But even with all these adjustments, there are “liturgical remnants” that still point to Ascension celebrating on Thursday. The observance of this feast is of great antiquity. We see it observed during the Lenten Season. Before His Ascension, Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit to His apostles. Feast of the Ascension † Catholic Encyclopedia Feast of the Ascension See also The Fact of the Ascension. Now is also the time to really intensify praying and/or singing the Regina Caeli. Pentecost food usually includes birds to remind of the symbolic dove of the Holy Spirit, but the Ascension also celebrates with foods like stuffed pigeons or other birds (like chicken) to think of Christ ascending. Some believe that the much-disputed forty-third decree of the Council of Elvira, c. 300 condemning the practice of observing a feast on the fortieth day after Easter and neglecting to keep Pentecost on the fiftieth day, implies that the proper usage of the time was to commemorate the Ascension along with Pentecost. In others, whilst the figure of Christ was made to ascend, that of the devil was made to descend. The Church has rendezvoused to help us experience Easter as the feast of feasts, as the basic reason for all celebration and joy, by causing the Easter octave to last for seven times seven days. But we need to take our cues from the liturgy. The Solemnity of the Ascension can be a holyday of obligation or Sunday, which the Church in Canon Law states our duties: Can. News, analysis & spirituality by email, twice-weekly from CatholicCulture.org. Bumping up this 2014 post for the feast of the Ascension, whether it is celebrated on Thursday or Sunday. Where possible, the Pentecost novena should consist of the solemn celebration of vespers. articles
Both The Easter Book by Fr. Moreover, they are to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body. See also The Fact of the Ascension.. Pope Benedict saying “[t]he forty prepare for the fifty” can also apply to the Ascension falling on the fortieth day, with the last days in particular preparing for the fiftieth day, Pentecost. The Feast of the Ascension is celebrated on the 40th day of Easter, always a Thursday; the Orthodox tradition has a different calendar up to a month later than in the Western tradition, and while the Anglican communion continues to observe the feast, many Protestant churches have abandoned the observance. We have been granted joy and now wait for the power. Celebrating on Sunday changes the number to forty-three (43), a prime and non-divisible number, and not particularly symbolic. So 1/5 of the states celebrate Ascension Thursday: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. It may be that prior to the fifth century the fact narrated in the Gospels was commemorated in conjunction with the feast of Easter or Pentecost. For all these things, far from being liturgical games, are translations of the mystery in terms of our life; they are where the unique and once-and-for-all Event meets life in its daily newness. I am proud and happy that I am a part of a Rite that does not "take it easy" by moving Ascension Thursday to Sunday to gain a two-for-one on going to Mass. Ascension, FEAST OF the, the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, commemorating the Ascension of Christ into heaven, according to Mark, xvi, 19, Luke, xxiv, 51, and Acts, i, 2. The Ascension does not mark the end of Jesus' relationship with the Church but the beginning of a new way of His relating to the world, in and through the Church. Monday through Wednesday before Ascension Thursday marked the traditional minor Rogation days. Bumping up this 2014 post for the feast of the Ascension, whether it is celebrated on Thursday or Sunday. The New Testament tells us that during the period between the Ascension and Pentecost “all...joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1, 14) while they awaited being “clothed with the power from on high” (Lk 24, 49). The forty prepare for the fifty, the fragmentary for the complete; and the Lord’s Resurrection is at the axis of both. :-). Novenas have always been been private devotion until the General Norms of the Liturgical Year and Calendar elevated the novena for Pentecost as liturgical: 26. Although no documentary evidence of it exists prior to the beginning of the fifth century, St. Augustine says that it is of Apostolic origin, and he speaks of it in a way that shows it was the universal observance of the Church long before his time. That is why our hearts should sing with Psalm 47 as it repeats 3 days in a row, “God mounts His throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.”.