the ascension & pentecost:

Forty days after the resurrection, Jesus went with his followers to the Mount of Olives, “and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:50). Returning to his Father in heaven, “he sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3), presenting his perfect propitiatory sacrifice to God the Father (Hebrews 9:24). “Christ’s ascension marks the definitive entrance of Jesus’s humanity into God’s heavenly domain, whence he will come again” (CCC 665).

In the fullness of time, Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead (Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed). Christ himself predicted his Second Coming (Greek – parousia), “They will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:30-31).

As Christ promised, ten days after his ascension, he sent the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, and the new dispensation of the Church began. “In the last days is shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophecy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; [. . .] whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:17, 21). On that first day of Pentecost, three thousand people were baptized (Acts 2:41). Then the apostles went out into the world preaching the Gospel and establishing churches throughout the world.