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When Christians recite the Creed, we often pronounce its words with familiarity, but without stopping to contemplate all the depth they contain. One of those immense, solemn, and hope-filled affirmations is the sixth article: “He ascended into heaven; is seated at the right hand of God the Father.”
These words are not merely a liturgical formula nor an empty symbolic expression. They contain a fundamental truth of our faith: Christ, risen from the dead, did not remain on earth indefinitely, but ascended gloriously into heaven, where He reigns forever as Lord of the universe and where He intercedes for us before the Father.
This article of the Creed opens our eyes toward man’s final destiny, toward eternal glory, and toward the certainty that our definitive homeland is not here below, but in Heaven.
To speak of the Ascension of the Lord is not to speak of a sad farewell, but of a definitive victory. Christ does not depart to abandon us; He ascends to reign, to prepare a place for us, and to draw us to Himself.
1. “He Ascended into Heaven”: The Glorious Ascension of the Lord
The Catechism teaches:
121.- What does the sixth article teach us: HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN; IS SEATED AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER?
It teaches us that Jesus Christ, forty days after His resurrection, ascended by His own power into heaven in the presence of His disciples, and that, being as God equal to the Father in glory, as man He was exalted above all Angels and Saints and constituted Lord of all things.
The Ascension is the glorious act by which Our Lord Jesus Christ, after having conquered sin, the devil, and death, solemnly enters into heavenly glory.
It is not a “space journey,” as if heaven were simply a physical place above the clouds. Heaven is, above all, the state of the beatific vision, perfect communion with God, the absolute fullness of divine glory.
Christ ascends not only as God—because as God He never left heaven—but as glorified man. His most holy humanity enters triumphantly into eternal glory.
This has immense importance: where the Head has entered, the Body is also called to enter. Christ has opened the way.
The Ascension is not the end of Jesus’ story: it is the beginning of His visible reign from heaven.
2. The Forty Days After the Resurrection
The Catechism asks:
122.- Why did Jesus Christ, after His resurrection, remain forty days on earth before ascending into heaven?
Because He wished to prove through various apparitions that He had truly risen, and to instruct the Apostles more and more and strengthen them in the truths of the faith.
This is profoundly important.
Christ did not disappear immediately after rising from the dead. During forty days He appeared repeatedly to the Apostles, to the disciples, and to numerous witnesses.
He ate with them.
He spoke to them.
He showed them His glorious wounds.
He allowed Saint Thomas to touch His side.
He explained the Scriptures.
He strengthened the faith of those who would become the foundation of the Church.
The Resurrection was not a pious illusion nor a subjective experience of the disciples. It was a real, historical, visible, and bodily fact.
The Church was not born from a collective emotion, but from the true encounter with the risen Christ.
Moreover, those forty days were a final school for the Apostles. The Lord prepared them for the universal mission: to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Before, they were fearful.
Afterward, they would become martyrs.
That can only be explained because they truly saw the Risen One.
3. Why Did Jesus Christ Ascend into Heaven?
The Catechism answers with admirable precision:
123.- Why did Jesus Christ ascend into heaven?
He ascended:
1st, to take possession of His kingdom, conquered by His death;
2nd, to prepare thrones of glory for us and to be our Mediator and Advocate before the Father;
3rd, to send the Holy Spirit to His Apostles.
Each of these reasons deserves deep meditation.
4. Christ Ascends to Take Possession of His Kingdom
Jesus does not ascend as one defeated who abandons the battlefield, but as the victorious King.
His Cross was combat.
His Resurrection was triumph.
His Ascension was coronation.
Christ conquered His Kingdom not by violence, but by the redemptive sacrifice of the Cross.
Therefore all authority belongs to Him:
“All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”
He reigns over the angels.
He reigns over the saints.
He reigns over history.
He reigns over nations.
He reigns even over those who reject Him.
Today, in a society that seeks to dethrone Christ from public, family, and personal life, this truth is more relevant than ever: Christ is King.
Not a symbolic king.
Not an optional king.
Not a king for private intimacy alone.
He is the universal King.
The modern world seeks to build a civilization without God, but all true peace can only be built under the reign of Christ.
To restore all things in Christ remains an urgent necessity.
5. Christ Ascends to Prepare a Place for Us
Here appears one of the most consoling truths of Christianity.
Jesus Himself said:
“I go to prepare a place for you.”
We were not made for this earth.
We were not created for an existence limited to suffering, work, and death.
We were created for Heaven.
Christ ascends as our forerunner.
He awaits us.
He prepares thrones of glory for us.
Every sacrifice offered with love, every sincere confession, every Holy Communion well received, every rosary prayed with faith, every silent act of charity, has eternal resonance.
Heaven is not religious poetry.
It is reality.
It is the true homeland.
It is the destiny for which we were created.
That is why the Christian does not live looking only downward, but upward.
Not with irresponsible escapism, but with supernatural hope.
Whoever loses the sense of Heaven ends up absolutizing the earth.
And when the earth becomes absolute, despair is born.
6. Christ Is Our Mediator and Advocate
Jesus also ascended to be our Mediator before the Father.
This means that we are not alone.
We have an Advocate in heaven.
We have an eternal High Priest.
We have the One who shows the Father the glorious wounds of Redemption.
Christ intercedes for us.
Not as one pleading for something uncertain, but as the victorious Redeemer.
When we fall, He calls us to repentance.
When we suffer, He sustains us.
When we fear, He strengthens us.
When we pray, our supplications rise united to His perfect mediation.
Christian prayer has this immense certainty: we do not pray into emptiness.
We pray in Christ.
Through Christ.
With Christ.
And this truth is realized in a sublime way in the Holy Mass, where the sacrifice of Calvary becomes sacramentally present.
7. Christ Ascends to Send the Holy Spirit
The Ascension prepares Pentecost.
Jesus Himself had announced it: it was fitting that He should go so that the Comforter might come.
It was not absence.
It was a new form of presence.
The Holy Spirit would descend upon the Apostles and transform their fear into apostolic courage.
Without Pentecost there is no missionary Church.
Without the Holy Spirit there is no holiness.
Without grace there is no perseverance.
The Ascension does not close the work of Christ: it extends it sacramentally in the Church until the end of time.
Christ ascends, but remains truly present in the Eucharist, in His Church, and in the action of the Holy Spirit.
8. The Difference Between Christ and the Virgin: Ascension and Assumption
The Catechism teaches:
124.- Why is it said of Jesus Christ that He ascended into heaven, and of His Most Holy Mother that she was assumed?
Because Jesus Christ ascended by His own power, but Mary ascended by the power of God.
Here appears a beautiful theological distinction.
We say that Christ ascended.
We say that Mary was assumed.
It is not the same thing.
Jesus Christ, being God-Man, possesses divine power in Himself. He ascends by His own authority.
Mary Most Holy, although she is the most perfect of all creatures, remains a creature. Her glorification is a received gift.
Christ ascends by divine nature.
Mary is raised by grace.
This does not diminish the glory of the Virgin, but makes it even more admirable: all her greatness comes from God.
She is the masterpiece of grace.
And where the Mother is, there our hope of arriving is also strengthened.
9. “Is Seated at the Right Hand of God the Father”
The Catechism explains:
125.- Explain to me the words: IS SEATED AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER
The phrase “is seated” means the eternal and peaceful possession that Jesus Christ has of His glory, and “at the right hand of God the Father” means that He occupies the place of honor above all creatures.
This does not mean that God the Father literally has a chair at His right side.
It is human language used to express a divine reality.
To be seated indicates stability, authority, royalty, and fullness of power.
Christ reigns eternally.
He will not suffer again.
He will not die again.
He will not be humiliated again.
The Crucified One is now the Glorified One.
The right hand symbolizes supreme honor.
Christ occupies the place of highest glory.
Every knee must bend before Him.
Every final judgment passes through Him.
All history converges in Him.
This radically changes Christian life: we do not follow a dead teacher from the past, but a living and glorious King who governs now.
10. An Urgent Lesson for Our Time
We live in a deeply horizontal age.
People think about productivity, success, politics, consumption, immediate pleasure… but almost never about Heaven.
Modern man has lost the sense of eternity.
And when Heaven disappears, life becomes unbearable.
Without transcendence, everything ends in absurdity.
That is why this article of the Creed is profoundly revolutionary.
It reminds us:
there is an eternal Kingdom,
there is a future glory,
there is a final judgment,
there is a definitive homeland,
there is a true King.
Christ does not belong to the past.
Christ reigns now.
And the decisive question is not whether the world recognizes Him, but whether we truly live under His lordship.
Conclusion
To say “He ascended into heaven; is seated at the right hand of God the Father” is to proclaim that history does not end in the tomb.
It is to affirm that Christ has conquered.
It is to recognize that we have an eternal homeland.
It is to remember that our destiny is not corruption, but glory.
It is to know that in heaven we have a King, an Advocate, and a place prepared.
Every time we look at a crucifix, we must also remember the Ascension: the Cross leads to glory.
Every time we suffer, we must remember that heaven exists.
Every time the world seems to triumph, we must remember that Christ already reigns.
And every time we recite the Creed, we must do so with deep conviction:
Christ ascended.
Christ reigns.
Christ will return.
And we were created to be with Him eternally.
