Archbishop of Sydney

It is one of the oddities of contemporary Catholic life that we are celebrating Ascension Thursday on the seventh Sunday of Easter; or to be more precise we are celebrating the feast of the Ascension today.  In the old days when fasting was taken more seriously in Lent and Catholics were obliged to abstain from meat on Fridays, it was humourously suggested that we would have to fast and abstain when Ash Wednesday fell on a Friday.  So far, we have not come to that happy situation, and we probably will not as there are limits to flexibility!

 

The forty days between Easter Sunday and the Ascension are a strange and indeed unique period of time Christologically speaking.  Until Our Lord died on the Cross it was clear to friends and foes that he was human, despite his great miracles.  He might simply have been an extraordinary saint although I am not so sure how many saints have brought dead people back to life.

 

After the Ascension Jesus was no longer with us on earth as a living human being.  We therefore follow him in faith, accepting that He is Son of God and Son of Mary, but unable to verify this in scientific and mathematical terms.  Please God our decision to believe is clear and firm, but we see only dimly as we cannot talk directly to Our Lord to confirm our belief, and miracles, except the everyday ones we take for granted, are few and far between.

 

After Easter Our Lord was present to his disciples as true God and true man; certainly physical because doubting Thomas put his hands in Jesus’ wounds and because he ate with the disciples; but Jesus also appeared mysteriously through walls rather than doors and his enemies and strangers, all those without faith did not see Him.  Our Lord had not gone from us, but He was no longer with us as He was during his life, suffering and death.

 

The Ascension, which might be described as Our Lord’s final appearance before the coming of the Spirit, is recounted in the final section of Luke’s gospel and in the first section of the Acts of the Apostles, also ascribed to Luke’s authorship, which tells the story of the early days of the Christian communities.

 

I do not know whether Our Lord was capable of being irritated in his risen state, but the disciples are described as asking him a final question about the restoration of the political fortunes of Israel.  Was now the time for the restoration of the Kingdom?

 

It shows how deeply ingrained in political expectations were Jewish hopes for the Messiah.  I suppose our temptation after 2000 years of history lies towards the other end of the spectrum and that is to wonder whether Our Lord will ever come at the end of time to establish his Kingdom of Love and conquer the merchants of hate, violence and lies.

 

Jesus will come again in glory as Judge of all humanity, but we do not know when.  I suspect it will not be soon and his return will be at the end time, when there is a new heaven and a new earth, rather than an improved and up-market version of our daily life.

 

Incidentally the theme for our World Youth Day next year is in today’s first reading at Acts, chapter one, verse five: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses . . .  to the ends of the earth".  In European eyes we are at the end of the earth, but I suppose it depends where you decide to start.  For those of us who call Australia home, we should start from here.

 

It is instructive of the lateral way young people think, especially in text messaging, because the preparatory programme for World Youth Day is called Activate from the Latin numerals for chapter one verse five of Acts.  A number of young people suggested the title, which would never have occurred to me, at least from the text reference!

 

In conclusion then we should pray that our faith will continue to strengthen as we move through life; faith in Jesus as Son of Mary and Son of God.

 

The Ascension brings home to us that Jesus is not just a wonderful man, a great teacher, an inspirational prophet, but Lord of all human history and Lord of all the heavens and earth, the entire cosmos.  Amen.