On the Ascension

Don't the apostles get unfairly chastised by the men in white:  "Why are you looking for Him?" Why wouldn't they look for Jesus?  So much had happened so quickly for them, and they knew whose Presence they were in.  It's scary to be away from that once you've been right next to God Himself.  They know that they are chosen and held apart from the rest of us, but at the moment of the Ascension, they don't fully understand the work they've been given to do.  They don't see God's plan for them clearly.

It's a wonderful that the first caretakers of the Church experienced the very same confusion, doubt and bewilderment that we all do.  Without knowing or understanding The Plan, they show us what to do.  They are a living example of how to live every moment:  they let it happen.  They wait in prayer for help and inspiration.  They obediently accept Jesus' vision for the spreading of salvation in the world.

As they watched Jesus go from their midst, they also looked upward in hope.  Jesus went Somewhere, and he went in glory.  That going underscores that there's a destination for us, too, and it doesn't matter if it's upward or in the clouds or above the waters of the skies.  What matters is that after all of this--and most of us don't have to go through the pain, humiliation, betrayal and injustice of the cross--we get to go where He has gone.  There's a home for us.

Until then, we have His promise, one that resonates deep in me:  "I am with you always until the end."

Am I right there with him?  Always?  I'm trying. 

When I'm not, I can run straight to Him--for a palpable encounter with God Himself.  Because He didn't just leave us on our own to do it ourselves (and thanks be to Him for that!).  He didn't ask us to win our salvation on our own, or to figure out His nature, laws and Divine Order with our own intellectual gifts (or weaknesses).  He gave us a Church, He gave us Sacraments, and He gave us priests set apart from us to help us see the way more clearly through the busy-ness of domestic life.  Blessed be His Holy Name!

The shocking part to me in all of this is how God is Glory and Power and Wisdom.  He's so far beyond anything I can imagine, and yet He's with me--as long as I'm with Him.  There He is, waiting.  I can rest in Him even with all the distractions:  screaming kids, extra loads of laundry, biting dogs, disappearing income, and health concerns.  He didn't leave us:  He ascended up to His domain in Glory, where He waits for us.  I just have to go to Him, which just means putting aside my priorities and worries and lists and chores.

Being so good, He knew that even that small effort would be onerous.  So he left all those beautiful helps and reminders:  He left His very Self to share His Divine Life.   He gave us our friends, the saints, whose lives were like ours except for their faithfulness.  We know that people lived, breathed, walked among us and struggled with the same things (or worse) that we face.  People whose writings and examples show us the way, too.  Right there, all the time, just as He promised:  He's in the Sacraments, He's in the priests, and He's in the people that we meet.  The contact with Him can be constant--I only have to turn to Him.