The Mystery of Christ
The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience

by Father Thomas Keating

Chapter 2 Part XVIII

The Easter-Ascension Mystery

The Ascension

    After speaking with them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took his seat at God's right hand. The Eleven went forth and preached everywhere. 
[Mark 16:19-20] 

   We must know Christ, however, not only in his human nature - his passion and emptying - but also in his divinity. This is the grace of the resurrection. It is the empowerment to live his risen life. It is the grace not to sin. It is the grace to express his risen life in the face of our inner poverty without at the same time ceasing to feel it. 

    The Ascension is Christ's return to the heart of all creation where he dwells now in his glorified humanity. The mystery of his Presence is hidden throughout creation and in every part of it. At some moment of history, which prophecy calls the Last Day, our eyes will be opened and we will see reality as it is, which we know now only by faith. That faith reveals that Christ, dwelling at the center of all creation and of each individual member of it, is transforming it and bringing it back, in union with himself, into the bosom of the Father. Thus, the maximum glory of the Trinity is achieved through the maximum sharing of the divine life with every creature according to its capacity. This is "the mystery hidden for ages in God" [Eph. 3:9]. 

    Thus, in Colossians, Paul does not hesitate to cry out with his triumphant faith in the Ascension: "Christ is all and in all" [Col. 3:11]--meaning now, not just in the future. At this very moment we too have the grace to see Christ's light shining in our hearts, to feel his absorbing Presence within us, and to perceive in every created thing-- even in the most disconcerting--the presence of his light, love and glory.

More information can be obtained by reading the book The Mystery of Christ by Fr. Thomas Keating.  It is offered in our Book Store.