Where Is He Now? | Thomas Davenport, OP

Every Sunday, Catholics pray in the Creed, "He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father." Patristic and
medieval theologians felt they had a concrete grasp of where the
"heaven" Christ ascended to actually was, but their answers are all
based on very outdated views of the cosmos. Modern discussions of
the Ascension sometimes shy away from the question, to the point of
"spiritualizing" the event and downplaying the physicality of
Christ's present state. In this talk I will argue, first, that
attempts to "weaken" the physicality of Christ's glorified body
threaten our understanding of the resurrection and salvation, in
general, and of the Eucharist in particular. Then, I will then look
at medieval theories of the place of Christ's Ascension and point
out that while modern science makes those specific ideas untenable,
it also offers tools to imagine a real "place" for Christ's
Glorified Body.