SOLEMNITY
OF THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD
THURSDAY MAY 29th
AT QUARR ABBEY
Some 40 or 50 years ago, we used to extinguish the pascal candle at the end of the Gospel after these words: “Jesus led the Apostles out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven” (Lk 24, 50-51). It was the liturgical sign of his departure from this world below to his Father’s right hand in heaven, according to the Psalm we sing every Sunday: Sede a dextris meis (109, 1).
Now, we keep the candle lit until Compline on Pentecost, at the very end of Pascal tide. It means that our risen Lord remains with us as he told his Apostles: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28, 20). And after Pentecost, the pascal candle remains nearby, because it comes back in the sanctuary for the celebrations of baptism and of funerals, a precious sign of Jesus presence. We go on following him, guided by his Light, as we did in the procession of the pascal Vigil: Lumen Christi we sang, remembering this verse of Psalm 118: “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (v. 105).
We love our pascal candles in our churches, which we adorn with paintings. This year, here, the face of Jesus appears on the top of the candle: he looks smiling, inviting us to life, to eternal joy. On the 11th of May, on the feast of the Abbots of Cluny – which is the anniversary of the election of Abbot Xavier –, we usually sing a beautiful antiphon about one of them: “As blessed Hugh was celebrating the pascal Vigil, he greeted the column of the new light, praying with frequent sighs, that he could reach happily the land of the promise, alleluia”.
So, Jesus remains with us, but not alone. He went, sent from the Father – Exivi a Patre –, and he returned to the Father, going to prepare a place for us. As he promised, he comes back to us, as if he could not wait for the moment when we find our places in heaven close to him: “If anyone loves me, he says to his disciples, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14, 23). Isn’t that incredible! God the Father and God his Son wish to have their home with us; they want to abide in us. Jesus went on saying: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15, 9-10). The only thing is to remain with Jesus and with his Father, to abide in them, to love with their own Love, who is the Holy Spirit, and so they have their home in us. “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit”, writes saint John in his first Letter (4, 13).
Gone to the Father, Jesus still comes to us with the Father and their Spirit, but it needs our living faith, which he asks for in every chapter of the Gospel according to John. We experience a tension: “Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 Jn 2, 23); we have them, but they do not appear yet as they are; “we know that when they appear, we shall be like them, because we shall see them as they are. And everyone who thus hopes in them purifies himself as they are pure” (cf. 3, 2-3).
That is why, as saint Paul writes to the Romans, “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons” (8, 23). Our Advocate, the Spirit of love, helps us in our weakness, and puts in our souls “sighs too deep for words” (26), the kind of frequent sighs which Blessed Hugh uttered in front of the pascal candle.
Let us go on singing: Iesu, nostra redemptio, amor et desiderium. “Jesus, our redemption, our love and our longing.” It is the sigh that concludes the Holy Bible: “The Spirit and the Bride – that we are – say: Come!” And he answers: “Surely I am coming soon – Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev 22, 17.20). Alleluia.