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by Pope Leo the Great
From the
Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. XII
I. The Ascension Completes Our Faith in Him, Who Was
God As Well as Man.
The mystery of our salvation, dearly-beloved, which the Creator of the
universe valued at the price of His blood, has now been carried out under
conditions of humiliation from the day of His bodily birth to the end of His
Passion. And although even in "the form of a slave" many signs of Divinity have
beamed out, yet the events of all that period served particularly to show the
reality of His assumed Manhood. But after the Passion, when the chains of death
were broken, which had exposed its own strength by attacking Him, Who was
ignorant of sin, weakness was turned into power, mortality into eternity,
contumely into glory, which the Lord Jesus Christ showed by many clear proofs
in the sight of many, until He carried even into heaven the triumphant victory
which He had won over the dead. As therefore at the Easter commemoration, the
Lord's Resurrection was the cause of our rejoicing; so the subject of our
present gladness is His Ascension, as we commemorate and duly venerate that day
on which the Nature of our humility in Christ was raised above all the host of
heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit
with God the Father. On which Providential order of events we are founded and
built up, that God's Grace might become more wondrous, when, notwithstanding
the removal from men's sight of what was rightly felt to command their awe,
faith did not fail, hope did not waver, love did not grow cold. For it is the
strength of great minds and the light of firmly-faithful souls, unhesitatingly
to believe what is not seen with the bodily sight, and there to fix one's
affections whither you cannot direct your gaze. And whence should this
Godliness spring up in our hearts, or how should a man be justified by faith,
if our salvation rested on those things only which lie beneath our eyes? Hence
our Lord said to him who seemed to doubt of Christ's Resurrection, until he had
tested by sight and touch the traces of His Passion in His very Flesh, "because
thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are, they who have not seen and
yet have believed ."
II. The Ascension Renders Our Faith More Excellent and
Stronger.
In order, therefore, dearly-beloved, that we may be capable of this
blessedness, when all things were fulfilled which concerned the Gospel
preaching and the mysteries of the New Testament, our Lord Jesus Christ, on the
fortieth day after the Resurrection in the presence of the disciples, was
raised into heaven, and terminated His presence with us in the body, to abide
on the Father's right hand until the times Divinely fore-ordained for
multiplying the sons of the Church are accomplished, and He comes to judge the
living and the dead in the same flesh in which He ascended. And so that which
till then was visible of our Redeemer was changed into a sacramental
presence2
, and that faith might be more excellent and stronger, sight gave way to
doctrine, the authority of which was to be accepted by believing hearts
enlightened with rays from above.
III. The Marvellous Effects of This Faith on
All.
This Faith, increased by the Lord's Ascension and established by the
gift of the Holy Ghost, was not terrified by bonds, imprisonments, banishments,
hunger, fire, attacks by wild beasts, refined torments of cruel persecutors.
For this Faith throughout the world not only men, but even women, not only
beardless boys, but even tender maids, fought to the shedding of their blood.
This Faith cast out spirits, drove off sicknesses, raised the dead: and through
it the blessed Apostles themselves also, who after being confirmed by so many
miracles and instructed by so many discourses, had yet been panic-stricken by
the horrors of the Lord's Passion and had not accepted the truth of His
resurrection without hesitation, made such progress after the Lord's Ascension
that everything which had previously filled them with fear was turned into joy.
For they had lifted the whole contemplation of their mind to the Godhead of Him
that sat at the Father's right hand, and were no longer hindered by the barrier
of corporeal sight from directing their minds' gaze to That Which had never
quitted the Father's side in descending to earth, and had not forsaken the
disciples in ascending to heaven.
IV. His Ascension Refines Our Faith : the Ministering of
Angels to Hint Shows the Extent of His Authority.
The Son of Man and Son of God, therefore, dearly-beloved, then attained
a more excellent and holier fame, when He betook Himself back to the glory of
the Father's Majesty, and in an ineffable manner began to be nearer to the
Father in respect of His Godhead, after having become farther away in respect
of His manhood. A better instructed faith then began to draw closer to a
conception of the Son's equality with the Father without the necessity of
handling the corporeal substance in Christ, whereby He is less than the Father,
since, while the Nature of the glorified Body still remained the faith of
believers was called upon to touch not with the hand of flesh, but with the
spiritual understanding the Only-begotten, Who was equal with the Father.
Hence comes that which the Lord said after His Resurrection, when Mary
Magdalene, representing the Church, hastened to approach and touch Him: "Touch
Me not, for I have not yet ascended to My Father :" that is, I would not have
you come to Me as to a human body, nor yet recognize Me by fleshly perceptions:
I put thee off for higher things, I prepare greater things for thee: when I
have ascended to My Father, then thou shall handle Me more perfectly and truly,
for thou shall grasp what thou canst not touch and believe what thou canst not
see. But when the disciples' eyes followed the ascending Lord to heaven
with upward gaze of earnest wonder, two angels stood by them in raiment shining
with wondrous brightness, who also said, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye
gazing into heaven? This Jesus Who was taken up from you into heaven shall so
come as ye saw Him going into heaven ." By which words all the sons of the
Church were taught to believe that Jesus Christ will come visibly in the same
Flesh wherewith He ascended, and not to doubt that all things are subjected to
Him on Whom the ministry of angels had waited from the first beginning of His
Birth. For, as an angel announced to the blessed Virgin that Christ should be
conceived by the Holy Ghost, so the voice of heavenly beings sang of His being
born of the Virgin also to the shepherds. As messengers from above were the
first to attest His having risen from the dead, so the service of angels was
employed to foretell His coming in very Flesh to judge the world, that we might
understand what great powers will come with Him as Judge, when such great ones
ministered to Him even in being judged.
V. We Must Despise Earthly Things and Rise to Things
Above, Especially by Active Works of Mercy and Love.
And so, dearly-beloved, let us rejoice with spiritual joy, and let us
with gladness pay God worthy thanks and raise our hearts' eyes unimpeded to
those heights where Christ is. Minds that have heard the call to be uplifted
must not be pressed down by earthly affections , they that are fore-ordained to
things eternal must not be taken up with the things that perish; they that have
entered on the way of Truth must not be entangled in treacherous snares, and
the faithful must so take their course through these temporal things as to
remember that they are sojourning in the vale of this world, in which, even
though they meet with some attractions, they must not sinfully embrace them,
but bravely pass through them. For to this devotion the blessed Apostle Peter
arouses us, and entreating us with that loving eagerness which he conceived for
feeding Christ's sheep by the threefold profession of love for the Lord, says,
"dearly-beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly
lusts which war against the soul ." But for whom do fleshly pleasures wage war,
ifnot for the devil, whose delight it is to fetter souls that strive after
things above, with the enticements of corruptible good things, and to draw them
away from those abodes from which he himself has been banished? Against his
plots every believer must keep careful watch that he may crush his foe on the
side whence the attack is made. And there is no more powerful weapon,
dearly-beloved, against the devil's wiles than kindly mercy and bounteous
charity, by which every sin is either escaped or vanquished. But this lofty
power is not attained until that which is opposed to it be overthrown. And what
so hostile to mercy and works of charity as avarice from the root of which
spring all evils ? And unless it be destroyed by lack of nourishment, there
must needs grow in the ground of that heart in which this evil weed has taken
root, the thorns and briars of vices rather than any seed of true goodness. Let
us then, dearly-beloved, resist this pestilential evil and "follow after
charity ," without which no virtue can flourish, that by this path of love
whereby Christ came down to us, we too may mount up to Him, to Whom with God
the Father and the Holy Spirit is honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
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