7th Sunday of Easter, The Ascension of Our Lord - Year C - Even Closer Than Before & ‘How Great Thou Art’

This weekend, we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord into heaven. Many find this to be a very puzzling celebration. Why are we celebrating Jesus going away? Wouldn’t it be better if he was still physically with us? Wouldn’t it be better if we could get in an airplane and go and visit him? Isn’t Jesus going to heaven a bad thing because we can’t reach him?

The Ascension is not about Jesus going away and leaving us. We do not celebrate our Lord’s absence this Sunday but a new kind of presence, one that lifts up human nature to the very throne of heaven.

Before the resurrection and ascension, Jesus’ bodily presence was limited. Only those fortunate enough to live in a particular place and time could encounter him firsthand. Even among his contemporaries, only a few could know him closely, personally, intimately. Now, after his Resurrection and Ascension, Jesus transcends these limitations. He is no longer restricted by space and time as we are. He can be intimately present to all people, everywhere, and in every age. We don’t need to get in an airplane to encounter him, Jesus is with us now. He is present in the Eucharist, he speaks to us personally through Scripture, he is there wherever two or three gather in his name.

The disciples clearly did experience the Ascension, on one level, as a departure. We heard the two angels in our first reading declare: ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there’.

The entry of our Lord into heaven does not mark his absence from us because we are united to him as a head is united to a body. When our Lord is lifted up and enters the presence of God, he brings us with him because we are united to him by faith and the sacraments. This is why the Ascension is instrumental to our salvation. Through our union with Christ, who is with us still, we are lifted up with him to the right hand of the Father in heaven. He is our head, we are his body.

This explains why our Gospel reading concluded with such joy. We heard St. Luke recount: ‘Now as he blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven. They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy; and they were continually in the temple praising God.’ Our Lord withdrew from them, and yet the disciples were full of joy, because they knew that he was still with them in the midst of the Church, and that one day his presence to them would be still more intense and perfect.

The Ascension is not a farewell, but a transition to a new and deeper intimacy, with the promise of a still greater communion to come.

In honor of this weekend’s readings, we’d like to share our latest video, "How Great Thou Art", a previously unreleased Sunday 7pm Choir recording and one of the most popular Christian hymns based on an original Swedish hymn entitled "O Store Gud". The English version of the hymn and its title are a loose translation by the English missionary Stuart K. Hine. Perfect for feasts and solemnities such as the Ascension of Jesus.

Video can be watched by clicking here or on the picture below: