Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the Ascension of the Lord

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Homily on the Ascension of the Lord
Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò
Modicum

Modicum et jam non videbitis me,
et iterum modicum et videbitis me,
quia vado ad Patrem.

John 16:16

During the singing of the Gospel we have just witnessed the Paschal Candle being extinguished, symbolizing the Ascension of Christ to the Father, Forty Days after the Resurrection. Some paintings represent the scene of the Ascension showing us the Apostles looking upwards, where sometimes we see the entire figure of the Lord and sometimes only His feet; in others, it is as if we saw what the Lord saw as He ascended, that is, his own feet and further down the absorbed faces of the Apostles. They are two different perspectives of the same scene, and it is precisely on this different perspective that I would like to pause with you as we meditate about the Mystery of the Ascension.

The reason why I believe that a meditation on this theme can be spiritually useful is that all reality, in the Immutable Eternity of God and in the frenetic becoming of time, reveals the Divine Order that unites the Creator Father to creatures, the Redeemer Son to those redeemed, and the Sanctifying Spirit to sanctified believers. And this wonderful intertwining between supernatural and earthly things, between spirit and body, has been definitively established by the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, who in Our Lord Jesus Christ sees the human nature and the divine nature united in the fulfillment of the Redemption. Christ the Man intercedes for sinful men, Christ God offers Himself to the Father to infinitely repair the infinite offenses against the infinite Majesty of God. We cannot conceive of Redemption without Incarnation, nor Incarnation without Charity towards God and towards our neighbor. And it is this perfection of our Holy Religion that shows it indubitably to be divine: only a God who is Love (1 John 4:16) can conceive of the folly of incarnating Himself to redeem the very creature that has rebelled against Him. Only an incarnate God can deign to remain among His own, forty days after being resurrected, postponing His corporeal return to the glory of Heaven.

We ponder the Ascension from below like the disciples, and we see the Lord departing after having promised the Apostles the sending of the Holy Spirit, who will burst into the Cenacle ten days hence. We see His feet, the cloths of the robe, and the clouds that open up to reveal the heavenly Court. We consider the Ascension as a moment of separation and deprivation, because we see the Lord ascend and leave this world in a sort of long parenthesis between His departure and His glorious return at the end of time. We see ourselves as fighters in a long and exhausting war, in which we have been left without a King and with weak or even traitorous generals. We are like the Jews left at the foot of Sinai by Moses, tempted to build a golden calf.

Instead, we ought to know how to look at the Ascension from above, as the Lord saw it: the Apostles becoming smaller and smaller, their features becoming more and more indistinct, while the dazzling light of Paradise approaches above us, and the praises of the angelic Choirs become clearer; while the doors of the heavenly Jerusalem open not only for the King of kings, but also for the holy souls of the Old Law, freed from Limbo on Easter Eve. We should consider the Ascension as the necessary premise of Pentecost, and Pentecost as the indispensable vehicle of Grace that prepares us to fight, to conquer, and to deserve the palm of victory. The absence of our King and Lord gives us the opportunity to testify to Him of our fidelity: not when He conquers and triumphs over His enemies; but when everyone, even His generals, betray Him and go over to the adversary. And just as among the Jews there were those who knew how to await the return of Moses with the tablets of the Law without building reassuring idols, so – and even more so – in the Church there have been, there still are and there always will be those who keep in mind the words of the Savior: A little while and you will no longer see me; a little while and you will see me again, because I am going to the Father (Jn 16:16). A little while and you will see me again: you will not know the day or the hour, because the master will come like a thief in the night, like the Bridegroom awaited by the wise virgins.

We should, dear faithful, understand that we are the ones who must reach the Lord in Heaven, because that is our true Homeland: Quæ sursum sunt quærite, the Divine Master told us: If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth (Col 3:1-2). In this light, human contingencies acquire their just weight, because they are brought back to that κόσμος of which Our Lord is the true and absolute Pantocrator, Lord of all things, Master of time and history. Instaurare omnia in Christo (Eph 1:10) means precisely this: to recapitulate, to bring back to the very first principle, to recognize the Lordship of Christ. And therefore, to be able to read the Divine promise of Non prævalebunt (Mt 16, 18) in the awareness of both the Cross and the Resurrection, of the necessary battle as well as of the indefectible victory.

If we understand that the earthly events that involve all of humanity and each of us individually are indefectibly intertwined with the eternity of God; if we understand that our Faith is not the human and immanent response to the need to believe, but the trusting and conscious adhesion to the perfect work of a God who wants us saved and holy; if we contemplate the Ascension as a mirror of the glorious return of the Rex tremendæ majestatis of the Last Judgement, then we also realize that it is truly a modicum, a short time. And with the theological Hope of the help of God, we can face this parenthesis, this modicum, with renewed vigor.

Dear faithful, we know that these are difficult days: the recent events, the death of Jorge Bergoglio, the convocation of the Conclave, the election of Pope Leo come at a time when we are worn out by decades of crisis, with the last few terrible years of usurpation, heresies, scandals, and the apostasy of almost the entire Catholic Hierarchy. Added to these events is the globalist coup, the increasingly evident hostility of world rulers towards those who are ruled, and the looming establishment of the tyranny of the New World Order with its diabolical agenda. We are all tired and worn out. Tired of fighting against blatant lies passed off as truth. Tired of having to justify the obvious, when the entire system propagates the absurd. Tired of having to defend ourselves from those who instead ought help us. Tired of having to protect ourselves from doctors who want to poison us, from judges who want to imprison honest people while freeing criminals, from teachers who teach errors, from priests and bishops who spread heresy and immorality. We are not made for this: it is not up to the flock to command the shepherds, the student to teach the teacher, the patient to give lessons to the doctor. This is the reason why authority exists: so that as a vicarious expression of the sole Authority of Jesus Christ, King and Pontiff, it may govern to bring about the Good, and not in order to destroy the institution within which it is exercised and to disperse the members.

Our weariness, our bitterness at seeing the opportunities that Providence offers us so often frustrated, the wear and tear of a nerve-wracking battle with a treacherous enemy without valid allies: all this is part of the time of trial. It is our cross, a cross that the Lord has wisely calibrated so that with His Grace we may be able to carry it to the end, an individual and collective cross that no earthly power will ever be able to change or erase. It is the cross that the Church must embrace, because it is the only hope – spes unica – to emerge victorious from this epochal battle: without the passio Ecclesiæ it is impossible for the Mystical Body to triumph with Her Divine Head. And neither peace, nor harmony, nor prosperity will ever be possible where human hopes are not based on the observance of the Holy Law of God and do not recognize the Universal Lordship of Jesus Christ.

It is not up to us – to any of us – to provide ordinary solutions in completely unique and extraordinary circumstances. We are required – and here the wisdom of the regula Fidei comes to our aid – not to change anything that the Lord has taught the Church and that the Church has faithfully transmitted to us. Continuing to believe what our fathers believed will not deprive us of eternal glory, just because we reject the novelties introduced by false shepherds and mercenaries. On the day of the particular Judgment at the moment of our death and on the day of the Universal Judgment at the end of time we will not be judged on the basis of Amoris Lætitia or Nostra Ætate, but on the basis of the Gospel.

Let us therefore live every moment of our life knowing that this is the time of trial; and that the more the battle rages, the more Our Lord will multiply the Graces He grants us to fight and conquer. And if it is true that the Lord is now physically in Heaven, it is equally true that He wanted to grant His Ministers the power to make Him still present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Every tabernacle, however abandoned and neglected by the foolishness of men, brings back to this valley of tears the glory of Heaven, the adoration of the Angels and Saints, the Real Presence of the incarnate God. It is true: the flame of the Paschal Candle may be extinguished, but the flame of the red sanctuary lamp that honors the Eucharistic King remains alive and burning. May the flame of Charity that burns in each of us also shine, so that our soul may be less unworthy of becoming the dwelling place of the Most Holy Trinity. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

29 May MMXXV
in Ascensione Domini