2 June 2019
The Ascension of the Lord
On the universal Roman calendar of the Catholic Church, Ascension was celebrated last Thursday and today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter. In most (but not all) of the dioceses where people pray with Magis, however, the feast of the Ascension is transferred to today. Since, in any event, we are in the Pentecost novena, which begins the day after Ascension Thursday and continues to the Vigil of Pentecost, let us consider the readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter in light of Christ’s Ascension into heaven.
In Acts 7:55-60, Stephen is filled with the Holy Spirit, whose coming we earnestly pray for during the Pentecost novena. As he faces those who oppose the good news that he proclaims, he looks up and says, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” This is a very “fleshy” vision: Stephen actually sees Jesus standing in that place to which he has ascended with his human body. It is a curious thought: we would be wrong to think of heaven as a physical place that we can find with a spaceship, and yet, in that place of eternal love that surpasses our understanding, the eternally begotten son of God stands also as the son of man, born of Mary, fully God and fully man.
This true man who is as truly God will return again, as Revelation 22 assures us. It is not by stripping ourselves of our humanity that we find him, but by embracing the sacred humanity that he offers us, for all of its needy incompleteness points properly to what only God can satisfy. “Let the one who thirsts come forward, and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water. The one who gives this testimony says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:17,20).