Roman Text taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.
Illustrations and Captions taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.
English: Woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860.
Deutsch: Holzschnitt aus "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860.
Français: Gravure en bois pour «Die Bibel in Bildern», 1860.
Date: 1851-1860.
Source: Die Bibel in Bildern.
Author: Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794–1872).
Permission: Reproduction of a painting that is in the public domain because of its age.
This File: 13 December 2008.
User: McLeod.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The second Feast that is kept during Paschaltide is the Ascension, which crowns the whole of Our Lord's life. For the Risen Christ must needs cease to tread the soil of our poor Earth and must return to His Father, in whose bosom, as God, He must be for all eternity, and where, in Saint Cyprian's words, "His humanity is now welcomed with a joy no tongue can express". ["If you loved me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father." (Saint John xiv, 28.) For, to ascend into Heaven and sit at the right hand of God (Credo), is, for Our Lord, infinite glory and perfect bliss.]
Christ is now to take possession of the Kingdom of Heaven, which He has won by His sufferings, and to open to us His Father's House, "setting our frail nature at the right hand of God's glory" [Communicantes of the Ascension], that there, as God's children, we may fill the place from which the Angels fell.
So, as Conqueror of sin and Satan, Jesus enters Heaven; while the Angels hail and greet their King ["Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and the King of Glory shall enter in." (Psalm xxiii, 7.) As at His birth into the world (Hebrews i, 6), the Angels adore Our Lord on the day of His birth into Heaven.] and the Souls of the Just, freed from Limbo, form for Him an escort of glory.
"I go to prepare a place for you", He told His Apostles, and Saint Paul asserts that God has made us "sit together" with Christ, "in the Heavenly places," since, already, "we are saved by hope". "There, where the Head has entered," says Saint Leo, "the Body, also, is called to penetrate."
The triumph of Christ is the triumph of His Church. Like the High Priest, who, under the Old Law, entered the Holy of Holies to offer the blood of the victims to Almighty God, Our Lord, the Apostle tells us, has entered the Holy of Holies of the Heavenly Jerusalem, there to offer His own Blood, the Blood of the New Testament, and to obtain for us favours from God.
It is on Ascension Day that Christ begins His Heavenly Priesthood, showing His glorious wounds to God. "He is . . . always living to make intercession for us," and has obtained for us the Holy Ghost, with all His gifts [Hebrews x. It is of this that the Liturgy reminds us in the mysterious Prayer which follows the Elevation: "We most humbly beseech Thee," says the Priest, "Almighty God, command these things to be carried up by the hands of Thy Holy Angel to Thine Altar on High, in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty." Thus, every day, the Mystery of the Ascension is renewed, since the victim offered on our Altars of stone is the same as that seen by Saint John in the form of Lamb, on the golden Altar before the Throne of God.]
While it is the complement of all of Our Lord's Feasts, the Ascension is the fount of our Sanctification.
As the Church sings, in the Preface: "He was lifted up into Heaven, so that He might make us partakers of His Godhead." "It is not enough," says Dom Gueranger, "for a man to rest on the merits of Our Redeemer's Passion, not enough to unite to His memorial that of the Resurrection as well.
Man is saved and restored only by the union of these two Mysteries with a third: That of the triumphant Ascension of Him who died and rose again."
So, as Conqueror of sin and Satan, Jesus enters Heaven; while the Angels hail and greet their King ["Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and the King of Glory shall enter in." (Psalm xxiii, 7.) As at His birth into the world (Hebrews i, 6), the Angels adore Our Lord on the day of His birth into Heaven.] and the Souls of the Just, freed from Limbo, form for Him an escort of glory.
Part of Rembrandt's Passion Cycle for Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.
The Ascension.
Artist: Rembrandt (1606–1669).
Date: 1636.
Current location: Alte Pinakothek.
Source: www.uni-leipzig.de : Home.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The triumph of Christ is the triumph of His Church. Like the High Priest, who, under the Old Law, entered the Holy of Holies to offer the blood of the victims to Almighty God, Our Lord, the Apostle tells us, has entered the Holy of Holies of the Heavenly Jerusalem, there to offer His own Blood, the Blood of the New Testament, and to obtain for us favours from God.
It is on Ascension Day that Christ begins His Heavenly Priesthood, showing His glorious wounds to God. "He is . . . always living to make intercession for us," and has obtained for us the Holy Ghost, with all His gifts [Hebrews x. It is of this that the Liturgy reminds us in the mysterious Prayer which follows the Elevation: "We most humbly beseech Thee," says the Priest, "Almighty God, command these things to be carried up by the hands of Thy Holy Angel to Thine Altar on High, in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty." Thus, every day, the Mystery of the Ascension is renewed, since the victim offered on our Altars of stone is the same as that seen by Saint John in the form of Lamb, on the golden Altar before the Throne of God.]
Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh, United States of America.
Photo: March 2007.
Source: Own work.
Author: Piotrus.
(Wikimedia Commons)
While it is the complement of all of Our Lord's Feasts, the Ascension is the fount of our Sanctification.
As the Church sings, in the Preface: "He was lifted up into Heaven, so that He might make us partakers of His Godhead." "It is not enough," says Dom Gueranger, "for a man to rest on the merits of Our Redeemer's Passion, not enough to unite to His memorial that of the Resurrection as well.
Man is saved and restored only by the union of these two Mysteries with a third: That of the triumphant Ascension of Him who died and rose again."
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