The Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven. Homily for the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, Year B.

The Ascension of the Lord is not the celebration of a physical journey through the skies into heaven. The departing Jesus does not make his way to some distant star. How, then, are we to understand what Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles when he writes: “He was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight”? Well, here we have an interpretative key: A cloud took him from their sight. In the Old Testament the cloud is a symbol of the Divine Presence.