Ascension Thursday

Today is Ascension Thursday, the 40th day of Easter. In some European countries, today is celebrated as a public civic holiday, as well as a holy day. In the U.S., sadly, today is for most Catholics a workday like any other. Still, Ascension remains one of the five greatest festivals of the Christian calendar (along with Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost). Prior to the occupation of Rome by the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, the papal blessing urbi et orbi was sometimes given on this day at the Lateran Basilica. In some places, either the Easter Candle or a statue of the Risen Christ would be hoisted up to the church’s ceiling until it disappeared though an opening of the roof, often to be replaced by a shower of roses as a sign of Christ’s parting promise to give the Holy Spirit to the Church. A variant of that tradition still continues at the Pantheon in Rome (the Basilica of Santa Maria ad Martyres) on Pentecost Sunday, when thousands of red rose petals are dropped from a height of 140 feet through the Pantheon's oculus to symbolize the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, the Risen and Ascended Christ's parting gift to his Church.

In his Sermon 1 on the Ascension, Pope Saint Leo the Great said "it was a great and unspeakable cause for rejoicing, when in the sight of a holy multitude, human nature ascended above the dignity of all celestial creatures, to pass above the ranks of the angels, to be raised above the heights of the archangels, and not to have any degree of loftiness set as a limit to its advancement, short of the right hand of the eternal Father, where it would be associated with his royal glory, to whose nature it was united in God."

Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost all go together. The first highlights Christ's actual resurrection; the second his glorification at the Father's right hand; the third his continued presence in his Church through the gift of the Hoy Spirit. That interconnection is expressed in the concluding words of today's gospel: behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

Photo: Watercolor Ceiling Painting of the Ascension, c. 1913, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN.