A reader writes:
It is my understanding (correct me if I am wrong) that the Ascension is celebrated today (Thursday) only in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and the New England states. Everywhere else in the U.S., the feast has been moved to this Sunday. How is a diocese able to move a holy day from Thursday to Sunday? And why the lack of uniformity across the entire church?
I can’t vouch for the geographical information you list. I know that here in California we have Ascension Thursday transferred to Sunday, but I don’t know about the practice in other provinces. I suggest checking your diocesan web site to see what the status is in your area.
Here’s the deal: The U.S. bishops got permission from the Vatican to move Ascension Thursday to a Sunday on a province by province basis.
Here’s the relevant complementary norm:
In accord with the provisions of canon 1246§2 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: "… the conference of bishops can abolish certain holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday with prior approval of the Apostolic See," the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States decrees that the Ecclesiastical Provinces of the United States may transfer the Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter to the Seventh Sunday of Easter according to the following procedure.
The decision of each Ecclesiastical Province to transfer the Solemnity of the Ascension is to be made by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the bishops of the respective Ecclesiastical Province. The decision of the Ecclesiastical Province should be communicated to the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and to the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [SOURCE, keep scrolling].
Are those parishes with the indult to celebrate the old Tridentine Mass permitted to also ignore then transfer of the solemnity?
It would seen that in some diocese, its Ascension for some Catholics and not for others, depending on what Mass you attend.
Also, Byzantine Catholics are apparently celebrating the Ascension today as well.
I just got back from fulfilling my holy day obligation here in Newark, New Jersey, which is NOT one of the New England states! 🙂
“Ascension Thursday is on Sunday” has always struck me as something one would hear from one of the characters in Pogo.
It is indeed on Thursday here in Nebraska.
It’s been transferred to Sunday here in Utah. Puzzling.
May 5, 2005
Has it really been sixty years since WWII? Its hard to say whether it has been a very short time or a very long time. Today, Jews around the world are commemorating Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Out Of Step Jew suggests a Yom HaShoah litu…
+J.M.J+
Still on Thursday in the Brooklyn Diocese. AFAIK, the same holds for the neighboring Archdiocese of NY and Diocese of Rockville Centre.
In Jesu et Maria,
Jersey is in England, therefore New Jersey is in New England, as much as you may hate that 🙂
We’re transfered here in Oregon, too.
It’s been transferred to Sunday the last few years here in wild and wonderful West Virginia, and is again this year.
I might add: Oddly enough, a few years ago, before the Wheeling-Charleston diocese transferred the Ascension to the 7th Sunday of Easter, I attended Ascension Thursday Mass as usual at my home parish; then while visiting a friend in Cincinnati that following weekend, I went to a Latin Mass (Novus Ordo style) at Old St. Mary’s Church near downtown, and got the Ascension readings *again*! Apparently at that point the Cincy archdiocese had transferred Ascension to Sunday, while my home diocese had not.
One reason for transferring it is that holy days of obligation that are not on Sunday are very poorly attended. I get about 10 people for a daily Mass at my parish. Most of my parishioners will not come to anything in the evening. So by transferring Ascension to Sunday we’ll have 260+ people celebrating as opposed to maybe 25 or so if it’s on Thursday.
Fr John
In raising my children I have observed that it is often better to set the standard high and have them fail occasionally than it is to set the standard so low that they always succeed. ISTM that the Church could do the same for Her children.
Ascension Day has been abolished here in Illinois, and some strange new observance called Ascension Sunday appeared here a few years ago.
Yet another indult Rome needs desperately to cancel . . . .
In Portugal, the solemnity of Ascension is celebrated on Sundays. So United States is not alone.
Here in NZ The Feast of the Ascension has been transferred from Thursday to Sunday also, and I believe that is also the case in Australia and the Pacific Islands.
I have a question. I was planning on attending a Tridentine mass this Sunday (far away from my home) My small parish two blocks away did not even have a daily Mass today on Thursday (because Oklahoma changed it to Ascension Sunday) so I didn’t attend Mass today. If I go to the Tridentine Mass on Sunday they won’t be celebrating the Ascension because they most certainly did that today. Will I have fulfilled my obligation for the feast of the Ascension? I think maybe not. But could someone tell me definitively?
Living in the diocese of Covington, Kentucky (Louisville Province), and working in the archdiocese of Cincinnati (Cincinnati Province), I can tell you that both of these provinces have moved the obligation to Sunday.
Hmm…
Here in Pittsburgh we had Ascension Thursday and so I attended Mass today.
I will be flying into Washington DC Sunday morning and just now realized it will be Ascension Sunday there. My original plan was to attend Mass in DC with the friends I am visiting.
Here is an interesting question…Since I had already made plans to be in Washington DC and attend Mass there on what turns out to be Ascension Sunday, was I still obligated to attend Ascension Thursday here in Pittsburgh? Since I did, am I obligated (or is it more proper) now to attend the regular 7th Sunday of Easter here in Pittsburgh (Sat night) instead of an Ascension Sunday Mass in DC?
I guess if I play my cards right I can cover all bases and celebrate Ascension Thursday, Ascension Sunday, and the solo 7th Sunday in Easter all in the span of about 65 hours. 🙂
The church should make every effort to gain more mass-comers (as long as it is not heretical)
Therefore I praise this…to a point. Of course…If they’re not going to mass for the purpose of holy thursday…
Fr. John, is it moral to fulfil a obligation without the intent? Can I go to a sunday mass (meaning only to get my sunday obligation fulfiled) and still recieve the Thursday graces? Discussion please? (I think that you wouldn’t recieve the fullness of thsoe graces since you’re intent was not to, but I’d like a priest or knowegable person to clarify.
If I go to the Tridentine Mass on Sunday they won’t be celebrating the Ascension because they most certainly did that today. Will I have fulfilled my obligation for the feast of the Ascension? I think maybe not. But could someone tell me definitively?
The obligation is to assist at Mass, not to assist at a particular Mass. For example, one might fulfill a Holy Day of Obligation by assisting at a Nuptial Mass or a Requiem Mass. So yes, I think you would fulfill your obligation, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable here could give you a more definitive answer.
Lauda:
I think you are correct. At least, that’s the sense I get from a previous blog by Jimmy on April 12, 2004 on the subject: The readings, feast day being celebrated, rite you choose to attend, etc. are not essential to fulfilling the obligation. The essentials are that it be a valid rite in union with Rome, validly celebrated, and that you go and actively participate on the days the Church tells you to. And if the diocese where you are located on Ascension Thursday does not have the obligation for that day, you are not obliged.