Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

The Ascension of Christ | Salvador Dalí | 1958

The Ascension: The Absence That Becomes Total Presence

Mass Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Eph 1:17-23; Mt 28:16-20

Today we celebrate a mystery that, at first glance, might leave us with a taste of nostalgia or sadness: Jesus is leaving. After having passed through death, after having spent forty days relearning the disciples to recognize him in the breaking of the bread and in his glorious wounds, here he is slipping away from their eyes. However, if we listen closely to the liturgy, the Ascension is not a feast of farewells, but the feast of a new proximity: it is the moment when Christ ceases to be "beside" us to become "in" us. To understand this, we must climb that mountain in Galilee of which Saint Matthew speaks, and accept to look our own doubts in the face, because that is where everything begins.

First Point: The meeting on the mountain of fragility

Today’s Gospel tells us that the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain Jesus had indicated to them, and this detail is crucial: Galilee, in fact, is the place of the first call, the place of ordinary life, far from the pomp of Jerusalem. Jesus brings them back to the source, and there, on the mountain—that biblical place of meeting with God—something incredibly human happens: “When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted.”

Let us stop for a moment on this doubt: it is deeply moving. We have here men who have seen the Risen Lord, who have eaten with him, and yet, at the ultimate moment, human fragility takes over again, and this should profoundly reassure us. The mission of the Church does not rest on supermen with unshakable certainties, but it rests on men and women who worship while trembling, who believe while doubting. And Jesus does not reprimand this doubt; He uses it. The text tells us that He draws near to them. This movement of Jesus is magnificent, because He comes to bridge the distance that our doubt had created. The Ascension does not begin with a heroic ascent, but with the proximity of a God who comes to touch our hesitations! He tells us: I know who you are, I know you are fragile, and it is precisely to you that I entrust the world.

Second Point: Heaven is not a place, it is a Person

In the first reading, we see Jesus being lifted up and a cloud taking him from the disciples' sight. To our modern minds, this seems like space travel, but for the Bible, the cloud is the Shekinah, the presence of God that inhabited the Temple: Jesus does not enter the clouds; he enters the space of God. Saint Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, tells us that God seated him at his right hand in the heavens. But where is the right hand of God? It is everywhere.

Pope Benedict XVI explained to us that heaven is not a place above the stars; it is Christ himself. To ascend to heaven, for Jesus, means to enter into the power and presence of the Father. Now, God is everywhere: by "ascending," Jesus does not move away geographically, but he emancipates himself from the limits of space and time. As long as he was on earth, he was in only one place at a time: if he was in Jerusalem, he was not in Rome. By entering the glory of the Father, he becomes available to every human being, in every century, in every hospital room, in every moment of solitude… The Ascension is the invasion of the earth by heaven: Christ leaves so that he can knock on the door of every heart.

Third Point: The power that is only love

In the Gospel, Jesus declares: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” This word, “power,” more than domination, is the power of the One who washed the feet of his disciples; it is the power of the one who gave his life on the Cross; it is, finally, the power of the resurrection that breaks the bolts of death.

This power is the foundation of our hope, as Saint Paul emphasizes in the second reading: if everything is under His feet, it means that evil, hatred, and even death no longer have the last word. Paul reminds us again that the Church is his body, the total fulfillment of Christ, which means that the power of Christ now passes through us. The Ascension, then, makes us responsible! Indeed, Jesus does not leave us as passive spectators waiting for his return while looking at the clouds; He delegates to us his own authority to heal, to comfort, to set free. The power of Christ on earth is now your capacity to love, your capacity to forgive, your capacity to be a sign of his presence… He reigns through our hands.

Fourth Point: Go, baptize, teach: mission as the dilation of the heart

“Go! Make disciples of all nations”: this is the mission order. Therefore, no proselytism, no conquest of territories, but “make disciples.” A disciple is someone who lets themselves be transformed by a master, someone who enters into a friendship. And baptizing in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is not just performing a rite; it is plunging men and women into the ocean of Trinitarian love, letting oneself be reached by God’s salvation.

This is where the second reading joins the Gospel; indeed, Paul asks for a spirit of wisdom for us so that we may know what hope his call opens for us. The mission, then, is not a burden, but must be the result/consequence of an overflow of joy. We do not evangelize because we have to, but because we have discovered a treasure so great that we cannot keep it for ourselves. Teaching others to observe all that Jesus commanded is not imposing a heavy morality, but it is teaching people the art of living as free human beings, not to waste their lives, the art of living according to the Sermon on the Mount. The mission, finally, is to offer the world the sap of the vine that we have meditated on these past few days.

Fifth Point: Emmanuel, the one who remains

The conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel is one of the most dizzying sentences in the whole Bible: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age”; it is the final point and the starting point! Matthew began his Gospel by telling us that Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us, and he ends by confirming that this promise was not a historical parenthesis of thirty-three years, but an eternal reality.

The angels in the first reading ask the apostles: “Why do you stand there looking at the sky?” This is a question for us too: let us not look for Jesus in a distant abstraction; let us not look for him in a nostalgic past; He is here. Jesus is there in the Word we listen to, he is there in the Eucharist we receive, he is there in the poor we serve… The Ascension does not create a void; it creates an urgency of presence. It is because he is in heaven that he is closer to me than I am to myself. He is there “every day,” even on gray days, even on days of doubt, even on days when we feel like we have failed. His presence is not a reward for our merits, but a guarantee for our journey.

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Conclusion and Application for Our Day

The Ascension invites us to live with our feet on the ground and our hearts in heaven, and that is the secret of Christian balance. To put this into practice in our lives, I suggest three simple paths:

• First, leave behind the nostalgic gaze. Do not weep over a God who seems absent or a Church that seems fragile, but look at the Christ who approaches you today, even in your doubts. Remember that it is through your fragility that he wants to manifest himself; choose to trust him precisely where you feel most limited.

• Next, become the hands of Christ. Since Jesus is the head and we are his body, he no longer has any hands other than ours to bless and comfort. Today, perform a concrete act of service, so that your neighbor can feel, through your gentleness or your listening, that Christ has not left, but that he still dwells among us.

• Finally, live in the certainty of his Presence. When you feel alone or discouraged, repeat this phrase: “He is with me every day.” This is not a magic formula; it is the deepest reality of your existence. Let this certainty open the eyes of your heart so that you can see the light of his hope in every situation of your day.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, You who ascend into the glory of the Father, I give You thanks for this mystery of Your Ascension. Thank You for not leaving me an orphan, but for promising me Your Spirit so that I may be Your witness.

Forgive my doubts and the moments when I stay frozen looking at the sky, waiting for solutions to fall from above while You call me to act down here. Come and open the eyes of my heart so that I may contemplate Your invisible but real presence at my side.

Father of glory, give me this spirit of wisdom so that I may truly know Your Son. Make me a living member of His body, the Church. May I fear nothing, for I know that all power is in His hands and that His victory over death is already my victory. May Your love overflow from my life today, so that those I meet may recognize You living in me. Until the day I see You face to face, in the fullness of Your joy. Amen.