A Homily for the Feast of
the Ascension
by Saint Leo the Great (c. 400-461)
The mystery of our salvation, which the Creator of the universe valued
at the price of His blood, was carried out in humility from the day of
His bodily birth until the end of His Passion. And although, even while
he was in Athe form of a slave@ many signs of his Divinity shone forth,
yet the events of that whole time served particularly to show the
reality of His assumed humanity.
But after the Passion, when the chains of death were broken, weakness
was turned into power, mortality into eternity, insult into
glory. This the Lord Jesus Christ showed by many clear proofs in
the sight of many, until He carried even into heaven the triumphant
victory which He had won over death.
At Easter the Lord's Resurrection was the cause of our rejoicing; today
the reason for our gladness is His Ascension. Today we
commemorate that day on which our human nature, in all its humility,
was in Christ raised above all the host of heaven, over all the ranks
of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father.
Because of the event we commemorate today,
God's grace appears even more wonderful. At the Ascension, that which
rightfully commanded men=s awe was removed from men's sight. And
yet faith did not fail, hope did not waver, charity did not grow cold.
For it is the strength and the light of faithful souls unhesitatingly
to believe what is not seen with the bodily sight, and to fix their
affections where they cannot direct their gaze.
Whence should godliness spring up in our hearts, or how should we be
justified by faith, if our salvation rested on only those things which
lie beneath our eyes? Our Lord said to the Apostle Thomas, who
seemed to doubt Christ's resurrection until he had tested by sight and
touch the traces of His Passion in His very Flesh: Abecause thou
hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are, they who have not seen
and yet have believed.@
Therefore, in order that we may be capable of this blessedness, when
all things were fulfilled which concerned the preaching of the Gospel
and the mysteries of the New Testament, our Lord Jesus Christ, on the
fortieth day after the Resurrection, in the presence of the disciples,
was raised into heaven. He put an end to his presence with us in
the body, to abide on the Father's right hand until the time
fore-ordained by God has been accomplished, when he shall come again,
in the same flesh with which he ascended, to judge both the quick and
the dead.
At his Ascension, everything about our Redeemer that had until then
been visible was changed into a sacramental presence. In order
that faith might be stronger and more excellent, sight gave way to
doctrine, the authority of which was to be accepted by believing hearts
enlightened with rays from above.
This Faith, increased by the Lord's Ascension and established by the
gift of the Holy Spirit, was not terrified by bonds, imprisonments, or
banishments; by hunger, fire, or the attacks of wild beasts; or by the
most refined torments of cruel persecutors. For this Faith,
throughout the world, not only men, but also women, not only young
boys, but also tender maidens, have contended even to the shedding of
their blood. This Faith has cast out demons, healed the sick, and
raised the dead.
Through this Faith, the Apostles themselves, who, despite being
strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so many discourses,
had yet been panic-stricken by the horrors of the Lord's Passion and
had not accepted the truth of His resurrection without hesitation, made
such progress after the Lord's Ascension that everything which had
previously filled them with fear was turned into joy.
After the Ascension, they lifted all of their thoughts to the divinity
of Him who sat at the Father's right hand. No longer obstructed
by the barrier of corporeal sight, they were able to direct their
minds' gaze to the one who had never left the Father's side by his
descending to earth, and who had not forsaken the disciples by his
ascending into heaven.
The Son of Man and Son of God, therefore, then attained even greater
glory when He returned to the Father's Majesty. In an
indescribably manner became nearer to the Father in respect of His
divinity, after having become farther away in respect of His humanity.
A better instructed faith then began to draw closer to a conception of
the Son's equality with the Father. It was no longer necessary to
confront the material body, in which Christ is less than the Father,
because, while the nature of the glorified body still remained, the
faith of believers was called upon to touch the only-begotten Son, who
is equal with the Father, not with the hand of flesh, but with
spiritual understanding.
That is why the Lord, after His Resurrection, said to Mary Magdalene,
who, representing the Church, hastened to approach and touch Him:
ATouch Me not, for I have not yet ascended to My Father.@
That is, he did not want us to come to him as if to a human body, or to
recognize him by the perception of his flesh. He directs us
instead to higher things; he prepares greater things for us. He
means: AWhen I have ascended to My Father, then you shall handle
me more perfectly and more truly, for then you will grasp what thou
cannot touch and believe what you cannot see.@
When the disciples' eyes followed the ascending Lord to heaven with an
upward gaze of earnest wonder, two angels stood by them in raiment
shining with wondrous brightness, and said, AYe men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing into heaven? This Jesus Who was taken up from you
into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye saw Him going into
heaven.@ By these words the whole Church was taught to believe
that Jesus Christ will come visibly in the same flesh wherewith He
ascended, and not to doubt that all things are subjected to Him.
To him the angels had ministered from the first beginning of His
Birth. An angel announced to the blessed Virgin that Christ
should be conceived by the Holy Ghost; the voice of heavenly beings
sang to the shepherds of His being born of the Virgin; and messengers
from above were the first to attest His having risen from the
dead. The service of angels was employed to foretell His coming
again in the flesh to judge the world, so that we might understand what
great powers will come with Him as Judge, when such great ones
ministered to Him even in being judged.
And so, let us rejoice with spiritual joy, and let us with gladness pay
God worthy thanks and raise our hearts' eyes unimpeded to those heights
where Christ is. Minds that have heard the call to be uplifted must not
be pressed down by earthly affections. Those who are predestined
to things eternal must not be taken up with the things that
perish. Those who have entered on the way of Truth must not be
entangled in treacherous snares. The faithful must so take their
course through these temporal things as to remember that they are only
sojourners in the vale of this world. Even though we may meet
with some attractions in this world, we must not sinfully embrace them,
but bravely pass through them.
To this devotion the blessed Apostle Peter arouses us. He begs us
with that loving eagerness which he conceived for feeding Christ's
sheep by his threefold profession of love for the Lord, and he
says, ADearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to
abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.@ But for
whom do fleshly pleasures wage war, if not for the devil, whose delight
it is to shackle our souls, which strive after things above, by the
enticements of corruptible good things, and to draw us away from the
heavenly home from which he himself has been banished? Against
his plots every believer must keep careful watch, that he may crush his
foe on the side whence the attack is made.
And there is no more powerful weapon against the devil's wiles than
kindly mercy and bounteous charity, by which every sin is either
escaped or vanquished. But this lofty power is not attained until
that which is opposed to it has been overthrown. And what is so hostile
to mercy and works of charity as avarice, from the root of which spring
all evils? Unless that is destroyed by lack of nourishment,
the thorns and briars of vices must necessarily grow in the soil
of any heart in which this evil weed has taken root, rather than any
seed of true goodness.
Let us then resist evil and "follow after
charity," without which no virtue can flourish, so that by the same
path of love whereby Christ came down to us, we too may mount up to
Him. To him, with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honour
and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
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