text: The ascension of the Lord Jesus into heaven is a mystery rooted in history and spoken of in Scripture, like the Resurrection. It is presented both at the end of…
  The ascension of the Lord Jesus into heaven is a mystery rooted in history and spoken of in Scripture, like the Resurrection. It is presented both at the end of Matthew’s Gospel and at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. It is also alluded to in John’s Gospel, when the risen Jesus encounters Mary Magdalene and says, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (Jn 20:17).
  The Ascension is the completion of the Easter mysteries of Jesus’ life, passion, death and resurrection, and it is the final step before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand” (No. 659).
  Yet perhaps we feel somewhat like the Apostles who witnessed the Ascension, standing there, looking up, wondering what just happened. Why did Jesus go? Where did he go? The angels’ response to them is apropos for us, too: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
  There are two things to remember about this mystery. First, in a very real way, Jesus’ ascension into heaven is the goal for each one of us. He goes before us, and we are to follow Him there. In the Ascension, the domain of God’s glory is opened to us, and Jesus, in His glorified humanity, takes His rightful place at God’s right hand. It is a privilege for all of us that one of our own, a man like us in all things but sin, has been so glorified. Not only that, he is calling us and interceding for us always so that we will one day join him. As the Catechism states: “Left to its own natural powers humanity does not have access to the ‘Father’s house,’ to God’s life and happiness. Only Christ can open to man such access that we, his members, might have confidence that we too shall go where he, our Head and our Source, has preceded us” (No. 661).
  The second thing to remember about this mystery is that Jesus will come back. When that day comes, we should be ready. He has asked us to be his faithful disciples, living in a vital friendship with him. This is not magic, however. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit, whom each of us receives in baptism and confirmation. It also takes a lived relationship with God in prayer. Finally, Jesus expects us to be open, available and ready to cooperate with him in the mission he calls us to.
  The last thing Jesus said to the Apostles was, “But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). In Matthew’s Gospel, the last injunction is similar: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (28:19-20). If we live out that mission from Christ, and truly make disciples of all nations, then his presence is with us despite his bodily absence. First and foremost, Jesus is with us in the Eucharist and in the liturgy of the Church. Jesusalso is present spiritually when we pray in his name, as he said: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).
  Jesus’ work on earth is now complete, but the task of bearing witness to Him and making disciples is never done, not until he returns at the end of time. That is the task the Apostles began to do, starting with prayer in the upper room as they awaited the promised Holy Spirit. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was there with them. Clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles and disciples of Jesus began to preach and teach about him to Jews and to Gentiles. They began to do what the Lord Jesus asked them to do: bear witness and make disciples. That task is not just theirs; it belongs to all of us.
  Sister Anna Marie McGuan, R.S.M., is Director of Christian Formation in the Diocese of Knoxville.
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  Church Seasons and Feasts
  The Feast of the Presentation
  D.D. Emmons
  February 2, 2022 1:45 pm February 2, 2022
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  According to the Church’s liturgical calendar, the feast held on Feb. 2 each year is in honor of the Presentation of the Lord. Some Catholics recall this day as the…
  According to the Church’s liturgical calendar, the feast held on Feb. 2 each year is in honor of the Presentation of the Lord. Some Catholics recall this day as the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary because such was the feast day named until the 1969 changes in the Church’s calendar.
  In fact, according to Luke’s Gospel, the presentation of Jesus and the purification of the Blessed Mother took place in the Temple on the same day, and both are remembered during Mass on Feb. 2. Also, in several countries, Candlemas is simultaneously celebrated on this day and involves a candlelight procession that was popularized in the Middle Ages. Until the Second Vatican Council the feasts on Feb. 2 ended the Christmas season. Today, the season ends in January on the feast of the Baptism of our Lord.
  As early as the fourth century Christians commemorated the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, but, at the time, there was no feast name attached. In seventh-century Rome, the Church named the celebration the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mother Mary, and it remained that way for nearly 1,300 years. In the reforms after Vatican II, the feast was given a stronger focus on Jesus (by stressing the Presentation of Jesus), but clearly the events of purification and presentation that took place when Jesus was 40 days old (see Lk 2:22-39) are tied together and thus commemorated together.
  Purification and Presentation
  Under Mosaic law found in the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, a Jewish woman who gave birth to a child was considered unclean (see 12:1-8). The mother of a newborn could not routinely go out into public and had to avoid all things sacred, including the Temple. If her child was a male, this exclusion lasted for 40 days. If the child was female, the period lasted 80 days. This was a ceremonial seclusion and not the result of sin or some kind of wrongdoing on the part of the mother.
  At the end of the 40 or 80 days the woman presented herself at the Temple to be purified. If the baby was her firstborn male child, the infant was brought along to the Temple to be dedicated to the Lord. The law in Exodus specifies that the first male child belongs to God (see 13:2-16). This law is a tribute to God for His sparing the firstborn Israelite males during the time of the Exodus from Egypt. The firstborn Egyptian male children, of course, were not spared.
  The mother’s purification ritual obliged her to bring, or purchase at the Temple, a lamb and a turtledove as sacrificial offerings. The lamb was offered in thanksgiving to God for the successful birth of the child; the turtledove was a sin offering. Families that could not afford a lamb could bring two pigeons or two turtledoves. After these animals were sacrificed, the Temple priest prayed over the woman and she could once again resume her normal role or status.
  Mary, the ever spotless Mother of God, certainly did not have to comply with this ritual, but did so to honor God and observe all the rules handed down by Moses. She was the holiest of all women, but she still submitted to the humbling requirements of the law. She remained at home for 40 days, denied herself all association with sacred things and on the day required walked the five miles from Bethlehem to the Temple in Jerusalem. Arriving at the Temple, Mary likely stood in line and waited her turn to see the priest.
  Nunc Dimittis
  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus, Mary and Joseph go to the Temple offering two turtledoves for Mary’s purification. Along with Mary’s willing submission, Jesus is presented into the hands of the priest and thus to God. In accordance with the Old Testament, the child was blessed and then bought or ransomed back by the family who would pay five shekels into the Temple treasury. The Savior of the world is ransomed in the manner of every other Hebrew boy. “When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord’”(Lk 2:22-24; see Nm 18:15-16).
  The Gospel of Luke explains that the old prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna were at the Temple that day (see 2:22-38). They, like many others, had spent their lifetime waiting, longing for a Messiah, and the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the Savior. Among all the children and mothers coming into the Temple, Simeon recognized Jesus as the Christ Child; he held Jesus and exclaimed this hymn of thanksgiving, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel” (2:29-32). The hymn has traditionally been termed the Nunc Dimittis, from the Latin, “Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace.”
  Like Mary, Jesus the Divine Son of God did not have to undergo these rituals, but His parents willingly complied in order to pay tribute to Jewish laws, to avoid any possible scandal and in so doing demonstrated profound humility. They acquiesced to the law like all poor Jewish families.
  The Holy Family must have experienced great joy, even wonder at all that had happened to them. Consider the events of the previous weeks. First, the shepherds miraculously arrived to adore and praise Jesus on the night He was born. And now, Simeon, another stranger, singles out Jesus as the Savior, not only of Israel but of the world. Someday all the other children being presented will know Jesus as their Savior. But here in the Temple there is also pain. The old prophet, moved by the Holy Spirit, tells Mary that she will experience unspeakable grief because of the outrageous way the world would judge and treat her Son. But Mary remained always committed to God’s will and to her Son.
  Feb. 2 is on the liturgical calendar as the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, but in addition to the presentation, the Mass recalls Mary’s humble submission to the purification ritual.
  D.D. Emmons writes from O’Fallon, Ill.
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  Church Seasons and Feasts
  Celebrating The Apostles Separately
  Father Reginald Martin
  July 17, 2020 7:55 am July 17, 2020
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  We might consider two reasons for our liturgical year’s providing separate feasts for the apostles rather than a single feast to celebrate their memory. First, many of the apostles are…
  We might consider two reasons for our liturgical year’s providing separate feasts for the apostles rather than a single feast to celebrate their memory. First, many of the apostles are associated with a ministry to a particular place — for example, James (the Greater) to Spain, Thomas to India, Jude to Syria and Persia. At some point the Church embraced the local traditions and invited all Catholics to participate in celebrations to honor the individual apostles.
  Second, the Church tends to expand, rather than diminish, opportunities for liturgical celebration. Thus, we acknowledge groups, such as the North American Martyrs (Oct. 19), who worked and died together, and Sts. Peter and Paul (June 29), who share an undeniable link in building up the early Church. However, allowing us to celebrate feasts dedicated to the individual apostles enables us to reflect on their distinctive, personal merits, and to discern ways in which we might incorporate an apostle’s strengths (or build on his weaknesses) as we strive to live out our own apostolic witness.
  Because the first Eucharistic prayer names each of the apostles, we have an opportunity to celebrate a feast in their collective honor whenever the celebrant uses that prayer at Mass.
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  Church Seasons and Feasts
  Pentecost Amid COVID-19
  Father Andrew Clyne
  May 31, 2020 2:26 pm May 31, 2020
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  In our theological language we speak of the Son as begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit as “spirated,” which means to be breathed out. The Holy Spirit is…
  In our theological language we speak of the Son as begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit as “spirated,” which means to be breathed out. The Holy Spirit is breathed out by the Father and the Son, the union of their love so intimate and substantial, that he is a third fully equal and one with them.
  Pentecost is our annual celebration of this same Holy Spirit breathed out on the world through the Church. The breath of God is given to the Church headed by Christ to guide her members into the fullness of life. That is why we receive this life giving breath: we receive the Spirit in order to be drawn in, and to draw others into, the union of Christ’s Body on pilgrimage to the Father.
  The celebration of Pentecost this year will be unlike any other in recent memory, and it will be so because of the tragic irony that we find ourselves contending with a virulent disease whose most notable symptom is its denial of breath. This Pentecost we find ourselves longing to be filled with God’s breath in a world struggling for air.
  Of course, compounding the suffering still for many is our inability to physically gather in fellowship as the Church to mark this great solemnity. However necessary this is, it should nevertheless be a source of great lament, for this separation is not the norm. We are inherently social creatures: creatures, who, though spirit, are also flesh. We are tactile, and the manifestation of our communion in spirit is most readily apparent in our intimate gestures of fleshly embrace. Our highest form of union is precisely when we huddle together in joy and thanksgiving to feast on the body of Christ and thereby to become ourselves one body in and through him.
  That is the norm, and any derivation from it must necessarily constitute a diminishment, an undeniable deprivation in our lives. But the intimacy of bodies, the intimacy of the Eucharistic fellowship of Christ’s body the Church, is conducive toward one shared and singular end — namely, the perfection of intimacy in God’s life, which is simply love. Where love is absent, no matter how many persons are crammed together, regardless of how many hosts are distributed, there is no unity; there is no life.
  The world before the outbreak of the coronavirus was already significantly marked by fracture. Unfortunately, in many ways the virus has only intensified that reality, deepening the fissures. Perhaps most disappointingly, the Church herself has not been immune to this developing fragmentation.
  Those of us left wondering how to mark Pentecost this year amid social distancing might simply recall that in spite of our absence from public worship, the Spirit’s invitation to the Church to offer fitting worship (the capacity for this being itself pure gift) persists. This is so because “Church” is not simply showing up for an hour in a building on Sunday (or maybe a few more times a week).
  Rather, the Church is realized in the graced response of her members to God’s summons for loving unity. Not the all too prevalent pseudo-unity of an imposed uniformity that ignores, denies or suppresses conflict. Rather, genuine unity, the reconciliation that takes place in truth and charity, necessarily making it a work of God. The Church is most fully herself when she cooperates with the Holy Spirit to foster that unity. In this alone does she convey genuine gratitude for the gift of God’s life, and in turn offers fitting worship expressive of that gratitude.
  These weeks of quarantine have eliminated much from our lives (both temporarily and permanently), but it has not eliminated the possibilities for such worship. In fact, in a world, in a nation, even in a Church wracked by disunity, the need for the fitting worship of unity sought is needed now more than ever. Of course, that type of unity — real unity — is not something we achieve on our own. That unity so described is a reflection of, and a participation in, the unsurpassable union of God: Father, Son, and Spirit. It, therefore, requires us always to turn to God in supplication, imploring his favor. And that is why once more at Pentecost we must cry out, “Come, Holy Spirit.”
  As is the case in all worship, this worship of lives seeking the communion of our brothers and sisters — which is but the most telling sign of our desired communion with God — is the meeting of the human and the divine. God initiates, but with the expectation of response. There is simply no such thing as passive worship. We are most fully active through the complete offering of ourselves, which is only our replication of the self-offering of God that has made our very lives possible. In this willingness to cooperate, in our openness to be filled with God’s breath, we, as the Church’s members, are able to in turn breathe out God’s breath to a suffocating world. Despite what we must now endure this Pentecost, the possibility for this — and the challenge to do this — still remains.
  Father Andrew Clyne writes from Maryland.
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  Church Seasons and Feasts
  The Ascension Amid COVID-19
  Father Andew Clyne
  May 24, 2020 7:16 am May 24, 2020
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  There is no disputing that Easter represents the high point of the liturgical year. In it we celebrate our salvation. Our liberation by Christ from the reign of death which…
  There is no disputing that Easter represents the high point of the liturgical year. In it we celebrate our salvation. Our liberation by Christ from the reign of death which held us captive, which tried but failed to hold him captive in the tomb. During this time of pandemic and quarantine, though, in which so many might be unable to experience the proper liturgical setting for this celebration, our experience of liberation and release from captivity necessarily has a muted quality.
  But all too often we forget that this Easter celebration is not that of a single day, one-off event, but rather a season. And central to the proper celebration of the Easter season is the prayerful observance of Christ’s ascension — the culmination of the Lord’s ministry and the necessary precursor to the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
  Modern Christians might be susceptible to incredulity, or at least befuddlement, around this feast, with its seemingly mythological accounts of terrestrial-celestial movement. And there is the consequent temptation to downplay its significance. That tendency is not helped by shifting the feast’s commemoration — in one place Thursday, in another Sunday — often suggesting, perhaps, a willingness to downplay what might be dismissed as a kind of narrative afterthought in the life of Christ.
  But seeing things that way could not be further from the truth. That’s because the Ascension, in addition to the Resurrection, fulfills Christ’s saving mandate. Perhaps we have overemphasized the Resurrection in this way to the neglect of the Ascension, rather than appreciate their inextricable link, because of our widespread confusion about what exactly salvation is.
  Salvation is Christ’s overcoming sin and its gravest consequence: death. It is sin and death that bring every human effort to naught. If Christ had not been raised from the dead — unmasking death’s own futility, bringing death to death itself — then his ministry would itself have been in vain. And if he did not make us partakers in his own resurrection, if we were still excluded from his victory over death, then our lives would still be subject to the tyranny of futility. But he has triumphed over death, and he has made us sharers in that victory. And all this is the source of our joy on Easter morning.
  But recall the words of Christ on that first Easter Sunday: “Do not hold on to me!” Why? Because as he says to Mary, “I have not yet ascended to the Father” (Jn 20:7). That is to say, he is not finished. He has not yet fully accomplished what he has come to do, and essential to accomplishing it is his very ascent to the Father.
  What, therefore, has he come to do? Well, of course, to free us from sin, death and their resultant futility. But that freedom from is achieved precisely so that we once more might experience a freedom for: the freedom to live for God fully.
  There is a basic dynamic to God’s relationship with his creation and creatures. Everything that is not God comes forth from God as pure gift, since creation did not have to be and, therefore, is owed nothing. Coming forth from God happens, however, so that this creation can share in God’s life and love. And that ability to share in God is the extraordinary gift that surpasses the already unmerited gift of simply existing.
  But we refused that gift. We refused that share. We severed the connection. Christ came among us to restore that relationship, and he did so, not only by overcoming the division, but by drawing us once more into the mystery of God. He reestablished our union with God in a way that not only restores what had been lost (what is achieved at Easter), but in a way which also surpasses what even was (which is what he does through his Ascension). He does this by forever uniting our now perfected creaturely nature with God himself: when he ascends to the Father, the flesh of the crucified and risen Christ — the flesh we share — is seated at God’s right hand forever.
  Perhaps we would do well to pay special attention to that mystery of the ascended flesh of Christ in this moment of global pandemic, when we are on a daily basis (or even hourly) reminded of the fragility of our existence in the flesh. All we need to recall as Christians, when we gaze upon the broken bodies of our COVID-ravaged brothers and sisters, and the resulting brokenness in society as a product of the pandemic, is the broken body of our brother Christ. It is that broken and beaten flesh that not only rises transformed from the grave — still bearing the wounds, the signs of vulnerability — but ascends to be joined with the Father forever. It speaks the truth that our individual and collective brokenness (a condition of which we are ever so aware in these uncertain times) is not the end of the story, but, through Christ, a prelude to glory.
  Christ’s ascension is what clears the way for us. It is the Ascension that ensures the human-divine reunion. For those of us who must continue to persevere in our vulnerability, longing for that union, we must have fixed before us this central mystery of Christ’s life, seeing in it alone the source of our hope: that in our own flesh, we shall see God (Job 19:26).
  Father Andrew Clyne writes from Maryland.
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  Church Seasons and Feasts
  When is Ascension Celebrated?
  Father Reginald Martin
  April 17, 2020 6:33 am April 17, 2020
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  The Church’s Code of Canon Law includes the ascension of Jesus among the solemn feast days to be observed by Latin-rite Catholics throughout the universal Church. The text also remarks,…
  The Church’s Code of Canon Law includes the ascension of Jesus among the solemn feast days to be observed by Latin-rite Catholics throughout the universal Church. The text also remarks, “The conference of bishops can abolish certain holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday with the prior approval of the Apostolic See” (Canon 1246.2).
  In many places, as we have seen, the Ascension has been transferred to Sunday, and for a twofold reason. First, holy days are to be observed with the same regard as Sundays. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God … and [partake in] the appropriate relaxation of mind and body” (No. 2185). This is often impossible on weekdays, so moving the feast to a Sunday makes a great deal of sense.
  Some will ask why the Church does not maintain the feast of the Ascension on Thursday but remove the obligation to attend Mass that day. This leads to the second reason for moving the feast. Doing so allows those who cannot attend Mass on Thursday to share an important, common prayer experience.
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