When
Jesus died on the cross they weep and mourn, but now, 40 days later,
as the disciples witness the departing of Our Lord Jesus from the
world, they act completely different! Did you notice their peculiar
response?: “full of joy, they are continually in the temple
praising God.” The Resurrection, those Easter days with the
disciples, and the final moments we celebrate today somehow change
their perspective. Perhaps now they have understood what Jesus had
promised them in the Gospel of John: “I am going away, but I will
come back to you.” Perhaps they know more fully what St. Matthew
records: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
How
can this be? Jesus is gone, but He is with us? The answer is to be
found in something deeper, like what C.S. Lewis speaks of in the
Chronicles of Narnia as “deep magic,” a part of reality that is
harder to perceive but is greater that the world we see. I speak of
the mystery of God Himself, which we are given in the image of the
clouds today.
Let
us listen to these words of Pope Benedict XVI: The cloud reminds
us of the hour of the Transfiguration, in which the bright cloud
falls on Jesus and the disciples. It reminds us of the hour of
Mary's encounter with God's messenger, Gabriel, who announces to her
the “overshadowing” with the power of the Most High. It reminds
us of the holy tent of God in the Old Covenant, where the cloud
signified the Lord's presence, the same Lord who, in the form of a
cloud, led the people of Israel during their journey in the desert,
and from which Moses received
the Ten Commandments of the Covenant.
This
is perhaps the most important meaning of the use of incense
for Christians: it reminds us that God
is near, God is truly
here in a mysterious and somewhat blinding kind of way.
BXVI
continues: This reference to the cloud is unambiguously
theological language. It presents Jesus' departure, not as a journey
to the starts, but as his entry into the mystery of God. It evokes
an entirely different order of magnitude, a different dimension of
being. … God is not in one space alongside other spaces. God is
God – he is the premise and the ground of all the space there is,
but he himself is not part of it...His presence is not spatial, but
divine. In this way,
Jesus' going away is in this sense a coming, a new form of closeness,
of continuing presence. ...through his power over space, he is
present and accessible to all – throughout history and in every
place.
Jesus,
whose entire mission and life was absolutely a gift for our
salvation, has now taken our human nature to where it was created to
be: united with God perfectly and forever. He never ceases to bring
us to the Father and His Grace to us. One of the titles of the Pope
is the Pontifex Maximus,
or great bridge-builder, a pagan term used originally for the
emperor, but speaking real truth about the role of the Pope, who
stands in the person of Christ for us. Through the Ascension, The
Lord Jesus is truly a bridge-builder between us and God.
CCC
662: Jesus
Christ, the one priest of the new and eternal Covenant, "entered,
not into a sanctuary made by human hands. . . but into heaven itself,
now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf."543
There
Christ permanently exercises his priesthood, for he "always
lives to make intercession" for "those who draw near to God
through him".544 As
"high priest of the good things to come" he is the center
and the principal actor
of the liturgy
that honors the Father in heaven.545
In
our lives, wherever and whenever, Our Lord Jesus is with us, “always,
to the end of time.” Especially here in the new Temple, the
Church, where through the sacraments Christ reaches out, touches us,
and blesses us. As the Apostles, so also should we joyfully live our
lives, giving Praise to God for His marvelous achievement.
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