From
the lessons for the office of matins
for the Solemnity of the Ascension:
From
the Sermons of Pope St Leo the Great.
1st on the Lord’s Ascension.
1st on the Lord’s Ascension.
After
the blessed and glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, wherein the
Divine Power raised up in three days the true Temple of God Which the iniquity
of the Jews had destroyed (John ii. 19),
God was pleased to ordain, by His Most Sacred Will, and in His Providence for
our instruction and the profit of our souls, a season of forty days which
season, dearly beloved brethren, doth end on this day. During that season the
bodily Presence of the Lord still lingered on earth, that the reality of the
fact of His having risen again from the dead might be armed with all needful
proofs.
The
death of Christ had troubled the hearts of many of His disciples their thoughts
were sad when they remembered His agony upon the Cross, His giving up of the
Ghost, and the laying in the grave of His lifeless Body, and a sort of
hesitation had begun to weigh on them. Hence the most blessed Apostles and all
the disciples, who had been fearful at the finishing on the Cross, and doubtful
of the trustworthiness of the rising again, were so strengthened by the clear
demonstration of the fact, that, when they saw the Lord going up into the
height of heaven, they sorrowed not, nay they were even filled with great joy. And,
in all verity, it was a great an unspeakable cause for joy to see the Manhood,
in the presence of that the multitude of believers, exalted above all creatures,
even heavenly, rising above the ranks of the angelic armies and speeding Its
glorious way where the most noble of the Archangels lie far behind, to rest no
lower than that place where high above all principality and power, It taketh
Its seat at the right hand of the Eternal Father, Sharer of His throne, and
Partaker of His glory, and still of the very man's nature which the Son hath
taken upon Him.
Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us also rejoice with
worthy joy, for the Ascension of Christ is exaltation for us, and whither the
glory of the Head of the Church is passed in, thither is the hope of the body
of the Church called on to follow. Let us rejoice with exceeding great joy, and
give God glad thanks. This day is not only the possession of Paradise made sure
unto us, but in the Person of our Head we are actually begun to enter into the
heavenly mansions above. Through the unspeakable goodness of Christ we have
gained more than ever we lost by the envy of the devil. We, whom our venomous
enemy thrust from our first happy home, we, being made of one body with the Son
of God, have by Him been given a place at the right hand of the Father with Whom
He liveth and reigneth, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without
end. Amen.
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