THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION

 THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION

THURSDAY 13th MAY

                    Michaelangelo, "The Ascension"

The Feast of the Ascension is a Holy Day of Obligation by which, forty days after the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead, we celebrate His Ascension into heaven, recounted by St Luke in Acts (1:1-11), in which Christ said to His disciples:

“But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had said these things, while they looked on, He was raised up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen Him going into heaven.”

In today’s Mass, after the Gospel is sung, the Paschal Candle, lit from the New Fire of the Easter Vigil, is extinguished to symbolise the departure of Christ. Any Paschal candles at home should be put away at this time too. (1)

Brandt Pitre illustrated Christ’s gift of the Eucharist as a covenant founded on more than propitiatry sacrifice, and including the concept of the Bread of the Presence. The Bread of the Presence had been kept in the Tabernacle in the Jewish Temple and lifted up by the priests at specific Jewish feast days, so the people could see the Face of God, saying, “Behold God’s love for you”: (2)

“After His passion, death and Resurrection, it was through this bread and wine, the new Bread of the Presence, that He would be with His disciples. That is why he says to them, “Do this in memory of me.” When he wanted to leave them with a perpetual sign of his love for them, he gave them bread and wine: ‘This is my body, which is given for you.’ (Luke 22: 19). ‘This is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.’ (Mark 14:24).

Dr Pitre said:

“If Jesus and the early Jewish Christians saw the Last Supper as the institution of the new Bread of the Presence, then it follows that they did not see it as ordinary bread and wine. It was, rather, the sign and instrument of Jesus’ real presence. Just as God had been really and truly present to His people in the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon, so now Jesus would be really and truly present to His disciples through the Eucharist. And just as the old Bread of the Presence had been the sign of God’s ‘everlasting covenant’, so now the Eucharist would become the perpetual sign of the new covenant, sealed in His blood. And just as the old Bread of the Presence was also the face of God, so now the Eucharist would be the Bread of the Face of Christ.”

If Jesus was the divine Son of God then the new bread and wine of His new Covenant were not just mere symbols. In a word, the new Bread of the Presence was miraculous.” (3)

THE HARD SAYING:

Jesus in the “Bread of Life passage” said: I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which has come down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6: 48-59).

The Jews disputed amongst themselves, saying: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.”

His disciples said:

“This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?” (John 6:60)

Dr Pitre commented: “Many of his disciples abandoned him and he let them go. He turned to Peter and the twelve and invited them to leave too: Will you also go away? (John 6:67). The point is clear: Jesus would brook no compromise on the mystery of his body and blood. It was a litmus test of discipleship. (4)

Dr Pitre pointed to the reference by Jesus of the manna in the desert and said: “From a Jewish perspective, if the Eucharist of Jesus is the new manna from heaven, then it can’t be just a symbol. It must be supernatural bread from heaven…in the Old Testament, the old manna of the exodus was no ordinary bread; it was miraculous. That’s why the Israelites put it in the tabernacle with the other miraculous objects.” (5)

However, he observed that in Jesus’ response to the disciples’ disbelief, he also gave them the key to understanding his mysterious words.

“John 6:62-64 provides the key:

“Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them: ‘Do you take offence at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.” (John 6:62-63)

Dr Pitre pointed to the fact that these words follow “immediately upon the heels of his reference to the heavenly Son of Man" emphasising that, after His reference to His ascension into heaven, He declared that life was given by the Spirit. In this respect, "[i]t is absolutely critical to interpret these two verses together and not to isolate them from each other. When we do so, we immediately see that Jesus was not speaking about eating the dead flesh of his corpse (this would be cannibalism). Rather, he was speaking about eating the living flesh of his resurrected body, which would be raised to ‘life’ by the power of the Spirit and then taken up to heaven in the ascension.” (6)

"The Eucharist would be the ‘supernatural bread’ of the new Exodus that He taught His disciples to pray for every day, (Matthew 6:13; Luke 11:13) Unlike the old manna, which only communicated natural life, this new manna would give supernatural life: ‘He who eats this bread will live forever,' (John 6:58). The old manna had been a miraculous foretaste of the promised land. The new manna of the Eucharist would be a miraculous foretaste of the bodily resurrection. (7)

"The Last Supper was not just a Passover sacrifice; it was a miracle of the new and greater exodus. At that final supper, Jesus miraculously transformed bread and wine into his own body and blood. In doing so he gave his own disciples a share in both his bodily death and his bodily resurrection. In doing so, he gave the disciples the ‘supernatural bread’ that would sustain them each day on their journey towards the new promised land of the new creation, a foretaste of the reality of the world to come. “ (7A).

On the road to Emmaus, he was “known to them through the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24: 28-35).

Dr Pitre said: “Upon His resurrection, why were the disciples only able to recognise Jesus after he sat with them at the table and broke the bread? And why is it that as soon as they did see Him, he vanished from their sight?

"The answer lies in the ‘breaking of the bread’. Until Jesus sat down with the disciples and repeated His actions from the last Supper, their eyes were kept from seeing Him. Until He took the bread, blessed the bread, broke the bread - again, exactly what he did at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26)- they could not recognise Him. (9)…

And then, as soon as they did see Him, He vanished. Why? Jesus was pointing them to the way He would be present from now on. After His ascension into heaven, He would no longer be with them under the appearance of a man….He would only be present under the appearance of Eucharistic bread. By means of His miraculous appearance on the way to Emmaus, Jesus was showing the disciples that the Eucharist is His crucified and risen body. And in this risen body, He is no longer bound by space, or time or even appearance…After His resurrection and ascension into heaven, His normal manner of appearing to his disciples will not be in the form of a man but under the veil of the Eucharist. That is why the disciples go away rejoicing in ‘how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread’" (Luke 24:35). (10).

St Cyril is quoted by Dr Pitre: ‘Jesus once in Cana of Galilee turned water into wine, akin to blood; is it incredible that He should have turned wine into blood?’ (11)

In his apostolic letter Mane Nobiscum Domine, Pope John Paul II said that when the disciples urged Christ to stay with them, He responded by giving them a means to stay in Him through the Sacrament of the Eucharist. His face disappeared, and yet He would stay, hidden in the 'breaking of the bread', which act had opened their eyes to recognise Him. His Holiness observed that "when minds are enlightened and hearts are enkindled, signs begin to 'speak.' (12).

Dr Pitre said: “On the road to Emmaus, Jesus fulfilled what he set out to accomplish at the last Supper. That Sunday was the first Eucharist after the resurrection and Jesus was the principal celebrant. On that day he ate and drank with his disciples…On that day, he gave them his crucified and risen body and blood. And, while the disciples may not have realised it at the time, on that day Jesus answered their prayer outside the village of Emmaus, when they said to him: Stay with us, (Luke 24:29). In ‘the breaking of the bread’ in every Eucharist, he answers their prayer, saying to them- and to all of us-“I am with you always, even to the end of time.’” (13).

(1) Fisheaters; Ascension.

(2) Brandt Pitre, “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Unlocking the Secret of the last Supper”, Image, New York, 2016, at p. 121.

(3) Ibid., at pp. 144-145.

(4) Ibid.,m at p. 108.

(5) Ibid., at p. 103.

(6) Ibid., at p. 111.

(7) Ibid., at p. 181.

(7A) Ibid., at p. 183.

(9) Ibid., at p. 201.

(10) Ibid., at pp. 201-202.

(11) Ibid., at p. 146.

(12) Wikipedia- Road to Emmaus Appearance.

(13) Opcit., at pp. 201-202.