Twelfth station
The Risen Christ ascends Heaven 

 

C. We adore you, Christ risen, and we bless you.
T.  For with your Easter you have given life to the world.

1L. From the Acts of the Apostles
When the apostles met together with Jesus, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time give the Kingdom back to Israel?"  Jesus said to them, "The times and occasions are set by my Father's own authority, and it is not for you to know when they will be.  But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  After saying this, he was taken up to heaven as they watched him, and a cloud hid him from their sight.  They still had their eyes fixed on the sky as he went away, when two men dressed in white suddenly stood beside them and said, "Galileans, why are you standing there looking up at the sky?  This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way that you saw him go to heaven." (1,6-11),

2L.  A dismissal,  a guarantee
The mount of the ascension, at one time agonizing nostalgia and sign of a pungent commitment…
Nostalgia:  the face of the Teacher will be invisible.  The sign is heaven.  Our ticket has been paid, we just can't lose it.
Commitment:  heart in heaven and feet on the ground.  We will really reach heaven if we build the earth humanly.  "I was hungry…come".
Hallelujah, we are certain:  for every man there is not a fate, fatal death, but a destination, immortal life.  "Man is not a part of the world but is a world apart".  There is a tight relationship between earth and heaven.  With incarnation heaven has come to the earth.  With ascension the earth ascended to heaven.  Let us build the city of man on earth, to obtain the city of God in heaven.  We will ascend to heaven if we make ascend to life on earth those who are humiliated and without dignity.  To just look at the earth means to suffocate the heaven that we have inside, the thirst of happiness.
Today the logic offered by the earth, meaning the earthly logic, is given by three things:  money, sex, success.  But happiness does not live here.  The logic of ascension, meaning the earth-heaven logic is given by other three S's:  sanity, serenity, solidarity.  On this territory heaven and earth come together like alpine lakes.
When there was a massacre of fans at the Brussels stadium for the wild crowd, the newspapers said "We need higher walls."  Many youth the next day wrote:  "We don't need higher walls, but higher values:  To be more in order to be more in number."
Sanity, serenity, and solidarity are the Easter values founded upon the risen Jesus that makes values stable, secure and perennial.  And it makes the building of life a constant feast, despite everything, through everything, in everything and everywhere.  With the ascension he did his part and now it's our turn.  And "...this flower-bed that makes us so ferocious" can become the flower-bed that can make us become really happy.

T.  Rejoice, Virgin Mother:  Christ has risen.  Hallelujah!

C. Let us pray.  Jesus risen, you have gone to prepare a place for us.  The place for the man son is at the right hand of the God who is father and mother.  You have bought us the ticket.  We can't tear it up.  Make our eyes fixated on the place of eternal love.  A piece of heaven really fixes everything.  Looking at the full Easter, we will commit to realize on earth the Easter for every man and for all man.  The Easter of today, that frees the human being, is the joyful prophecy of the endless beatitude. 

T.
  Amen.

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