"The Ascension is ... at once [1] the seal of the salvific work of mediation effected by Christ
in virtue of the hypostatic union, and [2] the commencement of a new mission of
the Word incarnate in his relation to the world. We celebrate 'the most sacred day on which
your Only Begotten Son, our Lord, placed at the right hand of your glory our
weak human nature, which he had united to himself [(diem sacratissimum
celebrantes, quo Dominus noster, Unigenitus Filius tuus, unitam sibi fragilitatis
nostrae substantiam in gloriae tuae dextera collocavit)]' (Proper of the
Ascension, Eucharistic Prayer I). That humanity finds itself in [(une humanité se retrouve en; indeed at the right hand of)] God—[a wholly] undreamed-of fact perhaps still
more extraordinary than [that of] a God who has become [(se soit fait)] man—has
been and is, today and forever, [a] mystery of salvation. By this fact, the exaltation of the incarnate
Word has an incidence necessary to [(une incidence sur)] the transmission of
the faith, [to] union with God, and [to] the beatific vision, all three
submitted to the 'sublime materialism' of the Christian faith, whose sole and
unique law, against every docetist temptation, is that of the Incarnation. By confessing the Ascension of Christ,
Christians proclaim that it is possible for flesh to enter into glory: [a] scandal to those who hate the flesh, [sheer]
folly [to] those who adore it for its own sake."
Nathalie Requin, "L'ascension
du Christ: le Verbe fait homme pour l'éternité," Nouvelle revue théologique 139, no.2 (2017): 207 (192-208). What follows is, of course, a concluding reference to the corresponding Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
"The Word became
flesh in a manner irrevocable and definitive, for eternity" (199).
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