HOMILY:  THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD ‘B’ 2018

‘There was no need for him to have gone upwards rather than downwards, from the point of view of distance to be travelled.  For, spiritually, heaven is as close down as up, and up as down, behind as in front, in front as behind, on one side as on the other; so much so that whoever has a true desire to be in heaven, then at that moment he is in heaven spiritually.   For the high road and the shortest road thither is measured by desire and not by yards.’

These words were written not by some radical twentieth or twenty-first century theologian.  They were written by a fourteenth century Englishman.  They are from that great English spiritual classic, ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’ (Chapter 60).  This means that any embarrassment we might feel as regards today’s Feast is totally misplaced.  The truth of the Ascension is in no way dependent on belief in a three-decker universe.  Because we no longer believe in that cosmology, there is no need for us to ditch our belief in what Our Lord’s Ascension stands for:  the triumphant return of the Risen Christ to the Glory of the Father.

This glorious return of Our Lord to his heavenly Father is the ground and foundation of our joy, as the Church and as individuals.   Today’s Feast is supremely about joy, the joy of the Ascended Lord, the joy he desires we share with him.  Our Lord is filled with joy, because all that he has offered to the Father, his sacrifice of love, is now shown to have been totally accepted.  That is what joy is about:  at the human level, joy is the fruit of love unconditionally given and unconditionally accepted.  This joy of the Risen and Ascended Lord is what the disciples experienced so vividly.  St Luke tells us that, when Jesus had parted from them ‘they returned to Jerusalem with great joy’.   The meaning of Jesus’ Ascension was something they felt – they knew it in their hearts as well as in their minds.

So let us pray that today’s Feast may bring us lightness of heart – true joy.  Perhaps our prayer can be: ‘Lord, I do not ask you to lighten my burdens, but, please, lighten my HEART!