The Ascension 17 May 2026
It was fitting that Jesus would leave the apostles and return to Heaven.
Heaven was His true home, and where He really belonged. God attends to all the details as well as the main point.
It was necessary that Jesus complete His victory over sin and death. He was raised once at Easter, now ‘raised’ in a different way to Heaven.
But seeing it all as one process He came all the way down from Heaven and now is raised all the way back to Heaven, completing a glorious mission.
He had to rise bodily from the dead, leaving nothing for the devil to claim for himself.
There had to be this further exaltation because anything less would be undeserving. The Ascension is Our Lord’s ‘lap of honour’ as He shows to the Church (and then the world) that this phase of His mission is complete.
Benefits will flow from this event. Jesus can reach more people from Heaven than from earth.
He could have stayed on earth and healed the sick and other things that He did, but He can do more good to more people by sending blessings from Heaven.
With the Father He will send the Holy Spirit who will reveal all else that needs revealing, and guide the Church as to its mission and its teaching.
The Church will now stand in for Christ in all its aspects.
The Church will preach, the Church will heal the sick, the Church will absolve sin etc.
The Church will also share in the sufferings of Christ, and come through humble submission to the throne of grace.
Some will say that they deal with Jesus direct, and do not worry about the Church. This is to over-simplify the matter.
Our Lord wanted the Church to take His place and take His word and sacraments to the whole world (Mt 28,19-20). We cannot improve on that process, particularly if Christ Himself set it up.
Do we come into this somewhere? We are among the saved, and the saving.
Saved insofar as we benefit from the death and resurrection of Our Lord.
Saving insofar as we reveal to others what they could have if only they would turn to God.
The Ascension was a victory; we need many more like it.
There will be another descending by Jesus; meaning His second Coming.
There will be another ascending by Him when He takes all the saved into the glory of Heaven, now with glorified bodies.
The apostles did the most sensible thing after they witnessed the Ascension – they prayed; they went back to their base and prayed for all they were worth.
With Mary (no insignificant player!) they prayed for nine days (the origin of the Novena) to bring about whatever it was that Jesus had referred to them.
And we know what happened next. The Holy Spirit came as predicted.
But we see how much prayer was needed to bring Him to our midst.
we have a job to do, and it is to keep knocking on the door of Heaven to send the Holy Spirit.
Why do we have to pray so much for something that God Himself wants to do? It is because there has to be someone to receive Him, to keep the reciprocal communication active.
We pray all year, but especially this week of the Pentecost Cenacle, for the victory of Jesus Christ to hold firm in every place, every time, every person.
The more fervently we pray the more good things will happen, and keep happening.
Come Holy Spirit!
No comments:
Post a Comment