Blessed are they who do not see, but still believe
Some interesting thoughts here and here on the question "Why Ascend?". It's something I've wondered about too. What follows are my own un-imprimatur'd thoughts. Correct and reprove accordingly.
I think the Ascension was necessary because faith is so highly regarded in the heavenly kingdom that obstructing it, through obvious displays of power, lessens our reward. The Resurrected Jesus in the flesh is very obviously a display of power. Faith, like charity, is a big denomination of currency in the spiritual realm. By being present to us, He would perhaps be obstructing our faith by taking away some of our free will, thus lessening the currency we would have to spend in heaven.
There is speculation that our Blessed Mother didn't receive a post-Resurrection visit from Jesus because she didn't need it. It's certainly possible that He did appear to her and it just isn't recorded, but some say that such appearance would be extraneous given Mary's great faith, and miracles aren't for gratification - they serve a purpose. Those visited by supernatural events (like St. Paul on the road to Damascus) suffer proportionately the greater for it, often martyrdom.
Jeanne Schmelzer comments on Disputations:
I myself have seen and have participated in physical and spiritual healings. I had a tumor in my jaw healed when prayed with. I've had spiritual healings of relationships repaired of which I was unable to repair myself. The reason I believe I was healed wasn't to try to get me to believe, because I already did. It was to show how much Jesus loved and cared for me when I felt terribly abandoned, and that he was around and available to me. It did build my strong faith to be even stronger.
The Saints Say:
St. Augustine: "But could He not send Him while here, Him, Who, we know, came and abode on Him at His baptism, yea Him from Whom we know He never could be spearated? What meaneth then, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come until you", but, ye cannot receive the Spirit, so long as ye know Christ according to the flesh? Christ departing in the body, not the Holy Ghost only, but the Father, and the Son also came spirtually."
St. Gregory: "As if He said plainly, if I withdraw not My body from your eyes, I cannot lead you to the understanding of the Invisible, through the Comforting Spirit."
Augustine: "The Holy Ghost the Comforter brought this, that the form of a servant which our Lord had received in the womb of the Virgin, being removed from the fleshly eye, He was manifested to the purified mental vision in the very form of God in which He remained equal to the Father, even while He deigned to appear in the flesh."
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