Paul tells us we are ascended with Christ (past tense); that the Father has seated us with Christ in "the heavenly realms."

This is a mystical truth but no less real for the mystery. Jesus tells his disciples that he goes to prepare a place for them so that "where I am you may be also"…not just at the end of time but NOW.

Jesus takes our humanity into heaven so that heaven can inhabit our humanity. The kingdom life of the world to come is now within us as is Jesus himself…not as a wonderful thought, not symbolically, not even by imitation, but truly. This is the same reality of Christ himself that we call Eucharist.

Jesus and Paul speak of this union between Jesus and his disciples so often and so concretely that I wonder why it's not a greater fixture of contemporary Christian teaching.