Homily on the Ascension against the critics of the Ascended Lord
@1 Dear brothers and sisters and friends in Christ:
Happy Feast day of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus into heaven !
@2 His Ascension is a glorious mysterious event and movement that His Apostles as our ancestors were enviably privileged to witness and that led them once more to the worship of Him: “He took them out as far as the outskirts of Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 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” Lk 24: 50-53).
@3 But the Ascension of Christ into heaven is only one of the components of that system of four movements made by the Son of God from, through, and to three diverse places : heaven, earth and the underworld.
@3a) The journey underlying the four movements began catabatically (descending) from heaven (egressus usque ad exitus), and passing through the earth (after thirty-three years long sojourn therein), to the underworld and then (after sojourning therein for only three days) anabaticallly (ascending) from the underworld, and passing again through the earth (after sojourning therein for forty new days), back to heaven (regressus usque ad reditus), from where he will come again at the end of times to judge the living and the dead in the midair between heaven and earth. And the earth is thus where the Lord on the move lived most of the time during the journey.
@3b) The structure (unity of the components or contours, embracing linear and curved figures) of such journey can be optic-vividly illustrated and symbolically represented with a complex curved 8-shaped geometrical figure the components of which are one linear figure and four curved figures, the one linear figure being a vertical line (O1AO2) as the shortest distance between two points O1 up and O2 down and the midpoint which is point A, while the four curved figures embrace two diversely moving convex curves and two diversely moving concave curves:
1) the first convex curve is the one that moves from the point O1 above (representing heaven) and bends in descending and anticlockwise order to stop at point A (representing the earth and earthly existence of humans), this curve represents the mysterious joyful descent of the Son of God from heaven to the humans existing on Earth at the Incarnation;
2) the first concave curve, continuing from where the first convex curve stopped, is the one that moves from the point A (representing the earth and earthly existence of humans) and bends in descending but clockwise order to stop at point O2 below (representing the underworld), this curve represents the mysterious sorrowful descent of the incarnate Son of God from the land of living on earth to the souls of the dead in purgatory in the underworld as the land of the dead;
3) the second convex curve, continuing from where the first concave curve stopped, is the one that moves from the point O2 below (representing the underworld) and bends in ascending and anticlockwise order to stop again at point A (representing the earth and earthly existence of humans), this curve represents the mysterious glorious Resurrection of the incarnate Son of God from the dead;
4)) the second concave curve, continuing from where the second convex curve stopped, is the one that moves again from point A (representing the earth and earthly existence of humans) and bends in ascending and anticlockwise order to stop again at point O1 above (representing heaven), this curve represents the mysterious glorious Ascension of the incarnate Son of God into heaven from the earth.
@4 Last year 2020 my reflection was on heaven as the point of arrival (terminus ad quem) of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus as the last of the altogether four pre-eschatological movements made by Him as the Son of God from heaven, through the earth, to the underworld, and from the underworld, through the earth again, back to heaven.
But this year 2021 my reflection is on the earth as the point of departure (terminus a quo) of this last of the named four movements of the Son of God as the communicator to humans on earth of the salvation willed by the Father and to be brought to completion by the Holy Spirit as the Spirit that proceeds from the two together.
The reason for this choice is the doubt that has arisen in the minds of those that claim that Christ, before returning to heaven from where He was sent by the Father to save the world, did not accomplish the work on earth for which He came, in spite of the fact that Christ Himself, before He returned to heaven, had explicitly stated that He had finished the work: “Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you....I have glorified you on earth and finished the work that you gave me to do. Now, Father, it is time for you to glorify me with the glory I had with you before ever the world was. I have made your name known to the men you took from the world and gave me. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now at last they know that all you have given me comes indeed from you; for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have truly accepted this, that I came from you, and have believed that it was you who sent me. I pray for them....As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself, so that they too may be consecrated in truth...I have given them the glory you gave to me that they may be one” (Jn 17: 1.4-9a.18-19.22).
@5 The doubting critics are not shy to contradict Him who as the Truth cannot say untruth, cannot tell lies. He is the Truth (cf Jn 14:6) and there is no lie nor deceit nor untruth nor dishonesty in Him at all. He is God and God is Light in whom there is no darkness at all (cf. 1Jn 1:5).
The critics have dared to doubt Him because according to them the world has remained as unredeemed after Christ’s going back to heaven as it was before he came from heaven. They say these in the face of the almost innumerable evils going on today in the world which have lacerated the face of the earth and made the world every other thing than a happy home for humans.
@6 But we stand to contradict these contradictors of our Lord and thus to correct and overtake rather than taking over their doubts .
@6a) First of all, this world is not meant by God the Creator to be a home for humans. This visible world is transitory, and humans living in it are in transit and are passing through it, with it and in it towards the invisible world of supernatural realities. Such realities are the eternal things as events like the eternal life, eternal love, eternal joy, eternal glorification, and eternal things as objects like the holy city and home and house of God, and the eternal persons, namely the three divine persons called God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and the holy angelic persons in heaven and the saints in paradise as holy human persons. And it is into such a supernatural world that Christ has ascended.
@6b) Furthermore, with regard to the proper understanding of the earthly life of humans as seen from the point of view of the divinely revealed plan of the Creator Himself those who - seeing the continued existence of numerous evils in the world even after Christ the Saviour has come from and gone back to heaven - have wrongly concluded that Christ did not accomplish the mission of salvation of humans on earth for which the Father sent Him into the world, would not hold further to their assertion if they acquire among others the following three pieces of knowledge:
1)) Life is a process, a historical event, its history comprises its origin and its development in stages, and the event comprises actions of persons and occurrences of things. The events (namely actions of persons and occurrences of things) that are taking place in the time of the life of man on earth have their history (namely origin and development).
1a)The life of man on earth is both the material and the spiritual life.
1aa)The material life is an aggregate of actions of persons and occurrences of things, 1) perception and reactions to perceived realities as to existing beings, 2) respiration, 3) making of movements to or from objects of perception, 4) self-nutrition, 5) growth as structural and mental expansion, 6) self-reproduction, 7) rejection and ejection and driving far away poisonous gaseous and liquid and solid material waste products of metabolism and anabolism from the body and from the environment.
1ab) The spiritual life of man on earth is both the ascetic and the mystical life.
The ascetic life is one of radical detachment from the Evil One, from the Devil and from all evil spirits and from all the evils they cause.
The mystical life is one of intimate attachment to the Holy One, to the Holy Spirit, to the Most Holy Trinity , to Holy Mary Mother of God, to the holy Angels and to the Saints in heaven as to holy men during their earthly pilgrimage to heaven.
1b) The life of man on earth, whether the material or the spiritual, is a divinely assisted journey of divinely propelled progress of Man.
1ba) The material life of man is a divinely assisted journey of divinely propelled progress of the human being from his being an embryo in the maternal womb to his being a new born baby and child to his being a youth to his being an adult to his being an aged (anziano) to his being old or very old (vecchio, antiquus).
And such development, movement, progress, is reflected in the development of his physical posture after birth from lying horizontally to (learning) sitting down, then to (learning) standing up (vertically), then to (learning) walking (straight and round), then to (learning) running, till when the human spirit containing the soul will be flying off from the body at death on earth towards the Creator as the eternal Father who is in heaven.
1bb) The spiritual life of man is a divinely assisted journey of divinely propelled progress of the human being from his being a good child of God, through being a holy man of God, to being a Saint as holy friend and righthandman of God in the holy Home and House and Heart of God in Heaven, after living a holy life here on earth.
And such movement is recaptured by the coming of the Son of God from heaven into this world to bring salvation as a historical event in stages only to return to heaven, after sowing the seeds of salvation into the soul and, therein central, into the mind and heart, mens et cor, hence into the mentality as principle of the culture of the people and into the cordiality as principle of the civility of the people .
2))Christ came from heaven to communicate to humans on earth the salvation willed by the Father for everyone and to be brought to completion by the Holy Spirit.
Salvation for humans is a process that proceeds 1) from their being redeemed - liberated from evil, from fear, from ignorance, from sin, from death, and healed from the wounds sustained from falling away from God and reput on the right way to God - by Christ, 2) through 2a) their divinely aided returning to God and seeing God face to face and 2b) their entering into the interior of God from where God had called them out into existence on earth, 3) to their divinely aided participation in that eternal life of God as the full life and the fullness of life and as the proper life of eternal love fo one another, eternal joy at one another and eternal glorification of one another and eternal peace with one another) which is going on eternally inside God among the three persons in the numerically one God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit .
He came that they may have life and have it to the full (cf Jn 10:10), and the way to have such full life and fullness of life passes through His giving them the word of God as word of life to hear and trust and obey and His flesh to eat as two main sources of eternal life.
The seeds of salvation sown by the Bringer of salvation from the Saviour God the Father from whom comes all that is good into the mind and heart, mentality and cordiality, culture and civility of the human individual and of the different shades of the human collectiveness (family, community, society, tribes, nations, peoples, race) are in due time to germinate and grow and bear fruits containing seeds that perpetuate the ones sown by Him for the salvation of humans to the glory of God the Father, and the germination of each seed into tree and the growth and fruit-bearing of the tree take place only after Christ the Sower of the seed has gone back and before He will come again to judge humans as to their bearing fruits to the glory of the Father.
And Christ sows the seeds of salvation only in those humans that believe in Him. Such seeds of salvation sown by Christ in His Believers - not in those who do not believe in Him - are the imperative word of God that means eternal life (cf. Jn 12: 49-50) and the bread of life that the flesh of the Son of Man is and which He gave His Believers to eat as spiritual heavenly food that, through its ability to give eternal life (cf. Jn 6:51.54-58), is able to give salvation as participation in the eternal life, to the eater and which those who do not believe in Him refuse to eat, wherefore Christ said they would not have eternal life in them, for unless one eats the flesh of the Son of man and drinks His blood one would not have life in oneself (cf Jn 6:53), whereas whoever eats that flesh and drinks that blood would have life everlasting and would be raised up by Christ on the last day (cf. Jn 6: 54).
Thus Christ the Son of God that the Son of Man is, came into this world to sow the seeds of eternal life and hence the seeds of salvation (semina salutis) but each of which needs its time to germinate into plant that in turn needs its time to grow and to bear fruits that contain seeds that perpetuate the one originally sown by Christ.
3)) The continued existence of numerous evils in the world after Christ the Saviour has come from and gone back to heaven is caused over-averagely by the continued words and actions and attitude of those in whom Christ did not sow the seeds of eternal life because they did not want it, did not allow Him to do so, they were opposed to it and Himself the gentle and humble in heart (cf. Mt 11: 28-30) would not impose it on them though He proposes to them the reception of it as indispensable for eternal life and hence for salvation . It is caused under-averagely by those in whom He sowed this seed but who received the seed either on the edge of the path or patches of rock or in thorns, unlike those that received the seed in rich soil. For those who received the seed on the edge of the path are those who hear the word of the kingdom without understanding and the evil one comes and carries off what was sown in their heart. Those who received the seed in patches of rock are those who hear the word and welcome it at once with joy, but the seed has no root in them, with the consequence that when a certain trial, or some persecution on account of the word, comes, they fall away at once. Those who received the seed in thorns are those who hear the word, but the worries of this world and the lure of riches choke the word and so they produce nothing. Those who received the seed in rich soil are those who hear the word and understand it; they are the ones who yield a harvest and produce now a hundredfold, now sixty, now thirty (cf. Mt 13: 19-23).