Sunday Gospel Reflections
JUNE 1, 2025 Cycle C
Luke 24:46-53
From
Heaven’s Perspective
By Fr. Steven
G. Oetjen
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When we think of the
Ascension of the
Lord Jesus, we might think of it primarily as a sad occasion.
“He left us,” one could
lament. Now our
senses are deprived of seeing his face and hearing his voice. We
might picture
the apostles gazing wistfully up into the sky, crying out, “Oh,
if only he
would come back to us.”
But the Gospel presents
us with a
different picture. After the Lord ascended into heaven, Luke
tells us, “They
did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and they were
continually in the temple praising God.”
What gave them “great
joy” rather than
sadness at the Lord’s departure?
Let us consider the
Ascension of Jesus
from the point of view of heaven. It is a triumphant occasion.
The king returns
home victorious, after defeating the enemy in war. Imagine the
choirs of angels
singing his praises, welcoming him as he takes his throne. The
responsorial
psalm today helps us to see the mystery from this perspective as
we sing the
refrain, “God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of
trumpets for the
Lord.” The verses of Psalm 47 speak of the Lord Most High being
the king of all
the earth, who reigns over the nations and sits upon his holy
throne. It
exhorts all peoples to clap their hands, shout with gladness,
and sing praise to
God the king.
We can also compare this to the Israelites carrying the
ark back into
the temple after a military victory. We can imagine them singing
a different
psalm: “O gates, lift high your heads / grow higher, ancient
doors. / Let him
enter, the king of glory! / Who is the king of glory? / The
Lord, the mighty,
the valiant, / the Lord, the valiant in war” (Ps 24:7–8). The
Ascension of
Christ is our king’s victory parade not merely into the
sanctuary made by human
hands, which is a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven
itself (Heb 9:24).
He returns
with the human flesh he
had taken to
himself, now risen and glorified, to sit at the right hand of
the Father. With
his wounds, he returns as a mighty conqueror in the war against
the devil, sin
and death.
Even if the apostles on
earth could not
see this, could they not join in the joy of the angels in
praising their king?
Luke tells us that the apostles were “continually in the temple
praising God.”
From earth, they share in the rejoicing going on in heaven.
And besides that, the
Ascension of the
Lord is not really his departure from us. He told his disciples
elsewhere,
“Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt
28:20). Because
Christ has ascended to heaven, our relationship with him can be
closer than
before. He is not limited to being in one place at one time, but
he is made
present on altars and dwells in tabernacles all over the world
in the holy
Eucharist. He offers us a mystical union with himself as he
comes to visit the
souls who love him and keep his commandments (Jn 14:15). He
says, “I will not
leave you orphans; I will come to you … Whoever loves me will
keep my word, and
my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our
dwelling with
him” (Jn 14:18, 23).
Share in the joy of the
angels today,
who praise their triumphant king as he enters heaven, victorious
over the
powers of hell. And know that because he has ascended, he can be
closer to you
than ever before.