Ascension
The first Latin that I learned came not from going to Mass or from my first communion catechesis, but rather from my public-school history classes. By fourth grade I had been exposed to the civilizations of Greece and Rome and keeping track of BC and AD helped keep the timeline of events intelligible for me. I remember distinctly when I first heard a teacher tell me what BC and AD stood for. BC was Before Christ and AD Anno Domini, in the year of the Lord. Anno Domini was the first Latin I learned and I was astonished that my teacher in my secular school de facto made a profession of faith in Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She was being a witness of Jesus “to the ends of the earth” unintentionally fulfilling the mandate Our Lord gave to his disciples today on the feast of the Ascension. It also made me realize that I was making a little prayer every time I myself read or spoke those words. And these two Latin words, anno domini, weren’t just a profession of faith in Jesus but also a guide on how to understand the history of the world, everything is in some way related to the Lord. The coming of Jesus is both the turning point of history and in his very person he serves as the guide to understand it.
In the first reading St. Luke tells us at the start of Acts about the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. The same man, St. Luke, relates at the end of his Gospel about the same Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. St. Luke understands the Ascension as the hinge moment of the hinge person of history, it's the hinge that joins his Gospel and Acts. And in this hinge moment of the hinge person of history what is it that the disciples ask for, the very last question they ever get to put before our Incarnate Lord. “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
The catechism summarizes Our Lord’s response like this:
“Before his Ascension, Christ declared that the hour had not yet come for the definitive establishment of the order of justice, love, and peace awaited by Israel and promised by God through his prophets. The present age is a time of watching and waiting: it is the time of the Spirit and of witness to the Kingdom but also of trials and distress.”
Jesus is declaring the start of a new age of the Spirit at Pentecost so it makes sense that St. Luke regards the Ascension as the hinge moment of the hinge person of history. It’s not an age of the Kingdom but of witness to the Kingdom and of trials and distress and every time you see, speak or hear AD it's a reminder of this truth.
However, I remember when I got to high school one of my textbooks had switched to using BCE, Before Common Era, and CE, Common Era, but of course all the years were changed. The underlying reality of the hinge person of history remains unchanged, but it was no longer something to be acknowledged. It’s as if the world around me had become that much more atheist. It was intentionally avoiding the proclamation of Jesus as Lord and simultaneously intentionally avoiding the mandate that Jesus gave his disciples on this day.
Just as the Jews of the Old Testament had the obligation to prepare for the coming of the Messiah, so do we as Christians are called to witness to the Kingdom and to its King, Christ. One little way we do this is by using BC and AD in our speech and writing. On this feast of the Ascension may we be reminded that Jesus is the turning point of history and the Divine Word that helps us to understand it. Using BC and AD are simple concrete ways to both communicate the centrality of Jesus to others and also to prepare our own soul as well by reaffirming our faith in him and obeying the mandate he gave us on this feast day.