Ascension of the Lord

The Book of Common Prayer says today is "Sunday after Ascension".
Common Worship tells us it is "Easter 7".
The Roman Calendar from this year has it as the solemnity "Ascension of the Lord".

Today's Gospel for the Ascension is Luke 24.46-53:

Jesus said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
50Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Comments in Bible Alive:

The Ascension is a festival of the future of the world. One day we will be redeemed body and soul. Ascended, our beings will be radiant and resplendent with God's light and glory because through baptism we are united to Christ: in his death, in his resurrection and in his ascension.

Today, then, we celebrate with joy, confidence and hope our future destiny. Christ is the hope of glory. Jesus' ascension into heaven gives us, if you like, a glimpse into our own eternal destiny. We don't often admit it, but there is deep within each of us a longing for performance and eternal life. We have a sense of not quite belonging to earth and that we are moving on to somewhere else - like pilgrims on our pilgrim way.

God, in his mercy, wants us to have a living hope in the promise of heaven. Such a hope comes not from arrogant presumption or naive optimism, but is rooted in understanding the victory of Christ. God wants us to have a joy welling up deep inside us. Without this joy we can lose our way.

St Thomas Aquinas said: 'No one can live without delight and that is why someone deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasure.' Fundamental to knowing this joy is grasping how sure are the promises of Christ. We can build our lives on them. Like Jesus we shall possess a glorified body and partake in the divine nature.

C.S. Lewis articulated the Christian revelation of the resurrected and glorified body beautifully when he said: 'It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.'