Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he descended onto the earth. He came seeking out Adam and Eve who had fallen from heaven, and all their children. To find them, He descended into death and the underworld to rescue all who would accept Him. So, when He ascended back to heaven, He did not arrive alone. He brought with him all the souls of the just of all time. When our own loved ones die in grace, they, too, share in the Ascension of Jesus. The case of His sinless Mother is unique. She alone, as the new Eve, was assumed into heaven body and soul, to join the new Adam and to intercede for all the children Her Son entrusted to Her loving care from the Cross.

The Ascension of Jesus is for Him the completion of the work of redemption given to Him by the Father. He returns victorious and is seated at the Father’s right hand. But in doing that, He doesn’t abandon the world He has redeemed or the Church of those who have believed in Him. By the marvellous power and will of the Father, He is now present to us through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit fills the whole world and the whole Church with the presence of the Risen Jesus, in manifold and varied ways ranging from the beauty of creation to the humility of the Eucharist. While on earth, the Spirit worked through Jesus; but now that Jesus is in heaven, the Spirit ushers Him into the hearts and minds of those who are sincerely open to Him, especially into the Church.

Saint Paul prays for the Church in Ephesus that the Spirit of wisdom will open the eyes of their hearts to know God more and more deeply. Our human hearts need constantly to allow the Spirit to impress upon them an ever truer and deeper understanding of God. Knowledge of the heart strengthens faith, it expands love and helps us to perceive the hope to which God has called us. Asking and allowing the Spirit to increase His presence and power within us will lead us to see and rejoice in the truth that we are God’s treasure; we are His inheritance because of what Jesus has done for us. The Spirit helps us to grow in awareness of what God’s power has done, does and will do for us. We have an inkling already of what it has done through Jesus when the Father raised him from the dead. Not only that: He has now seated Jesus both as man and as God in the position of supreme authority over every power of evil of whatever kind. No evil being or power can come anywhere near the power of Christ.

And as if that were not enough, the Ascension means that Jesus has been made the Head of all things. Think of the vastness of the created universe which is probably next to nothing in comparison with heaven itself. Jesus is the King of it all. Yet, He has chosen to associate with Himself as Head of everything the Body which is His Church, His Bride. Through the Spirit, He fills the Church with His human and divine fulness, with all the blessings of heaven. We are that Church, we and all Christians living and dead who truly love Him. And He has chosen that, in and through this Church, He will fill all in all.

The whole of creation is already subjected in hope to Christ in His Church, but we have to abide the Father’s design and timing before it will become fully manifest. The same is true of our own individual lives. On good days, we find it easier to be open to the grace of Christ. We can perhaps even want to spend some prayerful moments considering these higher truths and mysteries of God; and we can stir ourselves to look into the future and ponder the promise of eternity Christ has given us. On other days, when problems and events cloud our hearts and minds, the power of the Spirit and the glory of Christ seem distant and even beyond impossible.

Saint Paul was fully aware of that when he wrote the letter to the Ephesians, because we human beings are pretty much the same through the centuries and millennia. That’s why he spent so much time praying for his people, thanking God for them and asking the Spirit to deepen their awareness and presence of mind and heart to the power of God. It is in prayer that we open our hearts to God and give Him right of entry to show His power in the circumstances of our lives. Heaven is not some far away place. Beneath the noise around and within us, there is a depth of silent stillness where heaven intersects with our profoundest heart. If we can descend into our own hearts from the surface of our lives, the Ascended Lord waits to greet us in familiar tones as he did the woman at the well or Zacchaeus, or the millions of others across the centuries who have trusted in Him and turned to Him in their hour of need.

Because He is human and divine, earth and heaven meet in Jesus. He can be both the Head of all creation and the friend of the sinner, the confused, the exhausted, the lost. We are His Body. Like any head, Jesus senses when there’s something not going right in His Body and He wants to pay attention to it and deal with it. As the members of a body are joined to the head through all sorts of connections, so we are always joined to Christ no matter what is happening. He’s not too busy to attend to us, so we mustn’t be too busy to ask His help.

Going in His direction, then, let us lift up our hearts and hopes and stir our longings to be with Christ and all who have gone before us and are now with Him. Our problems or doubts or anxieties are not problems, doubts or anxieties for Christ. He can see us through them in ways which surpass our wildest dreams. Not even our sins are a problem, provided we give them to Him, since He has already died for them. Our destination is upwards. Our purpose is eternity. Our goal is God. With confidence and unyielding trust, our hearts can already ascend to heaven. Is there really anywhere else worth putting them?