Омилия XXI 82 .

On the Ascension of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ; it also talks about how the legal (Old Testament) Sabbath is fulfilled The Jews celebrated the legal Passover: the transition from Egypt to the land of Palestine; We also celebrate the Gospel Easter: the transition of our nature in Christ from death to life, from corruption to incorruption. What word could express that internal difference that makes clear how much better than the holidays of that Old Law are the objects of our celebrations? But since the human word cannot adequately express such superiority, the highest consubstantial Wisdom of the Father, the pre-eternal and pre-existent Word of God, who lovingly united with us and dwelt with us, now revealed the subject of the holiday in deeds and clearly indicated the height of this superiority. For now we celebrate the transference of our nature in Him, not from the underground spheres to the earth, but from the earth to the heavens of the heavens, and then to the Throne of Him who rules over all. Because today the Lord was not only in the midst of His Disciples, but also departed from them while they were watching. He ascended into heaven and entered into the most Holy of Holies, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, above every principality and power, every name and honor, both in the present and in the future age known and called. Just as there were many resurrections before the Resurrection of the Lord, so there were many ascensions before His Ascension. For the Spirit captured both Jeremiah the Prophet and the Angel - Habakkuk; especially among others, as it is written, Elijah was caught up in a chariot of fire. But even he did not cross the border of the earth; and this was only a certain movement, an ascension of each of them, which delighted from the earth, and did not go beyond the boundaries of the earth. Also, these resurrected ones returned to the earth again and all died. But just as Christ rose from the dead, and death does not possess Him, so when He ascended and sat down on high, all the heights are under His feet, testifying to everyone that He is God above all. And this was the “revealed mountain of God,” as Isaiah says (Is. 2:2), and on the top of all reasonable mountains - the “house of God” - the Master’s Body. For not an Angel, not a man, but the Lord Himself in the flesh came and saved us, becoming for our sake like us and, at the same time, unchangeably remaining God. Just as when He descended, He did not change His habitation, but descended, so when He ascended again, He did not return to the Divinity, but seated our nature, which He had assumed, on the throne above. For, truly, there it became God to present our nature to the firstborn from the dead, as a certain beginning of the firstborn on behalf of the whole race. Therefore, of all the past resurrections and ascensions, we do not celebrate any one like the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, for we are not and will not be participants in those others (resurrections and ascensions). And from them we receive no greater benefit than that they lead to faith in the Resurrection and Ascension of our Savior, of which we are and will all be participants. Because they are the Resurrection and Ascension of human nature (accepted in the Incarnation by our Lord Jesus Christ), and not only of human nature (as such), but also of those who believe in Christ and everyone who discovers faith through works. For what was done was done for our sake by the Lord, unborn and uncreated according to His Divinity. And the earthly life that He lived, He lived for us, showing us the path leading to life itself; and what he suffered in the flesh - he suffered for our sake, healing our passions; and for our sake He rose and ascended, preparing for us the Resurrection in an endless age: for all participants in this life imitate, as far as possible, the completion of His economy on earth. The beginning of this imitation is Holy Baptism, which is an image of the Burial and Resurrection of the Lord; the middle is a virtuous life and management of life according to the Gospel; and completion is expressed in victory over the passions, through spiritual exploits, which produces a sorrowless, indestructible and heavenly life, as the Apostle tells us: “If you live according to the flesh, you are about to die: if you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the spirit, you will live” (Rom. 8:13). So, those who live according to Christ imitate His living in the flesh; each of them will die in due time, since He also died in the flesh, and according to it 83 - they will rise, according to Him, glorified and incorruptible; however, not now, but when the time comes; in addition, they will be lifted up, as Paul says: “We will be raptured,” he says, “into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). Do you see: how each of us, if he wishes, is a participant in both the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, and an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ? Therefore, we rejoice, celebrating the Resurrection and Ascension of our nature and the elevation, and the beginning of the resurrection and ascension of each of the believers, citing today the gospel words that have to be read: “The Lord has risen a hundred in the midst of His disciples.” Why did He stand in their midst and go down with them? “He brought them out as far as Bethany,” says the Evangelist, and “he lifted up his hands to bless them” (Luke 24:50). – In order to show Himself completely healthy and unharmed; to imagine Your feet strong and completely solid; and, right there, the wounds left by the nails, the hands - exactly the same as those that were nailed to the Cross, the pierced rib itself, and, perhaps, traces of blows - presenting as evidence of the Saving Passion. It seems to me that with the words: “One hundred in the midst of the Disciples,” the Evangelist reveals that He confirmed them in faith in Him by His very appearance and blessing. For not only did He stand in the midst of them all, but also in the midst of the hearts of each of them, and established them in faith, so that this psalm word can be said about each heart: “God is in the midst of it and is not moved” (Ps. 45:5). For from that time on the Lord's Apostles became firm and unshakable. He stood in the midst of them and said to them: “Peace be with you” - this is a sweet, skillful and usual greeting for Him. "Peace" has a double meaning: there is the peace we have towards God, which is chiefly the fruit of piety; and the peace that we have towards each other, which is born as a result of the gospel instructions; The Lord taught both (of these worlds) in His single greeting. And as He commanded them to do when He first sent them, saying: “If you enter a house, say: Peace to this house” (Luke 10:5), so He Himself does; entering the house in which they were gathered together, He gave peace in like manner. But since He saw that they were shocked by the surprise and improbability of the vision; because it is said that they thought that they saw a spirit, and that what they saw was a ghost, then He Himself proclaims to them the excitement of their hearts, and shows them that He is the One to whom even before the Passion and Resurrection they said: “Now we know that we weigh everything, and do not demand, but who asks You” (John 16:30), confirming them through testing and touch; because when He saw that they had accepted the truth, He also confirmed them through this test: immediately (after) He (taught) the world to them, He offered to take part in their food. For - “to those who do not yet believe,” it is said, “and to those who wonder,” but not from doubt, but “from joy,” “I say to them: do you have anything to eat here? They gave Him some baked fish, and honeycombs from the bees. And we were venom before them” (Luke 24:40–42). His body was incorruptible after the Resurrection and did not need food, but He did this so that His Resurrection would be confirmed and to show that His present body is the same one that ate food with them before the Passion 84. It consumed food not by the nature of mortal bodies, but by divine action, and as someone would say: like fire consumes wax, but with the only difference that fire, in order to exist, must be supported by fuel, and immortal bodies do not need food for their existence. He ate part of the baked fish and from the bees of the honeycomb, which are also symbols of His mystery: for our nature - which - like the way of life of a fish swimming in the liquid of a passionate and full of pleasures of life - God's Word attached to Himself according to hypostasis, and by the divine and impregnable fire of His Divinity, having cleansed it from all passionate composition, created it fiery and a participant in the Divinity. He deifies not only the composition that He took on for our sake, but also each of those worthy of communion with Him by making him a participant in the fire that the Lord came to bring to earth. Our nature is also like a honeycomb: it contains rational activity, just as honey is contained in a honeycomb. But everyone who believes in Christ represents an even greater similarity to this: for just as honey is collected in a honeycomb, so he has in his soul and body the treasured grace of the Divine Spirit. The Lord eats from them: because the food is pleasant for Him - the salvation of each of the participants in His nature; He does not eat everything, but “from the bees’ honeycomb,” i.e. - a certain part, for not everyone believed. And it is not He Himself who will take up this part, but what is given to Him by the Disciples, for the Disciples bring Him only those who believe, separating them from the unbelievers. And so, eating from the fish and from the bees of the honeycomb before His Disciples, the Lord reminded them of His words that He had spoken to them before, going to suffer, representing now that He spoke the truth, for as He predicted, so it was fulfilled. And He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and to know that as it was written, so it came to pass, and that it was fitting - according to the boundless ocean of love for mankind - that the Only Begotten Son of God for the sake of people should become man, be revealed and receive testimony from above by the Fatherly voice and the manifestation of the Divine Spirit, lead to faith and amazement by His extraordinary deeds and words, endure envy and be betrayed by people who are not seeking God. glory, but human glory, was crucified and buried, and rose from the dead on the third day, and so that repentance and remission of sins would be preached in His name, starting the sermon from Jerusalem; and that they should be preachers and witnesses of that which they were eyewitnesses and ministers of Whom; promising to give them from above the promise of the Father, i.e. The Holy Spirit, He commands them to sit in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high. After the Lord announced saving dogmas to His Disciples, He led them out of the house and led them to Bethany and, having blessed them, departed from them and ascended into heaven and, as if on a chariot, possessing a cloud of light, ascended in glory, and entered the Holy of Holies not made with hands and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, making our composition (i.e., our human nature) a participant as Deity and Throne. Since the Apostles did not stop looking at heaven, the Angels appeared and announced that He would come again from heaven in the same way as they saw Him (ascending). For the Lord Himself predicted (this), and Daniel for the first time predicted: “I saw,” he says, “like the Son of Man walking on the clouds of heaven” (Dan. 7:13). The Lord (said): “I will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 24:30). Then the Disciples, having bowed to the most heavenly Lord, who descended here and made the earth heavenly, and ascended from the place where He (again) would come, and united the valley with the mountain, and formed the One Church for the glory of His love for mankind - heavenly and at the same time earthly - rejoicing, they returned to Jerusalem, and were always in the Church, having their minds on heaven, rejoicing and blessing God, and preparing ourselves to receive the coming of the Divine Spirit. This, brethren, as if briefly summarized, is the state of (all) those called by Christ, namely: to remain in supplications and prayers, and to have a spiritual eye, like Angels, directed towards the Most Heavenly Master; rejoice and bless Him with a blameless way of life, and thus await the Mystery of His Coming, according to (the psalmist) telling Him: “I will sing and understand in a blameless way, when you come to me” (Ps. 100:2). Proclaiming this, the great Paul said: “Our life is in heaven, where Jesus is the forerunner of us” (Phil. 3:20; Heb. 6:20). The Corypheus of the Apostles, Peter, also convinces of this: “Having girded your loins with your thoughts,” he says, “with sobriety, fully trust in the grace brought to you by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13). “Love him without having seen him...” (1 Peter 1:8). This is also what the Lord says: “Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning, so that you may be like a man who waits for his Lord when he returns” (Luke 13:35–36) 85. Thus, He did not destroy the Sabbath, but fulfilled it, revealing the truly blessed Sabbath: a day greater than the day of (mere) rest from bodily affairs and therefore it has a special blessing: for, resting from earthly and at the same time useless affairs, we abide in God, seeking with unashamed hope heavenly and ineffable things. In the Old Testament, Saturday was the only such day of the week, which is why it seemed to the foolish Jews that the Lord had violated the legal Sabbath; He says: “I did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it” (Matthew 5:17). How is it that He did not destroy this Sabbath, but fulfilled it according to this Law? – The Holy Spirit is promised to be given to those who ask Him day and night, and He commanded to always be awake and watchful, saying: “You will be prepared, because you will not remember the hour, the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 24:44). For those who wish to submit completely to Him, He created all days as blessed Sabbaths and, thus, He did not destroy, but thereby fulfilled the Law 86. But you, entangled in the affairs of life, if you distance yourself from greed and from hatred of each other - and try to be truthful 87 and be chaste - then you too will make every day a Sabbath, by not doing evil 88 . When the day comes that is more salutary 89 than other days, it is proper to be free from impeccable deeds and words, and to remain patiently in the church of God, and to give ear and understanding to what is read and taught, and with contrition to surrender to prayer and hymns to God, for in this way you fulfill the Sabbath, living according to the Gospel of Divine Grace, and stretching out your spiritual eye to Him who sits above the heavenly circles with the Father and the Spirit - Christ, Who created us sons of God, adopted not by name alone, but by the communion of the Divine Spirit, His very Flesh and Blood, closely united in relation to God and each other. So, let us preserve, through indestructible love, this unity in relation to each other; Let us always look to the Parent of grief: for we are no longer of the earth - earthly, like the first man, but - like the Second Man - the Lord from heaven; as is earthly, so are those on earth; as is heavenly, so are those in heaven. Just as we bore the image of the earthly, so we will bear the image of the Heavenly, and having a heart of grief towards Him, we will contemplate this great miracle: our nature is co-eternal with the spiritual flame of the Divine; and having abandoned the custom of leather vestments, in which we have clothed ourselves as a result of our crime, we will stand in the Holy Land; each one revealing the holy land in himself through virtue and firm aspiration towards God, so that we can have confidence when God appears in fire, and having flown to Him, we will shine and forever remain shining, to the glory of His highest Light, the three-solar and most original Radiance, to Whom is all glory, power, honor and worship, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. PG.151:276–285. Homilia XXI. In Ascensionem Domini Dei et Salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi in qua monstratur quomodo impletum sit Legale Sabbatum. Those. the resurrected flesh of the Lord. Latin text: "Before the Resurrection." It is possible that some of the text is lost here. Greek the text provides the basis for the paraphrase, which we find in the Latin translation: “He did not destroy, but fulfilled the Sabbath, and through the Sabbath the Law.” The word means not only to speak the truth, but also to lead one's whole life according to the truth. Original: “in not doing evil things.” You might be interested in: