A blessing was Jesus' last gesture on earth, according to the Gospel of St. Luke1. The Eleven set out from Galilee to the mountain that Jesus had indicated to them, the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem. The disciples, on seeing the Risen One again, adored him, prostrated themselves before him as before their Master and their God. They are now much more deeply aware of what they had already, long before, had in their hearts and had confessed: that their Master was the Messiah. They are amazed and filled with joy to see that their Lord and their God has always been so near. After those forty days in his company they will be able to witness what they have seen and heard; the Holy Spirit will confirm them in the teachings of Jesus, and teach them the whole truth.
The Master speaks to them with the Majesty proper to God: All power in Heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus confirms the faith of those who worship Him, and teaches them that the power they are to receive is derived from the divine power itself. The power to forgive sins, to be reborn to a new life through Baptism... is the power of Christ himself which is prolonged in the Church. This is the mission of the Church: to continue forever the work of Christ, to teach men the truths about God and the demands that these truths carry with them, to help them with the grace of the sacraments....
Jesus said to them: You will receive the Holy Spirit who will come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
And when he had said this, as they looked on, he was taken up, and a cloud hid him from their eyes. This is how St. Luke describes the Ascension of the Lord in the First Reading of the Mass.
Little by little he rose up. The Apostles stood for a long time looking at Jesus ascending in all majesty as he gave them his last blessing, until a cloud hid him. It was the cloud that accompanied the manifestation of God: "it was a sign that Jesus had already entered the heavens".
The life of Jesus on earth does not end with his death on the Cross, but with his Ascension into Heaven. It is the last mystery of the Lord's life here on earth. It is a redemptive mystery, which constitutes, with the Passion, Death and Resurrection, the paschal mystery. It was fitting that those who had seen Christ die on the Cross amidst insults, scorn and mockery should witness his supreme exaltation. Now are fulfilled before the sight of his own those words that one day he said to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God8. And those others: I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I come to you, Holy Father.
The Ascension of the Lord into Heaven is contemplated in the second glorious mystery of the Holy Rosary. "Jesus went to the Father. -Two angels in white robes come to us and say to us, 'Men of Galilee, what are you doing looking up to heaven? (Acts 1:11).
"Peter and the others return to Jerusalem - cum gaudio magno - with great joy (Lk 24:52). -It is right that the Holy Humanity of Christ should receive the homage, acclamation and adoration of all the hierarchies of the Angels and of all the legions of the blessed of Glory".