HEAVEN ON EARTH.
May 29, 2022
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord.
“As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to
heaven.” Luke 24:51
A Sicilian proverb says: “Everyone wants to go to heaven;
the desire is there but the fortitude is not.” And a Cambodian proverb adds:
“You can't claim heaven as your own if you are just going to sit under it.”
Many people will like to have a taste of heaven while still
on earth. Many others live on this earth as if heaven does not exist and will
never exist. In front of these two types of people, today's solemnity sounds
like a call to hope for heaven without disconnecting ourselves from the earth
and its realities.
"Men of Galilee, why gaze in wonder at the heavens?
This Jesus whom you saw ascending into heaven will return as you saw him go,
alleluia." Acts 1: 11 This is the beautiful entrance antiphon that plunges
us into today's liturgy. We are forty days after the Resurrection of the Lord.
After these forty days of apparitions and self-revelation to his disciples, the
Lord Jesus, today is taken into heaven.
About the Ascension of the Lord, this is what the Church
teaches in the article of the Creed when we say: HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN AND IS
SEATED AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER: “This final stage stays closely linked
to the first, that is, to his descent from heaven in the Incarnation. Only the
one who "came from the Father" can return to the Father: Christ
Jesus. "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven,
the Son of man." Left to its own natural powers humanity does not have
access to the "Father's house", to God's life and happiness. Only
Christ can open to man such access that we, his members, might have confidence
that we too shall go where he, our Head and our Source, has preceded us.” CCC
661
The solemnity of the Ascension raises high all our hopes as
people of this earth. These hopes are also that of the Apostles and the
disciples to whom Jesus, after His resurrection showed himself. In today's
first reading, we hear that the Lord, after His resurrection appeared to his
disciples, promised them the Holy Spirit, gave them the mandate to be His
witnesses and make many disciples to him, and then finally was lifted into heaven.
The most surprising at the Ascension was not so much the Lord rising into
heaven, but the attitude of the disciples: “staring into the sky”. A kind of
disconnection from earth and the surrounding realities. They were as if lost in
ecstasy and astonishment, but also disoriented about what was to come next.
Once their attention is called upon by the Angels, the
disciples will go back to Jerusalem and await the time of the fulfillment of
the final promise of Jesus to them, the time the Holy Spirit will be given them
and make them missionaries of the good news of Christ.
Brethren, the Lord our Savior, goes up today with shouts of
joy; he goes up with trumpet blast. While we rejoice at his Ascension, may we
not miss the focus on our mission. We could say, the mission of Jesus
officially has ended today. But then begins our mission, the mission of the
Apostles and disciples of Christ. Christ who ascended and is now seated at the
right hand of the Father in heaven wants us to make of this earth the first
stage of heaven, the laboratory of the life to come. Ascending, the Lord has
not deserted his followers. We hear him saying in the acclamation: "Go,
make disciples of all the nations. I am with you always; yes, to the end of
time." He is with us always. He goes up in heaven to be with us here on
earth.
St. Luke's narrative of the event of the Ascension in the
Gospel is a confirmation of what he said in the first reading. Heaven is to be
prepared on earth. The Beatitudes the Lord gave to his disciples before his
Passion is not for tomorrow but for here and now. It is today we must live in a
way that best opens us to tomorrow's life of blessings. In our families,
schools, offices, hospitals, parishes, and streets, the Gospel of Christ is to
be proclaimed and lived. We hope for a world that is better than this of the
present. We desire to live forever with Jesus in heaven. May that hope help to
shape our lives here on Earth. Heaven is possible. But it must be prepared
today.
Let us end with these beautiful words of St. Luigi Orione about the Ascension: “And behind Christ new heavens open: it is like the dawn of the triumph of God! They are new peoples, new conquests, it is all a triumph, never before seen, of great universal charity, since the one who finally wins is He, Christ, and Christ conquers in charity and mercy. The future belongs to Him, to Christ, the unconquerable King.” Undoubtedly, the future belongs to Christ. But the present that will lead to that future belongs to you and me. May we contribute today, by our actions and faith and hope at the advent of that future. For, heaven is not the fruit of idleness and laziness on earth, but of faith at work in charity and firm hope.
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