Reflection for the Vigil of the Ascension, 2008
Micaela Randolph, OSB

In his book, “The Holy Longing”, Ronald Rolheiser outlines five, clear, distinct moments in the Paschal Mystery which he calls the Cycle of Rebirth. Each of these five moments in this cycle, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the Forty Days, Ascension and Pentecost, is part of the one process of transformation. Good Friday is our deaths, Easter Sunday is our births, The Forty Days from Resurrection to Ascension is the time for grieving what was & readjusting to a new way of being, Ascension is letting all that we have grieved ascend allowing it to bless us and Pentecost, the completion of the cycle, is the receiving and living the new spirit of God. Ultimately, our holiness, our happiness depends on living this Paschal Mystery well.

Liturgically speaking, we have just come through the forty days and are looking forward tomorrow to the Feast of the Ascension and then on to the moment of Pentecost. This is the pattern of our Christian lives. It is the pattern that repeats itself over and over and over in our lives. It is a cycle of rebirth that transforms us no matter what liturgical season we are celebrating or in what season of the year we find ourselves.

Liturgically, we are preparing to celebrate the moment of Ascension. What does it mean for us? Do we pay lip service to it or do we really understand what it means and how we might appropriate it within our own lives? How can we enter into or pierce the symbol and touch the spiritual reality at the heart of this feast. This is certainly what we hope for.

In preparing this reflection, I read over the four gospel accounts of what happened after the Resurrection of Jesus. I became very aware that this time from the Resurrection to the Ascension was a time of great stress for the followers of Jesus. They experienced so much loss. They were grieving for what had been. They were fearful for their own lives, disappointed, they felt abandoned. They were disbelieving. They felt hopeless and confused. They no longer had daily contact with Jesus. Their hopes and dreams for a mighty kingdom were gone.

This caused me to reflect on my experience of these forty days with what they experienced. Mostly I think of this time as a celebration of new life and of joy. Once again, we sing Alleluia! Our chapels and our Monastery reflect new life, beauty and peace. We say, “We have had our forty day of lent and now is the time to celebrate new life.” It is indeed a time of new life but only if we desire to make room for it.

Living these forty days as a time of conversion is crucial to our readiness for the Feast of Ascension. This time from Resurrection to Ascension is a redirecting of our lives. This may be painful and unfamiliar. But there is abundant grace here. We are given time (symbolically 40 days) in which to grieve what needs to change in our lives. If Resurrection means anything at all, it means that our old lives need to make room for something new. We can not hang on to what was. With Ascension, we let it go and let it bless us.

Rolheiser gives us a hint of what that can cost us in the words of Mary Magdala as
she meets Jesus on the morning of Resurrection.

“I never suspected Resurrection to be so painful,
To leave me weeping,
Weeping with joy
To have met you, alive and smiling,
Outside an empty tomb.

Weeping with regret
Not because I’ve lost you
But because I lost you in how I had you
In understandable, touchable, kissable, clingable flesh.
Not as fully Lord,
But as graspably human.

I want to cling, despite your protest
Cling to you body, cling to your and my clingable humanity,
Cling to what we had, our past.
But I know that if I cling
You cannot ascend and
I will be left clinging to your former self
…unable to receive your present spirit.”

Ascension then is about preparing ourselves for the gift of Pentecost. The disciples, somewhat fearful, gathered together to wait for the promise of Jesus. We, too, letting go of the past, will gather with great expectation. At Pentecost, Jesus will pour down upon us the fire of his divine love, the fire of the Spirit. We will have all we need to go forth and proclaim the wonders of God. At Pentecost, the Cycle of Rebirth will be complete, only to begin again!

© 2008 Benedictine Sisters
Mount St. Scholastica
Atchison, Kansas