{"id":40,"date":"2012-05-17T12:22:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T18:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/05\/ascension-thursday-never-on-sunday\/"},"modified":"2016-05-02T11:33:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:33:05","slug":"ascension-thursday-never-on-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/05\/ascension-thursday-never-on-sunday.html","title":{"rendered":"Ascension Thursday: Never on Sunday!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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It\u2019s Ascension Thursday. Or at least it is if you live in the US ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, or the state of Nebraska. For the rest of us, by vote of our bishops, Ascension Thursday doesn\u2019t arrive until Sunday.<\/p>\n

That fries me. The Feast of the Ascension is one of my favorite holy days, one which I am obliged to keep by nothing more than happiness. So I was mightily disappointed, upon my reversion, to find that my bishops think they\u2019re making things easier for me by transferring the liturgical celebration to the following Sunday. Or Saturday evening, even.<\/p>\n

To which I say, Dudes!<\/i> . . . I mean, Your Excellencies! Does the weighty significance of the number 40, as in \u201c40 days after Easter,\u201d elude you? What are we, the federal government, ignoring actual commemorative anniversaries in favor of three-day weekends? It is bad enough that we\u2019re now allowed to squeeze beef gravy, chicken broth, and bacon dressing in under the wire of Friday abstinence, but reducing the holy days of obligation to a paltry three a year (in Ohio, anyway)? You\u2019ve gone soft. Next thing you know, we\u2019ll be celebrating Christmas the day after Black Friday. Slackers, as my friend The Hermit (whose hermitage is in Maine, in the ecclesiastical province of Boston, where they still know how to count) says.<\/p>\n

My level of liturgical dudgeon (and envy of the Real Ascension Thursday celebrators) is high enough that I can\u2019t \u00a0summon any lofty theological reflections on this beloved feast. For those, I send you to<\/p>\n