What the Ascension of the Lord Teaches Us About the Body

In beginning this blog, I'm very tempted to put on an academic hat like the one I used to wear when I was working through my master's in biblical theology. Academically, I'm trained in exegesis and a Thomistic approach inspired by Pope Benedict XVI. While I think that would be fun and some people would enjoy it, we simply don't have the time here. I also think that the Lord can speak to us simply and more profoundly at times without the need to systematically break things down.

So we'll start with the passages from the daily readings today to set the stage and go from there:

"When he had said this, as they were looking on,

he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.

While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,

suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.

They said, "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 1:10-11)

"The eleven disciples went to Galilee,

to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.

When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.

Then Jesus approached and said to them,

"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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'" (Mt 28:16-20)

Now that we've set the stage, I want to zoom in on a couple of things. The first is from the Gospel, where Jesus reminds us that all power in heaven and on earth has been given to him. This is the foundation of what I want to talk about here.

We know dogmatically that Jesus is fully God and fully man. He's not a mixture of the two. He's not 50% God and 50% man, but rather 100% God and man. This is a mystery of the faith that we can't forget, because while he was fully God and fully man, he was not a human person but rather a divine person with a human nature. This meant that he always belonged in heaven as the second person of the Trinity, even in his humanity.

God created us good, and Jesus came to remind us that this includes our bodies — because we are our bodies.

Pope Benedict XVI, in addressing the John Paul II Institute in 2011, made this connection:

"Shortly after the death of Michelangelo, Paolo Veronese was summoned by the Inquisition, accused of having depicted inappropriate figures in his "Last Supper". The artist replied that even in the Sistine Chapel bodies were depicted nude, with little reverence. It was the Inquisitor himself who took Michelangelo's defence, with a reply that has become famous: "But in these figures what is there that is not inspired by the Holy Spirit?". As people of the modern age, we struggle to understand these words because the body appears to us as inert matter, heavy, opposed to knowledge and to the freedom proper to the spirit. However the bodies Michelangelo depicted are robed in love, life, splendour. He wanted in this way to show that our bodies hide a mystery. In them the spirit is manifest and active. They are called to be spiritual bodies, as St Paul says (cf. 1 Cor 15:44).

Consequently we can ask ourselves: can this destiny of the body enlighten the stages of its journey? If our body is called to be spiritual, should not its history be that of the covenant between body and spirit? Indeed, far from being opposed to the spirit, the body is the place where the spirit can dwell. In this light it is possible to understand that our bodies are not inert, heavy matter but, if we know how to listen, they speak the language of true love."

This language of love is not one that we speak naturally. If you've ever met a two-year-old, you know that they are not exactly prone to sharing or thinking altruistically about their decisions. This language of love is one we must learn to speak.

At first, we learn the vocabulary of love through repetition of the virtuous people in our lives. After many painstaking hours of memorization, we might even then begin to translate where we view a decision or possibility, think about it, and then act.

The journey of sanctification requires more than merely translation however. We must become fluent in this language of love, without having to take the time to translate, because we have become immersed in the fire of his merciful love and burn with the same flame that he does. In short, our hearts and our wills have been conformed to that of Jesus, and we can now speak fluently in the language that he would, even in our bodies.

It is not merely our soul that changes. It is our entire being, our entire person, which constitutes both body and soul.

While we can say more I will end with where Pope Benedict ended.

Pope Benedict XVI continued:

"It is true that the body also has a negative language: one hears talk of oppression of the other, of the desire to possess and exploit. However, we know that this language is not part of God's original plan but, rather, is the result of sin. When it is separated from its filial meaning, from its connection with the Creator, the body rebels against the person, loses its capacity to let communion shine through and becomes a place for the appropriation of the other. Is this not perhaps the drama of that sexuality which today remains enclosed in the narrow circle of one's own body and emotions, but which in reality can only find fulfilment in that call to something greater?

The power of this promise explains how the Fall is not the last word about the body in salvation history. God also offers the human person a process of the redemption of the body, the language of which is preserved in the family. If after the Fall Eve is given the name "Mother of the Living", this testifies to the fact that the power of sin is not capable of obliterating the original language of the body, the blessing of life that God continues to offer when a man and woman are joined in one flesh. The family: this is the place where the theology of the body and the theology of love are interwoven. Here we learn the goodness of the body, its witness to a good origin, in the experience of the love we receive from our parents. Here lives the self-giving in a single flesh, in the conjugal charity that unites the spouses. Here we experience that the fruitfulness of love and life is interwoven with that of other generations. It is in the family that the human person discovers that he or she is not in a relationship as an autonomous person, but as a child, spouse or parent, whose identity is founded in being called to love, to receive from others and to give him or herself to others.

This journey of creation finds its fullness in the Incarnation, in the coming of Christ. God took a body, revealed himself in it. The upward movement of the body is hence integrated in another, more original movement, the humble movement of God who lowers himself towards the body, in order to raise it to him. As Son, he received a filial body in gratitude and in listening to the Father, and he gave this body for us, by so doing to generate the new body of the Church. The liturgy of the Feast of the Ascension sings the story of the flesh, sinner in Adam, assumed and redeemed by Christ. It is a flesh that becomes ever filled increasingly with light and the Spirit, filled with God."

That line at the end is where all of this comes home. It is our flesh, our bodies, our very selves (as sinful and broken as they may be), who are assumed and redeemed by Christ and filled with God and his love.

Never forget that you are loved by God who knit you in the womb. Do not fall into the trap of viewing your body as a thing to escape or to punish. The Ascension of the Lord teaches us that Christ has redeemed our bodies. He has saved us, and he has sent his Spirit to fill us — so that we might speak this language of love.