The sacred purpose of human affection

The sacred purpose of human affection

Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky

After the Resurrection, there is the touching scene of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the Lord. After realizing that He is not the gardener, but the risen Lord, Mary clings to her beloved Jesus. But Jesus says to her, “Do not hold me, for 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.” (John 20:17)

Jesus gently and mysteriously refuses Mary’s beautiful expression of affection prompting us to ponder our relationship with Jesus and His Church. As important as human affection is in our relationships, Jesus wants us to have a thoroughly new kind of relationship with Him as head of His Mystical Body.

The love that Christ asks of us goes beyond that of personal relationship and even affection. Jesus Himself describes that love. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jn 14:15) And the resolve to keep His commandments requires faith in Him and hope for eternal glory. Faith is essential to our hope for salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus.

Without the Ascension, with the resurrected Lord walking among us, faith in Him would be incomplete. Without the faith necessitated by the Ascension, our union in Christ would be primarily relational in merely human terms, however beautiful, however sentimental.

Further, Christ would become an oracle of wisdom for every difficult problem, a miracle worker when called upon, the “bread king,” the “go-to” man in times of trouble. He would indeed be the Messiah anticipated by most of the Jews, a political Messiah who would set all things right. But our contact with Jesus would be limited and transitory because it would be bound by time. And we might easily compete with one another for His attention and affection just as James and John lobbied the Lord for most-favored-disciple status (cf. Mt 20:21-22).

Faith, on the other hand, is universal and of eternity. It is belief in things unseen: “…we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4:18) So with the Ascension Jesus completes His mission by returning to the Father in eternity, providing us a path to our eternal salvation. His Incarnational presence is no longer bound by time or space.

Jesus’ Ascension into heaven completes His ministry and definitively fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah: “…so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Is 55:11) While the Cross and the Resurrection form the center of all of history, the Cross and Resurrection have an eternal source and destiny. We need the risen Christ to bring us into eternity in loving union with Him.

With the Ascension, we enter into eternity through our membership in His Mystical Body the Church. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor 12-13) And we are given the dignity, especially after Pentecost, to continue His work in response to the graces He showers upon us.

Our union with Christ in heaven is one of love, but a love that is directed by faith rather than transient human affection. After the Ascension, we cling to Christ in love, but a love that remains faithfully obedient to Jesus as Head of His Mystical Body. As members of His Mystical Body, our dialog with Christ is not primarily of pious affection, as beautiful as that can be. It is an inner dialog born of walking day by day in union with Jesus by faith, trusting that His heavenly graces will mysteriously but certainly guide us on our pilgrim way.

But our faith needs fortification this side of eternity. So we are refreshed in the rivers of the Sacraments. We hear the Word of God and respond in faith. We live our lives in this world as members of His Mystical Body as mature Christians struggling to remain faithful to Him. And the manifestation of our connection to Christ is our love for others, a love purified and directed by our faith in Him, a pure faith that is only possible after the Ascension.

As members of His Mystical Body, Jesus chooses us to continue His work of redemption, to proclaim His word, to baptize all nations. Such is our dignity. We respond freely in love in union with the Living Word and His holy Church. So we cling to Christ in faith so that we might be His holy instruments.

Our faith allows us to enter into eternity with Him by our love, doing His will with good cheer because He has overcome the world (cf. Jn 16:33). Jesus is the Head of His glorious Church and we have the duty and privilege to be His personal ambassadors (2 Cor 5:30), to bring the King of kings into the world by our faith, hope, and love.

We hope someday to see God face-to-face. But in time, we remain in union with Him by faith and through the fruitful celebration of the Sacraments. With His grace and in faith, human sentiment and affection find true meaning. As members of His Mystical Body, we represent His face and the bonds of His love with human – and divine – affection: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (Jn 13:34)