Слово на Вознесение Господне. Блаженного Августина

Now we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord into heaven. Let the cry not be in vain: woe is our heart! but with all our hearts let us also ascend with the Lord, according to the instructions of the Apostle: If you are risen with Christ, seek those on high, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Be wise above, not on earth (Col. 3:1, 2). For action we will be on earth, and for the desire for ascension we will be in heaven. Here is hope, there is our subject. If the object is there, then hope will end when the object arrives. Listen to what the Apostle said about hope: through hope, he says, we are saved. But visible hope is not hope: who sees and trusts? Even if we don’t see him, we hope, we wait with patience (Rom. 8:24, 25). Pay attention to human affairs. For example, if someone hopes to take a wife, it means that he does not yet have one (for if he has, what does he hope for?); but he takes the wife he hoped for, and will no longer hope. Hope ends happily when the item is obtained. So the traveler hopes to reach his fatherland while he is not there (not in the fatherland), he hopes when he comes there (to the fatherland), he no longer hopes, because instead of hope he has the thing itself. Hope ends happily when we get what we expect. So, beloved, what we have heard: let the grief we have in our hearts be fulfilled in our very heart. Let us think about the future life. We will live well here in order to live there. Look what our Lord has honored us with! He who created us, because we had fallen away from Him, came down to us. If He came down to us, He raised us up. Our Head has already lifted us up in His body; where She is, the members will follow. The members will then enter where the Head entered first. He is the Head, we are the members. He is in heaven, we are on earth. Is He far from us? - No. If you look at space, he is far away, but look at love: He is with us, for if He were not with us, He would not have said in the Gospel: Behold, I am with you all the days, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). If He is not with us, then He would not have cried from heaven: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me (Acts 9:4)? whereas Saul did not persecute Him, but His saints, His servants, or, more accurately, His members. “Behold,” he says, “I am in heaven, you are on earth, and you are persecuting Me. Why me? - because they are My members: in these My members I am there.” Is the tongue not silent when the foot is trampled? So, He by whom heaven and earth were created came down to earth for him whom He created from the earth, and from here He raised the earth to heaven. Therefore, what happened in it in advance, we will expect in the end. He will reward us with what He promised (we are assured of this: the obligation is given to us, the Gospel is written) - He will reward us without fail. And is it possible that He should not give us His life when He gave His death for our benefit? He accepted suffering, insults, reproaches, all kinds of dishonor for us on earth; How can he not grant us kingdom, bliss, immortality, eternity? He suffered our evil, how will He not give us His good? Let us walk in this hope with confidence, knowing that He who promised is true; but let us live in such a way that we can say to Him without shame: “We have done what You commanded; give us what you promised!.. Amen 87. See Sunday. Read XI (1847–48), pp. 49–50 You might be interested in: