Ascension 2007, Globe of Stars

Unknown

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.”

Ascension

May 17, 2007

John 16:24-33

           

At the center of each flower, in the depths of its chalice, are the seeds. In the flower’s heart, its future life is embedded. In the course of its blossoming and fading, its future is ripening. In a simple dandelion, the seeds form a globe of what looks like tiny white stars, a potential new world, which will lift off and fly in all directions to new destinations.

            At the bottom of our heart, in our innermost core, is a place so secret that we ourselves often cannot find it. But there the thought seeds, the feeling seeds, the seed of the deeds of our future life are gradually ripening. Some have already matured into the lives we are now living. Others are just on the verge, about to rise and enter our awareness. Others we carry in secret for a long time, perhaps lifetimes, until they find fertile ground. Some may fly out, carried by the wind of the times, to grow in others.

            At the time of His Ascension, Christ had reached a stage of full ripening. All His thoughts, all His hopes for mankind, all He had done for us, had emerged. Like a new world, a globe of stars, He was about to rise and expand, to fly in all directions. Carried on the Spirit-Wind, he courageously encircled the earth, as seeds to grow in others’ hearts.

            Even now He speaks: “Do you now feel my power in your heart? The time will come when you will be scattered….In this world you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world!” John 16:31-33

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Ascension 2008, Petals Drop

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.”

Ascension

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Sunday May 4, 2008

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.

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 prayer 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 some of the mood of Ascension:

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? [1]

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.

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours, Barrows and Macy, p. 124.

Ascension 2009, Give Wine

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.

Ascension, Benjamin West

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, 24, 2009

John 16:24-33

Seed of Life

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.

Today we celebrate Christ’s Ascension. It is the day 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’ (John16:24), 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.

Holman Hunt

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…[1]

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

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

www.thechristiancommunity.org

Ascension 2012, Wideness

Ascension

John 16: 24-33

Ascension, Garofalo

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 17, 20, 2012

John 16: 24-33

The bees fly through light and air. They are collecting pollen grains to feed their young. For the blossoms, however, this visitation signals the beginning of their own death. 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. 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 World Tree, rooted in the earth, leaves reaching into the heavens. The poet describes this event:

Ascension, Mengs

Lightly in His upraised 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.[1]

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.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Gottfried Fischer-Gravelius

Ascension 2014, Embrace What Is

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.”
  

Ascension

May 29, June 1, 2014

John 16: 24 – 33

At night we may be troubled with bad dreams. But in the morning we rise. Our day-waking consciousness 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 are occupied within our lives and are immersed in them. We may even be troubled by the occasional or even recurring ‘nightmare’ situation. But we can make efforts to awaken, to rise beyond our immersion in the ordinary dreamy consciousness in life.

Christ lived the nightmare. He suffered and died. He rose on the third day. And he rose even further –and descended even deeper— at His Ascension. For at His ascension, His consciousness, His Life, spread out over the whole world. The unawakened mind tends to make war on the way things are.[1] Christ has aligned Himself with the world, in loving acceptance of what is. 

In our moments of earnest prayer, we rise toward Christ, who stands at peace with the world.  ‘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’. [2]Only by wakening to a higher level of awareness can we, like Christ, embrace what is, in love and with courage. 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

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[1] Jack Kornfield.

[2] John 16:1, 31, and 33.