The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus,

The month of June is dedicated to growing in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; let us console His Heart and ask of our good Lord to share His Divine Mercy with us! I encourage you to pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This Sunday we celebrate the Mystery of the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven. This week I share with you a meditation on the Ascension of our Lord. I encourage you to reflect over this message a few times this week:

“Jesus awaits us in Heaven - Christ’s glorious exaltation culminates in the Ascension: According to the Gospel of St. Luke, the last gesture of our Lord on earth was to give a blessing (Luke 24:51). The Eleven had gone, as Jesus had told them to, from Galilee to the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. On seeing the Risen Christ once more they fell down before Him as their Master and their God and worshipped Him (cf Matthew 28:17). Now they are much more conscious of what they had for some time believed in their hearts and confessed with their lips: that their Master was the Messiah (Matthew 16:18). They were delighted and full of joy at having their Lord and their God so near. After the forty days spent in His company, they could be witnesses to what they had seen and heard. The Holy Spirit would confirm in them the teachings of Jesus and would lead them to the complete Truth.

The Master spoke to them as only God could: Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me’ (Matthew 28:18). Jesus confirmed the Faith of those who worshipped Him and taught them that the power they were to receive was a sharing in His own Divine Power. The power to forgive sins, and to bring about a rebirth through Baptism is the power of Christ Himself, given now to His Church. The mission of the Church is to continue always the work of Christ, to teach men Divine Truths and make known the demands these Truths impose, to help men follow God’s way through the grace of the sacraments.

He said to them… ‘You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem

nd in all Judaea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth’. And when He said this, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight (Acts 1:7-9). Thus does St. Luke describe for us the Ascension in the Acts of the Apostles.

He withdrew from their sight little by little. The Apostles remained for a long while, looking up as Jesus ascended majestically until a cloud took Him out of their sight. It was the cloud that signifies the presence of God (cf Exodus 13:22; Luke 9:34 ff). In St. John Chrysostom’s words: It was a sign that Jesus had entered Heaven (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 2). Jesus’ life on earth finished not with His death on the Cross but with His Ascension into Heaven. It is the last of the mysteries of His life here on earth. It is a redemptive mystery which together with His Passion, Death and Resurrection make up the Paschal Mystery. It was fitting that those who saw Christ die amid insults, scoffing and mockery on the Cross should see Him now exalted.

They see fulfilled now the words Jesus had one day spoken to them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (John 20:17). And again: Now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to Thee (John 17:11).

We meditate on the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven in the second Glorious Mystery of the Rosary. In the words of the Founder of Opus Dei: Jesus has gone to the Father. Two Angels in white approach us and say, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to Heaven? (Acts 1:11) Peter and the others go back to Jerusalem - ‘cum gaudio magno’ – with great joy (Luke 24:52). It is fitting that the Sacred Humanity of Christ should receive the homage, praise and adoration of all the hierarchies of the Angels and of all the legions of the Blessed in Heaven (St. Jose Escriva, Holy Rosary, Second Glorious Mystery).

His Ascension strengthens and nourishes our desire for Heaven. The hope of Heaven should be fostered: In a sermon to commemorate today’s solemnity, St. Leo the Great said: Today we are not only made possessors of Paradise but with Christ we have ascended, mystically but also really, to the highest Heavens and have won through Christ a grace more wonderful than the one we had lost (St. Gregory the Great, Homily I on the Ascension).

The Ascension strengthens and nourishes our hope of attaining Heaven. It invites us always to lift up our hearts, as the preface of the Holy Mass says, and seek the things that are above. Our hope is very great because Christ Himself has gone to prepare a dwelling place for us (cf John 14:2).

Jesus is in Heaven with His glorified Body, with the signs of His Redemptive Sacrifice (Revelation 5:6) and with the marks of His Pas-sion, marks which Thomas could see and touch, marks which bring about our salvation. The Sacred Humanity of Christ has its natural place in Heaven but He who gave His life for us awaits us there. Christ awaits us. We are ‘citizens of Heaven’ (Phil 3:20), and at the same time fully-fledged citizens of this earth, in the midst of difficulties, injustices and lack of understanding, but also in the midst of the joy and serenity that comes from knowing that we are children of God… If, in spite of everything, Jesus’ ascension into Heaven leaves a certain taste of sadness in our souls, let us go to His Mother, as the Apostles did. ‘They returned to Jerusalem… and they prayed with one mind… together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus (St. Jose Escriva, Christ is passing by, 126).

The hope of Heaven will fill our day with joy. We will imitate the Apostles who, in the words of St. Leo the Great, benefitted so greatly from the Ascension of our Lord that all that beforehand had caused them fear now caused them joy. From that moment on, their souls were fixed in contemplation on the Divinity seated at the right hand of the Father; the very vision of His Body was no obstacle to their believing with their minds illumined by Faith that Christ had not separated Himself from His Father when He descended, and had not separated Himself from His disciples when He ascended (St. Leo the Great, Sermon 74, 3).” (From: In Conversation with God by Francis Fernandez)

Through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Heaven, St. Joseph, St. Michael and St. Paul, may God bless us and grant us the Grace to desire Heaven each day!

In Christ through Mary,

Fr. Kasel