The feast of the Ascension invariably brings to my mind a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land I made years ago. We visited the Orthodox Church of the
Ascension which overlooks Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, the
traditional site of the ascension. An old monk showed us around the
church with its beautiful mosaics and icons, but he saved what I’m sure
he thought the best for last. Gathering our little group into a circle,
he waited till he had our attention, and then pointed to the stone floor
in which, even in the dim light, we could see, worn but unmistakable,
traces of two footprints which, we were given to believe, were the very
footprints of Jesus, wondrously burned into that spot as he left his
followers to ascend into heaven.
Now, students of scripture and archaeology
would raise an eyebrow, and a question or two, at the old monk's claim.
The footprints are almost certainly the work of some pious believer from
the Middle Ages who wanted to make the holiness of the place even more
tangible and visible than it already was.
More than fifty years have passed since my
visit to that church, but I remember it clearly -- remember standing
near those footprints made holy by the faith of countless believers down
through the ages, watching people bend low to touch them reverently.
I did it myself, but I must confess that a rather irreverent thought
crossed my mind. It was this: the message of the angels to Jesus'
followers when he left them to ascend into heaven -- the one we heard in
today's reading from Acts -- was, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand
there looking up toward heaven?" Had those angels appeared to us,
I wondered, what message would we have received? Would it have
been, "Why do you stand there looking down?"
I don’t mean to be glib, and I certainly don't
mean to trivialize the Ascension by reducing its meaning to a couple of
directional adverbs. But looking up and looking down are more than
directional adverbs: they are symbolic words, highly symbolic words,
that are worth reflecting on this day.
The apostles stood there on the Mount of Olives
looking up toward heaven because they wanted to hold onto Jesus.
They were frightened at the thought of going on without him. And
our little group of pilgrims in the church that day -- so taken by those
footprints in the stone -- we weren't all that different. We
wanted to hold onto Jesus, too. In those few moments in that holy
place, with the old monk standing by, Jesus seemed very near:
close enough to touch. Who could blame us for wanting, in this way, to
hold onto Jesus like the apostles of old? But they didn't get to,
and we didn’t either. That's not what faith in the Risen Jesus is
all about.
So may I give you another way of looking at
what this feast of the Ascension is all about? Forget for a minute
the apostles of Jesus anxiously staring at the heavens; forget, too, my
little group of pilgrims, eyes intently fixed on the ground, and listen
instead to St. Paul in today's second reading, and listen to Jesus in
the passage we just heard from Matthew's gospel.
In the reading from Ephesians, Paul gives us an
entirely new direction in which to look. He speaks of looking
inward -- looking inward with what he calls "the eyes of the heart."
For Paul, the "eyes of the heart" are able to see so much more than
these eyes. They are able to see what he calls the hidden things
of God. Listen again to Paul's words: "I pray that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you a spirit of wisdom...so that with
the eyes of the heart...you may know what is the hope to which you are
called, and what is the immeasurable greatness of God's power in us who
believe."
Now that may sound a little abstract and
theoretical to you, but I assure you it is not. Paul is telling us
that there is absolutely no limit to what the “eyes of the heart”, the
eyes of faith can see. They are able to look inward with a kind of
`x-ray vision' and see the wondrous workings of God's grace. The
eyes of the heart are able, in times of pain and darkness and grief, for
instance -- as well as in times of abundant blessing -- to see the hand
of a mysterious but loving God at work. Only the eyes of the heart
can make sense out of life's deepest and most perplexing mysteries
because the eyes of the heart are really God's eyes: God's "great and
immeasurable power working in us."
So, my friends, you can see why I suggest on
this Ascension Day that looking up or down isn't half as important as
looking inward, looking with the eyes of the heart. Long ago, St.
Augustine, in a homily for this feast of the Ascension, put it this way:
“Christ ascended before the apostles’ eyes, and they turned back
grieving, only to find Him in their hearts!”
And then, one further direction: look outward.
That’s what Jesus told his followers to do before he ascended into
heaven. "Go and make disciples of all nations," he told them. That, too,
is what the feast of the Ascension is about.
The Ascension reminds us that we who follow
Christ are called to look outwards and to go outwards. We are
called to leave our comfort zone and to plant the seeds of the Gospel in
the very dirty soil of this world: soil that can be hostile to the
Gospel, or at least painfully indifferent to it. We are called to
proclaim good news that doesn’t always sound very good.
My friends, make no mistake: the Ascension is
about directions. Inward directions and outward directions. It is about
internalizing the gospel to the point that it takes root in us and
totally transforms us. And it is also about what so many of you do so
well: taking that gospel to the streets - preaching it - not so much by
words, but by the love you give, the stands you take, the poor you
serve, the justice you promote.
My friends, even though we are deprived of the
Eucharist these days, we are still given the Word – the all-powerful
Word of God, the nourishing and challenging Word of God. May that Word
come alive within us and send us forth – fired up to carry out the
command Jesus gave his friends as he left them: “go and make disciples
of all nations!”
Father Michael G. Ryan
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