One more note from the evangelist seems important to me. He says that Jesus lifted his hands and blessed them. As he blessed them, he was drawing away from them. The last image for them was his raised hands, the gesture of blessing. The Ascension is a blessing. In blessing, Christ departs; however, the opposite is also true – in blessing he remains. Such is his relationship with the world and with each of us: he blesses, he himself has become a blessing for us. Perhaps these words could clarify the strange contradiction of farewell and joy with which the disciples returned home: the event that the disciples experienced was a blessing. And as the blessed, they departed from there – as blessed, not as forsaken. They knew that they were blessed forever and that they are also forever under the blessing hands, wherever they might go.
(Card. Joseph Ratzinger, meditation on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord)
