Ascension of the Lord, Year B
First Reading: Acts 1:1-11
Second Reading: Eph 4:1-13
Gospel Reading: Mk 16:15-20
When Jesus rose from the dead, he did not return to earthly life like the people he had raised. His resurrection was essentially different: his body was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and the glory of his Father’s divine life, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
For example, it was no longer limited by space or time, but able to be present how and when he willed – even through locked doors – as we have heard since Easter.
St. Paul called him “the man of heaven,” for his humanity could no longer be confined to earth. Accordingly, 40 days after his resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven. He who had always existed as God the Son, having the same nature as God the Father, returned to the Holy Trinity in his full humanity.
Jesus’ ascension was not a “disincarnation,” as though God the Son had become human, lived, died, risen, and gone back to being God. Rather, he who now sits in authority beside his Father is a human man, even though we can no longer see him as such with our physical eyes.
We sometimes regret that Jesus did not stay with us longer. We think how wonderful it would have been to live when we could actually see, touch, and hear him.
Apparently, Jesus did not think that was important. In fact, he told Thomas we who believe in him without having seen him should consider ourselves “blessed” precisely for that reason.
Nevertheless, Christ knows, first-hand, that humans are body and soul. He knows we must be led to spiritual things by things that are “corporeal,” or physical, and “sensible,” or accessible to the senses. Accordingly, says the Catechism, he left us means of salvation “in the shape of corporeal and sensible signs” – “as the nature of man demands.”
We call them the sacraments. The Catechism defines them as efficacious signs, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, which through the action of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit dispense divine life to us.
By “efficacious,” we mean that they actually bring about or accomplish the spiritual realities they symbolize. For example, the water and words of baptism really do wash away sin and accomplish our re-birth with God’s life. The priest’s words of absolution really do bring about God’s forgiveness of our sins and our reconciliation with the Church.
Pope Francis says from the very beginning, the Church, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, grasped that whatever of Jesus could be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands, “his words and gestures, the concreteness of the incarnate Word” had “passed over” into the Church’s “celebration of the sacraments.”
Now, therefore, if we want to encounter Jesus in person (to see him, hear him, touch him, taste him, and smell his fragrance) we must go to the sacraments.
As “sacraments of salvation,” they dispense to us the fruits of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. As “sacraments of eternal life,” they unite us in a living union with God the Son, making us partakers of God’s nature. As “sacraments of faith,” they not only express our faith, but also nourish and strengthen it, instructing us by their symbolism.
The Catechism calls them God’s “masterworks” in his new and eternal covenant with us, for he has promised solemnly, by the blood of his own Son, that if we perform their outward signs in accordance with the Church’s intentions, the Holy Spirit will give us supernatural life and everything we need to maintain it, so that we can live with Jesus in the Holy Trinity in perfect happiness forever.
This Sunday, therefore, instead of regretting that Jesus has left us, let us turn to his Church’s sacraments with the joy the apostles experienced as they returned to Jerusalem after he had been taken from their sight.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English with new insights, in both print and YouTube form, at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. He is also teaching the course in person on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, 33rd Avenue and Willow Street, Vancouver, and Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon in St. Anthony’s Church Hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. The title of the presentation next week is The Beatitudes. The course is entirely free of charge and no pre-registration is necessary.