Today,
we are given to contemplate a pair of blessing hands —our
Lord's last gesture on earth (cf. Lk 24:51). Or some
footprints up on a mount —the very last visible sign of God's
steps on our earth. At times, this mount is also represented like a
rock, and His footprints remain carved on the rock, not on the earth.
As if alluding to that rock He mentioned that, soon, would be sealed
by the wind and fire of Whitsunday. Our iconography, since long, is
using such suggestive symbols. And also the mysterious cloud
—simultaneously, shadow and light— that, already in the
Old Testament, accompanied so many theophanies. The Lord's face would
simply dazzle and blind us.
St.
Leo the Great helps us to go still further in this occurrence: «What
was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries».
Which mysteries? Those He has entrusted His Church with. The blessing
gesture is developed in the liturgy, the footprints on the earth show
the path to the sacraments. And they are the way that lead us to the
plenitude of our definite meeting with God.
The
Apostles had time to get used to that other singularity of their
Master throughout that period of forty days, when the Lord —according
to exegetes— does not “appears”, but, —faithfully
following the literal translation— “lets himself be
seen”. Now, in this last encounter, the amazement is renewed.
Because they now discover that, in future, they will not only
announce the Word, but they will instil life and health, with the
visible gesture and the audible word: through the baptism and the
other sacraments.
«I
have been given all authority in heaven and on earth»
(Mt 28:18). All authority... Go to all
nations... Teaching them to fulfill all... And He will be with
them —with his Church, with us— always (cf. Mt
28:19-20). And this “always” reverberates through space
and time, while reaffirming us in our hopefulness.
