T he Feast of the Ascension is traditionally observed on a Thursday during the Sixth week of Easter, which would be the fortieth day from Easter Sunday. However, in the United States, the feast is transferred to the following Sunday. This feast commemorates the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven and therefore completes the Paschal Mystery.

We rejoice because the risen and glorified Jesus physically returns to the Father. We await with joyful expectation his return in glory. Where he has gone now, we hope to follow. This is our ultimate goal: get to heaven. This is how the New Catechism defines heaven. "Those who die in God's grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God forever, for they see him as he is, face to face. This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity - this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed - is called heaven. Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness" (1023 - 1024).

As we celebrate this feast of the Ascension, on the one hand the disciples feel sad because Jesus is leaving them physically to be at the right hand of the Father. But in reality, he assured them many times before that he will continue to be with them, but in a different mode, in a different reality, in a different dimension. He will be with them and with us through the power of Holy Spirit, which he will send; that’s coming next week with the feast of Pentecost. His ascension does not represent his removal from the earth, but more so his constant presence everywhere on earth.

“Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.” (St. Augustine)

-- Fr. Khanh