Vigils Reading

THAT WE MAY ASCEND TO WHERE HE IS

A Sermon by St. Aelred of Rievaulx2

For some time now we have been keeping before our minds the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the same length of time as he spent in the world after his resurrection. Today we celebrate the day on which he showed us openly that all the things which he did and suffered in this world he did to lead us from the death into which we fell through Adam to true life, and to raise us up from this exile to our homeland for which we were created – that is, to heaven.

He died for our sins and he rose for our justification and he ascended into heaven for our glorification… That blessedness which we are awaiting… he willed to show forth today in his own person by ascending into heaven. He did this so that we might be certain that we, who are his members, may ascend to where he, who is our head, has ascended.

Therefore, dearest brothers, we ought to celebrate this day with great joy because there can be no greater glorification of the human person than what has been shown to us today. This nature of ours which has been so depraved and degraded that it was even compared to brute animals – as the Prophet says, Man, when he was in honor, did not understand and became comparable to stupid beasts. This nature was in our Lord Jesus Christ so exalted that every other creature is beneath it and even the angels adore it as something beyond them.

As you have often heard, after his resurrection Our Lord willed to remain in this world in bodily form for forty days for many reasons. He wanted to confirm his resurrection and to demonstrate in many ways that he truly rose from the dead in the flesh. Therefore he often ate and drank with his disciples and he openly showed them his wounds. And when the Apostle Thomas was unwilling to believe that the other apostles had seen him, he allowed Thomas to touch his side and his hands. By his bodily presence he wanted to reassure his disciples, grieved beyond measure during his passion and almost in despair, and to prove to them on the authority of the Scriptures that it was necessary for him to die and to rise again. Moreover he opened for them the meaning of the Scriptures that they might understand them.

Yet – and we should notice this – before his passion and resurrection he fasted for the same length of time that he chose to be physically with his disciples after the resurrection. By his fasting he commended to us the value of the physical affliction which we ought to endure in this life. By his physical presence which he revealed to his own after his resurrection, we are able to understand the consolation of his utterly sweet presence which we will experience after our own resurrection. Both were commended to us over the same length of time because it is in the measure to which we bear affliction for Christ in this life that we shall receive consolation in the life to come…

Let it be our sole concern: to remain attached to him with our whole heart, our whole mind, our whole strength, recognizing who our Head is, where our Head is. Let us live as befits the members of that Head, with our minds fixed not here where our lower part is, but there where our Head has today ascended, beseeching God, the Father almighty, to deign to give us his grace, so that all the attachment of our devotion may be directed to where our very substance, Jesus our Lord, is with him, with whom he lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit through all the ages of ages