different leanings among today's prelates and a drastically changed ecclesial situation on the ground in no shortage of spots, at least some provincial ballots would probably yield a different result if they were taken again. While odds are we'll never see another national re-vote, should a provincial consensus be determined enough to seek a change in either direction, it could always petition the Holy See for the move. For everything else that's transpired over the last decade and a half, though, it bears reminding that something of the kind hasn't happened to date.

Most of all, though, the Lord's final earthly commissions to "go and teach all nations" and that "you will be my witnesses" constitutes this as the great feast of Christian communication, and is thus marked every year this weekend by the church's World Communications Day.

The lone observance to be called for by Vatican II, this year's WCD – the 47th since its inception in 1967 – is dedicated to social networks as "portals of truth and faith; new spaces for evangelization" in light of the ongoing Year of Faith.

For the catechesis, meanwhile, the following General Audience talk on today's feast was given by Pope Francis on 17 April. And whether yours is today or come the weekend, buona festa to one and all.

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Cari fratelli e sorelle, buon giorno!

In the Creed we say that Jesus “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father”. Jesus’ earthly life culminated with the Ascension, when he passed from this world to the Father and was raised to sit on his right. What does this event mean? How does it affect our life? What does contemplating Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father mean? Let us permit the Evangelist Luke to guide us in this.

Let us start from the moment when Jesus decided to make his last pilgrimage to Jerusalem. St Luke notes: “When the days drew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Lk 9:51). While he was “going up” to the Holy City, where his own “exodus” from this life was to occur, Jesus already saw the destination, heaven, but he knew well that the way which would lead him to the glory of the Father passed through the Cross, through obedience to the divine design of love for mankind. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that: “The lifting up of Jesus on the cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven” (n. 662).

We too should be clear in our Christian life that entering the glory of God demands daily fidelity to his will, even when it demands sacrifice and sometimes requires us to change our plans. The Ascension of Jesus actually happened on the Mount of Olives, close to the place where he had withdrawn to pray before the Passion in order to remain in deep union with the Father: once again we see that prayer gives us the grace to be faithful to God’s plan.

At the end of his Gospel, St Luke gives a very concise account of the event of the Ascension. Jesus led his disciples “out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God” (Lk 24:50-53). This is what St Luke says.

I would like to note two elements in the account. First of all, during the Ascension Jesus made the priestly gesture of blessing, and the disciples certainly expressed their faith with prostration, they knelt with bowed heads, this is a first important point: Jesus is the one eternal High Priest who with his Passion passed through death and the tomb and ascended into heaven. He is with God the Father where he intercedes for ever in our favour (cf. Heb 9:24). As St John says in his First Letter, he is our Advocate: How beautiful it is to hear this! When someone is summoned by the judge or is involved in legal proceedings, the first thing he does is to seek a lawyer to defend him. We have One who always defends us, who defends us from the snares of devil, who defends us from ourselves and from our sins!

Dear brothers and sisters, we have this Advocate; let us not be afraid to turn to him to ask forgiveness, to ask for a blessing, to ask for mercy! He always pardons us, he is our Advocate: he always defends us! Don’t forget this! The Ascension of Jesus into heaven acquaints us with this deeply consoling reality on our journey : in Christ, true God and true man, our humanity was taken to God. Christ opened the path to us. He is like a roped guide climbing a mountain who, on reaching the summit, pulls us up to him and leads us to God. If we entrust our life to him, if we let ourselves be guided by him, we are certain to be in safe hands, in the hands of our Saviour, of our Advocate.

A second element: St Luke says that having seen Jesus ascending into heaven, the Apostles returned to Jerusalem “with great joy”. This seems to us a little odd. When we are separated from our relatives, from our friends, because of a definitive departure and, especially, death, there is usually a natural sadness in us since we will no longer see their face, no longer hear their voice, or enjoy their love, their presence. The Evangelist instead emphasizes the profound joy of the Apostles.

But how could this be? Precisely because, with the gaze of faith they understand that although he has been removed from their sight, Jesus stays with them for ever, he does not abandon them and in the glory of the Father supports them, guides them and intercedes for them.

St Luke too recounts the event of the Ascension — at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles — to emphasize that this event is like the link of the chain that connects Jesus’ earthly life to the life of the Church. Here St Luke also speaks of the cloud that hid Jesus from the sight of the disciples, who stood gazing at him ascending to God (cf. Acts 1:9-10). Then two men in white robes appeared and asked them not to stand there looking up to heaven but to nourish their lives and their witness with the certainty that Jesus will come again in the same way in which they saw him ascending into heaven (cf. Acts 1:10-11). This is the invitation to base our contemplation on Christ’s lordship, to find in him the strength to spread the Gospel and to witness to it in everyday life: contemplation and action, ora et labora, as St Benedict taught, are both necessary in our life as Christians.

Dear brothers and sisters, the Ascension does not point to Jesus’ absence, but tells us that he is alive in our midst in a new way. He is no longer in a specific place in the world as he was before the Ascension. He is now in the lordship of God, present in every space and time, close to each one of us. In our life we are never alone: we have this Advocate who awaits us, who defends us. We are never alone: the Crucified and Risen Lord guides us. We have with us a multitude of brothers and sisters who, in silence and concealment, in their family life and at work, in their problems and hardships, in their joys and hopes, live faith daily and together with us bring the world the lordship of God’s love, in the Risen Jesus Christ, ascended into Heaven, our own Advocate who pleads for us. Many thanks. 

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