On this feast of the Ascension, I offer the reflections of two Catholic’s on the subject, one a theologian and the other a specialist in the fields of spirituality and systematic theology. The first is Karl Rahner, a German Jesuit whose contributions including those at Vatican II have made him one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. In the book The Great Church Year: The Best of Karl Rahner’s Homilies, Sermons, and Meditations, he writes of the gift of the Spirit which is the gift of the Ascension. Though through his leaving Jesus seems to be removed from us, he is really closer to us than he could have been in the flesh: He dwells within us in the Spirit.
“We notice nothing of this, and that is why the ascension seems to be a separation. But it is a separation only for our paltry consciousness. We must will to believe in such a nearness–in the Holy Spirit.
The ascension is the universal event of salvation history that must recur in each individual, in our personal salvation history through grace. When we become poor, then we become rich. When the lights of the world grow dark, then we are bathed in light…When we think we feel only a waste and emptiness of the heart, when all the joy of celebrating appears to be only official fuss, because the real truth around us cannot yet be admitted, then we are in truth better prepared for the real feast of the Ascension than we might suppose.”
Hmm…How does that work, in my life? In yours?
It has to do with the percieved dichotomy: If one is poor, one cannot be rich, right? In this case, wrong. Being poor, deprived of the earthly presence of Jesus, in fact makes us rich because the Spirit comes to live in each of us. Feeling alone and empty can enable us to receive grace and become aware of the Presence within. As one of my favorite poets, Sir Thomas Browne, writes in his poem,
If thou could’st empty all thyself of self:
“But thou art all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes, He says, `This is enow
Unto itself – `twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me.`
In his book, The Holy Longing,Ronald Rolheiser, the second scholar, presents an interesting way of looking at what Rahner says is the “universal event of salvation history that must recur in …our personal salvation history…” In more colloquial language, Rolheiser says the paschal mystery in our lives is “a process of transformation within which we are given both new life and new spirit.” In this process, the ascension is the time of “letting go of the old and letting it bless you, the refusal to cling.”
In my own life, this has been a very real, sometimes painful part of my ongoing transformational process. One example is my divorce, something as a young Catholic woman declaring her vows before God and community, I never imagined would happen. But it did. It needed to happen, but that did not make “letting go of the old” easy. Sometimes the wounds of those years threatened to overshadow the blessing. Rolheiser’s insistence that the old, no matter what it is, has blessings to give is important to remember. My children, of course, are the first and most important of the blessings. There are others.
“Refusal to cling,” is also important. I had to let go, to feel empty and hurt. The temptation is great to hold on to something, no matter how unhealthy, just because it is familiar. Better the known misery that the unknown…
Not true. As Rahner, Rolheiser, and Browne all remind us, sometimes we must be empty to receive.
The women and men who were Jesus’ disciples surely wanted him to hang around, to have dinner and wine and conversation together; to continue to teach and inspire and lead. Letting go was not easy, but it was necessary. The universal “letting go” is also the universal “opening up” that allows the Spirit to fill us and lead us to new ways of living the gospel message and bringing love and transformation to the world.
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