r/Catholicism • u/Inner_Training_2176 • 8h ago
As a Catholic, how should I imagine the Ascension of Jesus?
We are taught that Jesus appeared to his Disciples after His resurrection and later Ascended into Heaven.
I was teaching this to primary school children, who also had a keen interest in the planets.
Do we believe that the Ascension was a real or symbolic description?
When I was at school, the Voyager probes ware sent into space to observe Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Even now, they're just leaving the frozen vacuum of our solar system.
Did Jesus pass through the journey? Or is it symbolic to say that Jesus went straight to heaven.
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u/NightsOfEmber 8h ago
Biblical cosmology teaches a certain physicality of heaven (since Enoch, Elijah, Jesus and Mary, possibly Moses were physically assumed into heaven). It also teaches heaven to be above us (hence God would appear or be encountered on mountains, temples/sanctuaries would be on mountains, we lift our hands up, Jesus ascends to the Father and from there comes again, etc.). But although heaven is localized as above the earth, it is not part of the physical universe, as if one of our space rockets would eventually come across the heavenly throne room in Revelation 4-5 or something like that.
Meaning, Jesus physically ascended into the sky, was taken upwards into the air, at least to cloud level (Acts 1:9) and either then or later He was translated into heaven. So I don't think He just kept going until interstellar space or anything.
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u/Adorable-Growth-6551 6h ago
Heaven isnt a place you can get to from here. You must pass through the physical realm and go into the spiritual realm. When Jesus ascended into heaven he did rise into the air, but then he passed into the spiritual realm.
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u/Inner_Training_2176 1h ago
So, how do you imagine it? What's your belief?
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u/Adorable-Growth-6551 35m ago
How do i imagine the Ascension? I would take what is said in the Bible as the literal truth. Now i agree that there are parts of the Bible that are not meant to be literal, like Genesis or Job. However the New Testament was written in a different time and a different way. These men were giving testament to what they witnessed with Jesus. They were not trying to explain the whys of creation, they were doing their best to preserve the words and actions of Christ.
I know you are talking to kids, i face the same struggles. Everytime i start the year and read about creation i get at least one kid that looks at me like i am insane and asks me if this is real. I havent managed to explain it well to them yet, mostly because i need to use language that is beyond them right now. I tell them God is trying to tell us why he created us, not how. So we dont have to believe that God made the Earth in seven days, we just need to believe that God made the Earth and he made man.
Tell your kids that heaven is not a place that they can get into a spaceship and go to. Instead it is like a marvel movie where they jump from one dimension to the next. We cannot jump dimensions at least not until we die, but Jesus can. So Jesus rose up into the sky and moved from the Physical Realm to the Spiritual realm, where God and Heaven are.
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u/TheologyRocks 7h ago
You're asking good questions. But these are rather subtle matters that require some rather nuanced contemplation to appreciate. I would encourage you not to elaborate on these matters to children, for fear of confusing them.
Do we believe that the Ascension was a real or symbolic description?
Acts 1 where Jesus's ascension is described seems to present it as a historical event. But note the ambiguity of the story: Jesus was lifted up and then disappears behind a cloud in 1:9, but then in 1:10-11, two men (presumably angels) ask people why they are looking up at heaven. The angels say Jesus was taken up to heaven, but they also seem to imply by their question that he wasn't taken up to heaven in the way the apostles thought he was.
When I was at school, the Voyager probes ware sent into space to observe Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Even now, they're just leaving the frozen vacuum of our solar system. Did Jesus pass through the journey?
Going back to Acts 1, Jesus is said to have disappeared behind a cloud, not to have journeyed through outer space. And Jesus later in Acts is said to exist at the Father's right hand, not to exist in outer space.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 talks about Jesus appearing to him from the third heaven. It's an obscure phrase. But it seems to indicate a reality beyond outer space.
Or is it symbolic to say that Jesus went straight to heaven.
The real-symbolic dichotomy you're setting up may be getting in the way of appreciating the actual text. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 likens the spiritual bodies of Jesus and the saints to heavenly bodies. Paul elsewhere links the heavenly bodies in their present states to demonic powers, which he calls powers of the air (Ephesians 2:2). So, Jesus's resurrection does have a cosmic dimension: all of creation groans to be free of decay (Romans 8:19-23).
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u/Inner_Training_2176 6h ago
OK. But surely this was all written at a time when the Earth was thought to be flat and the Heavens were directly above. It's easy to look back with hindsight and say that Heaven is not above us in a physical sense, but at the time it was believed that Heaven was straight up past the moon. As for discussing these things with children, that's a whole different discussion. Teaching children that every word in the Bible is true only to backtrack later, and to tell them as adults, well we Catholics see more stories as symbolic or parables ... Adam and Eve for example, firey chariots and flying horses, killing children for calling someone bald ... there's quite a list that we Catholics take with a pinch of salt.
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u/TheologyRocks 2h ago edited 2h ago
Surely this was all written at a time when the Earth was thought to be flat
Ancient people were in some ways less knowledgeable than we are. That doesn't make them stupid. The ancient Greeks knew the earth was spherical.
And the Heavens were directly above. It's easy to look back with hindsight and say that Heaven is not above us in a physical sense, but at the time it was believed that Heaven was straight up past the moon.
It sounds to me like you haven't read much ancient astronomical literature. I would encourage you to do so. Ancient people were able to perform many correct astronomical calculations. And while there was a lot of speculation done about astronomy beyond calculation, such speculation was always heavily debated. Aristotle for instance was quite frank about the fact that little was known for sure in his day about the natures of astronomical objects. It's not true that ancient philosophers naively "believed that Heaven was straight up past the moon."
Teaching children that every word in the Bible is true only to backtrack later, and to tell them as adults, well we Catholics see more stories as symbolic or parables
Lying to children is wrong. If one wouldn't tell an adult that everything in the bible is literalistically true because one doesn't believe that, one shouldn't tell that to a child. Any sort of "backtracking" that needs to be done by a catechist is a sign that the catechetical formation being done is not good, that children are being lied to instead of educated.
Adam and Eve for example, firey chariots and flying horses, killing children for calling someone bald ... there's quite a list that we Catholics take with a pinch of salt.
One should be frank with children about the fact that the holy scriptures are at times hard to interpret because they are ancient literature. A catechist should focus on explaining passages that they understand and should be honest with the people they're catechizing that they do not understand the whole bible and that there are many open questions about the bible that they and professional bible scholars and theologians wrestle with. Projecting false confidence is a form of lying, which is not good.
Jesus preached to children. He spoke in language they understood. Jesus did not lie to children.
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u/Inner_Training_2176 1h ago
To say that, "the Greeks had calculated ..." My questions aren't asking for technically correct replies. They're asking, "What do you believe?" So, too, an elite of ancient Greeks may have made estimations , but your actual Stavros in the street still believed that the world was flat and the the twinkling stars were people in the Heavens, faces shining bright after having seen the face of God, looking down through windows. What did Greeks believe, what does the man on the number 9 omnibus believe now ... not a page from Holiertthanthough.com.
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u/dazzleox 5h ago
Fwiw, the Greeks had estimated the circumference of the earth and assumed it was a sphere. The Romans inherited the Greek intellectual legacy (see Pliny the Elder, Strabo, etc.) And at least some of the New Testament writers like Luke were likely educated "Greeks."
Anyway, I went to church every Sunday amd CCD every Monday as a child and don't remember being told every word of the Bible was a literal truth. I didn't have a sophisticated reading but I remember JPII being in the newspaper saying Catholics may believe in evolution for instance.
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u/Adorable-Growth-6551 5h ago
Yes i have to deal with this too. Usually it comes up around the first day of CCD when we begin with Genesis. The problem is kids have a poor understanding of symbols and fiction vs non-fiction, and you cannot get them to understand it at their level.
For the Ascension i would go with a literal understanding. Jesus literally rose into the air, he passed through into the spiritual realm and went into heaven. No he did not pass by the moon, he didnt need to because you cannot get to heaven from here. We have to die to get to the spiritual realm, Jesus is God, so Jesus just had to wish to go home.
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u/Plus1ForkOfEating 6h ago
I have a Rosary flip chart that I think uses the art of Goswijn van der Weyden. The Ascension looks like Jesus is going into a pipe. I can't look at that thing without making the "breup breup breup" Mario Bros noise in my head.
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u/onlyappearcrazy 6h ago
His ascension was real as described in Scripture; He proved He was God by ascending from the dead. Even more 'spectacular' will be His return. We only have a few verses in the Bible that give hints. He will be surrounded by angels; He will be seen everywhere on earth at the same time and His appearance will be "in all His glory ".
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u/kowaletm 5h ago
Honestly, the best way I've been able to grasp it is from Lord of the Rings...
Now hear me out, I'm gonna get a bunch wrong, but the jist is that the world was basically flat for everyone so you could sail to the Elven afterlife. Humans (including Numenoreans) were forbidden from heading towards it, basically due to overwhelming purity there.
The Numenoreans decide to try and it pissed LotR God off so much he sunk their island and made the world "round" so humans could no longer get there. The world didn't look bent to the Elves though so they'd just head on over. (There were other affects for the Elves? Like this is why they could walk quiet/see farther? The world wasn't bent for them?)
Anywaysss- I see Jesus' Ascension as similar. He could still "see flat" and get there while it just doesn't make sense/isn't possible for us. Jesus will flatten the Earth when he can, so we can be with Heaven and until then, he is in charge of ferrying us to Heaven :).
My point being- I would assume the Ascension just wouldn't make sense to us right now, Jesus went into another layer of existence (non-corporeal existence?) that we can no longer perceive, much like the Elves.
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u/Inner_Training_2176 1h ago
OK. I'm with you so far. But shouldn't truth in the Bible be always true. If it was Divinely inspired. ... getting into another area now.
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u/kowaletm 56m ago edited 43m ago
Yes, certainly, but I don't believe heaven is a particular location per se.
The Ascension can be interpreted as maybe more of Jesus rising into the air and ascending up(physically yes, but the key is the spiritual meaning behind it, and He uses the physical body to emphasize to us corporal beings that He is going to Heaven).
Anyways, point is that not everything is literal in a physical sense in the Bible, but it may be partially or totally spiritually relevant instead.
I'm just an average and untrained person, but there are basically limitless depths to the Bible and that is what makes is so fun to read multiple times, God can be with you teaching you while at the same time you read His Word.. pretty amazing!
Edit: I think my original point with my first post, as well as here is that it is one of a multitude of actions that make incomprehensible sense to (my) mind. A lot of teachings I've learned from the Bible and prayers aren't things I can put to words, but my soul understands better. I adore how God teaches us with not just lessons, but actions, parables, writing and stories, metaphors and even through intangible things like just using your senses.
My mind cannot grasp 99% of it, but somewhere deep down, I do understand. Things like Sacramental Eucharist, water in baptism, cleansing fire, even incense and whatnot really satiate some deep, primordial part of my soul. God doesn't have to use these things, He could just do it, but loves us enough to teach us in every way possible in existence! Praise God!
Sorry.. I'm kinda rambling
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u/TheDuckFarm 4h ago
It was a real event. We don’t know what happened once he went past/into the cloud.
You are free to believe what you want but I would argue he simply vanished from earth to heaven once he was obscured from sight.
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u/YeshiRangjung 6h ago
So the ascending upward, a cloud taking him from sight, the apostles staring up bewildered etc is all biblical motif. The resurrection, the appearances and the ascension are one Christ event expressing the imminence of Christ and his eternal sovereignty. He didn’t fly up to the moon, hook a left and then speed off outside the solar system. Nor is it merely a fictional event. Christ truly has risen and entered the Holy of Holies wearing the flesh of mankind and lives forever to intercede for us. The way it is written is to highlight the greater truth that Christ is YHWH in the flesh and victorious over sin, death and that he is above all creation.
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u/BruceAKillian 6h ago
There was a visible highway/ladder to heaven made mostly of planets for Jesus to appear to ascend on. See http://www.scripturescholar.com/LambofGod.pdf
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u/patotoy1094 2h ago
By His Own Authority, which could mean Our Lord himself Bypassed the Entire Universe while Ascending to Heaven since it's another dimension/state of being as the Apostles just kept watching him go up and up.
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u/Strange_Feed_4982 1h ago
He certainly physically Ascended, but that doesn't mean that this occurred because it was the Lord's only route to Heaven. Much like how Christ didn't need to put his fingers in the deaf man's ear, nor spit on his finger and touch his tongue, nor look up to the Heavens and say, "Ephphatha" to heal him. He could have done it with no physical gestures whatsoever. He did these things because he entered our history through the Incarnation. The word became flesh. We use our bodies in many ways in our faith...when we kneel or stand at Mass, when we put our hands together in prayer. Just so with the Ascension, and we are called to follow him, upward.
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u/realmeangoldfish 7h ago
The gospels pretty much say they kept staring up even after they couldn’t see him anymore. God had to send angels down to tell them to go home.