In Greek mythology, the belief was that gods could become incarnate for short periods of time. They could take on human or animal forms just for a day or two and then could shed their incarnate shapes as if nothing had happened. The Catholic understanding of the incarnation is quite different. As Catholics, we believe that the incarnation was not a temporary, passing action of Christ, but a permanent act, which transformed the whole history of creation.
God is love and he created the world out of love to share his love with his creation. Humanity was created good and lived in the blessed state of Paradise in the beginning. But through the sin of our first parents, humanity fell from grace, resulting in a wedge between God and his creation. But even when human race was in darkness, God did not abandon us. He became incarnate as Jesus Christ - that is, he came among us as one of us, taking on a human nature, becoming like us in every way but sin.
He did so, so that he could offer himself up as a sacrifice for us on the Cross, redeeming us from sin and restoring the bond between himself and humanity. He experienced unspeakable suffering and death upon the Cross for us. But death could not contain him. On the third day, Christ rose from the dead and revealed himself to the disciples. For forty days, he continued to appear to them, teaching them, helping them to understand his revelation.
Then, after forty days, Christ ascended into Heaven. What did this mean? After this point, Christ would no longer be present upon the earth in an everyday fashion. Instead, he would be present through the Church and through the Sacraments, especially through the Eucharist.
The Ascension was a major turning point for humanity. As Christ was about to return to Heaven, he gave to his disciples, and by extension to us, the mission of spreading the Good News to all the ends of the world. We are to be agents, messengers of God's grace, God's love to every human being upon the earth.
Why, we might ask, does God rely upon us, imperfect, sinful people to accomplish such an important mission? Why doesn't God deal with each person individually? The answer is that God wants to build up a universal web of love among all of humanity. He wants to gather us into the Communion of the Saints where his love flows through all people to all people, where each of us loves all others with his infinite, eternal love. That is why God has each of us help each other, serve each other, teach each other, pray for each other.
But before Christ sent the disciples out into the world, he told them to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, nine days after the Ascension, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples at Pentecost. The disciples realized, as we must too, that we are powerless without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the animating principle of the Church, which gives us the spiritual power to live out and to proclaim our faith.
Just like the first disciples, each of us today is given the mission of sharing the Good News of Christ with humanity, through our words and actions. Historically, Christians have often gotten complacent and have failed to live up to the mission entrusted to them. In years past, how many Catholic nations failed to bring Christ to unbelievers? We must do better than such ancestors in the faith. We must take our mission to spread the Good News seriously.
But how can we do so? The first step is to build a Catholic life, which becomes an example to others. We need to build a Catholic community around us, connecting with, interacting with, helping and supporting other Catholics. We need to organize our lives around the rhythm of the liturgical year, which used to shape the life of Western Civilization.
Our day-to-day lives should incorporate prayer, fasting, and frequent participation in the sacraments. We should base our lives on the teachings of Holy Mother Church, making decisions in conformity with the wisdom of the Catholic faith.
We should share the joy of our faith with others. We should reach out to them in service. We should answer their objections to our beliefs with love. We should find opportune moments to proclaim the Gospel through words prudently. And we should support those who undertake verbal evangelization as their central ministry.
At the same time, we must avoid a sense of joylessness. Our faith in and our relationship with Christ should give us a deep, abiding sense of joy. Even in our suffering we can experience joy if we unite our suffering with the Cross of Christ.
We must also avoid hypocrisy of any sort. There is nothing worse than a Christian who talks a good talk but then does everything according to worldly standards day after day. We should be consistent and true to our beliefs in our actions.
Finally, we should also avoid Catholic infighting. So many prominent Catholic commentators seem to love bickering with each other in public. I like to quote Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: "We are all friends here. Or should be; for the laughter of Mordor will be our only reward, if we quarrel." Let us set aside petty squabbles and focus on what is most important - proclaiming the message of Christ to all people in the world.
As we do so, we are preparing the world for the Second Coming of Christ. When Christ returns, he will raise all the dead and will remake the world. He will create a new world order centered on and governed entirely by his love.
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The readings for the Ascension Sunday, Cycle C are:
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47:2-3, 6-7, 8-9
Ephesians 1:17-23
or Hebrews 9:24-28; 10:19-23
Luke 24:46-53
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: The Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus ascended into Heaven by Zoltan Abraham (c) 2016.