Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Glorious Mysteries: The Ascension
“Why stand you looking up to heaven?” O Angels, what a question! Where should they look but into that heaven whither He has gone? What comfort is left for them here? Dark and lonely earth will be to them now. And yet they are not left without consolation. It is to be found in four things. In the glory of their Lord who has reached the end of His painful course and is now seated at the right hand of God. In the promise of His return. In the Comforter He will send them. In the work they are to do for Him. The disciples open their hearts to this comfort. “They adoring went back into Jerusalem with great joy,” we are told. Not the Mother only, from whom we expect the highest heroism of generosity, but those also who gathered round her as they went down the Mount together. Looking into her face, they caught her spirit of unselfishness, her joy in His glory, her zeal for the souls He came to save. They felt they must keep near her to sustain their souls on hers. With her they re-crossed Kedron, and threaded their way through the streets back to the Supper Room, there to await the coming of the Paraclete.
God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of trumpet.—Ps. xlvi.
Rise, King of Glory, rise Unto Thy Throne!
No power, no praise, no prize, But is Thine own.
And we are Thine, Thy race, Thy brethren we;
Lord, in Thy dwelling-place We, too, must be!
III.—While they looked on He was carried up to heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God.—Acts i, Luke xxiv, Mark xvi.
Let us follow our Lord in thought from the moment when the cloud hides Him from the sight of the disciples. The day will come when we shall follow Him in body and soul even as we see Him going into heaven.
Look around. Myriads of Angels, those elder sons of God, are flocking earthward, eager to hail as King, Him who has repaired their ranks. And, pressing close in His train, nearer to Him even than His Angels, is a great multitude that no man could number—souls from Limbo and from Purgatory, the just made perfect, from Adam and Eve, and Abraham and David, to St. Joseph, and the good thief.
See the happy commingling for the first time of angelic and human spirits; how affectionately the Angels associate with those who are “a little lower” only than themselves by reason of their closer relationship with Him who is Head of all, the First-Born among many brethren.
Watch the grand procession as it sweeps onward to the eternal gates. Hear the sounds of praise and congratulation on every side. “The chariot of God is attended by ten thousand, thousands of them that rejoice. The Lord is among them in the holy place. Ascending on high, Thou hast led captivity captive” (Ps. 67).
“Sing ye to God, ye kingdoms of the earth, sing ye to the Lord. Sing ye to God who mounteth above the heaven of heavens to the east. His magnificence and His power is in the clouds” (Id.).
Hear the summons to the warders of the heavenly City; “Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates; and the King of Glory shall enter in.
“Who is this King of Glory?
“The Lord who is strong and mighty; the Lord mighty in battle” (Ps. 24).
Kneel on the threshold of heaven as He enters with His train. Stoop down and kiss “the place of His feet.” Beg Him to carry before the throne of God all your desires and affections. And to grant you now such grace, that when on the Last great Day all heaven shall pour out to the Judgment, and He shall return with the elect, you may be one of His suite.
O my Lord, remember me now that Thou art entering Thy Kingdom. Among its millions, remember me. Among its many mansions find a little place for me, that where Thou art I may be with Thee and see Thy glory. Give me grace to rule my life on Thine, that Thou mayst not be ashamed to acknowledge me for one of Thy members when Thou shalt come in the majesty of Thy Father and of the holy Angels.
IV.—“I ascend to My Father and to your Father.”—John xx. How dear to Thee, O Lord, is Thy office as Head of our race! How Thou dost love to draw us into close companionship with Thee, to communicate to us all that is communicable in the privileges of sonship, to identify our interests with Thine!
My Father and your Father. He, the Elder Brother, bids us put on His likeness; clothe ourselves with His merits; offer the acceptable gifts He places in our hands, that we may win the blessing which is the birthright of the First-Born.
My Father and your Father. The adopted children are led up to our common Father by the Eternal Son for the embrace which is the right of every child.
My Father and your Father. We, the prodigal children are reconciled to the Father we have abandoned and outraged, by Him who does always the things that please Him.
V.—O clap your hands, all ye nations, shout unto God with the voice of joy.—Ps. xlvi.
Yes, all ye nations, for all are His redeemed, bought with a great price. Clap your hands, shout for joy; our Redeemer having risen from the dead dieth now no more; pain and sorrow shall no more come near Him.
It is all over, dear Lord, all over. No more torture for Thy sacred body; no more anguish for Thy generous Soul. Beneath the olive trees but forty days ago Thou didst accept Thy cruel Passion: “The chalice which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” Now, on Olivet again, ascending in glory to the right hand of the Father, the cry of Thy Heart in Its overflowing gladness is: “My chalice which inebriateth, how goodly is it!” (Ps. 22).
Past for ever is that baptism with which Thou hadst to be baptized. Thou art no more straitened, for now it is accomplished. “The scourge shall not come nigh Thy dwelling” (Ps. 90). Thine enemies shall rage and devise vain things... and Thou O Lord, dwelling in heaven, shalt laugh at them (Ps. 2). Past is all the humiliation and the woe Thy Incarnation involved. But not past, never to be past, are its blessed fruits. Never to be past Thy triumph as Conqueror over sin and hell. Never to be past the song of praise that goes up to Thee from Thine elect. Never past Thy work of intercession for us at the right hand of the Father—the pleading of Thy Wounds, the light, and strength, and consolation that flow from them to the uttermost parts of the earth.
And never to be past, nay rather to begin from this hour, my personal return to Thee for the redemption Thou hast brought—a redemption as much for me as if it had been wrought for me alone. Nay, is it not more to me a thousand times, than if it had profited no other? Is it not more to me that all whom I love, that this dear human family, every member of it, was under those outstretched arms on Calvary and drawn into their embrace?
O clap your hands, all ye nations, shout unto God with the voice of joy. And you, holy and happy ones, who have secured for ever the fruits of that Redemption, who have washed your robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb, praise Him for us till we join you and unite our voices with yours. Even here in this vale of tears your song of praise reaches us, that we may echo it however faintly: “Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory, and honour, and power” (Apoc. 4) because Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God in Thy Blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour and glory, and benediction (Apoc. 5). We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, who art, and who wast, and who art to come; because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and Thou hast reigned (Apoc. 11).
VI.—While they looked on He was carried up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.—Acts i.
Can we imagine a way of withdrawing His presence from this world better fitted to draw their hearts after Him? He might have sent an Angel to say He had ascended, as one was sent to say He was risen. He might have met them in the Supper Room and there made them His farewell. But to gather them round Him and lead them up to a peak of earth, and thence to rise slowly above their heads, letting their eyes follow Him till the cloud received Him out of their sight—was not this to attract their hearts vehemently whither He had gone! Was it not to link together Heaven and earth in a union that shall never again be broken! Earth stood on tiptoe to lift Him up: Heaven stooped to receive Him.
What a life of paradoxes is the life of the Word made Flesh! God become man; the Creator to have a created nature; the Almighty to be helpless and weak; the All Wise to learn; the All Perfect to increase in grace before God and man; Life to die; the most faithful of friends to leave us, and leaving, to remain with us all days!
And here on Olivet, drawing His disciples after Him in heart and desire; yet sending them back into Jerusalem, to long absence from Him, to struggle and persecution, labours and death—“with great joy.”
In the Eucharist and the Paraclete we might find an explanation of the joy. But by another paradox.