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An Uplifting Vision!
I used to do some rock-climbing in my youth. One late afternoon, when I and my colleagues reached the top of a magnificent rock after a difficult climb, we were able to see the setting sun reflected on a curvy river, which looked like a golden dragon. It was an amazing spectacle.
Sometimes we may feel like those birds who bury their heads in the bush or ground when they are scared. We know all too well that, by hiding from reality, we cannot avoid it. But when we change the scenery from our ordinary routine, we can look at the same things from a different perspective or we understand our lives from another angle. That is what St. Paul says in his fascinating prayer: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call!” (Eph. 1:18)
I am blessed to have some great teachers. In my high school, I had two teachers who were poets. They certainly helped me to ponder on things beyond the surface. Their inner vision and sensitivity opened a new world for me and my friends. At times we may live as if there is no tomorrow - Carpe diem! - refusing to look up or unwittingly afraid of looking above our mundane routine. But the truth is that each one of us as homo erectus, that is, standing tall, is made to look up to heaven. We are not easily satisfied by earthly offers and achievements. The heartache of hunger and thirst for more is latent in all of us. This ‘condition’ affects each one of us. Hence, we are absolutely obliged to tend to our supernatural yearnings, because we are going somewhere as pilgrims on this earth. This is not some arbitrary afterthought at the end of our earthly journey, but the very stuff of our existence, an objective and ontological mode of our being as human persons.
We are made to rise above the trappings of this world. We try to stay vigilant so that we may neither render blind subordination to the imperfect promises of this world, nor submit our nihilistic and fatalistic surrender to the sufferings and evils. Sublimation of our inner motifs, reaching for the absolute truth, good, and beauty … these are the genuine quests in each of us.
The cure of the heartache is not mainly through our own efforts but through our realization and acceptance of the objective reality of God’s self-giving in Christ. We celebrate the Ascension of Christ who, having taken upon his shoulders our nature -- gone astray and deadened by sin -- ascended and brought it unto God the Father.
Sometimes, people confess that they may have lost faith in God. But in reality, God does not easily give up on us. Our subjective understanding and acceptance of God’s presence and work may be dismally limited or weak, but the objective presence of God and His mercy never changes. Like our parents, God’s loving concern and mercy never wavers. God is always there for us. That’s the objective history of salvation, which is to be subjectively appropriated.
In this secularized culture, we run into a disquieting but unwitting tendency to privatize, thus trivialize, faith. But our relationship with God is not just a private matter, rather it is an intensely personal matter, involving our utmost attention, intellect, free will, and our lifestyle.
Our celebration of the Ascension of Christ includes our sublimation, soaring up high with an uplifting vision. Soaring does not just belong to our dreams, but it is in our nature, thus in God’s plan for us from the very beginning.
Yours truly in Christ,
Fr. Paul D. Lee