From one of my articles in The Wanderer:
Bl. Abbot Columba Marmion, OSB (+1923), wrote in Christ in His Mysteries that “of all the feasts of Our Lord … the Ascension is the greatest, because it is the supreme glorification of Christ Jesus.”
The importance of the mystery of the Lord’s Ascension should prompt in the ready Catholic heart and mind an inexorable urge to worship God by appropriate and solemn liturgical acts.
The knowledge that in Christ our humanity now enjoys heaven can work wonders for us in the hour of need. Keep this in mind in time of trial and in the hard times that may be coming.
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Our parish will serve the Divine Liturgy at 6:00 a.m. this Ascension Thursday. Our pastor expects everyone to be there. It is a day of obligation. It is our opportunity to step momentarily from this world into God’s Kingdom of Eternity.
Save the Liturgy; save the world.
The Ascension is indeed among the greatest of our feast days. So it pains me that this past Sunday, as our Pastor rightfully took the opportunity during his homily to stress the importance of our Catholic Identity in the face of events such as the Notre Dame scandal, he was being undermined by our Bishop who moved Ascension Thursday to the following Sunday. What does this say of the importance of our Catholic Identity when we move a feast which is chronologically tied to a specific period of time (40 days after Easter) for convenience? Isn’t the root of all sin selfishness? Don’t we do things for convenience when it’s about “us”? Such acts compromise the Catholic Identity by teaching us it’s okay to “make allowances” in our faith.
I pray daily that my Pastor may some day be made Bishop of this Diocese. We need Orthodox Priests and Bishops of strength and conviction. Lord grant that it may be so.
I thought the Passion and Cross of our Lord was his glorification, when he accomplished his great work. Wasnt the Ascension just the Lords way of saying “I told you so”? A prophetic act to show his church who he is? Or did it have a salvific purpose?
Its lucky that the mass (provided by the L.M.S priest) will be held on Thursday in the EF. I expect this great solemnity will just be added on to sunday in most places.
Our local TLM “indult” parish, Holy Family, (apparently the only parish in the Columbus Diocese to offer the TLM even now, nearly two years after Summorum Pontificum) appears to be celebrating the Ascension this Thursday. The TLM is at 7 pm. Praise be!
Yes, Frank, we still really have the indult system, judging by our diocese’s response to SP, which was discouraging in tone, imposing competency requirements, etc. I just hope they leave Holy Family and St. Patrick’s alone.
We will celebrate it on Sunday. Sigh. But I am going to daily Mass on Thursday at the Fathers of Mercy who are very orthodox. We’ll see what they do.
Yes, Ascension is one of the five great feasts of the Lord: Nativity, Epiphany, Paschal Triduum, Ascension, and Pentecost, and should be celebrated with all the pomp and solemnity we can muster. Moving it is an asisine idea, but the flip side of that coin should be that those provinces where it is moved to Sunday (I am in Boston and we celebrate it on Thursday here) have zero excuse for treating it like any other Sunday of Eastertide in terms of festivity.
It’s also a good time to disabuse people of the altogether too prevalent error (and heresy in some cases) that Christ ceased to have a human nature after the Ascension. I’ve discovered a lot of people labor under that impression.
That’s a lovely passage. Now I can’t wait for Ascension Thursday Sunday!
Wait, I always thought either Good Friday or Easter Sunday was the greatest of the feasts. Could you explain this Father?
I’m glad, because in our diocese Bishop Rhoades has Ascension Thursday on Thursday… like it should be.
Ascension has always been one of the most special days.Some years by baptimal anniversary falls on it. Two years ago, it was a day of most sublime grace. Thanks to you,FrZ, I am learning the riches of the feasts of the Church.
Alas, I must drive 2 1/2 hours up to Seattle for Ascension. At least we have an FSSP parish now. To my knowledge everywhere else in the Diocese, the Feast will be done on Sunday. Why we couldn’t possibly ask our priests to roll over a poorly attended daily Mass to the Holy Day of Obligation and hold it in the evening when most can attend.
Here they have added 3 more days to make Ascension Thursday–Ascension Thursday Sunday??
But I see a local Maronite church is celebrating today as the Holy Day of Obligation