{"id":202,"date":"2016-05-05T02:04:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T06:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=202"},"modified":"2016-05-05T02:40:19","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T06:40:19","slug":"the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/","title":{"rendered":"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"clouds-872143_640\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don\u2019t know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow\u2019s Office of Readings:<\/p>\n

During the forty days after his passion, he appeared to them and spoke with them about the kingdom of God.
\nAs they watched, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight, alleluia.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While he was with them, he told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the fulfillment of the Father\u2019s promise.
\nAs they watched, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight, alleluia.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Alleluia?<\/p>\n

Jesus is taken from our sight, Alleluia?<\/p>\n

He went away, and we\u2019re supposed to sing Alleluia?<\/p>\n

Why is this an alleluia moment?<\/p>\n

What have you to do with Alleluia, when you can\u2019t see Jesus anymore? Shouldn\u2019t we be singing a lament? Should I get out the books from Good Friday and Holy Saturday? He went away from our sight. We can\u2019t see the Savior. He was supposed to be here, even until the end of the age. He just got back from His descent into Hell. He hadn\u2019t been back two months yet. Then a cloud took him, and we\u2019re left here staring at the sky. Alleluia?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad He got to go back to His father and all. Is that why we\u2019re singing Alleluia? That Jesus went away and got to be with His father? I know He said He went to make a place for us; very well, that\u2019s great. Our own place in Heaven. We\u2019ll wait here. How long could that take, Jesus being God and all? A few days? A year?<\/p>\n

Thousands of years?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been waiting just shy of thirty-two years, myself, and it hasn\u2019t been very nice. I\u2019ve had my happy moments, but I wouldn\u2019t say this was a rip-roaring good time. I\u2019d rather have just gone with Him at once; slept on the sofa in Heaven until my place was ready. Why wasn\u2019t that an option?<\/p>\n

Or was it?<\/p>\n

The reading for Ascension Thursday\u2019s Office of Readings comes from a sermon of Saint Augustine. I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing, but here are some bits that struck me. \u201c<\/i><\/span><\/span>For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We are?<\/p>\n

Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear. He showed this when he cried out from above:\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span>Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span>and when he said:\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span>I was hungry and you gave me food.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em> <\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>Oh. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are the sons of God\u2026 <\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/i>not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>So\u2026 that is what He did, after all. In this life, at least in a sense, I am sleeping on the sofa while he prepares a place for me. As long as I remain in Him, I am where He is; and He is in Heaven, preparing a place for me. He is also in me, preparing in me a place for Heaven. Because I\u2019m not there yet. Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, I am not empty enough for Heaven to fill. I am all full of dead things and poison. I was born marked for death, and in a way already dead; I have allowed myself to be filled with the death of sin in too many ways. Through His mercy, on this long, slow journey where I cannot see Him, He empties me. By His Passion and Cross, by His emptying of Himself, He fills me again. By His glorious resurrection, He raises me from death. And now, by His ascension, He brings me home. All this takes time. So, by His mercy, it is a very slow ascent. But I am in the Body of Christ, and this life is my ascent. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that it works like that, somehow. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I am in the Body of Christ. I, unworthy and filled with death, am in the Body of Christ, and Christ is drawing me to be where He is. That\u2019s what life is, if you permit it to be. Everything is Grace because every moment is Ascension. Every moment culminates in Heaven, including this one. Right now. This moment. This heartbeat. The very breath I\u2019m taking now. My fingers on the keyboard. The voice of my daughter in the next room. My slight headache; my mild hunger as I put off making supper. The omnipresent tiredness of chronic fatigue, and the sharp smell of the peppermint oil I smeared on my skin to ease the symptoms. These are Ascension. The best day I\u2019ve ever had; the days where I felt Christ\u2019s presence most closely, my engagement, my wedding party, the first time my daughter called me Mamma\u2013 that, too, was Ascension. The worst darkness I\u2019ve ever felt; the things Christ did not intend for me, but that happened because of sin and fallenness: the secret abuse I endured all those teenage years, running away and cutting all ties. Sleeping on the sofa in the crazy ramshackle apartment building on the worst street in town, because I couldn\u2019t afford new furniture but didn\u2019t dare go back to the address where they could find me. The emergency surgery. The chronic illness with no friends to help. The disastrous childbirth. The rape, the recovery; the agony of a flashback. The humiliation of facing someone who saw me flash back and no longer considers me a rational human. Christ did not will these, but because I passed through them, they are Ascension.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What a truth. What a wonderful, glorious truth. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Truly, an alleluia moment. He was taken from my sight, because I was taken into Him, and now we ascend into Highest Heaven. He mounts His throne to shouts of joy, and because I am \u00a0in Him, He draws me to where He is. Alleluia!\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don\u2019t know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow\u2019s Office of Readings: During the forty days after his passion, he appeared to them and spoke with them about the kingdom of God. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,124,5,71],"tags":[191,192,63,193,64,39],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty","category-bible-story","category-meditation","category-suffering","tag-ascension","tag-ascension-thursday","tag-god","tag-heaven","tag-jesus","tag-suffering"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don't know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow's\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I've got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don't know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow's\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steel Magnificat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-05T06:04:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-05-05T06:40:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/664\/2016\/05\/clouds-872143_640.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mary Pezzulo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mary Pezzulo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/\",\"name\":\"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-05-05T06:04:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-05-05T06:40:19+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b\"},\"description\":\"I've got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don't know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow's\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/\",\"name\":\"Steel Magnificat\",\"description\":\"Everything is grace\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b\",\"name\":\"Mary Pezzulo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mary Pezzulo\"},\"description\":\"Mary Pezzulo received her BA in English at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. She came to Steubenville to earn a Master's degree in philosophy and Catholic bioethics from Franciscan University and had finished most of her course work before she suffered a chronic illness that derailed her university career. Since then, she's been learning from the school of hard knocks. Her essays on politics, faith, religious trauma, and life in Northern Appalachia, have been published in the Catholic Herald, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Convivium Journal, and the Feinschwarz theology blog. She has delivered lectures on the Uncanny in the field of aesthetics at the Power of Beauty Conference at Franciscan University, and the Terra Incognita Literary Gathering. Mary is the author of Stumbling into Grace: How We meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy, published by Ave Maria Press, which was awarded second place in Catholic Social Teaching from the Catholic Media Awards. She has also written Meditations on the Way of the Cross and The Sorrows and Joys of Mary for Apocryphile Press.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/author\/mpezzulo\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension","description":"I've got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don't know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow's","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension","og_description":"I've got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don't know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow's","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/","og_site_name":"Steel Magnificat","article_published_time":"2016-05-05T06:04:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-05-05T06:40:19+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":480,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/664\/2016\/05\/clouds-872143_640.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Mary Pezzulo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mary Pezzulo","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/","name":"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-05-05T06:04:51+00:00","dateModified":"2016-05-05T06:40:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b"},"description":"I've got to admit, this is a day that stumps me. I don't know what to say about the Ascension of the Lord. Take a look at this responsory, from tomorrow's","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/05\/the-alleluia-moment-a-meditation-on-the-ascension\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Alleluia Moment: A Meditation on The Ascension"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/","name":"Steel Magnificat","description":"Everything is grace","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b","name":"Mary Pezzulo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Mary Pezzulo"},"description":"Mary Pezzulo received her BA in English at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. She came to Steubenville to earn a Master's degree in philosophy and Catholic bioethics from Franciscan University and had finished most of her course work before she suffered a chronic illness that derailed her university career. Since then, she's been learning from the school of hard knocks. Her essays on politics, faith, religious trauma, and life in Northern Appalachia, have been published in the Catholic Herald, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Convivium Journal, and the Feinschwarz theology blog. She has delivered lectures on the Uncanny in the field of aesthetics at the Power of Beauty Conference at Franciscan University, and the Terra Incognita Literary Gathering. Mary is the author of Stumbling into Grace: How We meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy, published by Ave Maria Press, which was awarded second place in Catholic Social Teaching from the Catholic Media Awards. She has also written Meditations on the Way of the Cross and The Sorrows and Joys of Mary for Apocryphile Press.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/author\/mpezzulo\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2694"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}