Ascension of the Lord

Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

We come this Sunday to our diocese’s celebration of the solemnity of The Ascension of the Lord. It is a fascinating event that can be forgotten in our everyday language.

How often, for example, have you heard someone speak of the “Passion, Death and Resurrection” of the Lord, as opposed to the “Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension” of the Lord? The first is a far more common phrase. Yet the Ascension of our Lord is truly a pivotal event: with the Lord’s return to the Father his earthly ministry in his body ends and the ministry of the apostles (and, by extension, the ministry of the Church) begins.

This article will focus on the twofold meaning of the Ascension for us in the Church: the hope and mandate that come from it.

The hope that the Ascension awakens in us is the hope that we, too, can “ascend” one day with Jesus to the Father. It is heard in all the prayers of the Mass and in one of the readings.

In the Collect we pray: “. . . for the Ascension of Christ your Son is our exaltation, and, where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow in hope.”

The Prayer Over the Offerings does not use the actual word ‘hope,’ but the idea is there: “. . . grant, we pray, that through this most holy exchange we, too, may rise up to the heavenly realms.”

Finally, in the Prayer After Communion we pray, “. . . grant . . . that Christian hope may draw us onward to where our nature is united with you.”

The Church also gives us a short section of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that not only mentions our hope of being with Christ in heaven, but also entices us, draws us, one might say, by its very description: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones . . .”

It is vital that we understand how the Church uses the word “hope.” The way we use the word in ordinary speech, we might just as easily and accurately exchange for it the word “wish”: “I hope it does not rain tomorrow,” “I hope she shows up on time,” “I hope there are tickets left for the movie.”

This is not what the Church means by hope. The Church’s meaning is expressed in paragraph 1817 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Notice the parts of this definition: hope is a theological virtue — in other words, it does not even come from us but is a gift from God — and we rely, not on ourselves for its fulfillment, but on Christ’s promises and the grace of the Holy Spirit. And, we can add on this feast, on Christ’s first taking our human nature into the heavenly realms.

As Martin Luther wrote in his hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott), “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing,/ Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing.”

Pope Francis expressed this beautifully in one of his general audiences: “The Ascension of Jesus into heaven acquaints us with this deeply consoling reality on our journey: in Christ, true God and true man, our humanity was taken to God. Christ opened the path to us. If we entrust our life to him, if we let ourselves be guided by him, we are certain to be in safe hands, in the hands of our Savior.” (General Audience, 17 April 2013)

The Ascension of our Lord also brings a mandate, as we hear in the Gospel. Jesus has redeemed the world, reconciling it to the Father, and created the Church. He now entrusts to his Church a mission: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:18-20)

If the hope of eternal life with the Father cannot be realized without entrusting our life to Jesus, as Francis said, then those who know Him must proclaim Him to others.

Jesus’ command to make disciples “of all nations” may sound so broad as to seem to apply only to “the Church” as we often mean it, the great institution into which it has grown, but if it is to mean something to each of us — we individually are part of the Church’s constitution — we must see something more specific in Jesus’ words.

Instead of “all nations,” we might substitute “all people” or, even better, “every person.” In other words, the Church’s mission — and we are part of the mission — is to make disciples of our sister and brother, if necessary, our next-door neighbor, our boss, our co-workers and cousins. Not necessarily first by proselytizing, but by the “strangeness” of our Christian life.

Last Sunday we heard from Peter’s first letter: “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” (Pt 3:15) Why would someone ask about our lives if they were not different from theirs?

So, Jesus’ command to his apostles before he ascends to his Father becomes an exhortation and command to us as well: live a life that draws the world to me, that all may know “the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory” that await all who give their lives to our Lord.

The Ascension of the Lord — our hope and our mandate.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.