Thoughts on the Ascension
Here is a bouquet of thoughts for today drawn from various authors on my bookshelf. It will also give readers an idea of what I am reading in the precious moments I can steal between domestic duties and studies.
"The Ascension of our Lord and Saviour is an event ever to be commemorated with joy and thanksgiving, for St. Paul tells us that He ascended to the right hand of God and there makes intercession for us. Hence it is our comfort to know that, 'if any man sin, we have and Advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propiation for our sins.' As the Jewish High Priest, after the solemn sacrifice for the people on the great day of Atonement, end into the Holy of Holies with the blood of this victim, and sprinkled it upon the Mercy Seat, so Christ has entered into Heaven itself to present before the Throne that sacred Tabernacle which was the instrument of His passion, -His pierced hands and wounded side, - in token of the atonement which He has effected for the sins of the world." - Plain and Parochial Sermons, Ven. John Henry Newman
"What a change between that fateful Friday and this glorious Thursday; between Mount Calvary and Mount Olivet. There Christ wert alone; here Christ art well accompanied; there Christ ascended to the wood of the cross; here Christ ascendest to heavenly glory; there Christ wert crucified between thieves, here Christ art accompanied by the choirs of angels; there Christ wert condemned and fixed by nails; here Christ art free and the liberator of the condemned; there Christ suffered and died; here Christ dost triumph over death itself ... Christ, our Saviour, passed over the waters of this mortal life with a staff of wood in his hand - the wood of the cross - and now returns with two companies, one of angels and the other of the redeemed souls of the patriarchs and prophets who from the beginning of the world had awaited his coming." - Summa of the Christian Life, Ven. Louis de Granada OP
"And now all was expiated, the price paid, redemption accomplished, the powers of darkness were defeated, the perfections of the Father were acknowledged, His rights avenged, and the gates of the kingdom of heaven were opened to all the human race. What joy for the heavenly Father, to crown His Son after the victory gained over the prince of this world." - Christ in His Mysteries, Bd Columba Marmion OSB
"Our Lord Jesus Christ has left this earth; he has gone to a far country, sundered from us not by so many miles, or by so many light years, but by those subtle barriers which cut off the invisible from the visible; barriers so opaque, that the human mind itself, most penetrating of all instruments we know, cannot reach to the further side of them. Where he is, there his servant shall be; it is their future destination, and even now the centre of their loyalties. He has gone to claim a kingdom; and therefore St. Paul reminds us that we, his servants, have our home in heaven - or rather, if we will do full justice to St Paul's metaphor - have out citizenship; here on earth, all Christians are displaced persons. To this visible world which affords us, in the meanwhile, shelter and companionship, let us ever be grateful, as exiles should. But it is not the country of our dreams." Pastoral and Occasional Sermons, Msgr. Ronald Knox
"The Ascension of our Lord and Saviour is an event ever to be commemorated with joy and thanksgiving, for St. Paul tells us that He ascended to the right hand of God and there makes intercession for us. Hence it is our comfort to know that, 'if any man sin, we have and Advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propiation for our sins.' As the Jewish High Priest, after the solemn sacrifice for the people on the great day of Atonement, end into the Holy of Holies with the blood of this victim, and sprinkled it upon the Mercy Seat, so Christ has entered into Heaven itself to present before the Throne that sacred Tabernacle which was the instrument of His passion, -His pierced hands and wounded side, - in token of the atonement which He has effected for the sins of the world." - Plain and Parochial Sermons, Ven. John Henry Newman
"What a change between that fateful Friday and this glorious Thursday; between Mount Calvary and Mount Olivet. There Christ wert alone; here Christ art well accompanied; there Christ ascended to the wood of the cross; here Christ ascendest to heavenly glory; there Christ wert crucified between thieves, here Christ art accompanied by the choirs of angels; there Christ wert condemned and fixed by nails; here Christ art free and the liberator of the condemned; there Christ suffered and died; here Christ dost triumph over death itself ... Christ, our Saviour, passed over the waters of this mortal life with a staff of wood in his hand - the wood of the cross - and now returns with two companies, one of angels and the other of the redeemed souls of the patriarchs and prophets who from the beginning of the world had awaited his coming." - Summa of the Christian Life, Ven. Louis de Granada OP
"And now all was expiated, the price paid, redemption accomplished, the powers of darkness were defeated, the perfections of the Father were acknowledged, His rights avenged, and the gates of the kingdom of heaven were opened to all the human race. What joy for the heavenly Father, to crown His Son after the victory gained over the prince of this world." - Christ in His Mysteries, Bd Columba Marmion OSB
"Our Lord Jesus Christ has left this earth; he has gone to a far country, sundered from us not by so many miles, or by so many light years, but by those subtle barriers which cut off the invisible from the visible; barriers so opaque, that the human mind itself, most penetrating of all instruments we know, cannot reach to the further side of them. Where he is, there his servant shall be; it is their future destination, and even now the centre of their loyalties. He has gone to claim a kingdom; and therefore St. Paul reminds us that we, his servants, have our home in heaven - or rather, if we will do full justice to St Paul's metaphor - have out citizenship; here on earth, all Christians are displaced persons. To this visible world which affords us, in the meanwhile, shelter and companionship, let us ever be grateful, as exiles should. But it is not the country of our dreams." Pastoral and Occasional Sermons, Msgr. Ronald Knox
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1:43 am
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