In the mental health world I live in, ADD means Attention-Deficit Disorder. True ADD includes skipping neuron patterns in the brain. It is like living with everything being a fork in the road that calls for going one way or another. Medication can help the neurons, but those with ADD also need to work hard to develop Executive Functioning Skills. These are skills we all must learn: how to remember to do something step by step to finish it on time; how to focus on the task at hand; how to have a goal and work to reach it—you get the picture. We all must learn them, but most of us pick them up naturally from school, chores, relationships, and dreams as we grow up. The folks with ADD (or its energetic form ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) have to work triple hard to accomplish basic self-management.
ADD in a cartoon I wanted to put in this reflection (but was copyrighted) showed the disciples looking up into heaven, saying “Where did he go?” It labeled their confusion as Ascension Deficit Disorder. In this case ADD means we do not believe in the Ascension. It raises the question in me: Are we lacking in our ability to appreciate and stay focused on what it means that Jesus ASCENDED into heaven?
I didn’t appreciate how important that is until it was explained to me in recent years. Jesus wasn’t “assumed” into heaven like the Blessed Mother was. Nothing pulled him up. He did it on his own BECAUSE HE WAS GOD. His disciples could see it because Jesus was GOD IN THE FLESH.
That his disciples saw it was important to them and to us, because it put human flesh in heaven. Humans witnessed it. That we can go to be with God someday has foundation more than words for the hope of it.
But What if There Is Spiritual ADD?
Spiritual ADD would mean that we can’t stay focused on the goal of being united with God. We don’t SEE God—where is he? We don’t FEEL God’s Presence—where is he?
Church tells us “There is God: in Scripture, in the Mass, in his ministers, in the Church, in what looks like bread and wine.”
But is that true? Our minds and hearts wonder….and wander.
What we don’t see, what we don’t stay focused on—soon we begin to doubt. So the Eucharist becomes a symbol. God’s Presence is for the very holy. God’s rules are antiquated.
Then we are free to concentrate and only believe in ourselves. Humanism. Individualism. We are limited by what we can see and feel.
But, IF We Understand the Ascension:
- We understand that Jesus is truly God and has the power of God.
- We understand that Jesus, as truly human united with God, has brought humanity into the reign of God—what we call heaven.
- We can see his purpose fulfilled: to overcome the reign of sin and sinfulness within humanity and replace it with the Kingdom of God.
The catechism puts it this way:
664 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.” After this event the apostles became witnesses of the “kingdom [that] will have no end”.
665 Christ’s Ascension marks the definitive entrance of Jesus’ humanity into God’s heavenly domain, whence he will come again (cf Acts 1:11); this humanity in the meantime hides him from the eyes of men (cf Col 3:3).
666 Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, precedes us into the Father’s glorious kingdom so that we, the members of his Body, may live in the hope of one day being with him forever.
667 Jesus Christ, having entered the sanctuary of heaven once and for all, intercedes constantly for us as the mediator who assures us of the permanent outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The Difference This Makes
The biggest difference this makes to me is that the Ascension means that Jesus IS GOD. He continues the work he began 2000 years ago in a personal way because he comes to me—in Scripture and prayer, in Providence as I live, and, most importantly, in the Mass.
He CAN and DOES COME in the mass I attend in Kentucky and in the mass that you attend in New York or Kansas or Switzerland or Nigeria. He can and does come EVERYWHERE.
Because he ascended. Neither time nor place holds him.
Yet, because he remains human, he understands us humans. He understands our fears, yearnings, loves and indifferences. He understands our limits.
And prayer by prayer, mass by mass, conversation by conversation, he gradually brings us to himself. He remains our Good Shepherd from the throne of God.
Prayer:
Lead me and guide me, Lord, when spiritual ADD gets ahold of me. I get distracted by fears, questions, too much to do, careless liturgy, and divisions within the Church. Some days I am questioning again and again: Is this you, Lord? Every little issue seems like a fork in the road. I can even get discouraged by the end of some days and just close down. Somehow, every morning when I pray I connect with you who have ascended into heaven. I can “see” you with spiritual eyes. At Mass, I can see you with spiritual eyes. Help me, Lord, to be so focused on you that I see the path straight to you! Forgive me when I wonder and wander. Forgive me when I stand still in confusion. Heal me of my spiritual ADD. Keep me on YOUR road to live in the Reign of God. And yes, as Pentecost comes next week, Come, Holy Spirit!
