Cathal BarryThe Church teaches that Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, writes Cathal Barry
“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mk 16:19).
Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his resurrection, according to the Catechism, “as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys”.
However, during the 40 days when he ate and drank familiarly with his disciples and taught them about the kingdom, the Catechism states “his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity”.
According to Church teaching, Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolised by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand. Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul in a last apparition that established Paul as an apostle.
The Church teaches that the veiled character of the glory of the risen Jesus during this time is intimated in his mysterious words to Mary Magdalene: “I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17). This indicates a difference in manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of the Christ exalted to the Father’s right hand, the Catechism states, “a transition marked by the historical and transcendent event of the Ascension”.
This final stage stays closely linked to the first, that is, to his descent from heaven in the Incarnation. According to Church tutelage, only the one who “came from the Father” can return to the Father: Christ Jesus (Jn 16:28). “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man” (Jn 3:13).
John’s Gospel states that, left to its own natural powers, humanity does not have access to the “Father’s house”, to God’s life and happiness. The Church holds that only Christ can open to humanity such access.
The Catechism states that the lifting up of Jesus on the cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven and indeed begins it.
There, according to the Church, Christ permanently exercises his priesthood, for he “always lives to make intercession” for “those who draw near to God through him” (Heb 7:25).
Therefore, as St John Damascene teaches, Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father: “By ‘the Father’s right hand’ we understand the glory and honour of divinity, where he who exists as Son of God before all ages, indeed as God, of one being with the Father, is seated bodily after he became incarnate and his flesh was glorified.”
Being seated at the Father’s right hand signifies the inauguration of the Messiah’s kingdom, the fulfilment of the prophet Daniel’s vision concerning the Son of man: “To him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan 7:14). After this event, the Nicene Creed states, the apostles became witnesses of the “kingdom [that] will have no end”.