In Provinces where the Feast has been moved to Sunday

Doctrinal Note for the Ascension

The Ascension crowns the whole of Our Lord’s life.  Christ was now to take possession of the Kingdom of Heaven which He had won by His sufferings, and to open to us His Father’s House, “setting our frail nature at the right hand of God’s Glory”, that there, as God’s children, we may fill the place from which the Angels fell.  So, as Conqueror of sin and Satan, Jesus enters Heaven; while the Angels hail and greet their King and the souls of the just, freed from Limbo, form for Him an escort of Glory.  “I go to prepare a place for you” He told His apostles.  “There where the Head has entered,” says St. Leo, “the body also is called to penetrate.”

The triumph of Christ is the triumph of His Church.  Like the High Priest who, under the Old Law, entered the Holy of Holies to offer the blood of the victims to Almighty God, Our Lord, the Apostle tells us, has entered the Holy of Holies of the Heavenly Jerusalem, there to offer His own Blood, the Blood of the New Testament, and to obtain for us favors from God.  It is on Ascension Day that Christ begins His Heavenly Priesthood, showing His glorious wounds to God.  While it is the complement of all Our Lord’s Feasts, the Ascension is the fount of our sanctification.  As the Church sings:  “He was lifted up into Heaven, so that He might make us partakers of His Godhead”.

Historical Note for the Ascension

Forty days after Our Lord’s Resurrection, the apostles, who had come to Jerusalem at the approach of Pentecost, were assembled in the Cenacle when Our Lord appeared and took a last meal with them, afterwards leading them outside the city on the Bethany side to the Mount of Olives, the highest of the mountains which surround the capital.  Then Jesus Blessing His apostles was raised towards the sky.  This was at midday.  Then a cloud hid Him from sight and tow angels came and told the disciples that Jesus would return to earth at the end of the world.

On the Mount of Olives, on the spot were Our Lord ascended into Heaven, St. Helen built a Basilica, afar the pattern of that of the Holy Sepulcher.  By a happily devised piece of symbolism, it was open to the sky.  It was destroyed by the Mohammedans and replaced in the fourteenth century by a monument of mediocre style.

Book of Heaven:  1/1/29 – Vol. 25

“Daughter, from the moment I was conceived and from the very first days of My being born, I occupied Myself with the Kingdom of My Divine Will and with how to place It in safety in the midst of creatures.  These were My sighs, My tears, My repeated sobs, My pains, all directed toward reestablishing the Kingdom of My Fiat upon earth.  In fact, I knew that no matter how many goods I might give him, man would never be happy, nor would he possess the fullness of goods and of sanctity, or have the insignia of his creation that constitute him king and dominator; he is always the man-servant, weak, miserable.  But with My Will, and by making It reign in their midst, I would give him, in one single stroke of fortune, all goods, his royal palace and his lost dominion.

“About twenty centuries have passed and I have not stopped—My sighs last still; and if I have manifested to you so many knowledges about My Divine Will, these are nothing other than My speaking tears and the indelible characters of My pains and sighs, that, transforming into words, manifest themselves to you, to make you write on paper, with the most tender and convincing manners, what regards My Divine Volition and how It wants to reign on earth as It does in Heaven.  Therefore, on Our part, the Divinity has decided with indelible and unshakeable decrees that Our Divine Will come to reign upon earth—and no one can move Us; and as the sign of this, We have dispatched from Heaven the army of Its knowledges.  If it were not so, it would not be worthwhile to place the so many values of a Divine Will at risk; just as they have remained hidden to man for many centuries, so could they continue.

“Now We are waiting for the creatures’ part, who are still temporizing from making up their minds, especially those who temporize from occupying themselves with making known the secrets of My Divine Will and the great good of Its knowledges.  Human will, how ungrateful you are; I (Jesus) am waiting for your (the soul linked with the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta) decision so that we (Jesus and soul linked with Luisa) may exchange the kiss, and I (Jesus) may give you (soul linked with Luisa) the Kingdom that I (Jesus) have prepared for you (soul linked with Luisa).  And you temporize still?  My daughter, pray and place no obstacle on your part to a good so great, that will be the greatest display of Our Love.”