Ascension Sunday?

1 June 2003

Today we celebrated the Solemnity of the Ascension, or as the deacon who was preaching at my parish put it, "Ascension Thursday Sunday." Now, I hope what follows is more than the whining of an old curmudgeon who is very much attached to tradition, but I do not think this business of moving Holy Days--and Ascension in particular--to Sundays is a very good thing. Not, of course, that it affects our salvation directly what day the Church, or the local church of Lansing under its bishop in this case, elects to celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord to the right hand of the Father. It does make a difference if we believe in it or not, but the day we celebrate the mystery is not significant in itself. The dates of various celebrations are arbitrary to greater or lesser degrees. No one knows on what day Jesus was actually born, so we celebrate the Nativity on a symbolic date, that was originally fixed at the winter solstice. (The reason it isn't at the winter solstice any more is a complicated piece of calendrical history that I learned about 10 years ago, but I won't go into here.) The date of Easter is set up to coincide with Passover because the Crucifixion and Resurrection took place at Passover, and because the typological significance still applies to us; but the fact that the Western calculation of Easter coincides better with Passover than the Eastern does not of itself make the Eastern celebration of Easter any less valid. And Easter is, in a sense, the first feast that was transferred to Sunday--so transferring feasts by itself does not derogate from the celebration. But I'd say there are some good reasons not to do it.

One reason is that having Holy Days of obligation in the middle of the week makes Catholics occasionally go out of their way to recognize that they are part of the Church. Our life in Christ really ought to be something that governs our life in the world, but at least it should occasionally obtrude into it. Observing an obligation to assist at Mass on an unusual day is a reminder, like a string tied around a finger, that we are citizens of another, heavenly city. It also forces us to receive a blessing we ought to be running toward every day. I remember a conversation, some thirty years ago, with two friends, Bob and Jeanne. Jeanne observed, "Tomorrow is Ascension, so we have to go to Mass." Bob replied, "Not have to go to Mass, Jeanne, get to go to Mass." Every Holy Day of obligation, I think of that remark.

In the case of Ascension, there is a further reason for not transferring the feast. The date of Ascension is based on the scriptural account of the events following the Resurrection. Jesus appeared to the disciples over 40 days, and then ascended. The descent of the Holy Spirit occurred on Pentecost, a festival already celebrated by the Jews 50 days after Passover. So we place the Ascension 40 days after Easter, or 10 days before Pentecost. The devotional custom of the novena derives from the custom of imitating the Apostles who continued in prayer for nine days following the Ascension, preparing for the coming of the promised Holy Spirit. When we celebrate Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost at the traditional intervals we are repeating the pattern set by the disciples and apostles, together with the Blessed Mother. Of course, we already have the Holy Spirit, just as every Good Friday we know that Christ is already risen from the dead, and every Advent we know that the Messiah has already come among us. But following the pattern does more that give us a sense of identification with the apostles who are the foundation of the Church; it also is a living reminder that what we are commemorating are not simply doctrines, but historical events. The Ascension did not happen in the abstract. It happened at a particular time, in a particular place. There was a time before it happened, and there was a time after it happened. Re-enacting that passage of time reminds us that there was such a passage of time. Changing it weakens the sense of historicity which is ultimately essential to the Christian faith.

Every Sunday, as we recite the Creed, we commemorate a rather cowardly, temporizing, third-rate Roman politician and bureaucrat by the name of Pontius Pilatus. Why on earth should this character enjoy the company of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit along with the Virgin Mary? Because it is absolutely necessary to what we believe as Christians that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ occurred at a particular point in history. If Jesus is not a historical personage, but is merely a useful abstract symbol, our faith is in vain and we are still in our sins. If Jesus did not come in the flesh in a specific space and time, then the best we can do is to be Jews who still await the promised Messiah. This scandal of particularity was the last obstacle I had to deal with in accepting the Christian faith. Why should something this significant happen at that particular time, in that particular place? Because, I realized, it had to happen somewhere and at some time or it could not have happened at all. It appears from St. Paul's account of his own preaching that his hearers were similarly scandalized. The religious people of that day, both Jew and pagan, were perfectly happy with abstract ideas about salvation and forgiveness; in was salvation in history by a crucified and risen Savior that appeared ridiculous to them. It was this urge to transform the historic faith of the Gospel into an abstraction that drove the Gnostic heresies that troubled the early Church. As the Apostle John wrote (I John 4:2-3) "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God." The same dehistoricizing Gnostic urge is very much in the world today.

Our deacon put a brave face on it this morning. He pointed out that by celebrating the Ascension on Sunday, we make sure that fewer people miss it. And that is true. Doubtless there are many Catholics who blow off Holy Days of obligation but do remember to attend Mass on Sunday. Nor would I deny the authority of the bishop--and I have nothing but admiration and respect for the bishop in this diocese of Lansing--to be the arbiter of the sacred liturgy in the diocese, when he is acting in accordance with norms of the whole Church of the Roman Rite (and our bishop would never do otherwise). But I think there might be good reasons to be cautious about doing it.