Who was at the Ascension of Christ?
Our Lord Jesus Christ's Ascension and visible departure left no sorrow—only joy, courage, and a mission to proclaim Him.
Our Lord Jesus Christ's Ascension and visible departure left no sorrow—only joy, courage, and a mission to proclaim Him.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How the Gospel's silence on the Ascension points us to the Church’s living witness.
That Christ’s disciples grew in courage and joy as the moment of separation approached.
Why tradition’s preservation of the Ascension site reveals Christian love for sacred memory.
He shows us that Christ’s departure was not a sorrowful loss, but the beginning of the Church’s fearless mission.
In the following text, Coleridge sets the scene for his account of the Ascension—making this section especially useful for preparing for imaginative contemplation of this mystery, according to the method of St Ignatius.
The Ascension
The Passage of Our Lord to the Father
Chapter XVII
St. Luke xxiv. 50-53; St. Mark xvi. 19, 20; St. John xx. 30, 31; xxi. 25.
Story of the Gospels, § 181
Burns and Oates, London, 1892
No details in the Gospel
We have already said that we have, in the four Gospels, no description of the details of the mystery of the Ascension of our Blessed Lord.
The fact is significant, so far as it shows us how entirely the authors of the Gospels confined themselves to what they considered the simple task committed to them, which in this portion of their work was limited to the statement that our Lord’s Resurrection was to be testified to the world by the witnesses ordained by God, ‘who had eaten and drunk with Him after He had risen from the dead,’ and on whose testimony the great central fact was to rest.
It is also clear that the fact of the Resurrection, on which the faith of believers was to be built, was to become spread abroad among them by the witness of the Church everywhere, and in consequence to be so generally known and believed, that it was practically taken for granted. Here we have only to terminate what we have to say, by giving a very brief account of what remains to us in the inspired volume as to this last mystery of our faith concerning the ending of the earthly sojourn of our Adorable Lord by His Ascension into Heaven, when the forty days which had elapsed after the Resurrection were accomplished.
Account of St Luke
We have two authoritative statements, both of them from the hand of St. Luke, in which the mystery of which we are speaking is mentioned. We have already quoted the few words with which the third Evangelist closes his Gospel:
‘He led them out as far as to Bethania, and lifting up His hands He blessed them, and it came to pass whilst He blessed them, that He departed from them, and was carried up to Heaven. And they, adoring, went back to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing God.’
This is the well-known conclusion of the Gospel of St. Luke.1 In his other work the same Evangelist adds a few more lines:
‘The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, of all things which Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day on which, giving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the Apostles whom He had chosen, He was taken up,—to whom also He showed Himself alive after His Passion by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them and speaking of the Kingdom of God.
‘And eating together with them, He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard, saith He, by My mouth. For John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
‘They therefore who were come together asked Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel? But He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in His own power, but you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.
‘And when He had said these things, while they looked on, He was raised up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
‘And whilst they were beholding Him going up to Heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments, who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to Heaven? This Jesus, Who is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come as you have seen Him going into Heaven.
‘Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount which is called Olivet, which is nigh Jerusalem, within a Sabbath day’s journey.’2
The Sacred Text then mentions that they went up into an upper room, giving a list of the Apostles, and it adds, ‘All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.’
The persons who were present
The persons spoken of as being present at what here took place, are plainly to be understood as the Apostles, of whom the text generally speaks, but not the Apostles only, as is evident.
The Apostles are the principal subjects of the history after our Lord, but we find some others, who are included generally in their company, as is evident, and we must add to the number of the Eleven those who were ordinarily at this time members of the same body, such as those who raised the whole number to the hundred and twenty, of whom St. Luke speaks almost immediately after, where he tells us that the number present at the election of St. Mathias, in the place of the traitor Judas, as a witness of our Lord’s Life, as St. Peter said: ‘All the time that He came in and went out amongst us.’
The bulk of this number was probably furnished by the seventy-two disciples, who had been employed by our Lord in preaching during the last year of His Ministry, and were the most conspicuous among the disciples. A few more may have joined the list, among whom may have been found the near relatives who went by the name of His brethren.
To these may be added the holy women now gathered around the Blessed Mother of our Lord, who are particularly mentioned as an element by themselves in the infant assembly of the children of the Church—Magdalene and her sister Martha, and a number of others, who will naturally occur to us.
The entire history gives us the impression of a number of pious souls, closely united by a fervent charity, and filled, moreover, by a glowing feeling of joy and exultation, although they must have been all prepared to believe that in a few days from the time at which they were gathered together, the event which our Lord had foretold to them was to come about, and He was to leave them in bodily presence and depart out of this world for ever.
Their increase in confidence
This truth it had been His first care after His return to them at the Resurrection to impress upon them, and it had probably taken more and more completely possession of them as the time of the wonderful forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension drew to its close.
Nothing seems to show us more completely the growth in spiritual strength and stature, and in gradual enlightenment, of the Apostles and their companions, than the readiness and joy with which they now turned to the new life which they were henceforward to lead in the world without our Lord, than the tranquillity and joy with which they met the great change which was to come over their condition about the future vicissitudes of which they cannot be supposed to have deceived themselves-than the fearlessness and confidence with which they entered on the future, without quailing at the prospect before them.
What has been said may suffice to give us an idea of the company who may have been present on this momentous occasion of the Ascension of our Lord.
The traditional spot
The place was for long fixed by tradition, and whatever cavils may be raised against a traditional site in a case like the present, they are likely to fasten less on lesser details than on the larger features of the scene. There may be some doubt cast by the incredulous on the actual footprints of our Lord, one of which is said to have been removed by the Turks, to be put in another place.
But there can be but little doubt raised as to the neighbourhood of the spot in which the ruins lie, said to be those of part of the great church built by St. Helena, some portion of which must have furnished the materials from which the present buildings were raised, which are commonly shown, bearing the name of Viri Galilæi.
Probably in her time, and for some time after, as long as her buildings existed and were held in veneration, the traditions connected with them were kept continually fresh by the piety of the faithful, who were in the habit of receiving the successive generations of the pilgrims who came from all parts of the Christian world to venerate the Holy Places, and among these, certainly not least, to venerate the last footprints of their Saviour.
But apart from this constant renovation, as we may call it, of the loving honour done to this particular spot, it must be remembered that it could never have been easy to lose the identification in the case of what was a great feature of nature, like the Mount of Olives.
We are nowhere told that our Lord ascended from the actual summit of the mountain, which must have afforded many places from which the Ascension might have taken place, and is not broken into a number of detached peaks.
Even if there were some uncertainty about the actual spot on which His feet rested for the last time upon earth, Christians would soon reconcile themselves to the uncertainty, although it would be a consolation to many devout hearts to kiss, as for many generations it was possible for them to kiss, the sacred prints which were left, it is said, in the living rock by our Saviour before mounting to His Father.
View from the Mount of Olives
The prospect from the lower parts of the Mount of Olives is said to give but an inadequate idea of the glorious view which rewards the eyes of those who proceed somewhat further towards the summit of the range.
Seen from the level of the Garden of Gethsemani, the city has only the few great features which are furnished by the Mosque of Omar, and a few more celebrated buildings, and even the cupola or tower of the Holy Sepulchre itself can hardly be distinguished at first sight from the mass of buildings which meet the eye, while the long line of the not very lofty wall is not much broken by individual features.
But when the visitor has mounted somewhat above the level of the walls, and is able to look down upon Jerusalem, which now seems to lie almost at his feet, the view from the Mount of Olives is said to be far grander. He is able to see the declining plain which takes in the country towards Jericho, through which he can trace the course of the Jordan, as it passes towards the Dead Sea, while the distant ranges of the mountains of Arabia close the prospect towards the south-east.
The view is sometimes spoken of as of surpassing beauty, when it is well lighted up by the colour of the vegetation and the brilliancy of the atmosphere.
But what actually happened at the Ascension?
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The Ascension
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St. Luke xxiv. 50-53.
Acts i. 1-12.