Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons: 8 May - Feast of the Ascension

Are any of you, like me, Ascension Thursday people? I mean those who feel that somehow the placing of this feast on the Sunday nearest to it isn't really necessary. It's bad enough when we find the Epiphany celebrated on the 2/3rd January, somehow the rhythm and cadences of the season don't fit into this 'pastoral provision'. Somehow that deep, ancient link with the lunar calendar and Holy Pascha matters, a reminder that we are not simply bound by solar time, but are linked to the power of our little moon as well! I am certainly glad other Christians still celebrate Ascension on its Thursday, for it calls us to give witness to Christ right in the busy world of work!

The writer of the Book of Acts spells it out that connection with time clearly. After he had risen, for forty days Jesus appeared to his disciples and then 'as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.' It was a sudden but not unprepared for moment. Luke simply shows him giving a priestly blessing and then departing; 'As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.' In Mark's Gospel the additional material at the end simply tells us he departed to be received into heaven.

For me the simplicity of these accounts ring true, he was with them and then he was gone. That is not remarkable, the Risen Christ cannot wander the earth like Marley's Ghost, he has to leave so that His work can be completed by his disciples, US!

The Ascension is that very bittersweet experience we all have! We wish our dead ones could stay, but we also know they cannot. We have to give ourselves leave to let them go, and then, only then do we find we have not lost but gained in ways we could never have otherwise known.

There are hints of this in the scriptures, the Ascension is Jesus' leave-taking so that the Spirit can descend and become our advocate, our helper! We, his disciples, have to grow up, become witnesses to his resurrection in our lives, going out to spread the Good News. And lest we forget, as Luke states, what we receive is joy.

'They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy,

and they were continually in the temple praising God'.

Thought From the Anglo-Saxon Cynewulf on the Ascended Christ.

"Rejoice in your souls!

I shall never depart,

but I shall attend you

all with love always,

and give to you my strength

and dwell with you

forever and evermore,

so that there will never be

a want for God

through my grace.

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain