Solemnity of the Ascension - Dom Brendan
Ascension Thursday
May 24, 2006
At the end of the children’s mass on Christmas Eve in my home parish in Michigan they bring in a big birthday cake with sparkelers on it and everyone sings happy birthday to Jesus. A similar custom has sprouted up on the Solemnity of the Ascension, at least in the parishes I worked in from Vermont to Texas, Michigan and Minnesota. The children write letters to Jesus and put them into balloons and inflate them. After mass everyone goes out in the parking lot and releases them into the air. The idea is that people who find these balloons and read the messages are supposed to write or call the school to say how far the balloons have floated. In one place where I was the Principal even provided music for the occasion: a recording of “UP, UP and Away” by the 5th Demension.
For some odd reason, Christimas and Ascension seem to appeal to this sort of liturgical kitch. But birthday cakes for Jesus and balloons floating through the sky are more than just a chapter from the “liturgy lite” theology manual. They are as theologically inadequate as they are liturgically inappropriate because they do not convey the true extent of the Mystery that we celebrate.
Rather, they flatten the Mystery out like a steam roller by implying that all reality is divided into two, with Jesus upstairs in heaven and a world of men and women downstairs. Two separate spheres of influence: Moreover, God is not in charge of the daily running of the material world and does not intervne in it. If he did then Tsunamis, wars, bird flu, and cancer would not happen. The nice thing about this arrangement is that it salvages God’s reputation when something bad, like a major earthquake, happens. The bad thing is that it makes it feel as though Jesus is an absentee Landlord waiting around for his Last Coming to collect the rent.
The danger here is that Christianity becomes a religion preoccupied with a future afterlife rather than a religion that asks our investment in the here and now as a precondition to blessedness in an otherworldly existence. It’s a short step from here to speculating about the nature of the “rapture” and who gets left behind.
Rather, the truth that we celebrate is at once simpler and more theologically satisfying: in his ascension, Christ does not disappear from the world; on the contrary, he begins to appear and to come. He who is the splendor of the Father and who once descended into the depths of our darkness is now exalted and fills all things with his light.
But because Christ’s presence is now hidden it can only be discerned by those who are sensitized to it by the workings of the Holy Spirit, that is those who have been initiated into the Mysteries through the sacraments and who form a body of believers in communion with one another and with Him. A community so intimately bound up with one another and with Christ in love that they become the visible extension of his body in time and space: this is Church.
The full movement of the ascension will only be complete when all the members of his body have been drawn to the Father and brought to life by his spirit. Isn’t that the meaning of the angels who say to the disciples: why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way has you have seen him go into heaven.
May 24, 2006
At the end of the children’s mass on Christmas Eve in my home parish in Michigan they bring in a big birthday cake with sparkelers on it and everyone sings happy birthday to Jesus. A similar custom has sprouted up on the Solemnity of the Ascension, at least in the parishes I worked in from Vermont to Texas, Michigan and Minnesota. The children write letters to Jesus and put them into balloons and inflate them. After mass everyone goes out in the parking lot and releases them into the air. The idea is that people who find these balloons and read the messages are supposed to write or call the school to say how far the balloons have floated. In one place where I was the Principal even provided music for the occasion: a recording of “UP, UP and Away” by the 5th Demension.
For some odd reason, Christimas and Ascension seem to appeal to this sort of liturgical kitch. But birthday cakes for Jesus and balloons floating through the sky are more than just a chapter from the “liturgy lite” theology manual. They are as theologically inadequate as they are liturgically inappropriate because they do not convey the true extent of the Mystery that we celebrate.
Rather, they flatten the Mystery out like a steam roller by implying that all reality is divided into two, with Jesus upstairs in heaven and a world of men and women downstairs. Two separate spheres of influence: Moreover, God is not in charge of the daily running of the material world and does not intervne in it. If he did then Tsunamis, wars, bird flu, and cancer would not happen. The nice thing about this arrangement is that it salvages God’s reputation when something bad, like a major earthquake, happens. The bad thing is that it makes it feel as though Jesus is an absentee Landlord waiting around for his Last Coming to collect the rent.
The danger here is that Christianity becomes a religion preoccupied with a future afterlife rather than a religion that asks our investment in the here and now as a precondition to blessedness in an otherworldly existence. It’s a short step from here to speculating about the nature of the “rapture” and who gets left behind.
Rather, the truth that we celebrate is at once simpler and more theologically satisfying: in his ascension, Christ does not disappear from the world; on the contrary, he begins to appear and to come. He who is the splendor of the Father and who once descended into the depths of our darkness is now exalted and fills all things with his light.
But because Christ’s presence is now hidden it can only be discerned by those who are sensitized to it by the workings of the Holy Spirit, that is those who have been initiated into the Mysteries through the sacraments and who form a body of believers in communion with one another and with Him. A community so intimately bound up with one another and with Christ in love that they become the visible extension of his body in time and space: this is Church.
The full movement of the ascension will only be complete when all the members of his body have been drawn to the Father and brought to life by his spirit. Isn’t that the meaning of the angels who say to the disciples: why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way has you have seen him go into heaven.
posted by Prior Peter, OSB | 8:10 AM
1 Comments:
Right on! I might add that the liturgical kitsch aspects you mention speak to me of narcissism breaking into liturgy. It's all about me (us)!
God thereby becomes an extension of my ego. Not much enlightenment there, I can assure you...
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