Assumed into Heaven: Mary and the glory of the Son’s return

## I. Ascension in the Fourth Gospel: Return and Transformation

The Fourth Gospel does not narrate the Ascension explicitly as a historical event, this narrative belongs to Luke (Lk 24:50-53; Acts 1:9-11). However, Ascension is omnipresent in John as a theological horizon. The entire farewell discourse (Jn 13-17) is structured around Jesus’ departure for the Father. Jn 20:17 is the moment when the Risen One announces the imminence of this return: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father.”

The distinction made in Jn 20:17, “my Father and your Father,” is theologically precise. Not “our Father” because Jesus’ filiation is unique and eternal, while the disciples’ filiation is adoptive and derived. But “your Father,” because Ascension of Jesus introduces the disciples into a new relationship with God; they can now call “Father” the God of Jesus with the authority that the Son conveys to them. Thus, Ascension is the definitive opening of divine filiation to humanity.

St. Athanasius formulated this principle in his soteriological axiom: “God became man so that man might become God.” Ascension fulfills this axiom: the Son who descended to raise humanity now ascends, taking humanity with Him. Christ’s human nature, real and concrete, the flesh He received from Mary, is now seated “at the right hand of the Father” (Eph 1:20). This means that human flesh has been introduced into the heart of the Trinitarian life: not only “forgiven” but glorified, exalted, deified.

The Mariological implications are immense: the flesh that the Son carried to the right side of the Father is the flesh He received from Mary. Ascension of Jesus is, in this sense, the anticipatory glorification of Mary’s flesh. What the Son does now with His humanity, including the flesh that is Mary’s, is the guarantee that Mary and all redeemed humanity will follow the same path. The Assumption of Mary is the fulfillment of this logic: the Son who ascended with the flesh of Mary welcomed Mary into His glory.

## II. Mary and Ascension: Presence in the Farewell

# Lucas places the Apostles with Jesus at the Ascension (Lk 24:50; Act 1:9-12). Mary, though not explicitly mentioned in the Ascension narrative in Act 1, is implicitly present: she is part of the group who returned to Jerusalem “with great joy” (Lk 24:52) and later gathered at the Cenacle (Act 1:14). The Ascension is, for Mary as for the Apostles, a moment of “goodbye,” but a goodbye that turns sorrow into joy.

The “great joy” with which the disciples returned to Jerusalem after the Ascension (Lk 24:52) paradoxically contrasts with the expected sadness: Jesus “left,” and they are joyful? This joy can only be understood from the logic of Jn 16:7 (“it is for your good that I am going”) and Jn 14:28 (“if you loved me, you would rejoice that I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I am”). Jesus’ love for the Father is the reason for the disciples’ joy at the Ascension: they love what Jesus loves. And Jesus goes where he loves most.

Mary, who loved the Son more deeply than any other human being, experienced this “joy in goodbye” particularly intensely. She who suffered with him at the Cross now contemplates the glorified Son ascending to the Father. The same mother who received the Son in her arms in Bethlehem now contemplates him rising to the glory that belongs to him eternally. This contemplation of the Son’s glory by the Mother who knows him intimately is one of the most emotionally rich moments tradition can imagine, although the Gospels do not narrate it explicitly.

The Eastern iconographic tradition developed the scene of the Ascension with Mary at the center of the group of Apostles, raising her arms in prayer or opening her hands in adoration. This central positioning of Mary, emphasized by Byzantine icons, expresses the intuition that she is the focal point of the Church contemplating the glorified Son. She who was the entrance point for the Son into the world is now the reference point for the Church that contemplates him ascending to the Father.

## III. “Do not touch me”: Ascension and a new form of presence

Jn 20:17: “Do not touch me” (me mou haptou). Jesus addresses these words to Mary Magdalene to indicate that the relationship with the Risen One cannot be the same as the historical Jesus who allowed physical touching. The new relationship with the Risen One, fully revealed in the gift of the Spirit, is of a different nature: not less real but deeper, more interior, more universal. The Ascension prepares this new form of relationship.

This “new form of presence” inaugurated by the Ascension has a direct Marian dimension. Mary, who touched the Son most intimately of all human beings, who carried him in her womb, who nursed him, who embraced him, experiences after the Ascension a relationship with the glorified Son that transcends physical contact. This “glorified” relationship is deeper, not less real: she who is with the Son in glory shares with him a communion that flesh still does not allow to her spiritual children.

# Mariology of Intercession
The conviction that Mary intercedes for her spiritual children before the glorified Son is rooted in this new form of relationship inaugurated by the Ascension. Mary does not “intercede from afar” as someone separated from him she prays to; she intercedes “from within” the communion with the glorified Son, with the authority and intimacy of one who shares his glory. Mary’s intercession is not that of a subject pleading with a king, but that of a Mother intimate with the One she gave birth to.

## Tradition of Invoking Mary as “Our Advocate”
The tradition of invoking Mary as “Our Advocate” flows from this logic. An advocate who pleads before a judge does so not from afar, outside the court, but is present, knows the circumstances, and has authority to speak. Mary, “present” in glory alongside the Son, intercedes with the authority of one who knows him more intimately than any other human being and loves him with the love of a Mother who never gives up on her children.

## IV. “Be Witnesses”: Mary and the Mission of the Church After the Ascension
Acts 1:8: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Ascension is not the end of the mission but its beginning in a new phase. The disciples who witnessed Jesus’ ascension are given the mandate to be “witnesses,” not passive spectators of the Lord’s glory but active messengers to the world.

Mary, present in the Cenacle after the Ascension (Acts 1:14), stands at the center of this new missionary phase. She, who was the most qualified witness to Jesus’ life—living with him from before his birth to his Ascension—is now at the heart of the emerging community awaiting the Spirit to begin its universal mission. Her presence is not passive; she “devoted themselves unanimously to prayer” (Acts 1:14), a Mother who prayed for decades now praying with the nascent Church, awaiting the Spirit that will enable universal testimony.

The universal mission of the Church, going “to the ends of the earth,” finds its most eloquent figure in Mary. She who gave birth to the Son sent “into the world” (John 3:16) is the symbol of the Church that brings the Son to every corner of the globe. Christian missions on all five continents, with their unmistakable Marian character (cathedrals dedicated to Mary, processions, Marian feasts structuring the liturgical year of missionary communities), express this intuition: the universal mission of the Church has a Marian heart.

## The Ascension of Jesus and Mary’s Role in the Church

The Ascension of Jesus marks a new era, the age of the Church, animated by the Holy Spirit and modeled after Mary. This period has a clear eschatological focus: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come back in the same way as you saw him go up to heaven” (Acts 1:11). The Church, eagerly awaiting the return of the Lord, proclaims “Maranatha, Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20), and does so with Mary, who was the first to await her Son, the first to behold him glorified, and now waits for his return having promised to come again.

## Mary as the Heart of Universal Mission

Mary, who witnessed the Son ascend to the Father and prays with the nascent Church in the Cenacle, is the heart of the universal mission inaugurated by the Ascension and empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

### References:

– Vatican Council II, *Lumen Gentium*, n. 59 (1964).
– Pope John Paul II, *Redemptoris Mater*, n. 26 (1987).
– St. Athanasius, *De Incarnatione*, 54.
– R. Brown, *The Gospel According to John*, vol. II (1970).
– X. Léon-Dufour, *Lecture de l’Évangile selon Jean*, vol. IV (1996).

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