Ascension Thurs: Is it a Holy Day of Obligation in your Diocese?

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Gertabelle said:
And I’m not sad about that transference at all. I leave to the Bishops these decisions to make as they see fit for their flocks. God has given them authority over some part of His Church, AND God gives them the grace and wisdom they need to do the work entrusted to them.

My only memory of any Ascension Thursday was when I was in the monastery…
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Thank you for sharing your story. I have to disagree with you about this issue. We are watering down Catholic culture. That is why people are falling away. The bishops mistakenly think that this will gain them people, but the past 50 years of changes are proof that it doesn’t work. A unique and traditional Catholic culture is what our children latch onto as something to love and pass onto their own children. If we become more like the world…banal, watered-down, mediocre…then we become LESS like the Kingdom of Heaven. We should not be embarrassed by the idiosyncracies of our Faith-we should cherish them and hold onto them.
 
Since I have learned that this decision is up to the Archbishop, I have just emailed mine (Cardinal Dolan) to thank him for keeping Ascension Thursday a holy day. Catholics should be more vocal towards our leaders-if they don’t know how we feel, how can they know how to best serve us?
 
I’d like to coin the term “Endangered Holyday.” Ascension Thursday will soon become extinct if we don’t try to hold onto it! And that would be very sad.
 
CF_Mathews said:
Thank you for this. My sources seem to agree with you. In the NY area, I have never heard the term “province,” we use the term “archdiocese.” I did not know this was determined by the archdiocese. I have learned something! You seemed to have wrapped up the issue, at least for the US!
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An archdiocese is just a large diocese. A province is made up of several dioceses.

Think about it like government: You live in a city, which is part of a county, which is part of a state, which is part of a country.

An ecclesiastical province is a step up from the diocesan level. 🙂 For most laypeople we don’t need to worry about much past the parish or diocesan level, which would explain why this is the only reason I even know that provinces exist.
 
CF_Mathews said:
Is Ascension Thursday a holy day of obligation in your diocese? I am in Rockville Centre, Long Island and Bishop William Murphy HAS made it a holy day. ** Please let us know your location, your Bishop’s name and whether it is a holy day or not this year…**

(Do you have any personal stories about Ascension Thursday-is it important to you? My son was born on Ascension Thurs and I will go to Mass whether or not it is a holy day.)
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Edinburgh and St.Andrews, Scotland. It is a HDO.
 
CF_Mathews said:
Is Ascension Thursday a holy day of obligation in your diocese? I am in Rockville Centre, Long Island and Bishop William Murphy HAS made it a holy day. ** Please let us know your location, your Bishop’s name and whether it is a holy day or not this year…**

(Do you have any personal stories about Ascension Thursday-is it important to you? My son was born on Ascension Thurs and I will go to Mass whether or not it is a holy day.)
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No, I’m in Salt Lake and we celebrate it on Sunday. However, I rember in the 50s and early 60s it was always on a Thursday.
 
The Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix, Bishop Gerald Dino.

We had Great Vespers for the Feast of the Ascension tonight and will celebrate the Divine Liturgy for Ascension tomorrow.

(We’re rather averse to transferring feasts in the Byzantine Catholic Church, even when Good Friday falls on Annunciation.)
 
Yes, the precept for Ascension is on Thursday. As far as I know, this is true for the entire country (I am in France). Though we only have four HDOs outside of the Sunday obligation - Ascension, Assumption, All Saints Day and Christmas - none are transferred, and the solemnities themselves are national public holidays so most people do not work those days. Should any of these solemnities fall on Saturday or Monday, there is no abrogation, either.

God bless!
 
I’m in the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee and it’s been transferred to Sunday.
 
No, the Diocese of Denver apparently thinks it too much to ask of the congregation to go to church on a weekday.
 
CF_Mathews said:
I’d like to coin the term “Endangered Holyday.” Ascension Thursday will soon become extinct if we don’t try to hold onto it! And that would be very sad.
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Holy days of obligation are a complicated issue, at least in the United States.

Except for Christmas, religious holidays are not also secular holidays. That means that if there is an obligation to attend Mass it must be added to a day that already has obligations for work, school, and all the normal daily/weekly activities in a family’s life.

Relatively few Catholics actually attend Mass on holy days. Compare the schedule on a Sunday (when there may be five or six Masses available) to the schedule on a holy day (when there may be two or three Masses available). If people were attending on holy days at the same rate they attend on Sundays those two or three Masses would be overflowing. But in my experience, the churches are half empty.

And then you have the holy days that are sometimes days of obligation and sometimes not. Several of them have the obligation abrogated when the holy day falls on a Saturday or Monday except Immaculate Conception and Christmas. And then you have the Ascension which is observed in the northeast and Nebraska, but not in other parts of the country.

There was a time when I thought we should observe holy days more often – move the Ascension back to Thursday and eliminate the Saturday/Monday rule. But I’m beginning to think that all this does is make it harder for people and moves them away from the Church and that’s not the direction we should be going. Perhaps it would be better to make holy days optional days for Mass and also add in opportunities for other observances – what about a Mass for workers on Labor Day, a Mass for wisdom at the beginning of the school year, a Mass for the parish’s patron saint, and other local observances.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
There was a time when I thought we should observe holy days more often – move the Ascension back to Thursday and eliminate the Saturday/Monday rule. But I’m beginning to think that all this does is make it harder for people and moves them away from the Church and that’s not the direction we should be going. Perhaps it would be better to make holy days optional days for Mass and also add in opportunities for other observances – what about a Mass for workers on Labor Day, a Mass for wisdom at the beginning of the school year, a Mass for the parish’s patron saint, and other local observances.
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Our parish actually does some of this, and those Masses are reasonably well attended. 🙂

(But Ascension Thursday is still an HDO here.)
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
Holy days of obligation are a complicated issue, at least in the United States.

Except for Christmas, religious holidays are not also secular holidays. That means that if there is an obligation to attend Mass it must be added to a day that already has obligations for work, school, and all the normal daily/weekly activities in a family’s life.

Relatively few Catholics actually attend Mass on holy days. Compare the schedule on a Sunday (when there may be five or six Masses available) to the schedule on a holy day (when there may be two or three Masses available). If people were attending on holy days at the same rate they attend on Sundays those two or three Masses would be overflowing. But in my experience, the churches are half empty.

And then you have the holy days that are sometimes days of obligation and sometimes not. Several of them have the obligation abrogated when the holy day falls on a Saturday or Monday except Immaculate Conception and Christmas. And then you have the Ascension which is observed in the northeast and Nebraska, but not in other parts of the country.

There was a time when I thought we should observe holy days more often – move the Ascension back to Thursday and eliminate the Saturday/Monday rule. But I’m beginning to think that all this does is make it harder for people and moves them away from the Church and that’s not the direction we should be going. Perhaps it would be better to make holy days optional days for Mass and also add in opportunities for other observances – what about a Mass for workers on Labor Day, a Mass for wisdom at the beginning of the school year, a Mass for the parish’s patron saint, and other local observances.
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My way of thinking on this issue has also evolved quite a bit as well.

My family attended Divine Liturgy last night and it was hard. It was scheduled right around our dinner time, so we had to re-work our entire evening around that. We got home past bedtime for a couple of the little ones and had to deal with cranky, tired children in church. Traffic was heavy, doubling the time it usually takes to get to the church. We don’t live in a village in a Catholic country in Europe, where everything is shut down for the holiday and Masses are scheduled in the day. People have to work. Kids have homework. The world doesn’t stop like it ought to; like it would in a truly Catholic culture or even a nominally Catholic culture that was previously Catholic, like those in Europe.

But I’m not a fan of moving feasts, particularly something like the Ascension, which should be a fixed 40 days from Pascha. I think the feasts are transferred because the bishops realize the difficulties faced by families and others in getting to Church on these days. They realize that many might legitimately not be able to make it and desire that the faithful are able to celebrate the feast with Mass.

I think I’d rather see the feast remain on the proper day, with the obligation removed. If we do a good job of building up Catholic culture within our parishes, people will want to attend Mass, even if there isn’t an obligation attached.

This isn’t my call to make, and I respect the bishops who are tasked with making the call, even if I disagree with their ultimate decisions.
 
CF_Mathews said:
Since I have learned that this decision is up to the Archbishop, I have just emailed mine (Cardinal Dolan) to thank him for keeping Ascension Thursday a holy day. Catholics should be more vocal towards our leaders-if they don’t know how we feel, how can they know how to best serve us?
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As far as letting our church leaders know how we feel so they can best serve us, I have mixed feelings at best.
I’m not sure it was “vocal” but I do believe the people have passed on their feelings toward holy days. Our diocese’ position is that Mass attendance is so poor on holy days, it’s best to just transfer the holy day to Sunday when attendance is better.
Sometimes you get the answer that there is a shortage of priests and they are overworked. Our parish is down to one Mass on Saturday night and one on Sunday, so our Diocese is very proactive and “ahead of the curve” in dealing with this very real concern. I usually flip flop between the Masses and Sunday is usually close to half full but Saturday night attendance is usually rather poor. I could see in the near future the move to only one Mass per weekend.

My personal take on the issue is, I don’t make the rules, I only follow them.

One thing I do wish they would do is start calling it what it is: Ascension Sunday. I’ve done that for years as I find it easier to wrap my head around this change. This is a minor nit, however.
 
Minion_w_a_drum said:
One thing I do wish they would do is start calling it what it is: Ascension Sunday. I’ve done that for years as I find it easier to wrap my head around this change. This is a minor nit, however.
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It’s not called Ascension Thursday or Sunday.

It’s called the Solemnity of the Ascension, regardless of what day it is observed in a diocese.

Sounds you like attend a very small parish. All the parishes I’ve attended in my area are usually full for Sunday masses, with 3-5 masses on Sundays, as well as the vigil mass on Saturday. Thanks be to God!

And I’m with you on the mixed feelings about tell our leaders how we feel about their decisions. I’m more about obedience than telling my bishop whether I agree or disagree with his choices. :eek: I just don’t think I should/could go there.

God bless you!
 
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