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had a concrete grasp of where the "heaven" Christ ascended to actually was, but their answers are all based on very outdated views of the cosmos.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.