Dear Friends,
Even though the feast of the Ascension was last Thursday,
it’s not too late to mull over and celebrate the meaning of this event as
believers in Christ, our risen Lord. In the early Church, Easter, Ascension and
Pentecost were celebrated as three aspects of one event – the raising up of
Jesus, his being welcomed home by His Father, and the giving of the Holy Spirit
to his followers. Over time, Christians began to celebrate the importance of
the Ascension 40 days after Easter as a moment of gladness over Christ’s
victory and their own willingness to accept the work that Jesus handed on to
them.
Two true stories show how people internalized this “handing
over” of the mission of Jesus.
In her autobiography, Catherine DeHueck Doherty tells of visiting
Jerusalem with her father, the Russian ambassador to Egypt. One day, her
parents took her to the Rock of the Ascension, a place near Jerusalem from
which Christ was taken up into heaven.
“I loved to look at that rock,” she wrote, “because it
showed the imprints of a person who was standing on his toes on one foot, while
the other was flat. I had one ambition: to put my feet into these imprints of
the feet of Christ. But that was a bit difficult because they had this area
cordoned off. But what’s a rope to a little girl? One day, I just slid
underneath while everyone else was praying, and put my little feet into those
imprints, one up the other down. People began screaming, ‘Look what she is
doing! Get that child out of there! Blasphemy! Blasphemy!’ A Russian priest
came forward and said, ‘Let the children come to me, have you forgotten that?’
He helped me put my feet into the imprints, as they escorted me out.”
Isn’t that what we are all called to do? To walk in Christ’s
footsteps.
In 16th century England, to be Catholic was to
put your life in danger. To provide support of any kind to this outlaw religion
was considered treason and punishable by death. Some did accept that fate, to keep
that faith alive.
One such martyr was Margaret Clethrow of Yorkshire. For the
crime of having Mass celebrated secretly in her home, Margaret was executed in 1586,
at the age of 33.
On the night before she died, Margaret made one final
request. She asked that her shoes be given to her oldest daughter, Anne, who
was at that time 12. In those shoes, Margaret passed on to Anne the message of
the Ascension.
Catherine and Margaret both caught the meaning of the
Ascension. They embraced it. Jesus leaves us His sandals. We walk in his
footsteps, and carry on His works of compassion, healing, justice and
reconciliation.
Each time we act in that spirit, no matter how great, simple
or unnoticed our words and actions might be, we do the work of the Risen Jesus
– the Risen Jesus who puts the world into our hands and His sandals on our
feet.
~Sister Joan Sobala
