Jesus Ascends into Heaven

Secular presentation

The second glorious mystery

This is the last time that Jesus' immediate followers see Him in His glorious resurrected form: as He takes His leave and is taken up in a cloud from their sight, and into heaven.

He goes to prepare a place for all who will follow Him: those who die in the friendship of God.  But those who remain for now are to take His place in a certain sense.  They are to preach His words and heal in His name, to serve their neighbours as He taught.  Although he takes His leave of them, He does not really leave them alone.  There will be spiritual contact between Him and them.  The body of believers who profess Jesus, will come to be known as His Church.  And scripture uses the symbolism of a body to represent His continuing relationship with the Church.

In that symbolism, Jesus is the head, and the followers are the members of that body.  So it's a clever thing the artist does here, to place the head of Jesus at the head of the picture, and the members of the Church filling the body of the frame.