ASCENSION DAY IS MOVING

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For some years now, Canadian Catholics have celebrated the Ascension of the Lord on the 7th Sunday of Easter. So have a number of Western dioceses in the United States, whose bishops asked for and obtained permission for this change in the liturgical calendar. Now other dioceses in our country will also be celebrating the Ascension on Sunday instead of Thursday.

On November 16, 1998, the U.S. bishops voted to allow the bishops of each ecclesiastical province to move the solemnity of the Ascension to the 7th Sunday of Easter. After this decision was confirmed by the Vatican, the bishops of our ecclesiastical province (Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota) voted for this change. Thus this year, in our diocese, the Ascension of the Lord will be celebrated on Sunday, June 4.

What led to this change? Not a desire to promote a liturgical novelty or to lighten the Mass schedule for clergy. Rather, the purpose is the one that led the U.S. bishops to move the solemnity of the Epiphany from a weekday to a Sunday and the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ from a Thursday to a Sunday. When work schedules vary so much, when so many weekday events and activities compete for our attention, more Roman Catholics will be able to participate in the celebration of the Ascension on Sunday. Also, presiders, liturgical musicians and other ministers will be able to devote more time and care to this important celebration in the Easter season.

But isn't this celebration historically tied to Jesus' ascension into heaven 40 days after his resurrection, and thus should be celebrated on a Thursday? The celebration of the glorification of Jesus and his return to the Father, which is at the heart of the Ascension, is not tied to a 40-day chronology. Saint Luke gives us two different accounts of the ascension of Jesus. In Luke 24: 50-53, Luke recounts the ascension of Jesus on Easter Sunday night, thus connecting it to his resurrection. But in Acts 1: 1-11 (the first reading for the solemnity), Luke speaks of a 40-day period between Jesus' resurrection and the ascension.

For Luke and his fellow believers, the number "40" was a highly symbolic number: it recalled the 40 days and nights of the great flood, the 40-year sojourn of Moses and the Israelites through the desert, the 40 years that David reigned as king, the 40-day journey of the prophet Elijah to Mount Horeb, the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus fasted in the wilderness. "40" symbolized the "fullness of time," God's time. How wonderfully Luke described the time after the resurrection, in which we see Jesus appearing to his disciples "during forth days and speaking about the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3) that had dawned upon the world in his dying and rising. In the "fullness of time," Jesus received the fullness of God's glory when he was taken up into heaven, the glory he had with God before the world began (see Jn. 17:5). Thus the number "40" is a sacred but not absolutely sacrosanct number for determining the celebration of the Ascension.

In the early Church, the ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit were celebrated as a single event at Pentecost. Such was the practice in 4th century Jerusalem. But by the last quarter of that century, in various places in the Christian East, this unitive celebration was evolving into two separate liturgical feasts, Ascension and Pentecost. This reflects our human tendency to take complex things apart so that we can examine their individual parts more closely and understand the whole more completely. But the "paschal mystery" of Jesus Christ is really a unity: his death, resurrection, ascension and sending of the Spirit are God's Easter plan for him and for us.

In one of his sermons, Pope Leo the Great reminded his hearers that Christ's ascension and glorification is the pledge of what we too shall be someday and a vision of what we already are: welcomed into heaven's glory in company with Christ. At his ascension, Jesus left our human space and time but not our human experience, for while he now reigns with God the Father and the Holy Spirit in heaven, he also lives and works with us here on earth. In the pre-Vatican II liturgy, the Easter candle was extinguished after the reading of the Gospel on Ascension Thursday. Now the Easter candle remains lit until Pentecost, to show that the risen Christ is with us in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus the Ascension is not simply the celebration of a past historical event; it is also a celebration of our risen life with Christ, now and in the future. This is something to celebrate on Ascension Sunday, just as we celebrated it on Ascension Thursday.

Text by Michael Kwatera, OSB. Copyright ©2000, Office of Worship, Diocese of Saint Cloud.
Art by Steve Erspamer, Copyright ©1993, Liturgy Training Publications.
All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.