Then he led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them.
To get to Bethany, which was two miles east of Jerusalem, Christ and the Apostles would have descended down the steep Kidron Valley and then ascended up the Mount of Olives. At the western base of the Mount of Olives was the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ was arrested. Forty-three days later, following behind Christ, the Apostles would have passed by the Garden on their way to Bethany which was at the eastern base of the Mount of Olives.
Why did Christ take the Apostles on this little hike before ascending? Why did He not just vanish from the Upper Room in Jerusalem? Perhaps He wanted them to walk by the Garden of Gethsemane first, as a reminder of what happened the night before He died. Perhaps they all looked over at the garden, winced, and said to themselves, “That’s where I ran away when things went bad.”
When the hike was over, and they were on the eastern base of the Mount, Christ blessed them—with hands that had holes in them—one last reminder of the price He paid for them. And then, the Man who would not come down from the cross ascended up into heaven.
It’s interesting: Christ did not depart by riding off into the sunset. Instead, He ascended upward, like a rocket. Pope Leo the Great wrote: “Our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God.” Can you imagine? Can you imagine being exulted above all the angels in heaven? Lucifer, the highest of all the angels, could not. He revolted over the thought of mere men being exulted above him. So he was cast into hell, instead of remaining up in heaven. This is why Catholic Mass, until our modern revolution, featured verticality. It got us looking up and, therefore, thinking of heaven.
Traditionally, Mass was also said facing east, for Christ ascended east of Jerusalem, and the angels told the Apostles He would return the very same way. So from the earliest times, at Mass, we all looked together toward the rising Sun of Justice. After the sermon, the deacon would tell the congregation: “Let us turn toward the Lord!” That meant everyone, priest and people, turned in the same direction. They didn’t look at each other; they looked toward God. It wouldn’t have made sense for anyone in the congregation to say something like, “The priest has his back to me! He’s not looking at me!” What a fundamental shift we’ve seen in our public worship of God.
Speaking of fundamental shifts: The Ascension of Christ brought about a fundamental shift in man’s thinking, which was this: Man no longer had to fear death.
It has now dawned on the Apostles that Christ never left His Father when He came down to earth, nor had He abandoned His disciples when He ascended into heaven . . . Christ is now more present in His divinity to those from whom He was further removed in His humanity. (Pope Leo the Great d. 461 AD)
The Ascension of Christ into heaven is Church dogma. A dogma is a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. Modern man, who argues there is no truth, fears dogma. In 2017, at a confirmation hearing for a US Supreme Court Justice, a senator who for years championed the false pagan practices of abortion and sexual unnaturalness voiced her concern over the nominee, who happened to be Catholic. The worried senator told the nominee: “The dogma lives loudly within you.” In a world that has lost its fear of God, the same world appears to be fearful of God’s Church. And so, it mocks and ridicules the Church for defending things that are incontrovertibly true.
Our present world still fears death. For death is also a dogma; it is beyond a doubt. The great English writer G.K. Chesterton wrote, “King Edward wasn’t partly dead on Friday, and then partly alive on Saturday. No, he was alive—and then he was dead. Death isn’t a curve. It’s a corner.”
Chesterton also wrote that it’s not so much death we fear but what happens after death. We fear judgment. More specifically, it’s not death we fear, but hell. Everyone is afraid of falling from a great height—and hell is an infinity of falling.
But Christ took on death and conquered it on Calvary—and therein lies our hope! Pope Leo the Great wrote, “With joy, we can have unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye, and fix our desires on what is beyond sight . . . And so, our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments.” Christ’s visible presence has passed into the Holy Eucharist, which is the Blessed Sacrament. That is dogma. On the altar at Holy Mass, He is made more present in His divinity than He was in His humanity. How blessed we are that we can be more closely united with Christ than all those people who saw Him in the flesh 2000 years ago.
In the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest says: “Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the blessed Passion, the Resurrection from the dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven of Christ, your Son, our Lord . . .” So, in each Mass you take a mystical hike. You follow Christ through the streets of Jerusalem up to the hill of Calvary. After that you proceed to the empty tomb—the proof that Christ conquered death. Then you climb up and over the Mount of Olives to Bethany. On the way, you pass by the Garden of Gethsemane, where you wince and tell yourself, “There is where I ran away from Christ when things went bad.” Arriving in Bethany, Christ the Priest raises His arms and blesses you with hands that have holes in them. Then He ascends, taking your human nature up higher than all the angels. With that, your aching sadness is turned into joy.
This is incontrovertibly true. It is beyond a doubt. It is dogma. And may it live loudly within you.
Photo by Angela Compagnone on Unsplash
