The Ascension B (2105)

The Ascension is the completion of the Resurrection.

Together, they reveal Jesus’ Passion and death is a victory,

not a defeat.

The Ascension emphasises that this victory is total.

As I prepared these readings,

I was drawn to a sentence from the second reading.

The one who rose higher than all the heavens to fill all things

is none other than the one who descended.

Ascending and descending: the two are intimately linked.

In Jesus, and most especially in His Passion and Crucifixion

God becomes one with us – and he does this for us.

In that reaching down to us, that descending,

we encounter the overwhelming mercy of God,

who bears our faults in Jesus.

Humanity, individually and communally,

is reconciled through the passion and death of Jesus.

God is revealed as full of compassion and forgiveness.

This is only ‘half’ the revelation:

the movement down is followed by a movement up,

by an ascending, by a raising up.

Jesus rises from the dead:

his humanity remains, but is transformed, glorified.

There is an important interlude in which

he ministers to his disciples,

and then he rises, as Ephesians says,

higher than all the heavens .....

The Word of God, now with a human nature, returns to the Father.

He rose higher than all the heavens to fill all things.

All things: the victory is universal and wholly effective,

and we participate in this,

even if, for now, we do not fully understand how.

In St William’s, we have an artistic expression of this mystery.

The humanity of Jesus,

marked by the cross,

dressed as eternal priest,

arms outstretched in prayer, in intersession for us,

crowned as king of the universe, of all things

ascending to the Father, to the Father’s right hand.

In Jesus, God is both showing himself,

and showing his plan for human beings,

and, through Jesus, what God wants for humanity is made possible.

These movements, the descending, in the Passion and crucifixion,

and the ascending, in the resurrection and the ascension,

are together sometimes called the Pascal mystery.

The Paschal mystery changes fundamentally the relationship of humanity with God:

it achieves what it reveals.

The passion and death reveal and bring mercy and salvation.

The resurrection and ascension reveal and bring new, victorious life:

human life endowed with divine dignity.

In Mass, in the words of Eucharistic prayer III:

‘we celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son,

his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven’.

The depths of this are impossible to grasp.

In faith we enter into these depths,

we allow the mystery to work on us.

The Paschal mystery is good news indeed, news to be shared,

but for today let us take time

simply to rejoice in what the Lord has done.