Homily Temporary Vows Miguel Ángel García Galindo and Ignacio de la Lastra Alvear
The Ascension frames the vows you profess today. In the Church of the Ascension in the Holy Land, the last trace left by the Lord is venerated. St. Ignatius of Loyola, when he made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, wanted to leave this mark on his memory, and even returned again to give it a last look, having to bribe the guardians. There was something in her that could symbolize the radical following of Christ. Perhaps Ignatius thought of this footprint when, later on, he gazed with nostalgia at the stars of the Roman nights that evoked God for him.
The poet Luis Rosales wrote: «In life we are not carried by feet, but by footprints.» For the Christian this means: we are led by the footsteps of Christ. And what do these last traces tell us, when Jesus took the impulse to ascend to the Father? Now the footprints are getting steeper, and their tracking is radicalizing. Is it possible to take this step with Him as well? In passing, it must be said that this is an appropriate passage for your vows, since among your hobbies is, on the one hand, the mountain; on the other, aviation. But let’s see what it means to ascend with Him.
- Following Christ is proper to every Christian. It is up to every baptized person to climb the mountain that is Christ, the mountain of God. But to climb it there are different slopes or routes.
The famous climber Emilio Comici (called the angel of the Dolomites) coined the term «direttissima», used today in mountaineering to talk about the straightforward route to the finish line. Whereas before him it was normal to find, with different detours, the route that would make the ascent easier, Comici saw a particular beauty in attacking the summit directly at every moment. Now, the «direttissima» is not simply a straight geometrical line to the top. So how do you trace it?
Comici described it as the line that would be followed by a drop of water falling from the summit to the ground, following the different edges of the rock. We are not, therefore, only facing the shortest route, but a path marked by an attraction, by gravity. If the drop falls by gravity, the mountaineer also climbs by the gravity or attraction exerted by the summit. Hence the beauty that the «direttissima» took on for Comici, when tracing on the rock the passion for the heights.
The consecrated life can be compared to this «direttissima» which follows Christ bodily, attracted by Him alone. A vocation to the consecrated life has to do with the impact of the «most direct» passages of the Gospel. A sign of having a vocation to follow Jesus is that these «most direct» words of Jesus are not heard as words that happened to others, or that could happen to us at another time or in other circumstances. They are words that become real here and now for me.
And one hears, «Leave everything and follow me.» Or hear: «Only one thing is necessary, Mary has chosen the better part.» Or hear, «There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.» Or, «Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?» Or again: «The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.» And, «My food is to do the will of the Father.» And when he hears: «his loves are better than wine» (Song 1:2), he understands that it is a call that fills his whole life. One father said that he not only knew his children, but studied them. It is up to you to continue to study Christ, in order always to find the «direttissima» route to Him.
Christ calls some to come to Him through mediations, and it is a beautiful journey. They reach Christ through the mediation of their husbands, their children, their work in society… In this way, the mystery of Jesus who lives in a family, subject to his parents, or who blesses the wedding at Cana, is made present. But it is up to the religious life, to you who profess today, to make his life present for the “direttissima,” imitating his journey in the flesh and his bodily flight to the Father.
Of course, remember that this direct way to Christ is the way of humility. The way up requires a descent. Saint Paul says in the Epistle: «He who came down is the same who went up afterwards» (Eph 4:10). And, in fact, it preserved the wounds when it went up, that is, it kept the downward movement. To get closer to heaven, you have to start by going up to the cross. Jesus chose a way of dying in which there is no corpse (which comes from «falling»), because one dies going up. The aviators ask only one thing of the Virgin of Loreto, their patron saint: that the number of take-offs and landings is always the same. The flight of Ascension simplifies everything. In it, take-offs and landings follow the same direction, since when you go down you already go up and when you go up you go down to help the brothers and sisters to get up.
- Following this «direttissima» towards Christ, we see that he has also followed the «direttissima» route towards the Father. This is confirmed by that last jump on Olivet – with such great momentum that it left its mark on the rock. That is why, in the second place, the call to the consecrated life implies the radical and direct desire for God. It means understanding that St. Teresa’s «God alone is enough» is true for me here and now.
They say that it is necessary to distinguish between what is important and what is urgent, because they do not always coincide. By confusing them, there is a risk of going from one place to another, carried away by what is urgent and forgetting what is radical. Well, it is clear to every Christian that God is always the important thing, the only thing necessary. But it is characteristic of religious life that God, in addition to being important, also becomes urgent. In fact, a «direttissima» word of Jesus is: «I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already burning!» (Lk 12:49).
This urgency of God implies, in the first place, perceiving the seriousness of choosing God, that is, what is at stake in it. God appears as «the only thing necessary» and «the best part.» That is why our relationship with Him must shape all the concrete aspects of life. In reality, poverty, chastity and obedience are centered on God as the great wealth, the great love and the great exciting project that shape life.
Now, seriousness and urgency about God derive from another, more primitive experience. For your desire to love Him now, and to love Him above all things, that desire is, like all desires, a response to a previous call, to a love that has touched and awakened you. That is, your desire is born of God’s desire for you. He is the first who wants to «tear the fabric of this sweet encounter», as Saint John of the Cross sang. God himself wants to open and follow the «direttissima» way to you, because it is urgent for him to love you. Then God becomes vulnerable, fragile, as a Carthusian friend told us. And this desire of God for man also ignites you in the love of God. What Dante said happens to you: «O love, you do not allow any loved one not to love.» This love motivated the call of St. Francis: «Love is not loved!» and it motivates you. You consecrate yourselves to God, or rather, God chooses you and consecrates you for himself.
These two desires and these two urgencies, the one that moves God and the one that moves you, can be united thanks to the mystery of the Ascension. For this mystery reveals to us that we can settle in God, that God is habitable. The body of Jesus is in heaven, and this does not mean that it is located somewhere between the constellation of the Cattleman and the Big Dipper, but that it is in God Himself, in the space of the love of God the Trinity. Since the Ascension it has been clear that God has room for the whole man, including the body.
So it can be said that, at the Ascension, the mountain that is Christ opens its two slopes. The southern slope still stands, the one that He walked on earth as the Son of Adam, on which the Church now goes on pilgrimage. But his body is now on the other side, he has entered into God, into the eternal. And it has allowed some, even in this land, to settle on the northern slope, towards which the pole star that guides all history points.
In order to be able to live on this other northern slope, the role of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, is essential. Since her maternal heart was so united to the heart of her Son, she began to live, from the day of her ascension, on the eternal side, even in her mortal flesh. She was the first to receive from her Son the citizenship of heaven of which Saint Paul speaks (Phil 3:20). And so she opens the environment of the Church where the consecrated life is possible, «the kind of virginal and poor life which Christ chose for himself and which Mary, the Virgin, embraced» (Lumen Gentium, 46). After the Ascension, the body of Jesus is still visible in its Marian aspect, and then it will continue to be visible in the Church, from generation to generation.
- But the Ascension opens up for us a more direct path. Together with the «direttissima» in the footsteps of Christ, which is the «direttissima» towards God, the «direttissima» opens up to men.
A paradox of the Ascension is that Jesus, moving away, comes closer to us. An example helps explain the paradox. Painting a large room red, when you have only a little red paint, seems impossible. One way is to paint the lamp red that lights the entire room. Then, with little color, all the walls are tinted. Well, Christ, with his life in the flesh, wanted to paint the whole world with the red of love. He has done this by bringing his flesh to God, and thus illuminating everything from its deepest center. As Saint Paul says today: «He ascended into heaven to fill all things» (Eph 4:10).
Today you experience that He «fills everything», fills life completely, and that by living in Him you can help Him to fill the lives of all. That is why going to God does not distance you from men, but brings you closer to them. If God is more intimate than the intimacy of each man (St. Augustine), by touching God you touch the most intimate part of them. You live to remind them of the transformation to which God calls Him in Christ Jesus. You have all men present «in a more intimate way in the heart of Christ» (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, 46).
And remember also the biblical verse, which has been interpreted in spirituality as a request to God to allow us to bring him souls: «Da mihi animas et caetera tolle tibi» (Gen 14:21): «Give me souls, and keep everything else». You bring souls to God because the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience imply pointing to God as the only good, the only love and the only project of all men.
The Ascension opens for you, therefore, an escalation in following Christ, marked by God’s urgency and dedication to your brothers and sisters. To sum it up, another image, taken this time from aviation, can help. The plane, in order to take off, needs speed. Run, then, and love, as St. Augustine asked. But this speed is not enough to gain altitude. What makes him fly is not only the running, no matter how hard it is, but also the shape of the wings. This shape causes a difference in pressures between the underside and top of the wing, which sucks the plane upwards. Today you take the form of poverty, chastity, obedience. This form of community life will suck you towards God as you run. The vows are your wings.
However, the essential remains to be said. For it is not the wings that lift you up, nor your running, but the air itself, the symbol of the Spirit of Christ. By ascending into heaven, Jesus prepared our humanity so that it could be sucked upwards by His Spirit. Let yourselves be sucked by God, as if by an upside-down gravity. You will then be able to trace the «direttissima» that will lead you to the summit and that will sow in the whole Church a passion of love to continue climbing.