The doctor look’s up from his computer monitor. My eyes lock on his face but nothing in his expression tells me whether the prognosis of my mother’s chest X-ray will herald joy or sorrow.
His next words stun.
“Praise the Lord,” his handsome young face lights up in a rare smile. “The spot is gone.”
Already grasping the edge of my seat I hold the urge to leap. And it’s not just the joy-filled surprise of answered prayer that propels but the fact I’ve never heard a doctor speak God’s praises. He could not have known the prayer of my heart. In the times I go with my Mother to her medical visits faith and prayer are never the focus of any discussion.
With a smile plastered ear-to-ear and unable to remain seated I stand and tell him, “That’s exactly what I’ve been praying.”
Mum looks relieved; joy spills over as we grin at each other. If it hadn’t been inappropriate a group hug would have been in order.
From one moment to the next we had stood with one foot on sorrow and the other joy.
The Ascension is Just another Work Day
Last Sunday in church we celebrated the under-regaled Feast of the Ascension that had occurred earlier on Thursday—a significant occurrence in Christian faith that focuses on Jesus’ ascension as he is drawn into the heart of God (Luke 24:44-53).
Unlike Good Friday and Easter Sunday forty days later The Ascension receives scant attention but is the link that brings these events full circle. Some suggest the feast falling on a weekday hinders festivities, at least in North America. There is no special holiday; no respite from work to gather family and celebrate. It’s just another work day.
And it was just another medical visit with my mother except it was not. It was an everyday significant event just as the presence in our lives of joy and sorrow.
Was it similar for the disciples on the day Jesus left them; emotions perched on a high wire teetering precariously between happiness and grief? He was alive to them but gone.
The Ascension—an Everyday Significant Event
The Rev. Terrance W. Klein, a priest serving in the Diocese of Dodge City, says The Ascension teaches us about time (refer: What the Feast of the Ascension Teaches about Time). As it moves so must we.
And while we might have a foot on both sides of joy and sorrow The Ascension is not about coming or going, staying or leaving, arriving or departing, living or dying or being here or somewhere else—it’s not about time and place. It’s about being in the heart of God no matter what side of earth or heaven we stand on—it’s about relationship.
It is at The Ascension when Jesus covered in life’s bruises and scars he takes his humanity back to God.
To be continued…
Dawn, Bob and I were at the Vatican on Ascension Day. As we were touring all stopped as 6 acolytes entered with incense, then 9 cardinals, and then 6 more acolytes. Only 4 of the acolytes had the incense. It was a very moving sight.
They had fences to keep the crowds out of the area where the procession walked to go into the church.
Lynn,
Thank you for sharing a wonderful experience. Hope there are many more.
Carolin