40 days following His Resurrection, our Blessed Lord was taken up Body and Soul into Heaven. Therefore, we gather to celebrate this Transferred Solemnity of Ascension Thursday today.
Some would consider the cross and resurrection as the sole important elements of our redemption. We cannot also forget about the importance of the Lord’s Ascension. The Ascension is, after all, a cause of our salvation just like the cross and resurrection.
The Roman Canon shows this importance as it stresses, “Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the blessed Passion, the Resurrection from the dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven of Christ, your Son, our Lord.”
The Passion and Resurrection can easily be spoken of concerning there importance to our salvation, but what can be said of the importance of the Lord’s Ascension?
Yom Kippur is known as the holiest day of the year in Judaism. Central to this day are the themes of atonement and repentance. It was this feast that served as the only time in the year where anyone would enter into the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was the innermost room to the Temple. The Holy of Holies was seen as being the spiritual junction of Heaven and earth. It is for this reason that the sanctuary of the church is sometimes referred to as being the Holy of Holies. We find that it elevated and thus it reminds us of Heaven. This space is special because it is here that the Sacred Mysteries of the Mass are celebrated.
Our second readingfrom Hebrews reflected upon Christ and His relationship to this room, “As the high priest enters each year into the sanctuary with blood that is not his own; if that were so he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the foundation of the world.” Therefore, it is the Ascension of our Lord which brings this to completion. He enters into Heaven and He acts as the true high priest who completes the work of our salvation. This is very important for us for without the Ascension our salvation would not be complete. Christ was not just another high priest who would enter into the Holy of Holies, but He was THE high priest who would enter into the Holy of Holies to bring everything to its fulfillment.
Saint Thomas Aquinas’ would look upon this important reality of Christ and state, “Christ by once ascending into heaven acquired for himself and for us in perpetuity the right and worthiness of a heavenly dwelling-place.” With this in mind this Solemnity of the Ascension is important because it (1) completes God’s atoning work, (2) allows us to enter into Heaven, and (3) anticipates the time when He will come again.
As we come to celebrate this Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension into Heaven we should look upward, with the apostles, towards Heaven and desire that one day we will indeed see Him face to face. The world in which we live is filled with a lot of chaos, just look to the Ukraine or Uvalde, but the Lord’s Ascension shapes our hope that we do not belong to this world. Let us be taken up to Him by how we live our life on this earth. May He always be the source of our faith and hope as we dare to go where He has now gone.
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