Pope Benedict was installed as bishop of Rome in a Mass at the city’s cathedral on Saturday. His homily for the occasion is just so full of material for meditation that I want to look at it over a few days:
This day, in which for the first time I may sit in the chair of the Bishop of Rome, as Successor of Peter, is the day in which the Church in Italy celebrates the feast of the Lord’s Ascension. At the center of this day is Christ. And only thanks to him, thanks to the mystery of his Ascension, are we able to understand the meaning of the chair, which in turn is the symbol of the authority and responsibility of the bishop. What, then, does the feast of the Lord’s Ascension tell us? It does not say that the Lord has gone to a place far away from men and the world. The Ascension of Christ is not a journey into space to the most remote heavenly bodies, because in the end, heavenly bodies, like the earth, are also made up of physical elements.
The Ascension of Christ means that he no longer belongs to the world of corruption and death, which conditions our life. It means that he belongs completely to God. He, the eternal Son, has taken our human being to the presence of God; he has taken with him flesh and blood in a transfigured form. Man finds a place in God through Christ; the human being has been taken into the very life of God. And, given that God embraces and sustains the whole cosmos, the Lord’s Ascension means that Christ has not gone far away from us, but that now, thanks to the fact he is with the Father, he is close to each one of us forever. Each one of us may address him familiarly; each one may turn to him. The Lord always hears our voice. We may distance ourselves inwardly from him. We can live with our backs turned to him, but he always awaits us, and is always close to us.
These words remind me of Our Lord’s words in John 16:
“Now I am going to him who sent me, and no one of you asks me, ‘Where art thou going?’ But because I have spoken to you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. But I speak the truth to you; it is expedient for you that I depart. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you; but if go, I will send him to you.”
Jesus goes to the Father, leaving this physical universe behind, so that his life — his divine-human life — is now fully given to the Father. He, hypostatically united to the Word of God, has brought our humanity to the Holy of Holies, to the eternal communion of the three divine persons.
Going away he has not abandoned us: being fully with the Father who gives the world existence, Jesus Christ is now tenderly present – with his divinity and humanity – to all created things and all created persons in their inmost depths.
Yet this is not enough: he sends the Holy Spirit who is active in all the Sacraments — material signs of grace — the Holy Spirit who makes Jesus present in them. Through the Sacraments Jesus becomes nearer to us than ever before. He goes beyond the relationship of Creator to creature and enters into the most profound union with us, becoming one with us, making each of us another Christ.
I think this is one of the most profound meditations on the Ascension since the Fathers of the Church…we are so blessed by his election.