Dear Friends,
As the Easter Season draws to a close a week from now, we look back over 50 days and recall the variety in the Scriptures and the developing mood as the mystery of Jesus’ Rising was ‘unpacked’ so to speak. Time and again our encounter with Jesus’ appearances to the disciples and his own reflections on his coming among us as one of us means that we never exhaust our understanding. Celebrating the Easter Season should never become routine and ordinary but an engaging discovery that there is always more.
When our Faith or prayer life becomes flat or our experience of Church feels like the ‘same old stuff’, we need a renewed attitude. Pope Francis’ creative efforts to express the Christian message in fresh ways and his call to the Church to embrace the informed views of all through Plenary Council and Synodal processes challenge us. As we ‘grow’ the Church, we need to be open to fresh understandings and structures to see a more authentic and in some ways simpler picture of a Church seeking its distinctive identity.
The Early Church took some time to clarify its understanding of the whole mystery of Christ. For example, the Ascension as a distinct feast was unknown in the first few centuries of the Church. While the ‘40 days’ has a theological significance in a number of areas, the actual dating of the Ascension 40 days after the Resurrection is found only in the Acts of the Apostles. Taking Jesus’ own words, we believe he returned to the Father but the time and manner remain a mystery. It is quite possible that the Ascension occurred on Easter Day. Eventually, the Church accepted the universal observance of the Ascension which was for many years, and in some countries still is, on Thursday.
At this time, we celebrate the Ascension, Pentecost, the Trinity, and the Body and Blood of Christ – great realities that are at the heart of our faith. How fortunate for our new converts as they experience these celebrations, and for our children too who are preparing to receive the Sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation later in the year.
Whatever the timing and nature of the Ascension, the disciples experienced the presence of Jesus in their daily lives after the Resurrection. The Ascension was an important moment of growth for them where they had to let go of Jesus’ familiar, physical presence. We know this reality well when our loved ones die or depart for a lengthy period. We wonder how we will manage without the intimacy of their physical presence – hard as it is, eventually most of us manage. In an Ascension sermon, St Augustine shares his comforting wisdom
Jesus did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.
This mystery challenges us not to hold on to the physical Jesus but to let him go – so that his presence in our lives will be even more profound – in our hearts, in our neighbour, in the Body of Christ, in his Word, in the Eucharist. We can share this Good News of Jesus with others by seeing Jesus where he really is. Recall the question of the two men in white to the apostles in Acts 1:10, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?’ Jesus has returned to the Father but his living presence remains here and now. Fr Dave