Mass readings for the Feast of the Ascension:
Acts 1.1-11 Psalm 47.1-2,5-8 Ephesians 1.17-23 Luke 24.46-53
We have many pictures of the Ascension, magnificent canvases by humanity’s greatest artists, but few, if any that I can recall, that show us Jesus arriving in heaven. We’re all about his going, but what about when he gets there? In these times its important for us to remember not just his going, as magnificent as it was, it’s more important that we know and live according to where he is; enthroned, in the seat of absolute authority. No prince, president, prime minister, and yes, even pope, can ever be above him. And yet, we so often bow down to those who are enthroned in power on earth, either literally or figuratively, forgetting who sits above all the politicians and hierarchs. We break that higher connection when we are bought with promises that are empty or prove a disaster if fulfilled in answer to our vices. Christ who is virtue itself, is our sole authority, and our earthly rulers need to remember that. And insofar as they will not follow the mandate of Christ, will not govern according to truth, fail to make love and not lust for power the source of their ambition, they should at the very least, leave us alone. But they won’t. For our part, we need to be careful not to truncate our communion as Catholics by excluding Christ from our lives through disobedient compromise around matters of moral truth, that violate human dignity, compromise the sanctity and value of life. And yet we do. Too many of us regard lesser authority as supreme authority. And I guess we do so because we know that earthly power can hurt us, and we forget the heavenly power that saves us.
Now, as I said, we don’t consider much the end of the Ascension, Jesus’ arrival. Yet in our creeds we have this very specific description: he is “seated” which seems an odd thing to mention – I mean, why does the Church not say he died, rose again, ascended to heaven, and there he is. This is all to say that our images of heaven are informed by our experiences in this world, and while the divine realm is beyond our imagining we try to approximate what goes on there based on what is here. The Church settled on something that would give us an idea as to what happened on Christ’s return to heaven, that he was “seated.” That’s not Jesus pulling up a chair. Rather he is enthroned as king.
In the very recent past, right up to last week, we’ve seen in the news people sitting on thrones, being enthroned. The king’s coronation of last year; the enthronement of our Holy Father in the chair of Peter; and of course, this last week the speech from the throne in Canada, with the exceptional instance of the king being the one on the throne and not his representative, the Governor General.
Now, all of the pomp and circumstance of the royal enthronement, all the solemnity and reverence of the papal consecration, these were very consciously derived from our Christian scriptural heritage that understands Christ as enthroned, surrounded by his heavenly retainers, the angels, the saints, the martyrs, etc. All the orders of heaven. The same thing happened at the coronation in England with all the different orders of the nobility, of the Church of England, of the commons, etc, given their own places to sit in relation to the throne; we saw the Church’s hierarchy and the world’s leaders similarly arranged in St. Peter’s for Pope Leo’s inaugural mass. And even in the more modest ceremony on Parliament Hill last week, we saw senators, members of parliament, supreme court justices, other eminent persons, all given their place before the throne of King Charles III. Their proximity to the throne indicating their authority, and prestige.
The Church was quite happy to have this develop as it brings some sobriety and dignity to the powerful who occupy the seats of power in our society. In the time of late antiquity as the old empire and the barbarian regions became Christian and into the middle ages, when Christendom was established, modeling the royal court, and the ecclesiastical audience chamber on the heavenly counterpart was to have the effect of reminding the ruling establishment of just how dependent they were upon heavenly authority for their own power; it displayed in real terms how everyone stood in relation to God who was to be imagined just above and out of human sight. Everyone was to be conscious of their dependance on God as the ultimate authority. And so, all had responsibilities in both directions, both up and down a chain of authority for which they would be held accountable. The king is accountable to God, but also to his people; the nobility is accountable to the king, but also to the peasants who paid them rent; the members of parliament govern under the authority of the crown, are beholden to the common people, but recognize that the monarch has the higher duty of seeing the people flourish, both spiritually and materially. And indeed, the this is the only way we flourish: in spirit first, and only then can we enjoy the fruits of the earth. Lastly, the mass of the people owed a basic allegiance to all this, but mind you, on the condition that those above them, in a chain of authority going all the way up to heaven and Christ, that they fulfilled their role, and maintained that connection to the divine.
So, how are we doing in this respect? I daresay I think few people in our political establishment, who sat either in Westminster Abbey last year, the Canadian Senate last week, did so with the spiritual sight to see what was going on above and beyond the human scene. Yes, many of them were Christians, some Catholic, but being so immersed in such an environment as exists in most capitals (and I recall this from my own time as a very minor political functionary in Ottawa) for the most part they think of themselves as players in the worldly game of power that is politics.
But our Holy Father in recent weeks has shown us that these thrones from which speeches are given, can be places that in recognition of the ultimate authority, look beyond immediate political considerations, contemplate something more than the next election, and speak to us about our humanity, our dignity as children of God, and speak to us frankly of what is not politically wise to talk about, yet must urgently be discussed.
Some of you may be aware of the reason the Holy Father took the name “Leo” – it was in direct reference to the previous “Leo” who was Leo XIII. That pope is famous for a pontificate that took on the evils of industrialization and challenged the narrative of progress that saw so many crushed by the changes brought about to community and family, to the environment and to the political order.
Yes, industrialization ushered modernity in with all its technological wonders, but such is the nature of revolutions that it was very destructive, shattering social ties up and down that chain of authority that extends from Christ’s throne down to the least of humanity. As historians have pointed out, the sense of accountability that the lord of the manor had to the peasants who farmed the land was very different from that of the factory owner to the men and women on the production line. At the very least, the lord in his castle who mismanaged his lands and mistreated his tenants knew he was sinning and faced judgment. The factory owner in the new social and economic order could shrug at the poverty, crime and pollution surrounding his plant and say it wasn’t his problem as all this was the result of free choice made by the town that let him build his factory and the folks who showed up to work for him for wages.
It was the Church, and men like Leo XIII who did the hard work of reconnecting the hearts and minds of that society to Christ and brought them to understand their responsibilities to God in being just, truthful and charitable within the new economic arrangement.
Our Leo XIV is very concerned that we are facing an even more destructive revolution. Artificial intelligence does contain the prospect of incredible transformation of human society for the better, but even its advocates, its developers warn of its downsides, its potential for setting off social and economic catastrophe. And he has the well-founded fear that the political powers of the world won’t take into account the connections we have among ourselves, up and down that chain of accountability and responsibility that reaches all the way to heaven, but rather it will be another instance in which it is broken off above and below, with only a favored few being safeguarded in the emerging new reality. The Church, as a whole, must be vigilant, with respect to our politics and our personal activity, in ensuring that human dignity, justice, and truth are safeguarded; and not through a turn to authoritarianism, through a new despotism, but rather in the strengthening of our mutual accountability, a call to responsibility on the part of those developing this technology, but also we who use it; and a refreshing of our communion in Christ that will keep us conscious of our connections to others.
And for those this weekend receiving communion for the first time, and for those who may be receiving for the first time in a long time; we are recalled to the fact that the act of communion is in two dimensions, with Christ above, and across the Church here on earth.
Pope Leo’s personal motto on his papal crest is “In Illo uno unum.” In English, “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one” echoes this: our lives are to be lived in connection one to another, and with Christ enthroned in heaven.
Amen.