Ascension Day

Fr. Robert Hart has written a meditation for Ascension Day (today in the West). I am curious to know from the "westerners" if you are observing Ascension today (liturgically) or this coming Sunday.

Comments

[Sam]

Regrettably, we are observing Ascension this coming Sunday. Oh that we could host a mid-week service in our parish!

[Arnold Conrad]

I am a "westerner" in both senses as an Oregon resident. The western US dioceses were among the first to adopt this unfortunate policy to move the liturgical celebration of Ascension to Sunday. I understand the reasons behind it but just once, it would be great to hear a bishop or priest say out loud that the observance will remain on Thursday as for time immemorial and Catholics have the DUTY to attend on that date. This pandering to people's laziness and disinterest is very unfortunate.

[Paul Becker]

We celebrated with Eucharist today at 12:10 p.m., Divine Service IV. Complete propers and lessons for the day, etc. What joy! Seven faithful plus yours truly were present (that we could see!).

[Tim]

Tonight at 7:30. Hopefully our early music choir will be singing.

[Rev. Paul T. McCain]

Our parish has a huge celebratory service on Ascension Day, in the evening. It is a wonder to behold as we praise and glorify our Lord Christ. We pull out all the stops for this service.

[John V]

In the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Solemnity of the Ascension is celebrated today. At St. Mary of Mercy Parish in downtown Pittsburgh, the noon Mass was attended by perhaps 600-700 people.

[Janet]

In Massachusetts, amazingly, the true day is maintained. We celebrated today!

[Judy K. Warner]

We usually celebrate today but because the Bishop is coming on Saturday to confirm some and receive others into the Anglican Catholic Church, he will celebrate Ascension Day then.

[Tony Esolen]

We celebrated it today.

The bishops could not have done anything stupider than to continue the process of replacing the idea of the Holy Day with the secular weekend. There's a great reason why Ascension is on Thursday, O bishops. It's because that's when it happened ... And it fits very nicely with, O bishops, Holy Thursday. Back in the Middle Ages, western Christians had a fine triad of Thursdays: Holy Thursday, Ascension, and Corpus Christi, celebrated on the Thursday before Trinity Sunday, with what came to be the biggest celebration of the year, at least in terms of popular involvement: a triduum concluding in Trinity Sunday. So you had the triduum of Holy Week reflected by, or prefiguring, the great triduum celebrating the Body of Christ and the mystery of the Trinity, with Ascension as the central feast that effects the translation, so to speak, of the death and resurrection of Christ into His continued presence in the Eucharist as preparing us for life eternal beholding the Trinity. It doesn't get any better than that.

[joseph walker]

We celebrated it today and will also commemorate it on Sunday.

[Deacon Michael D. Harmon]

Since we have a regular Wednesday night Eucharist and Bible study, we both did Ascension at the liturgy and used the Ascension readings (amplified with other relevant verses) for the Bible study, which I taught. We tend to do that with mid-week holy days, as we are a small church with bivocational clergy who can't adjust their schedules very easily.

[Hainds Laird]

We here in Granbury, TX observed the Ascension at a Thursday evening Mass at Good Shepherd Episcopalian Church. It was preceded by the children flying kites and followed by everyone eating pizza.

[Sally Thomas]

Our parish has a Latin Mass on Thursdays, and we celebrated the feast of the Ascension then, though we'll "officially" celebrate it tomorrow, with the rest of the diocese. Our family celebrates on the day, with some kind of domestic festivities, regardless of what our diocese does.