Shortly before the lockdown there was a christening at the Oratory attended by a whole army of children belonging to godparents and other guests. Just as the ritual was beginning, one young girl shouted out “Where is Jesus?”, a question that she continued to ask with impressive insistence as the ceremonies proceeded. No sooner had the water been poured and the baby snatched from the threshold of Limbo than a now indignant voice once again demanded: “Where is He?” Her parents were embarrassed by their daughter’s stealing of the limelight. But the truth is that the best and most important questions are usually those asked by children. And if that little girl continues to ask that same question for the rest of her life, then she could well become a great saint, because a saint is someone who is always looking for Jesus.
A man who has fallen head over heels in love can think of little else than the object of his affection. He will go to the places he knows she frequents in the hope of finding his beloved. The first thing he will do on entering a crowded room is to scan the heads of everyone present to see if she is there. He reflects on everything she says so that he might begin to understand what she thinks on any subject. If his love is not requited, he does well to heed the counsel of his trusted friends and pull himself together, lest in these highly strung times he find himself denounced as a stalker and subject to a court injunction.
The single-mindedness of a saint is somewhat similar. Wherever he is, whatever he is doing or enduring, the saint asks “Where can I find Our Lord in all of this ... what does He have to say to me in this place, in these circumstances?” He reflects over and again on those words of His Saviour which have been recorded by the Evangelists, just as a lover will turn over the words of his beloved ad infinitum. You might say that a saint is someone who is obsessed with Christ. This is probably the only really healthy obsession that a man can have.
So what answer can we give to that question “Where is Jesus?” As God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is everywhere. The universe that was made by Him is kept in existence by His power and His will from one moment to the next, so that He is constantly present to His Creation. He is also present, in a special way, in our neighbour. Genesis tells us that God created man in His own image, and one way that we honour God is by serving Him in our neighbour, especially by ministering to Him in the needy and the sick. And, of course, he is present in His entirety – in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity – in the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar.
Without wishing to be presumptuous, it is probably safe to assume that when the little girl at the Baptism asked “Where is Jesus?”, what she really wanted to know was where He is now, in that recognisable form in which He lived on earth and spoke to His disciples. The answer to that question is that the Word Made Flesh is now in Heaven, at the right hand of the Father. This is where He went when the disciples saw Him disappear into the clouds at His Ascension. And He has promised that when He returns it will be in glory from the clouds when His presence fills the skies from East to West.
Our Lord’s Ascension tells us something very important about the Incarnation. God the Son did not just assume our human flesh as a way of making contact with earthlings and then discard it once His mission down here was complete. The fulfilment of His mission involved taking the flesh in which He had suffered with Him into Heaven. This brings Heaven much closer to us. It makes Heaven not just a state that is quite impossible for us to begin to imagine (throughout history there have been many heretics who have argued that if Heaven exists at all then it must be some disembodied state of existence). Our Lord’s Ascension and His Mother’s Assumption mean that there are at least two bodies already present there. Even if we cannot now conceive of the bliss of the Beatific Vision, bodies exist in real places, not in any mere state.
Our Lord has gone body and soul to Heaven, then, in order to prepare a place for our bodies and souls. This should be a source of immense hope and consolation to us now, when we must cope with the difficult reality of sickness, death and bereavement all around us. There can never be any such thing as perfect fulfilment in this fallen world. Even if someone has been blessed with good health, friends and a well-stocked pantry, he would have to be a monster of selfishness not to have his satisfaction with this life somewhat diminished by the knowledge that so many in the world are stricken by sickness, poverty and hunger. And however happy we might be ourselves, we shall each of us at some stage be faced with the terrible separation that comes with death – separation from our loved ones, and ultimately the separation of our own bodies and souls. But in faith we know that whatever we might suffer here and now, there has been prepared for us a place where there is no sickness, no bereavement, loneliness or poverty. In Heaven there is perfect joy and love overflowing in plentiful abundance for eternity. In Heaven there will be perfect fulfilment on every level, not only spiritual but also bodily as the Vision of God transforms our whole being.
In His Epistle to the Ephesians the Apostle St Paul reminds us that “Christ is the head of the Church which is his body.” In Baptism, we have been incorporated into this Body as living members. This consideration should also bring Heaven much closer to us. We are members of a Body Whose Head is already in Heaven. That Head is Christ, and it is His divine life that animates us now and binds us up into the single living organism of His Church.
One day, pray, we shall not only see Him in His Glory but shall participate in that Glory forever. Then the time for Faith will have passed, because the reality of that Glory will be undeniable and unmistakable. Meanwhile we must continue to seek for Our Lord amid the joys and sorrows of our present life, seeking Him especially in our neighbour. We must also look for him in the circumstances and situations of our daily lives, asking: “What is He saying to me in all of this?” And we must worship Him in Faith, especially in the Blessed Sacrament. When He returns in Glory to judge us in our flesh, may He recognize us as His own.
Father Julian Large