Our Bodies are like a Ketchup Bottle

Happy Ascension Sunday! No wait, Thursday? Wait a second…which state am I in again?

I find this weekend to be one of the most fascinating weekends of the entire year, because it’s the only weekend that is different depending on which part of the country you are in.  On every other Sunday, no matter what Catholic Church you walk into, you will hear the same exact readings, except for this weekend.  Here in New England (and the diocese of Omaha, NE) we still celebrate the Ascension of our Lord on its traditional day, 40 days after Easter, on Ascension Thursday.  So this Sunday, when you walk into Holy Family in Duxbury, MA, you will hear the readings for the 7^th Sunday of Easter.  But in the rest of the United States, the bishops have moved the Ascension from Thursday to Sunday, so if you walk into a Catholic Church, say in Columbus Ohio this weekend, you would hear the readings for the Ascension and not the 7^th Sunday of Easter. 

My mother is a saintly woman, (she has to be if she has been able to put up with me for the last 31 years; she tells me often that I have given her all of her grey hairs, which is probably true!) who goes to daily Mass and hasn’t missed a Sunday or Holy Day of Obligation since All Saints Day in 2006 (the night before my dad passed away).  She is traveling this weekend from Ohio to spend the weekend with us and I was giving her a hard time on the phone today that she skipped the Ascension this year.  She was in Ohio on Thursday but will be in MA on Sunday, neither diocese celebrates the Ascension on either day.  So even though she will have gone to Mass both days, neither will have been for the Ascension.  That realization and conversation probably added a few more grey hairs to her head.  Sorry mom!

So what is this feast day about and why is it important?

On the Ascension, we celebrate that Jesus ascended (went up) to heaven, both body and soul.  His body does not remain here on earth, but was rather taken up to heaven with his soul.  This is very different then what happens when we die.  When we die, our bodies remain here on earth and it is only our souls that enter into heaven, hell or purgatory.  Christ was able to take His body with Him, because it was already perfect.  We cannot take our bodies with us, because they are imperfect.  We must wait till the end of times to be reunited with our resurrected bodies. 

At a staff meeting a few weeks ago, one of the staff members asked for help explaining a soul to a 5 year old child.  I must admit, that I am a little embarrassed, being a youth faith formation minister, that I didn’t have an answer to that question right away.  It is such a difficult concept for adults to grasp, let alone a small child.  I have been thinking about it for a few weeks now, especially yesterday as we celebrated the Ascension and the best analogy that I have been able to come up with is that of a ketchup bottle.   When someone dies and goes to heaven/hell/purgatory, it’s like when you have an empty ketchup bottle.  It is no longer ketchup because it is empty.  All that is left is the bottle.  In the same way, when a person dies, the body that remains is not the person because the soul is no longer in the body.  All that is left is the empty shell, just like the empty ketchup bottle.

Our soul is what makes us who we are, it’s our core, our being.  Our bodies keep our soul protected and safe, but are bodies aren’t who we are, it’s what’s inside our bodies that make us who we are, a son or daughter of God.  So too is the ketchup bottle.  What is inside the bottle is what matters, not the bottle.  The bottle and our bodies are the vessels used to help us achieve our true purpose in life.  In terms of ketchup, it’s to make our hamburgers and French fries taste extra yummy.  In terms of our bodies, it to help our souls to know, love and serve God in this life in order to be happy with Him forever in heaven.

I pray that no matter when you celebrate the Ascension of the Lord, whether it was on Thursday or will be on Sunday, that you are reminded of God’s great gift to us in an immortal soul that, hopefully, one day will be able to spend forever with God in Heaven. 

Reflection by Matthew Bensman