Solemnity of the Ascension
[In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen]. Country music has its fair share of sad songs. After all, the joke is that when you play a country music record backwards, you get your wife back, your truck back, and your dog back. But one song came to mind recently that, if you’re feeling some kinda way, you might get some tears.
That song is “I’m Already There” by the group Lonestar. The verse begins with the current situation. The man is on the road and calls his wife from his hotel. He hears his kids laughing in the background, which makes him tear up a little. Then one of his kids gets on the phone and asks him when he’s coming home. His response is the refrain:
I’m already there /
Take a look around /
I’m the sunshine in your hair /
I’m the shadow on the ground. /
I’m the whisper in the wind /
I’m your imaginary friend /
And I know I’m in your prayers /
Oh I’m already there. //
Certainly, the musical rendition is every better than my simple recitation.
Now, I’m not saying that this life that we live equates to heaven. Sure, there are some nice days here in Michigan, but it doesn’t take much to realize that we still walk through this valley of tears. But mystically, we already are in heaven, because we have become a part of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, through Holy Baptism. We don’t often talk about that effect of baptism, but it’s no small thing. Not only does heaven break into earth in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but we also share in heaven, in anticipation, because Christ has joined us to Himself through the Incarnation and through Holy Baptism. When Christ ascended into heaven, He didn’t leave our human nature behind. He elevated our human nature and brought it to the right hand of the Father in heaven, higher than the angels. As a side note, this is one theory on Satan’s rebellion: God showed the angels the Incarnation, and Satan couldn’t stand that humans, though lower than the angels, would receive a higher place than the angels through Christ.
This time after baptism, then, strengthens or weakens our connection to Christ, or sometimes even severs it, if we choose to reject God through mortal sin. If we think about our connection to Christ through Holy Baptism, it’s like we’re grafted on to Christ’s Body. But we need good blood flow to strengthen that connection. And so we have to stay, to switch analogies, connected to the vine in order to bear fruit. God’s grace is like blood vivifying an attached limb, or sap flowing through a tree branch that keeps that branch strong. The ways that we open ourselves up to that grace–reading Scripture, daily prayer, ascetic practices, service of the poor, etc.–keep that life force flowing from Christ, our Head, into us and keep us strongly in heaven, while still here on earth.
But, while Baptism is once-for-all, because Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross was once-for-all, our eternal destiny cannot be taken for granted, and can be weakened or even lost. When we sin, we’re lessening the flow of grace in our lives that weakens our connection to Christ our head. And when we sin mortally–through a grave rejection of God’s law, which we know is wrong, but freely choose to do anyway–we cut ourselves off from Christ, like a limb that falls off due to lack of blood, or a branch that breaks off because of a lack of connection to the vine. Holy Mother Church reminds us that we cannot go to heaven if we die in a state of mortal sin not so much because our Mother wants to scare us, but more as reminding us of the consequences of choosing that which is antithetical to Christ. In heaven there is no sin, so we if we choose sin over Christ, we choose to separate ourselves from Christ and where He wants us to be, that is, in heaven.
Right now in our earthly life, we live in what we say in Italian as già, ma non ancora: already, but not yet. Because Christ, in both His divine and human natures is in heaven, and because we have to been joined to Christ through Holy Baptism, we are, in some sense, already in heaven. But our pilgrimage here on earth determines if we stay there and strengthen our connection to Christ, or if we decide that we don’t want Christ and the heavenly life and cut ourself off from Him. Just like in the song, even though we’re not there, we’re already there. May God help us to continue to choose connection to Him so that, at the end of our life, we can receive the inheritance God offered us when we received the Sacrament of Holy Baptism: eternal life in heaven [with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen].
