The Solemnity of the Ascension signals that the Easter season is coming to an end. With Pentecost just days away, it can be easy to pass over the Ascension, or to wonder why it matters.

Our readings for today show us two versions of the event, both recorded by St. Luke. Jesus blessed his disciples  before “he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.” But why was it necessary for Jesus to ascend? After all, some of his followers were still plagued with doubts, even after multiple proofs of his resurrection (cf. Matt. 28:17). Most of the disciples, including Peter, had proved cowardly and disloyal when they fled from Jesus’ arrest just a few weeks before. Wouldn’t it have been better for Jesus to stay and oversee the founding of his new church himself?

As if anticipating this question, Jesus said that it was actually for his disciples’ benefit that he was returning to the Father: “for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (Jn. 16:7). Jesus’ return to the Father opened the door for the Holy Spirit to descend upon the apostles at Pentecost and birth the new Church.

Even more significantly, Jesus’ ascension into heaven represents the climax of the entire Paschal Mystery. Jesus’ passion and death are moments bound in time—occurring on a specific day in a specific year. But when Jesus ascended into heaven and offered his glorified, but-still-wounded body to his Father, his sacrifice was brought out of time and into eternity, into a “sanctuary [not] made by hands” (Heb. 9:24). Because Jesus’ sacrifice of his body and blood has been made eternal, it can be made eternally present in the Eucharist—Jesus is thus high priest for all time, always interceding and offering himself for us (Pitre, CCC 662).

Without the Ascension, there is no Paschal Mystery! Let us be all the more grateful, then, for Jesus’ return to his Father and celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, now just a week away.