A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 5, n. 25)
Ascension of the Lord, Year C – May 17 or May 20, 2007
“Jesus Was Taken Up into Heaven…”
BIBLE READINGS
Acts 1:1-11 // Heb 9:24-28, 10:19-23 // Lk 24:44-53
N.B. Series 5 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year C from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 2.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
One of the tools that helped me to deepen my Eucharistic-ecological spirituality is the “Living Green” series in the GUIDEPOSTS inspirational magazine. The May 2007 issue (cf. p. 95-99) carries Jean Beasley’s article “The Turtles of Topsail Island” on a rescue operation for one of the oldest animals on earth. Sea turtles that have been swimming the oceans and laying their eggs on the world’s beaches for millions of years, and surviving comets and ice ages, are on the verge of extinction due to human incursion. Jean and her young daughter Karen dedicated their lives to help sea turtles survive. Karen, however, after graduating from college and getting a dream job at a Charlotte public relations firm, was diagnosed with leukemia. In spite of her sickness, this remarkable young lady continued to care for God’s sea creatures. The sea turtles are bellwether species, whose disappearance means our oceans are dying. Jean narrates:
But Karen had the courage. She knew what it meant to face up to endings, even if I was still struggling to accept her worsening illness. “Mom,” she said to me one day as we were looking out the kitchen window at the late autumn light, “you know they signed me up for a life-insurance policy when I was working. I don’t want my illness to be the center of my life. I want the turtles to be the center of it. If I don’t make it, I want you to use that money for them … Karen slipped away peacefully, just a few months before her thirtieth birthday. I plunged into helping the turtles with more energy than ever, channeling grief that seemed too much for me to bear. Karen was gone – at least from the earth. But her work on behalf of the earthly creatures she cared for most went on … The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center opened its doors in the fall of 1997. Since then we’ve rehabilitated and released more than 150 sick and injured sea turtles. Some stay with us for just a few days. Others spend months, even years here. But for all of these animals, there eventually comes a moment when I have to tell them goodbye. When I have to give them back to the ocean, and back to God.
Jean’s story about her daughter Karen who was gone from this earth, but whose care for God’s beloved creatures lives on, gives us an insight into the mystery of Jesus’ ascension, which is a form of presence. When Jesus was lifted up and a cloud took him out of sight, he moved from earth where his presence was a matter of fact to a presence with us that is a matter of faith. Harold Buetow remarks: “His leaving in a cloud, a biblical symbol of the presence of God who can be seen only by faith, is the story not about Jesus being taken away from us, but Jesus being given to us for all times and for all places as a matter of faith. And his presence to us right now brings him – and his warmth, his care, his love – even closer to each of us than we are to each other.”
Through the power and activity of the Holy Spirit, the Risen Lord’s Easter gift, Jesus is present to us in a new way, especially through the sacraments. The biblical scholar Adrian Nocent explains: “Christ’s departure paved the way for the activity of the Spirit in the sacraments, which are the symbolic extensions of Christ’s glorified body throughout the world. Unless Christ were both glorified and departed from us, the sacraments would be impossible. Any contact with a Christ still present in bodily form on earth would be limited by the conditions of space and time. Now, however, Christ is present to us in every place and at all times through signs that drew efficacy from his Spirit. The incarnation of the eternal Word made it possible for the world to encounter God and thus changed the course of history. The ascension of the glorified Christ and the subsequent sending of the Spirit allow all believers to touch Christ, to see and know God and to live his life, by providing a mode of contact with the Lord. Each sacrament is a sign of his presence: this is especially true of the Eucharist, which is specifically the sign of the presence of his now glorified body.”
The evangelist Luke’s account of the Ascension in the Gospel (cf. Lk 24:46-53) and his narrative in its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Acts 1: 1-11) contains a discrepancy. In his Gospel account, Luke presents the Ascension as occurring on the day of the Lord’s resurrection, while in the Acts he depicts the episode as occurring after “forty days” of Easter apparition and instructions about the reign of God. The difference did not bother Luke who was not concerned with providing his readers with an accurate date of the Ascension, but rather with its meaning. Not intent on writing a historical calendar, but a faith message, Luke presented the event of the Ascension from two perspectives.
In his Gospel account, the evangelist underlined the intimate link of the reality of the Ascension with the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. According to Luke’s religious message, the Ascension on “Easter day” was the culmination of Jesus’ life of total servitude to the divine saving plan, the moment of his exaltation, and the completion of his exodus to the Father.
In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke inserts the “forty days” of Easter apparition and instruction before the event of the Ascension. This significant number evokes Jesus’ forty days and Moses’ forty days in the desert, which was a period of preparation for an important mission and saving ministry. With this fantastic detail – “forty days” – the ideal length of time to be taught by the Divine Master, the evangelist reinforced the truth that the Risen Lord was preparing the disciples for an important beginning, that is, the mission of the Church as witnesses to the ends of the earth. The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 3, remark: “As it brings Jesus’ earthly mission to an end, the ascension ushers in a new age, toward which the Lord himself had directed the disciples: the age of the Church and its mission. The last appearance of the risen Christ, which ends Luke’s Gospel, leads the way to this future, and Acts will show its wonderful blossoming.”
The new age of the Church’s intense and expansive mission to the ends of the earth is associated with the special outpouring of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The interesting detail about the disciples looking on while Jesus was being lifted up, and a cloud taking him out of sight, evokes the Old Testament account of the novice prophet Elisha watching the prophet Elijah being taken up to heaven in a flaming chariot by a whirlwind. Eventually, Elisha would receive the gift of his master’s prophetic spirit. The Jesuit biblical scholar, William Kurz explains: “Acts 1:9 mentions that the disciples saw Jesus actually being taken up to heaven to remind readers of 2 Kgs 2:4-15. There, the prophet Elijah told his disciple Elisha that only if he saw Elijah being taken up to heaven would he receive double Elijah’s portion of the Holy Spirit. Elisha did see the flaming chariot take up Elijah and therefore received the same Spirit as Elijah. So in Acts 1:9, the disciples saw Jesus being taken up in a cloud and received Jesus’ Holy Spirit at Pentecost.”
Indeed, the Church that was unfolding from the aftermath of the Easter mystery would be enlivened and powered by the Risen Lord’s gift of the Holy Spirit. William Kurx explicates: “The same Holy Spirit who was with Jesus when he chose and instructed the apostles would now be given to them. Both Luke’s Gospel and Acts emphasize that being baptized by the Holy Spirit is the way God’s power is given to humans. The Spirit came upon Jesus and thus began Jesus’ mission of preaching and healing (Lk 3:21-22). At Pentecost the same Spirit would be given to the apostles to begin their preaching and healing in Acts … The gift of the Spirit which began the church fulfills the Father’s promises in the Old Testament, as Jesus had explained it.”
Jesus, ascended into heaven, inaugurated the age of the Holy Spirit, the power of evangelization and the fulfillment of the Father’s promise (cf. Acts 1:4). Filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples became courageous witnesses. Harold Buetow concludes: “Today’s liturgy calls us also to be bold witnesses to the passion, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus – witnesses, in other words, of Gospel joy to the world. We cannot just keep looking up to heaven. We have a mission from Jesus. After the ascension, there is a bit of earth with God in heaven and a bit of heaven with us on earth. But we have work to do. We must stand on our own spiritual feet and do it. Today’s emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit assures us that in that work we do not work alone.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION (Lk 24:44-53)
By Jon Isaak, MB Biblical Seminary, Fresno CA
(N.B. We are deeply honored to have a Mennonite biblical scholar as a contributor to our Lectio Divina apostolate. May God bless you abundantly Prof. Jon for helping us “break the bread of the Word”.)
The Gospel reading of today picks up some of Jesus’ last words to his disciples in Luke’s narrative. In the scene, Jesus suddenly appears among the disciples who are discussing the amazing testimony of two men who have just returned to Jerusalem. The two tell the others of their powerful experience with the risen Lord while walking, talking, and eating together with him. Now Jesus greets the shocked group without condemnation for their fear, doubt and disbelief. Instead, he speaks words of comfort, “peace be with you.” In the interaction that follows, Jesus shows the startled group that he is neither a ghost (he eats fish) nor limited by his previous physical form (he vanishes and appears at will). Evidently, the risen Lord embodies a personal and transcendent presence that signals the enlightenment and empowerment of the new-creation age.
Two phrases in the Gospel reading strike me with particular intensity. First, “he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (v. 45). Jesus shows the disciples, that God’s way of victory over evil is not really new. Throughout scriptures – in the Torah, the prophets, the psalms – we read of God’s preferred way which never gives sin, evil, and death the final word. And yet there is something new too. Jesus’ self-giving sacrifice on the cross was instrumental in undoing sin’s grip on humanity, making God’s victory fully accessible to all nations. The dance between something old and something new is enlightening to me as a contemporary disciple of the risen Lord. I wonder how Jesus will open our eyes today to see old things more clearly in new ways.
Second, the phrase “he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven” (v. 15) is remarkably provocative. In the resurrection appearance stories we notice the oscillation between absence (empty tomb) and presence (breaking of bread). At times Jesus is hidden (a stranger on the road to Emmaus) and at other times he appears as a commanding Lord (stay here in the city!). This dance between absence and presence is the key to the ascension. Luke helps us understand that it is necessary for Jesus to withdraw. Jesus must completely transcend his earthly life, if he is to liberate all of creation. He must be absent from humanity in his former manner in order to be fully present at God’s right hand. Why? Because the withdrawal makes possible his more powerful and intimate presence among all the nations through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the risen Lord animates the church to carry forward the Gospel witness, inviting all creation to abandon the way of rebellion and to discover true life realigned with God. I wonder how the withdrawal of the Lord will empower us today to lives of worship and proclamation, living out of the resources of the Spirit of the risen Lord.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. What is the meaning of Jesus’ ascension into heaven? Why is it a form of presence? How is the form of presence of the glorified and ascended Lord different from the earthly presence of Jesus of Nazareth? What is the meaning of sacramental presence? What are our own personal experiences of the presence of the Risen Lord?
B. Do we give ourselves time and opportunity to contemplate the mystery of the Lord’s ascension? What is the significance of this mystery in our own daily life? Do we personally feel a deep participation in the Lord’s exaltation and in the Church’s mission to be witnesses of Christ to the ends of the earth?
C. Do we open ourselves to the Risen Lord’s gift of the Spirit? Do we trust that in the Church’s age of mission, we are filled, empowered and energized by the Spirit of Jesus, the glorified Lord? How do we carry out our task of Christian witnessing in the Holy Spirit? In our life of ministry and witnessing, do we enable the people around us to experience the presence of Christ our Hope, raised into heaven?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Cf. Cl. Bernard, Hymne pour l’Office du soir le jour de l’Ascension, in La liturgie des Heures, vol. 2, p. 720, Fiche de chant j 36-2 // Days of the Lord, vol. 3, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993, p. 225)
Leader: O Son of God resurrected, why do we seek your face in the skies?
You come to us on every shore of humanity.
Assembly: Heaven is where you descend.
You give living water to your people, living Love,
and you draw us like a stream into your current.
Leader: The joy promised to our thirst:
how shall we seize it in both hands before the evening?
Assembly: In partaking of your Supper and of your cross.
Leader: You will return to transfigure the world eager to be reborn in your light.
Assembly: You are the glory of your Father, God revealed.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“As they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.” (Acts 1:9)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that we may truly experience the gift of new presence made possible by the mystery of the Lord’s ascension into heaven. Empowered by the Holy Spirit and through our unselfish acts of service and generous endeavors to promote justice, peace and the integrity of creation, let us incarnate the glorified Lord’s new presence in today’s world.
B. ACTION PLAN: To help us to be more effective in our mission of Christian witnessing and be fully receptive to the gift of the Holy Spirit, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 3, n. 25): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
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