Today’s homily: Ascension Day

The King Ascends, Our Nature Reigns

MASS Viri Galilaei
LESSON Acts 1: 1-11
GOSPEL St Mark 16: 14-20
PROPER LAST GOSPEL
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV

Beloved in Christ,

Beloved faithful in Christ, today the Church leads us to the summit of Olivet.

For forty days the risen Lord has walked among His own. Forty days since the stone was rolled back. Forty days since death was found empty-handed. Forty days since Magdalene heard her name spoken by the Gardener of Paradise. Forty days since the disciples on the road to Emmaus felt their hearts burn within them. Forty days since Thomas placed his trembling confession before the wounds of Christ: “My Lord and my God.” Forty days since the Apostles learned, slowly and painfully, that the Crucified had not merely returned from death, but had conquered death, judged death, emptied death, and made death itself a servant of life.

And now the forty days are complete.

The mountain stands beneath the morning sky. Jerusalem lies below, the city that killed the prophets and crucified the Lord of glory. Around Him stand the Apostles, still weak yet chosen; still chastened yet commissioned; still men of Galilee, yet destined to shake the nations. There too, according to the pious contemplation of the Church, stands His most holy Mother: she who first received Him when He descended into her virginal womb, now beholding Him as He ascends to the Father; she who wrapped Him in swaddling clothes at Bethlehem, now seeing Him clothed in inaccessible light; she who stood beneath Him when He hung between earth and Heaven on Calvary, now standing beneath Him as earth loses sight of Him and Heaven receives its King.

Bethlehem was His descent in humility. Calvary was His descent into sacrifice. Easter was His rising from the tomb. Ascension is His royal entry into Heaven.

This feast is not a farewell. It is a coronation.

The world imagines the Ascension as Christ going away. The Church knows better. Christ does not ascend in order to abandon His disciples, but in order to reign. He does not vanish into distance, but enters into dominion. He does not leave His Church orphaned upon earth, but takes possession of the throne from which He will govern her, sanctify her, feed her, defend her, judge her enemies, and send forth the Holy Ghost. The Ascension is not absence. It is sovereignty. It is not the fading of Christ from human history. It is the enthronement of Christ over human history.

The Introit begins with the angelic question: “Ye men of Galilee, why wonder you, looking up to Heaven? Alleluia. He shall so come as you have seen Him going up into Heaven.” The first voice the Church gives us today is not the voice of man but of angels. Earth stands astonished, Heaven speaks. The Apostles gaze upward, and who could blame them? Their Master, their Lord, their friend, their God, has been lifted from before their eyes. The hands that broke bread with them are raised in blessing. The feet once washed by Magdalene’s tears, once nailed to the Cross, rise from the dust of Olivet. The sacred Body conceived in the womb of Mary, scourged in Pilate’s praetorium, crucified on Golgotha, buried in Joseph’s tomb, glorified on the third day, is carried beyond the veil of visible things.

The Apostles look upward because the whole meaning of man has just gone upward.

But the angels do not permit them to remain frozen in wonder. “Why stand you looking up to Heaven?” This is not a rebuke of adoration. It is a rebuke of paralysis. They must adore, but they must also obey. They must look upward, but they must also go outward. They must contemplate the King, but they must also preach His Kingdom. The same Jesus who ascends will return. The cloud that receives Him today is the pledge of the cloud upon which He shall come again. The Ascension already contains the Last Judgement. The Christ who rises in mercy will return in majesty. The Christ who blesses His disciples will judge the nations. The Christ whose wounds plead for sinners will reveal what every soul has done with His grace.

The Epistle from the Acts of the Apostles gives the sacred history with majestic restraint. St Luke tells Theophilus that Our Lord showed Himself alive after His Passion “by many proofs,” appearing for forty days and speaking of the Kingdom of God. Christianity begins not with myth, not with sentiment, not with private religious imagination, but with fact. The Resurrection was seen. The wounds were touched. The voice was heard. The fish was eaten. The Body was present. The Ascension too was witnessed. “While they looked on, He was raised up: and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

That cloud is not weather. It is glory.

It is the cloud of Sinai, where the Law was given amid thunder and fire. It is the cloud of the wilderness, guiding Israel by day. It is the cloud that filled the tabernacle and later the Temple, so that the priests could not stand to minister because the glory of the Lord had entered His house. It is the cloud that overshadowed the Virgin Mary when the Holy Ghost came upon her and the Word was made flesh. It is the cloud that shone upon Tabor when the Father declared: “This is My beloved Son.” And now that same cloud receives the incarnate Son into the heavenly sanctuary. Sinai, the tabernacle, the Temple, Nazareth, Tabor, Calvary, and Olivet are one divine procession. God descends into our poverty that man may ascend into His glory.

Here is the great doctrine of today: our human nature is enthroned in Heaven.

The eternal Son did not borrow humanity as a garment to be discarded when suffering was done. He did not assume flesh merely to endure pain and then leave it behind like a tool no longer needed. He took our nature forever. He took it from the immaculate flesh of the Virgin. He took it into hunger, weariness, tears, labour, friendship, betrayal, agony, death, and burial. He took it through the Resurrection. And today He takes it into the glory of the Father. The dust of Adam sits upon the throne of God. The nature banished from Eden is carried above the Cherubim. The flesh once subject to death is seated beyond the reach of death. In Christ, man has entered Heaven.

This is why the proper Communicantes of today is among the most astonishing texts in the Roman Canon. The priest, standing at the altar within the unbroken prayer of the Church, commemorates “the most holy day on which Thine only-begotten Son our Lord set at the right hand of Thy glory the substance of our frail human nature, which He had taken to Himself.” The substance of our frail human nature. The Roman Rite does not speak vaguely. It does not dissolve the mystery into poetry. It says what happened. The Son of God set our nature at the right hand of divine glory. Not an image of man. Not a memory of man. Not a token of man. Our nature. Frail, wounded, mortal by inheritance, yet assumed, healed, glorified, and enthroned in Him.

This is the antidote to every modern degradation of the human person. Against materialism, the Ascension declares that man is not dust destined for dust only, but dust called to glory. Against sensualism, it declares that the body is not an instrument of appetite, but a temple destined for resurrection. Against ideology, it declares that human nature is not raw material to be redefined by will, technology, fashion, or rebellion, but a sacred reality created by God and glorified in Christ. Against despair, it declares that suffering flesh is not meaningless. Against sentimental religion, it declares that salvation is not an emotion but a conquest. Against the modern world’s horizontal prison, it opens the vertical gate.

A world that loses Heaven loses man. When men cease to look upward, they do not become more human; they become less. They begin to live by appetite, efficiency, resentment, entertainment, and fear. They build systems without souls, cities without altars, schools without truth, politics without virtue, medicine without reverence, and churches without transcendence. They speak endlessly of dignity while forgetting the only throne on which human dignity is finally vindicated: the throne where the incarnate Christ sits at the right hand of the Father.

The Collect teaches us the Christian remedy: “Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God: that we, who believe Thine only-begotten Son, our Redeemer, to have ascended on this day into Heaven, may also ourselves dwell in mind amid heavenly things.” The Church does not ask us to despise the earth. She asks us to dwell in mind amid heavenly things. This is not escapism. It is sanity. The man who thinks only of earth is the dreamer, because earth is passing away. The man who thinks of Heaven is the realist, because Heaven is eternal.

To dwell in mind amid heavenly things does not mean neglecting one’s duties. It means doing one’s duties beneath the gaze of eternity. The mother at the cradle, the father at his labour, the priest at the altar, the monk in his cell, the student at his books, the sick man in his bed, the widow with her rosary, the young man fighting impurity, the old man preparing to die: each may live an Ascension life. Not by fleeing his state, but by lifting it. Not by imagining Heaven while refusing earth, but by ordering earth toward Heaven. The Christian life is not a refusal of the world as created by God; it is a refusal of the world as corrupted by sin. Holiness is not life made smaller. Holiness is life raised up.

The Alleluia sings: “God is ascended with a shout, and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” The Church hears in the Ascension the sound of triumph. Heaven is not embarrassed by Christ’s kingship. The angels do not whisper. The saints do not murmur. The Psalmist does not say that God has ascended quietly, cautiously, diplomatically, as though divine truth must apologise before human unbelief. No: “with a shout,” “with the sound of a trumpet.” The King returns from battle. The Victor enters His city. The gates are lifted up. The ancient doors open. Captivity is led captive. Adam hears the footfall of the new Adam. Abel beholds the Blood that speaks better than his own. Abraham sees the promised Seed. Moses sees the fulfilment of the Law. David sees his Son and Lord ascending to the throne. Isaiah beholds the suffering Servant exalted. The righteous dead rejoice. The angels adore. Heaven receives what earth rejected.

And what did earth do with Him? It crucified Him.

That is the terrible contrast of this feast. Earth gave Him a Cross; Heaven gives Him a throne. Earth crowned Him with thorns; Heaven crowns Him with glory. Earth raised Him upon wood in mockery; Heaven raises Him above every principality and power. Earth placed guards at His tomb; Heaven places angels at His service. Earth wrote over Him, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” as accusation and irony; Heaven proclaims Him King of kings and Lord of lords. The Ascension is the Father’s answer to Good Friday. It is the vindication of the Son. It is the proclamation that the Crucified is the Judge of the living and the dead.

The Gospel of St Mark begins with a severe mercy: “Jesus appeared to the eleven as they were at table: and He upbraided them with their incredulity and hardness of heart.” Before He sends them, He humbles them. Before He commissions them, He corrects them. The men who are to preach faith to the nations are first reproved for unbelief. The men who are to call sinners to conversion are first made conscious of their own need for mercy. This is the divine method. God does not build His Church upon self-assured religious professionals, but upon forgiven, chastened, converted men. Peter denied and was restored. Thomas doubted and confessed. The Apostles fled and were gathered again. Their authority is real, but it is not self-manufactured. Their mission is glorious, but it is not born from natural strength. They will conquer the world because Christ reigns in Heaven and the Holy Ghost will descend upon them.

Then comes the command: “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Nothing in these words is timid. Nothing is vague. Nothing is embarrassed. Christ does not say: go and accompany the world while leaving it unchanged. He does not say: go and offer religious reflections to those who may find them helpful. He does not say: go and affirm every culture, every desire, every error, every idol, and every wound as though compassion required silence about truth. He says: “Preach the Gospel.” “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.”

These are not the words of a merely inspiring teacher. These are the words of the enthroned Lord. Mission flows from Ascension. Evangelisation is the earthly consequence of Christ’s heavenly kingship. Because He reigns, the nations must be summoned. Because He has conquered death, sinners must be called from sin. Because He sits at the right hand of the Father, no human power may claim final allegiance. The Church is not a voluntary association for moral uplift. She is the embassy of the ascended King. Her sacraments are not ceremonies of community sentiment. They are instruments of divine conquest. Her doctrine is not an evolving conversation. It is the truth entrusted by Him who reigns and will return.

This is why every age that weakens the Ascension weakens mission. A Church embarrassed by Christ’s kingship becomes a chaplaincy to unbelief. A Church unsure of Heaven becomes a social agency with incense. A Church that forgets judgement becomes incapable of mercy, because mercy without judgement saves no one from anything. A Church that no longer says “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” will soon have nothing left to say except what the world already says, only with softer lighting and older buildings.

But the Apostles heard the command, and they went. “They going forth preached everywhere, the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed.” Mark’s final sentence is one of the most consoling in Scripture. The Lord ascends, and yet the Lord works with them. He is taken up, and yet He is active. He sits at the right hand of God, and yet He labours in His Church. The Ascension does not end Christ’s work. It changes its mode. No longer does He walk visibly beside the roads of Galilee; He works invisibly through His Mystical Body. No longer does He preach in one place at one time; He speaks through His Apostles to the ends of the earth. No longer does He touch only those who press near His garments; He touches souls through Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, Matrimony, and above all the Most Holy Eucharist.

And here the Roman Rite places before us one of its most poignant gestures. With the completion of the Gospel on Ascension Thursday, the Paschal Candle is extinguished.

For the whole Paschal season that Candle has stood near the altar as the radiant sign of the risen Christ. Its flame has shone like the fire of the empty tomb, like the pillar of light leading the new Israel, like the visible proclamation that death is conquered. At the Easter Vigil it was blessed, lit, carried, praised, and honoured. Its flame pierced the darkness while the Church sang of the happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer. But today, after the Gospel has announced that the Lord Jesus was taken up into Heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Candle is extinguished.

It is a small action, but it contains a universe of doctrine.

The visible appearances of the risen Lord are complete. The disciples must no longer cling to the old manner of His presence. The flame is put out, but the Light is not gone. The sign ceases, but the reality remains. Christ is withdrawn from bodily sight, but not from the Church. Indeed, He is now nearer in a more profound way. He is near in the sacrifice of the altar. He is near in the tabernacle. He is near in absolution. He is near in the teaching Church. He is near in the poor, the suffering, the persecuted, the dying. He is near as Head to His Body, Bridegroom to His Bride, King to His kingdom, Priest to His sacrifice. The Candle is extinguished so that faith may grow stronger than sight.

This is the lesson every soul must learn. God often removes consolations not because He has departed, but because He is calling us deeper. The sweetness of prayer may fade. The visible supports may be taken away. The emotional warmth may diminish. The soul may feel that Christ has ascended beyond reach. But faith says: He is not gone; He reigns. Faith says: I do not see Him, yet He sees me. Faith says: I do not feel Him, yet He sustains me. Faith says: the cloud has received Him from my sight, but the altar gives Him to my soul.

The Preface of the Ascension gives the reason: “Who, after His Resurrection, appeared openly to all His disciples, and, while they looked on, was taken up into Heaven, that He might grant unto us to be sharers in His own divinity.” Here the whole mystery opens before us. Christ ascends not merely to receive glory, but to communicate glory. He goes before us as Head, that the Body may follow. He enters Heaven as Priest, that His sacrifice may be eternally presented. He sits at the right hand of the Father as Son, that adopted sons may be brought home. He shares our nature, that we may be made sharers in His divinity.

This is not metaphor. This is the destiny of the saints. Grace is the beginning of glory. Sanctifying grace is Heaven planted in the soul. The Eucharist is immortality hidden beneath the accidents of bread. Prayer is conversation with the homeland. Charity is the life of Heaven already begun on earth. Every act of repentance is a chain broken. Every confession is an anticipation of judgement and mercy. Every worthy Communion is an ascent. Every sacrifice accepted in union with Christ is earth being drawn upward into God.

The Offertory repeats the trumpet note: “God is ascended with a shout, and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” At the altar, this triumph becomes sacramental. The gifts are brought forward not as mere bread and wine, but as the matter of the sacrifice in which the ascended Christ will become present. The Secret prays that through these gifts offered for the glorious Ascension of the Son, we may be freed from present perils and attain everlasting life. Present perils are many. Some are obvious: sickness, war, persecution, poverty, betrayal, death. But the most dangerous perils are often quieter: lukewarmness, distraction, impurity, bitterness, cowardice, compromise, religious indifference, spiritual sloth, the slow suffocation of the soul beneath trivial things.

The greatest peril is to forget Heaven.

A man may lose money and still be saved. He may lose reputation and still be crowned. He may lose health and still become a saint. He may lose friends and still gain God. But if he loses Heaven, he has lost everything. If he gains the whole world and loses his soul, what has he gained? The Ascension restores scale. It teaches us what matters. It says to the ambitious: your honours will pass. It says to the sensual: your pleasures will pass. It says to the anxious: your fears will pass. It says to the suffering: your cross will pass. It says to the faithful: your glory will not pass.

This day was celebrated in Rome with fitting splendour. The station is at St Peter’s Basilica, at the tomb of the fisherman who saw the Lord ascend and later followed Him through martyrdom. Ancient Rome boasted of her emperors, her eagles, her laws, her roads, her armies, her triumphal arches, her marble temples, her claim to eternity. Yet beneath that imperial grandeur lay another power: the confession of Peter, the blood of martyrs, the sacrifice of the Mass, the hidden reign of the ascended Christ. The Caesars died. The persecutors vanished. The idols fell silent. But over the bones of Peter rose the basilica where the Church sings today: “Viri Galilaei.” The men of Galilee conquered Rome because the Galilean whom they preached had conquered death and ascended into Heaven.

The ancient papal ceremonies of this day made the doctrine visible. After the night Office and Mass at the altar of St Peter, the Pope was crowned by the cardinals and accompanied by bishops and clergy toward the Lateran. This was not theatrical vanity. It was liturgical politics in the noblest sense: the public confession that all earthly authority must stand beneath the authority of the ascended Christ. The Pope’s crown, rightly understood, was a servant’s sign beneath the crown of the King of kings. The procession from Peter’s tomb to the mother church of Rome was a visible sermon: the Church on earth moves through history because Christ reigns in Heaven.

Our age has largely lost the grammar of sacred splendour. It fears ceremony because it has forgotten what ceremony means. It mistakes majesty for pride, simplicity for impoverishment, informality for authenticity, and ugliness for humility. But man is not saved by banality. He is lifted by truth clothed in beauty. The Ascension demands splendour because it is splendour. The Church does not decorate emptiness; she adorns reality. Bells, incense, vestments, chant, procession, candle, genuflection, silence, and altar are not religious accessories. They are the body language of faith. They teach the soul how to rise.

And the Communion antiphon gives us the final direction: “Sing ye to the Lord, Who mounteth above the Heaven of heavens to the East, alleluia.” The East is the direction of expectation, the sign of the rising sun, the symbol of Paradise, the place from which Christians have traditionally awaited the returning Lord. We face East because history has a direction. We face East because the Church is not wandering in circles. We face East because Christ has gone before us and will come again. We face East because Christian life is an advent between Ascension and return.

Beloved faithful, we live now in that interval.

Christ has ascended. The Holy Ghost has been promised. The Church must pray, preach, suffer, baptise, absolve, offer sacrifice, endure persecution, convert nations, sanctify souls, bury her dead, raise her children, and wait for the King. We are not permitted the luxury of despair. We are not permitted the cowardice of nostalgia. We are not permitted the compromise of unbelief. The Apostles did not stand forever on Olivet. They returned to Jerusalem. They gathered with Mary. They waited in prayer. They received fire. Then they went out and gave the world a choice: Christ or chaos, Baptism or condemnation, the Kingdom or the abyss.

That choice remains.

Every soul must decide whether Christ is truly King. Not in theory. Not in decoration. Not in hymns only. In the mind. In the body. In the home. In the use of money. In speech. In chastity. In forgiveness. In obedience. In worship. In the hidden places where no one sees but God. Many will admire Christ so long as He stays in a stained-glass window. Fewer will obey Him when He commands the heart. But Ascension Day does not present Christ as an ornament. It presents Him as Lord.

Therefore lift up your hearts. Not sentimentally, but actually. Lift them from sin. Lift them from bitterness. Lift them from impurity. Lift them from cowardice. Lift them from the screens and distractions that make the soul shallow. Lift them from the suffocating smallness of a life lived only for comfort. Lift them from the false heavens of ideology, entertainment, applause, and self-will. Lift them to where Christ is seated. Lift them to the wounds that plead for you. Lift them to the throne from which mercy flows. Lift them to the altar where Heaven touches earth.

And do not say this is beyond you. Christ ascended with your nature. He did not ascend as an angel. He ascended as Man. He has taken with Him the very nature you bear, so that you may know what grace can make of you. Your flesh is not made for corruption. Your soul is not made for mediocrity. Your mind is not made for lies. Your heart is not made for idols. You were made for God. You were baptised for glory. You are fed with the Bread of immortality. You are called to follow where your Head has gone.

Where the Head has gone, the Body is called to follow.

So let the world look downward. Let it study dust and call it destiny. Let it enthrone appetite and call it freedom. Let it confuse noise with wisdom and novelty with truth. The Church looks upward. She sees the cloud. She hears the angels. She watches the King ascend. She extinguishes the Candle, not because the Light has failed, but because the Light now shines from the throne. She gathers at Peter’s tomb. She offers the sacrifice. She sings Alleluia. She waits for Pentecost. She preaches to the nations. She faces East. She expects the return.

“Ye men of Galilee, why wonder you, looking up to Heaven?”

Because Heaven has received our King. Because our nature is enthroned in Him. Because the Cross has become a sceptre. Because the wounds have become jewels. Because the tomb is empty. Because the throne is occupied. Because history has a Lord. Because the Church has a mission. Because the sinner has hope. Because the body has a destiny. Because the King who ascended shall come again.

And until He comes, we shall adore. We shall obey. We shall preach. We shall suffer. We shall lift up our hearts. We shall dwell in mind amid heavenly things. We shall receive the invisible effects of the visible Mysteries. We shall live as citizens of the Kingdom whose King already reigns.

For God is ascended with a shout, and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Alleluia. The Lord mounteth above the Heaven of heavens to the East. Alleluia. Christ our Head is seated at the right hand of the Father. Alleluia. And where He has gone in glory, may we, His members, follow in grace, until faith gives way to sight and the cloud that once hid Him reveals Him again in majesty. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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