Day 28, Nicene Creed, 20th Line

He ascended into heaven

Pretty much ever since the event occurred, artists have been trying to capture and communicate what happened when Jesus returned to heaven. What must it have been like to witness something like that? Well, I guess not something like that, because there's not really anything like it. There's not really an Ascension category. So what must it have been like to witness THE Ascension?

This is where we find that, even at present, our arts and languages have their limitations when it comes to capturing the fullness of divine reality. Since I grew-up in the 80’s and early 90’s looking at picture Bibles and Christian cartoons, I always had a really cheesy image in my head of Jesus slowly floating up into the sky while shouting stuff down to His disciples before fading out of sight. But when I learned to pray the Rosary, and meditate on these mysteries, my unassisted imagination helped me realize that the actual Ascension must have been anything but cheesy.

The youtube video below touts itself to be “The Most Epic Depiction of the Ascension of Jesus Christ to Heaven.” I think even this has to fall short of the reality in so many ways, but so far in our artistic developments, this has to be the closest we’ve come to representing the reality of Jesus’ homecoming from our earthly perspective.

Care to share?

This reflection is a part of By Heart: A Lenten Prayer Project.

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