242. Christ’s presence before and after His Ascension
242. CHRIST’S PRESENCE BEFORE AND AFTER HIS ASCENSION
Why was it good for us that Christ left us and ascended back to Heaven?
Although Christ’s bodily presence was withdrawn from the faithful by the Ascension, still the presence of His Godhead is ever with the faithful, as He Himself says (Mt 28:20): Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. For by ascending into heaven He did not abandon those whom He adopted, as Pope Leo says. But Christ’s Ascension into Heaven, whereby He withdrew His bodily presence from us, was more profitable for us than His bodily presence would have been.
First of all, in order to increase our faith, which is of things unseen. . . .
Secondly, to uplift our hope: hence He says in John 14:3: If I shall go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you also may be. For by placing in heaven the human nature which He assumed, Christ gave us the hope of going thither. . . .
Thirdly, in order to direct the fervor of our charity to heavenly things. Hence the Apostle says in Colossians 3:1-2: Seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth; for as is said (Matt. 6:21): Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. And since the Holy Ghost is love drawing us up to heavenly things, therefore our Lord said to His disciples (Jn 16:7): It is expedient to you that I go; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you (III,57,1).
He did not leave us when He ascended. He is present. In fact He is more present. For He is love, and what love seeks is always maximum presence, intimacy, closeness, union. And the presence of the Holy Spirit is even more intimate, more interior, than the physical presence of Christ when He was on earth. It was the third and consummating stage in Divine Love’s journey toward His goal of intimacy with us:
(1) All ancient peoples had gods. But no Gentile god was even remotely as present to, as intimate with, and as active in the lives of his people as the God of the Jews. No other people knew the wondrous intimacy of the covenant, which was like a spiritual marriage; and therefore no other people knew the intolerable burden of sin, which was like a divorce. If you do not know how great marriage is, you cannot know how terrible divorce is.
(2) But God was even more intimately present by the Incarnation. He became not just God above us but God beside us, not just our Father but our Brother.
(3) Even this was not intimate enough. Therefore He sent His Spirit to haunt our souls. The God Who is transcendent, the God above us and outside us, first became God beside us, God-with-us (the meaning of “Emmanuel”), and then became God inside us, by sending the Holy Spirit so that He could be with us “from the inside out” as well as from the outside in. The three eras of divine revelation are three stages of intimacy, because God is love and love seeks ever more intimacy.
St. Thomas gives three reasons why this is best for us. They correspond to faith, hope, and love. First, His spiritual and invisible presence requires more faith than physical, visible presence did; and faith is intimacy because it is trust.
Second, the withdrawal of His physical presence also elicits our hope, for He went away to prepare our Heavenly mansions for us. (He is Heaven’s interior decorator.) Our spirit is where He is more than where we are. (“This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through.”) In this world we are all like E.T.—aliens. When we pray, we “phone home”. We all unconsciously recognize ourselves in E.T.; that is the hidden reason why we love that movie so much.
Finally, since “where your treasure is, there will your heart (love) be also” (Lk 12:34), we now love Heaven more than earth because our Beloved is there. The Holy Spirit is the very energy of love that draws our hearts to Christ’s Heaven because He draws our hearts to Heaven’s Christ.