Now whilst they were speaking these things, Jesus stood in the midst of them, and said to them: 'Peace be to you; it is I, fear not.' And He showed them His hands and feet. . . . And He led them out as far as Bethania: and lifting up His hands He blessed them. And it came to pass whilst He blessed them He was carried up to Heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of God. - Luke 24:36,50; Mark 16:19
Let us go to Mount Olivet. Thither Jesus brings His disciples for the last time. He recalls to their minds their divine mission, confirms the powers conferred upon them, again promises the Holy Spirit, gives them His blessing, bids them adieu, and rises towards heaven. The hearts of the apostles, divided between grief and wonder, follow with their eyes their adorable Master, who is leaving them, and whom they will never see again on earth. A bright cloud intercepts their view of the triumphant humanity of their Saviour, but they continue to look towards the heavens whither He had ascended. Now they understand all; and their hearts, so recently gross and carnal, break all earthly chains.
Let us with them raise our hearts to heaven. Sursum corda! If Jesus leaves us. He does not forget us, nor does He abandon us to our exile without hope. His going is not to put an immense distance between His glory and our misery; it is to prepare a place for us: 'I go to prepare a place for you.' (John 14:2) This is His promise; can we suppose He will not keep it?
O Jesus, our only love! we have need of hearing this good word fall from Thy adorable lips to console us in Thy absence. Thou goest to prepare a place for us; is this world, therefore, not our most suitable home? Ah! no. It is too full of troubles to give that joy to the heart to which it aspires; it is too narrow to satiate the immensity of our desires; it is too uncertain to give us any assurance of eternal possession, the idea of which is inseparable from all our dreams of happiness. The eternal life of God, His infinite perfections, the perfect love of God, the boundless space which His immensity fills - this is the 'length and breadth and depth' of which Saint Paul speaks; this is the place to which we should direct our course and in which we should anchor our bark of life, the place which Jesus went to prepare for us.
He is there indeed. It is our humanity that triumphs in His person and sits at the right hand of God. Even if we were not called to a participation in His glory and beatitude we ought to be anxious to know where it is and to register His victory in our human records. If He belongs to God, He belongs to us also; if He is of the divine substance He is also of our flesh and blood; and we may well declare with a holy doctor, 'Where a part of me reigns, I believe I reign also; where my flesh is glorified, I am glorified; where my blood is king, I too am king.'
But listen. Christian! Jesus does not wish to reduce you to the sterile honour of knowing His triumph. By His ascension He enters into the bosom of God the Father, not as delegate, but as a precursor of humanity. This is the expression of Saint Paul in his sixth chapter to the Hebrews.
The precursor prepares the way for those who follow him, and the place in which they are to rest after the fatigue of the journey. The precursor puts all things in order; he waits for His friends and calls them in. But how much more certain and efficacious his office is when, instead of being a servant merely, he is master of those for whom he prepares a place, and master of the place as well!
Christ, our precursor, is all this. Let us consider carefully the words of the apostle. He teaches us that Christ asserted our rights by His very presence in the bosom of God. For we are His property, and He has a right to enter into heaven with what belongs to Him. 'He is our head; we are the body and members of that head. But where the head is, there likewise ought to be the body and the members. But Jesus would not be fully our precursor if, by His action, He did not put us in a condition to realise our rights - that is to say, if He did not prepare God to receive us and did not prepare us to take possession of God.
He is our priest 'forever'; or, in other words, He presents eternally to God the most sacred gifts that humanity has to offer, and to humanity the most sacred gifts of God. Our acts of religion would never have penetrated this sanctuary, in which they ought to mark out a place for us, if they did not pass through the hands of Jesus Christ. And if we return to God after our transgression, our repentance is only acceptable because 'we have an advocate with the Father - Jesus Christ, the Just.' If the groans of our misery or the expressions of our love are heard in heaven, it is because Jesus appropriates them; for 'He lives only to intercede for us.' He shows to the Father the marks of His glorious wounds, and makes His blood plead more strongly than that of Abel.
O God! Thou canst not resist this strong cry. It must be that Thou permittest us to mark our places in the sacred tabernacles which Thou fillest with Thy blessedness. This is the will of my Lord Jesus; and in preparing Thee to receive us He prepares us to take possession of Thee. The incarnate Word, humbled and annihilated in the days of His life on earth, became on the day of His ascension the inexhaustible treasury of the gifts of God. 'Christ, ascending on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men' (Ephesians 4:8). Thus it is that the remedies of our faults, the succour of our weakness, the light of our darkness, the solace of our pains, the impulses towards good, all descend into our souls to make them worthy of God, whom we are to possess. He extends His benign influence even to our corruptible flesh, which He prepares for the resurrection.
O Christian! meditate upon this glorious and consoling mystery. Never more turn to creatures as the end of your life. This world is not your resting-place. Honours, riches, pleasures, human affections are unworthy of a great and generous soul. Look to your Leader and Precursor; have confidence in His divine ministry; abandon yourself to His holy grace; raise your heart to heaven. Sursum corda!
- text taken from Jesus in the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.