Ascension Sunday 2022, Who Is Living Life?

Ninetta Sombart

 Ascension

John 16:22–33 

"So you have to suffer pain now. But I will see you again, and then your hearts will be filled with joy, and no one can take that joy from you. Up to now, you have not prayed in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart that your joy may be fulfilled. 

"All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father, and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death." 

Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God." 

Jesus answered, "Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me. 

"All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world."

Ascension

May 29, 2022

John 16:24–33 

All creatures in rivers, lakes, and seas are surrounded by water; water fills the spaces between them. All the cells of our own bodies are bathed in fluid that fills the spaces between them. The water of life flows within us. 

On Ascension Day, Christ assumed a new form, a new kind of body. He became an in-between. 

He is in-between the physical material world and the living weaving world of life; in-between the life in us and the inner world of our souls; in-between our souls and the objective world of the spirit; in-between humanity and God. 

Rilke senses this:

I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.

Who is living it, then?

Is it the things themselves,

or something waiting inside them….

Who lives it then? God, are you the one

who is living life?*

 

Bamberg

Since His Ascension, Christ is like a super-sensible sea in which we live. He surrounds us. And He is inside us. 

He is present in spaces, in pauses, in moments of stillness. He is there, in the space between our thoughts and our feelings, in-between our urges and our actions; he is in the core of our being, our heart, and in-between, among us. “Where two or more gathered in my name, there I am in their midst” (Matthew 18:20).

 He is our sea within and a sea without. “Pray, “he says, “connect with me, from the center of your heart, and life will be given to your heart…Despite fear and hardship, accept my sea of courage, for I have overcome the world” (John 16: 24, 33). 

We are now living in Christ’s new life. His light, his life, and his love are flooding the world, flooding us. We are the cells of his new body. 

 

*Rilke, “And Yet Though We Strain” in Book of Hours, Barrows and Macy, p. 113.

 www.thechristiancommunity.org.

 

Ascension 2021, Pull You Out of the Sky

 

Ascension

John 16:22-33

 

"So you have to suffer pain now. But I will see you again, and then your hearts will be filled with joy, and no one can take that joy from you. Up to now, you have not prayed in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart that your joy may be fulfilled.

Stephen B. Whately

"All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father, and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death."

Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God."

Jesus answered, "Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

"All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world."

 

Ascension

Sunday, May 16, 2021

John 16:24-33

 

The petals of the blossoms begin to drop. The vision of loveliness falls away. Yet deep at the blossoms' base, fruit is forming, seeds of a new life. It will be a while before they are ripe. But they are there.

Stephen B. Whately

During the forty days of the time after His Resurrection, Christ continued to walk with His disciples. They could see Him in His otherwise transparent Resurrection body. Their deep love for Him, aided by their sorrow and suffering at His death, had opened their souls' eye. Through seeing Him after His death, they knew that the human spirit lives on after death.

But on the fortieth day, at His Ascension, He dies to them again. Their spirit sight cannot follow Him as He is elevated into yet another form, so their vision clouds over. They experience once again losing Him, this time in an indescribable depth of sorrow.

Sorrow and grief serve to deepen the soul. During the ten days after His Ascension, the disciples cocoon themselves together in the upper room. They remember that He said, "Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart (Jn. 16:24)."  So they pray. They go over all their memories of all they had experienced with Him. They remembered that He said, "The hour is coming when I will speak to you, openly and unveiled so that you can grasp it in full knowing consciousness (John 16:25)."

Although their soul's eye can no longer see Him, their prayers and sorrow, and memories are molding their souls. Their interior awareness is deepening. "Do you now feel my power in your heart?" He asks. "Take courage (Jn 16:31, 33)."

Rilke captures something of the mood of Ascension:

Laudario of Sant'Agnese

In deep nights I dig for you like treasure.

For all I have seen

that clutters the surface of my world

is poor and paltry substitute

for the beauty of you

that has not happened yet.

…Reaching, these hands would pull you out of the sky

as if you had shattered there,

…What is this I feel falling now,

falling on this parched earth,

softly,

like a spring rain?*

 

Christ's disciples are gestating. A new capacity is forming within them. It will be a little while until it makes itself known. But it is coming.

* Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours, Barrows and Macy, p. 124.

 

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

 

 

 

 

 

Ascension II, Seed-Force

Ascension

John 16:22-33

William Blake 

So you have to suffer pain now. But I will see you again, and then your hearts will be filled with joy, and no one can take that joy from you. Up to now, you have not prayed in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father, and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

  

Ascension II

May 27, 2020

John 16:24-33

Jan de Kok

The blossom opens itself to the sunlit air. In doing so, its beauty and fragrance expand outward. It sends out its pollen and in turn it receives the warm impregnating power from without. Through this fertilization, it becomes fruitful. At its core, seeds of new life begin to form.

The deepest core of our humanness lies in our heart. As we open our heart, we can stream forth the fragrant beauty of our gratitude for all that we have received. Through opening in gratitude, we continue to receive what we need for our future existence. We receive from the future the force that engenders new life, a force that enters and settles into our inmost core.

Christ’s love is that impregnating power for new life that fertilizes our open, thankful hearts. He is the gentle fire of love, creative of being. His power engenders in us new, future life. His love in our hearts is the seed-force for a new earth.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

Ascension 2020, Embrace What Is

Ascension, around 1030, Codex Aureus

Ascension

John 16:22-33

So you have to suffer pain now. But I will see you again, and then your hearts will be filled with joy, and no one can take that joy from you. Up to now, you have not prayed in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father, and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Ascension, Ninetta Sombart 

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Ascension

May 24, 2020

John 16: 22–33

Contemporary Resurrection Icon

At night we may be troubled with bad dreams. But in the morning, we rise into our day-waking consciousness.  Our awareness overcomes the dream state and we understand that what troubled us was only a dream.

Our earthly lives can have something of the quality of a dream. We may be troubled by an occasional or even continuing ‘nightmare’ situation. But we can make efforts to awaken, to rise beyond even our ordinary dream-like day-consciousness.

Christ lived the nightmare. He suffered and died. He descended into hell. He rose on the third day. And then at His Ascension, he rose even further—and descended even deeper. For at His Ascension, His loving consciousness, His Life, spread out over the whole world. The Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield said, “The unawakened mind tends to make war on the way things are.” Christ the Awakener has aligned Himself with the world, in loving acceptance of what is. That is the first step toward transforming the way things are into the way they can be. 

Ascension, Sombart

In our moments of earnest prayer, we rise toward Christ, who stands embracing the world with His peace. “Pray from the heart and it will be given to your heart,” He says. “Feel my power in your heart….so that you may find peace.”(John 16:1, 31, and 33) Only by awakening to a higher level of awareness can we, like Christ, embrace what is, in love, and with courage. With Him we can recognize that our own lives are enmeshed ultimately with the life of the whole world; and that only through Christ’s power of transformation can the nightmare be overcome.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

Ascension Thursday 2020, Rising Like Incense

Ascension

John 16:22-33

So you have to suffer pain now. But I will see you again, and then your hearts will be filled with joy, and no one can take that joy from you. Up to now, you have not prayed in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father, and I have come into this world.

Stephen B. Whatley

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Ascension

May 21, 2020

John 16: 24-33

Observe a rosebush over time, and you will see how its leaves appear with

rhythmic frequency—one set, a pause for the rise of the stem, the next leaf, another rise. The leaves appear as pulses of the rose’s life, as beats of the heart of its life, ascending heavenward.

Our prayer life is like that. Prayer creates a living form in the garden of God. Christ advises us to pray from the heart. We can imagine that praying from the heart creates a kind of rose tree in His garden. As we pray, we are regularly sending out the leaves on this spiritual rose tree. As we pray, the stems rise higher. As we pray, Christ and his angels guide and tend and nurture what we create, drawing us upward.

       

Like the rosebush, sooner or later, the intervals between the leaves become shorter, the leaves more compressed. The time of transition, of the great change, is near. Christ knows how it is. “In this world, you will have great fear and hardship.”

Charles Andrade

But as we continue praying, straining to keep on rising, ascending, struggling to transform, we can also hear His words echoing: "Take courage. Do you now feel my power in your heart? Take heart."

And as we labor through the transition, something new begins to happen. Amid the deepest trials, the heart blooms. The roses of peace appear, opening to the light of the Spirit Sun. And Christ, the Spirit Sun, in turn, sends His encouragement: “All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

And in the light of his encouragement, our hearts blossom forth roses of peace, their fragrance rising like incense to fill the atmosphere around us.

                                                                                               

Ascension 2019, Greet Yourself Arriving

Ascension

John 16: 22-33

So you have to suffer pain now.

William Blake

But I will see you again, and then your hearts will be filled with joy and no one can take that joy from you. Up to now, you have not prayed in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Pieter Coecke van Aelst, FlemishTapestry 

Ascension Sunday

June 2, 2019

John 16: 24-33

Our heart is the very center of our being. We can imagine our heart as the center of a series of concentric circles, with all our dear ones in closer circles, our acquaintances further out. Our heart is the center of our universe. Others circle our periphery.

Likewise, we ourselves occupy the circles around other people’s hearts. For of course they too have many circles around them. The human world is a labyrinth of interlocking circles, all connected by the famous six degrees of separation.

We are celebrating Christ’s Ascension. It is the time when He expanded His Being, His Heart, into the greatest and the broadest possible series of circles. The circles of His universe include all human beings, even those who have never heard of Him. Christ’s connection to us actually involves zero degrees of separation, for he has expanded His being in ever-widening circles to catch every human heart. The circles of His heart’s love run through the very center of each human heart. And that is where we will find Him—in the deepest, centermost core of our own being, in the innermost core of every human being we encounter.

We have scattered ourselves in division, in loneliness. We ourselves may have placed Christ on one of the circles further out of our own heart, as one of our ‘acquaintances’. But He has connected us directly to His heart. He carries us in His love. So when He urges us to ‘pray from the heart’ (John 16:24), perhaps he is showing us the way to find Him. Perhaps when we enter our own deepest core and find Him there, find the One whose being is Love, we will recognize our true identity.

As we offer this Eucharistic meal, the words of the poet can inspire:

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, ….

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you have ignored…*

Christ is urging us to join our hearts with His, so that we too can love the world as He does.

---

*Derek Walcott, “Love After Love”, in Collected Poems 1948-1984, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986.

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Ascension 2018, Bee and Blossom

Ascension
John 16: 24-33

[Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name.] Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.
All this I have given to your souls in

Mengs

imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world.
I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”
Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.
All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Ascension
May 10, 2018
John 16: 24-33

The bees fly through light and air, collecting pollen grains to feed their young. For the blossoms, however, this visitation signals the beginning of their end. Once pollinated, the blossom dies away to make way for the fruit.
Christ ascends into the light and air. He is both bee and blossom, the fructifier and the fruit. His resurrection body changes. Yet He does not leave; He expands. He spreads Himself out both up into the heavens and down into the earth. He becomes the True Vine, the great fruit-bearing World Tree, rooted in the earth, reaching into the heavens. The poet describes this event:

Lightly in His upraised

Ascension, around 1030, Codex Aureus

hands
was Heaven, Wideness,
Space, oh space!
Oh, astonished He felt the lavishing
Of this great light. Yet by storm-broken tree
His disciples could not grasp it,
How their Master now in silence, radiant
Now in ever bluer terraces
Climbed this heaven
Exceeded Himself.
Yet already a glance gave Him goal and direction,
And they were amazed, how He found the steps
Until He, in ever deeper light
He himself the light, now disappeared from their view.*

He expands into the far reaches of both heaven and earth. For His disciples, however, this signals a kind of death—for He whom they love is lost to their sight. For ten days they will grieve the apparent loss. Like all who grieve, they will be absorbed in their memories of Him. But in ten days, at Pentecost, their pain will begin to bear fruit. What is germinating within them through His ever-presence will become in them soul fruits: the fruits of joyful understanding, fruits of tolerance, fruits of love for all fellow human beings.

*Gottfried Fischer-Gravelius

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Ascension 2017, Fragrance Ascending

Ascension

John 16: 24-33

Benjamin West (Wikimedia)

Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Ascension

Blake

May 25, 2017

John 16: 24-33

Imagine a bush asking the Lord to be able to walk around like a cat, or fly like a bird. The Lord would smile regretfully and say, "It is not your destiny to walk like the animals or fly like the birds. I have grounded you in the earth. But I have made you flexible so that you can move with the wind. And the fragrance and pollen of your flowers can rise and fly."

In our lives, we may pray for what we want and need, for specific outcomes or specific solutions to our problems. But often the Lord simply has to say, "What you ask for is not in your destiny. Ask instead for the resilience to move with the changes. Ask for the ability ground yourself well in the earthly, and the ability to offer yourself up so that your heart rises."

In today's reading, Christ says, "Ask from the heart and it will be given to your heart." In the Act of Consecration, we pray for grounding in spirit consciousness. We ask that the fragrance of our heart's offering ascend. We ask that the gift of God's grace and love descend into our souls.  

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Ascension 2016, Water of Life

Ascension by Wm. Blake

Ascension

John 16: 24-33

[Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name.] Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures, but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus, will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father, and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

  Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Clouds, NASA

Ascension

May 5, 8, 2016

John 16: 24-33

Water has the wonderful capacity to change forms easily. As solid ice, it floats. As a liquid, it flows downward to the lowest point it can find. As water vapor, it is invisible, a small amount occupying a vast space. Under the right conditions, the invisible vapor condenses into visible clouds and returns to earth as liquid rain.

Christ is the Water of Life. He took on a solid body in Jesus. At his death, he descended into the earth. At the Resurrection, he gave birth to his life form, sometimes visible, mostly not. At Ascension he became like water vapor – he expanded his nature and being into the entire biosphere of the earth. Like water vapor, he is invisible. But he is the Life that surrounds and penetrates both the earth and us. We breathe him in with every breath we take. Under the right circumstances, he condenses and becomes visible again.

Last Supper, Rosenkranz

One of those times is during the Act of Consecration, the communion service. At his Last Supper, he chose bread and wine to be forever the visible forms of his life. He chose bread to be his body, the form in which he appears. He chose the juice of the vine to be visibly his rejuvenating life, his life blood. And he offers them to us in communion so that we have the opportunity to take in his formative forces, his Life, in a conscious way. In this way, he walks the earth, in us. We may hear him in the words of the poet:

In a mist of light

falling with the rain

I walk this ground

of which [dead] men

and women I have loved

are part, as they

are part of me.  In earth,

in blood, in mind,

the dead and living

into each other pass,

as the living pass

in and out of loves

as stepping to a song.

The way I go is

marriage to this place,

grace beyond chance,

love's braided dance

covering the world.[1]

---

[1]  Wendell Berry in The Wheel

Ascension 2015, Given to Your Heart

Ascension

Garofalo, Wiki Commons

John 16: 24-33

Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures, but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming, and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Ascension

May 14, 17, 2015

John 16: 24-33

Michel de Broin, Superficial Mirror

In fairy tales, the hero sometimes wins a cloak of invisibility in order to do good. It is as though they enter another realm, just beyond ordinary sight, while still remaining in this one.  It is likewise with those who have died; they have entered another realm just beyond our capacity to see them with our ordinary eyes.

In this gospel reading for Ascension, the Ascension event itself is veiled. But there are hints of what is there. Christ says that he is leaving the sense world and entering the realm of the Father, “of which you say that it is the realm of death.” John 16:28 Yet with his Resurrection the realm of death was imbued with Life. The dead live, though invisibly, as does He. He indicates however that we will nevertheless be able to sense his presence through other means: we will sense him in praying, when our prayers arise from our hearts. For with his Ascension he expanded his being from that of Jesus to that of both heaven and earth. He has expanded Himself into the whole world. This enables him to be present within the life of every single human being.

We can sense him in the warmth of our blood, in the rhythm of our breathing. He is hidden in the light of our noblest thoughts, in the living changes and transformations of the music of our soul life. He is invisibly present in the very meaning of our lives. He appeared to ‘go away’. But his going away was in essence a drawing even nearer. He is hidden within us, in our heart of hearts. "Pray from the heart and it will be given to your heart:, he says. For I will give you myself, my very being – light, life, warmth and transformation.

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