Have you ever thought what the word “Glory” means? You can see and hear me give this Homily on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVqwsFEQXHw
It’s an important word to think about as we meditate on the meaning of the Ascension that we are celebrating at this time. There are a number of different descriptions of what actually happened at the Ascension. Actually I suspect that what happened was so much a breaking-in of the presence of God, that different people overwhelmed, nay dazzled, by what they experienced, inevitably saw it and so described it in different ways; but what is certain is that in some way they saw Jesus physically for the last time and he was revealed with God in glory. In Sunday’s Gospel (John 17:1-11) we hear Jesus praying “Now, Father, it is time for you to glorify me with that glory I had with you before ever the world was.” And this glory, revealed finally at the Ascension is but the culmination of that process that begins with the Crucifixion and only ends with what might be described as the last Resurrection appearance – the Ascension.
But what do we mean by this word glory, and by glorification and by describing something as glorious? The answer surely is that glory is beyond any description you or I can give, because glory is what God is. God is “The Father of glory.” (Eph 1:17) – the source of glory, so when we say “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit” we are not saying that God should be glorious, but that God is glorious; just as we say to God at every Mass “For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and for ever.” This surely means that every other use of the words associated with glory are simply affirming in some way the presence of God. When the sun begins to set and the sky turns orange and red and gold, we gasp and say “Wow what a glorious sunset!”, and although many may not realise it, they are actually saying “Here I see God.” We might equally describe a very special moment in our lives, maybe the birth of our first child, as a glorious moment – a moment when the miracle of new life proclaims what? Well we would say it proclaims the glory of God. In the same way, when we sing of the King “May he reign over us, happy and glorious” we are praying that God may be with him in all that he does.
Now those of you who are not keen on King Charles for one reason or another might grunt at him ever being called glorious, but if you do grunt like that you are missing the point of the Ascension; and that point is made clear by Jesus in Sunday’s Gospel. For, after praying that he might be glorified, he then goes on to say this: “I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they belong to you: all I have is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified.” We heard the same message in our 2nd Reading on Ascension Day (Eph 1:17-23) “May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit” These are an amazing pair of quotations, because they’re saying that the glory of God is revealed most of all not in some beautiful sunset, or in the miraculous birth of a baby, but in us very ordinary human beings. The first very ordinary human beings were the disciples of Jesus, for even though they failed him in so many ways, Jesus says of them, and this is before the Resurrection: “In them I am glorified.” And notice the present tense? Not “In them I will be glorified” but “In them I am glorified.” Of course, what God reveals in the present, he also reveals for the future, and that future, believe it or not, is you and me. We are the saints who inherit his glory. Jesus is saying of us, his disciples now, with all our faults and failings, as he said of his first disciples “In them (that’s In us) I am glorified.” And that includes King Charles of course! We are all called to be glorious. We are all windows revealing the glory of God.
The great St Augustine in his Sermon on the Ascension put it much better than I can “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…… While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him.”
Note this. By putting our trust in God, even our less than perfect trust, even our wavering faith, God’s glory is working in us. It does not depend on us doing spectacular things. It does not depend on us being good in a superhuman way. He is with us, he is in us, just as he was in those disciples, despite the fact that we are less than perfect. Of course, the more we realise his glory in us, the more we are likely to be inspired to be better human beings but there is no one who deserves this glory. Glory is not a prize to be won by a few really good people. God simply loves us, and as long as we open ourselves in some way to that love, he is with us in all his glory, and if our eyes were open, we would be dazzled by it, just as the disciples were dazzled by God’s glory at the Ascension.
That, of course, is why the descriptions of the Ascension vary. All say they were on a mountain, but one says he disappeared into a cloud, another that he was lifted up, and another simply has the disciples seeing the risen Jesus for the last time. They worship him, and then he says : “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” And then come the momentous words : “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” That’s why, whether we feel it or not, God’s glory is being revealed in us, because whatever we feel like, he is with us, he is in us, and we are in him. Listen to a bit more from St Augustine’s Sermon “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.” Remember heaven is wherever God is, and so in an amazing way, by being one with Christ, we are in heaven and we carry heaven within us.
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