Sermons

Ascension

ASCENSION Two sermons for the Feast of the Ascension, dated to the years 444 and 445, deal predominantly with faith. As the Gospels relate, the apostles doubted the Resurrection. According to Leo, it is from their wavering that subsequent believers receive assurance (Serm. 73.1). Those forty days after the Resurrection were given for further proofs of that event (Serm. 73.2). When the Lord ascended, human nature ascended with him (Serm. 73.4). Sermon 73 I June 444 FTER THE blessed and glorious Resurrection ofour Lord Jesus Christ, when the divine power, "in three days, raised" the true "temple" of God which Jewish wickedness had "destroyed,"1 on this day, dearly beloved, the number of the forty holy days is completed.2 While the Lord draws out the time ofhis bodily presence, our faith in his Resurrection is being strengthened by the necessary signs. All this has been planned by the sacred dispensation and made useful for our instruction. (2) The Death of Christ had greatly disturbed the hearts of the disciples. A certain numbness of distrust had stolen upon their minds, weighed down with sorrow, at the suffering on the cross, at his last breath, at the burial of his lifeless body. When the holy women, as the Gospel story has told us, proclaimed that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, the sepulcher was empty of the body, and that angels were witnesses of the living Lord,3 their "words seemed" to the apostles and other disciples as pure "nonsense.,,4 I. Cf.Jn 2.19. Cf. Acts 2.24 and 3.15. 2. Cf. Acts 1.3. 3. Cf. Lk 24.1-11. 4. Cf. Lk 24.11. 322 SERMON 73 323 The Spirit ofTruth would by no means have permitted this hesitation, wavering in human weakness, to enter the hearts of his preachers, if their trembling anxiety and questioning delay were not to have established the foundations ofour faith. Consequently , it was our doubts, our danger, that was beingconsidered in the apostles. We, in the guise ofthe apostles, were being instructed against the slanders of the wicked and the proofs of earthly wisdom. Their "seeing" instructed us, their "hearing" informed us, their "touching" strengthened us.5 Let us give thanks for the divine plan and the necessary "slowness" of the Holy Fathers.6 They "doubted" so that we need not doubt.7 2. These days, dearly beloved, between the Resurrection of the Lord and his Ascension, did not pass by in useless flow. They provided the opportunity to confirm great mysteries, to reveal great secrets. In these days the fear of dreaded death was removed and the immortality not only of the soul but also of the flesh is assured. In these days the "Holy Spirit" was poured into all the apostles by the "breath" of the Lord;8 and to blessed Peter above all the others, after the "keys ofthe kingdom ,,,g the care of the Lord's sheep is entrusted.lO In these days the Lord is joined to the two disciples on the road as a third companion,1I and, to wipe out all the mist of our doubt, he rebukes the "slowness" of these frightened and trembling men.12 Their illuminated hearts received the flame of faith, and these, who were lukewarm, became fervent when the Lord "opened the Scriptures.,,13 Also, in the "breaking" of the bread, the eyes ofthose at supper "are opened.,,14 The eyes of these men were opened far more happily when the glorification of their own nature was revealed to them, than the eyes of those first parents of our race on whom the confusion of their own lying was inflicted. 3. Among these other wonders, when the disciples were burning with anxious thoughts, the Lord appeared in their 5· Cf. I In 1.1-3· 7. Cf. Mt 28.17· 9. Cf. Mt 16.19· II. Cf. Lk 24.15. 13. Cf. Lk 24.26--27 and 32. 6. Cf. Lk 24.25. 8. Cf.Jn 20.22. 10. Cf.Jn 21.15-17. 12. Cf. Lk 24.25. 14. Cf. Lk 24.30-31. 324 ST. LEO THE GREAT midst and said: "Peace be with YOu." So that what they were turning over in their hearts would not remain in their thoughts (for they thought they "saw a spirit" and not flesh), he proved that their "sentiments" were wrong...