Bishop Eric Menees
Last Thursday we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension. I shared with diocese a few of my own
thoughts. This week I read the following
by St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and decided I really needed to share it
with you all…
Let Our Hearts Ascend With Christ
Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our
hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen
with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things
that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so
we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not
yet been fulfilled in our bodies.
Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still
suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear.
He showed this when he cried out from above: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me? and when he said: I was hungry and you gave me food.
Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in
heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? While
in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him. He is here
with us by his divinity, his power, and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he
is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.
He did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he
withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in
heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has
ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of
Man, who is in heaven.
These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he
is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ
because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we
by our union with him are the sons of God. So the Apostle says: Just as the
human body, which has many members, is a unity because all the different
members make one body, so is it also with Christ. He too has many members, but
one body.
Out of compassion for us, he descended from heaven, and
although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace.
Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because
there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as
a unity cannot be separated from the head.
I pray you all a blessed week and a very Holy Pentecost!
Thirty-nine Articles of Religion
XXXI. OF THE ONE OBLATION OF CHRIST FINISHED UPON THE CROSS
The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption,
propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both
original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that
alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said,
that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission
of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.
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