He Ascended into Heaven, and Sits at the Right Hand of the Father

 

    He died, He rose again, and 40 days later He ascended into Heaven. As a continuance of His resurrected teachings He routinely showed that He is truly risen, in body and not just soul. He would eat and drink with His disciples while He continued to teach them of His Heavenly Kingdom. His bodily resurrection is a resemblant of the resurrection that we will experience with our own resurrection. In the manner that we will have supernatural powers, as our soul and body are fully united and the soul having certain powers of over the physical. Christ had these powers without the necessity of death and resurrection, as He is God (1, 2), but in His resurrected state He showed us what we would be like. 

    Tertullian, a Church Father from the late 190s to early 200s wrote on this matter of His fleshy state, and how He truly had arisen in the flesh in response to the Heresies of Marcion, Apelles, Basilides, and Valentinus, all of whom denied His fleshy state after the resurrection in one way or another. It is even canonical belief, meaning as set forth in canon as a dogma of the faith, that Christ after His ascension sits at the right hand of the Father in the flesh, meaning Christ is there bodily not the Father (Council of Rome 382, canon 73 [best link I can do is to the Denzinger "Sources of Catholic Dogma", see page 31 (63 in the pdf)]). 

    This fleshy resurrection was important for His teachings as it demonstrated the necessity of the material and immaterial in the glorified creation. The resurrection, in general, was to prove the Sadducees wrong (they did not believe in the afterlife, that is why they were Sadd-u-cee(?)), the fleshy resurrection was to show the unification of the material and immaterial which is something the Pharisees and Essenes quibbled about. And the Heavenly Kingdom was a necessary teaching to show the Zealots were misguided about who and what the Messiah really is. 

    After the 40 days of continued teaching about the Heavenly kingdom He ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. Indeed, His ascension was not without additional promises. He promised two things. Before He left, He said that He will send the Paraclete to the Apostles, disciples, and His Mother as they prayed and waited in the upper room in Jerusalem where He had previously instituted the Eucharist, and where He was when Judas of Iscariot left to betray Him to the Sanhedrin. He also promised, by way of His messengers the angels, that He would come again. 

    As we proclaim in the Creed: "He rose on the third day, and Ascended into Heaven, and is seated at the Right Hand of the Father, from which he will come again to judge the living and the dead". 

    At the Second Coming, as the Apostles were told by the Angels, He will comes again in the same way that He had Ascended. He will return in the same flesh He had ascended in and this further points to the powers of the glorified body after the resurrection. 

The Scriptural Rosary is:

1. The Second Glorious Mystery is: The Ascension of Jesus Christ.
1. Pater Noster …
2. To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:1)
1. Ave Maria ...
3. In the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. … So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." (John 20:19, 25) 
1. Ave Maria ...
4.  Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord (John 20:20)
1. Ave Maria …
5. And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1:4-5)
1. Ave Maria …
6. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24:48-49)
1. Ave Maria …
7. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
1. Ave Maria …
8. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, (Matthew 28:18-19a)
1. Ave Maria …
9. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. (Matthew 28: 19b-20)
1. Ave Maria …
10. And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. (Acts 1:9)
1. Ave Maria …
11. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, And said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." (Acts 1:10-11)
1. Ave Maria …
12. O My Jesus …
13. Gloria Patri …