How Christ’s ascension takes the training wheels off our faith
Explores the theological significance of Christ’s ascension and its impact on believers’ faith Highlights how the ascension metaphorically removes the ‘training wheels’ that previously guided Christian practice Includes reflections from clergy and scholars on the implications for personal and communal spirituality Encourages readers to embrace a deeper, more autonomous faith following Christ’s return to the Father
4 months ago
The Ascension of Jesus is presented as the moment when Christ removes the “training wheels” of discipleship, entrusting believers with the mission to proclaim the Gospel worldwide. It emphasizes that the risen Lord’s departure is a blessing that empowers the Church through the Holy Spirit, calling the faithful to humble service, evangelization, and joyful witness in today’s world 1.
How does Christ’s ascension redefine autonomous Christian faith?
Christ’s Ascension redefines “autonomous” Christian faith by showing that Christianity is not faith that manufactures its own object (a self-chosen spirituality), but faith that receives Christ’s definitive act, encounters Him in a new mode of presence, and therefore cannot be reduced to subjective perception or to the self-sufficiency of the Church. The Ascension makes the Christian life Christ-centered, Spirit-mediated, and eschatologically oriented rather than self-grounded.
A common way “autonomous” faith shows up in practice is as follows: Christianity becomes whatever helps me live inwardly; events like the Ascension become largely symbolic or psychological. The Church, however, presents the Ascension as the definitive entrance of Jesus’ humanity into God’s heavenly domain, from which He will come again.
The Gospel accounts emphasize that the disciples truly witness Christ being “taken up,” and even the messengers interpret it as a real departure with a real return “in the same way.”
Moreover, Catholic teaching insists that this is not merely a “more spiritual” reinterpretation that evacuates bodily realism. If the Ascension were lost, theological reflection risks sliding into an “eschatological Docetism” (diminishing the weight and solidity of the glorified body), and even into treating the post-Resurrection appearances as merely subjective experiences.
So, Christ’s Ascension corrects the autonomy impulse: faith cannot be “autonomous” in the sense of becoming detached from the historical and bodily reality of Christ’s glorified humanity.
Another way Christianity can become “autonomous” is epistemically: “I only trust what I directly see or verify; faith is my private certainty.” The Ascension changes the mode of Christ’s presence.
After the Resurrection, the New Testament distinguishes the appearances from what follows after the Ascension—two “ways” of Christ’s being and acting. A deeper presence is given, but it is mediated through faith, not sight (“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed”).
This means the Ascension deliberately introduces a distance: believers do not cling to Christ as a visible object in the same way as the first witnesses. Instead, the encounter with Jesus becomes participation in faith and in the Spirit-given interiority of the disciples.
Thus the Ascension doesn’t abolish faith; it purifies it from an autonomy-shaped demand for immediacy. Christian faith is redefined as believing without seeing within salvation history.
Autonomous faith also tends to understand salvation as something humanity can “reach” by natural spiritual striving. The Catechism directly denies this: left to natural powers, humanity does not have access to “the Father’s house.”
The Ascension therefore has an existential meaning: only Christ can open access so that believers, as His members, can be confident of going where the Head has preceded.
In that sense, autonomous faith is redefined by hierarchy and gift: the Christian does not ascend because they are strong enough; they ascend because Christ—through His death and Resurrection, and then His Ascension—has opened the way into God’s life.
A subtler form of “autonomy” happens when believers treat the Church as if she were a sufficient substitute for Christ—so that Christ becomes functionally unnecessary.
One Catholic theological point made in the Ascension tradition is that the Ascension safeguards the distinction between Christ and the Church. If Jesus’ departure is removed or blurred, then the Church can be “absolutized,” as though Christ’s presence were consummated entirely in her, replacing the Master.
So the Ascension does not say, “Christ is gone, so the Church becomes everything.” Rather, it says: Christ truly leaves in one respect—by entering the Father’s domain—so that Christian existence can correctly encounter Him without confusing the visible ecclesial structures with the very Person of Christ Himself.
Pope Benedict XVI expresses the same dynamic positively: the Ascension does not imply a temporary absence, but it inaugurates a definitive new form of presence—Christ’s invisible presence working through the Spirit—so the Church lives to proclaim Christ’s glorious presence, not to compensate for an absent Lord.
If the Ascension redefines faith as “faith without sight,” it also redefines its purpose. Christ’s departure leads to the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit and being commissioned to witness.
Benedict XVI stresses that the disciples should not remain “gazing up at the sky,” but should go with joy and proclaim the saving message of Christ’s death and Resurrection, living the Ascension’s hope in mission.
Therefore, Christ’s Ascension redirects what “autonomous” faith would often shrink into: a merely inward religious feeling. The Ascension instead grounds hope and energizes witness—because believers encounter the ascended Christ and are empowered to make His presence visible through the Spirit.
Christ’s Ascension redefines autonomous Christian faith by establishing that Christian belief is not self-generated spirituality:
The Ascension, in short, makes Christian faith less “autonomous” and more truly theological: received from Christ, sustained by the Spirit, and oriented toward the Father where Christ has already gone.