The Ascension

The Ascension of Our Lord

Thursday, Forty Days After Easter

Forty days after His Resurrection, Our Lord ascends into Heaven in the sight of His Apostles, having given them the Great Commission and bid them farewell. Tradition attests that Our Lord ascended at mid-day, the same hour in which He was raised upon the Cross on Good Friday. In less than two weeks, the Paraclete will descend upon the Apostles, and they shall go forth to fulfill Our Lord’s command to preach the Gospel to all nations. Traditionally the Easter Candle is extinguished after the reading of the Gospel at today’s Mass, demonstrating that the Resurrected Lord has returned to His place at the right hand of the Father, until He shall come again at the Last Judgement. Though a joyful feast indeed, celebrating as it does the return of the Son to the Father, the occasion is yet tinged with sadness at Our Lord’s departure from earth, following the forty days of Paschal happiness. Thus the Feast of the Ascension is preceded by the three Rogation Days, and what are called the Minor Litanies. Those days of penance do not contradict the joy of Easter, but they temper it with the solemn reminder of Our Lord’s departure today, ascending as He does with jubilee and the joyful cry of Alleluia, as the liturgy emphasizes. There is no time for sorrow today; all Christians must go about the Lord’s work, as He commanded.