Ascent of the Sacred Humanity

The Ascension marked a distinct crisis in the worship of God both in heaven and on earth.  Until that mysterious morning when Jesus in his assumed humanity passed within the veil and took his place within the true Holy of Holies, the ‘Agnus Dei,’ the great hymn of Christendom, had never rung through the courts of heaven; but when the thronging angels watched the Ascent of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus—and saw its mysterious flight cease only when it was throned on the Right Hand of the Eternal—a new light flashed across their intellects, a new adoration filled their spirits, a new song burst from their lips, a new worship was begun, the worship of Jesus Christ: ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing!’ (Rev. 5:12).  And as the Ascension of Jesus formed a crisis in the worship of heaven, so was it also on earth.  ‘They worshipped him’—his very withdrawal from among them, his very elevation to the throne of God, was the development of new relations between the disciples and their Lord.  As long as he was on the earth the worship of him was not the principle feature of their life; but as soon as he was withdrawn from them and seated at God’s Right Hand in the heavenly places, the adoration of the Lamb—the worship of Jesus Incarnate, Crucified, Risen, Ascended, Enthroned—the distinctive worship of the Christian Church—began to be.  And a new aspect stood revealed of that holy Eucharist which he had ordained: it was to be the earthly centre of that glorious worship wherewith, in heaven, in Paradise, and on earth, the Ascended Jesus is ever adored.

– from New Seeds of Contemplation (1961), by Thomas Merton (1915–1968)