Ascension Thursday

If it has been 40 days since Easter it must be Ascension Thursday, a Solemnity of the Church. It is the day we commemorate the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven.
 

In the words of Richard Rohr:

The Ascension is about the final reunion of what appeared to be separated for a while: Earth and Heaven, human and divine, matter and Spirit. If the Christ is the archetype of the full human journey, now we know how it all resolves itself in the end. “So that where I am, you also will be” (John 14:3)

It is no surprise that most artist renderings of the Ascension show the eyes of the crowds looking upward to the sky. I guess that is where heaven is supposed to be.

But as we celebrate the Feast I think it is also important that we do not take our eye off the body of Christ that dwells among us, in us, and through us. And what better example of this than the article written by my friend Mike Leach about the battle his beautiful wife Vicky has fought for so many years with Alzheimer’s. As her caregiver Mike writes, “Some people spend thousands of dollars to take courses on living in the present moment. In Alzheimer's there is only the present moment.

Perhaps on this Feast day were we celebrate the moment of the ascension of Christ, we can also take some time to recognize the daily moments in our lives where Christ dwells.