The Ascension of Our Lord

Now is the Son of man glorified,

and God is glorified in him.

~John 13:31

Yes, let us rejoice! Those who love Jesus experience a deep and intense joy in contemplating Him in the mystery of His ascension, in thanking the Father for having given such glory to His Son, and in felicitating Jesus at His being the object of it.

Let us rejoice, as well, that this triumph and glorification of Jesus is ours also.

"I ascend to my Father who is also your Father, to my God who is also your God" (John 20:17). Jesus simply precedes us: He does not separate Himself from us, He does not separate us from Himself. His entering into His glorious kingdom is so as to prepare a place for us there; "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). He promises to return one day: "I am coming again, and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there also you may be" (John 14:3). And so we are already, by right, in the glory and felicity of Christ Jesus; we shall be there one day in reality. Has He not asked this of His Father? "Father, I will that where I am, they also whom you have given me may be with me" (John 17:24). What power there is in that prayer, and what sweetness in that promise!

Let our hearts be given wholly to this joy, this intimate and altogether spiritual joy. Nothing dilates our souls so much as this feeling, nothing makes us go more generously forward along the running-track of obedience to the Lord's precepts: "I have run the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart" (Psalm 118:32). During these holy days of Ascensiontide, let us repeat often to Christ Jesus the ardent aspirations of the hymn of the Feast: "Be our joy, O you who will one day be our reward; and may all our glory dwell in you, forever and ever" (Hymn of Vespers and Lauds, Monastic Breviary).

~Bl. Columba Marmion in Christ in His Mysteries

You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence,

the delights at your right hand forever.  (Psalm 16:11)

O Lord, my God, for ever will I sing your praise!

Amen!  Alleluia!