Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Ascending Deeply Into Our World

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 05.26.22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

SOLEMNITY OF THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD

LUKE 24:46-53

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is taken up to his Father in heaven.
We tend to read the Ascension along essentially Enlightenment lines rather than biblical lines—
and that causes a good deal of mischief.
Enlightenment thinkers introduced a two-tier understanding of heaven and earth.
They held that God exists,
but that he lives in a distant realm called heaven,
where he looks at the human project moving along,
pretty much on its own steam, on earth.

On this Enlightenment reading, the Ascension means that Jesus goes up, up, and away,
off to a distant and finally irrelevant place.
But the biblical point is this:
Jesus has gone to heaven so as to direct operations more fully here on earth.
That’s why we pray,
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Jesus has not gone up, up, and away,
but rather—if I can put it this way—more deeply into our world.
He has gone to a dimension that transcends but impinges upon our universe.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus said to his disciples:
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
And behold I am sending the promise of my Father upon you;
but stay in the city
until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany,
raised his hands, and blessed them.
As he blessed them he parted from them
and was taken up to heaven.
They did him homage
and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and they were continually in the temple praising God.+++