TO LIVE IS TO PROGRESS IN GOD

On the sacred blue
steps of light sound.

R. M. Rilke

T he verbs of today’s solemnity all have the sense of elevation – assumed, elevated – and invite us to look up, where Christ is found at the right hand of God. If the ascension marks the fulfilment of Christ’s Easter, on the other hand it inaugurates the movement of the Church, called to travel the streets of the world to announce the good news of the Kingdom. But the mystery we celebrate today also reminds us how the life of each of us is a continuous and incessant progress towards the Source. Sometimes we have the perception that the slow passage of time undresses us to the point of cancelling us out, of erasing the trace of our passage in this world. But this is not so. The risen Christ preceded us into the eternal dwellings to give us the serene confidence, as the preface of the solemnity prays, that where he is we will also be. Our life, between joys and sufferings, therefore runs towards that fullness, that communion of life. Of course, we feel the whole fragility and precariousness of our being and working, sometimes even the vanitas of what surrounds us, yet faith pushes us further, pushes us there. And while we walk in the shadow of the mystery, our inner man is being renewed through the action of the Spirit and our free adherence to his grace.

Along the pilgrimage of our weekdays,
thicken in our hearts
the song of silence,
which immerses us in the mystery of God
– just as the stars gather in the sky –
when our gaze lingers
staring into space in the dead of night. 

And the vibration of this silence of light
you mark the rhythms of our breathing
on the breath of God,
until the day of our full ascension into Him,
eternal Source of love.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey