Ascension Thursday

Ascension Thursday is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Traditional calendar, not transferred to the nearest Sunday for the convenience of those who find Holy Days of Obligation, apparently through no fault of their own, an onerous burden because of the scheduling tyrannies of modernity. (Why else were these Sunday transferrals made?)

I have never liked the expression "Holy Day of Obligation," though I do appreciate the principle behind it. I know it's not intended to connote burdensomeness. I would much prefer it, however, if we could refer to these days as Holy Days of Privilege; but that might require a paradigm shift in the 21st century.

Ascension Thursday marks the beginning of a beautiful transition from the Easter season to Pentecost. The prototype of all novenas, the Novena to the Holy Spirit, begins on the Friday following Ascension Thursday and concludes on Saturday, the Vigil of Pentecost, commemorating the nine days between the Ascension of Our Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost Sunday.

(I wish I could find a non-bowdlerized form of the novena, where "Thee's" and "Thou's" were not expurgated and replaced by one-dimensional "you's" -- much as magnificent traditional altars were stripped bare and replaced, as it were, by Bauhaus formica folding tables with plastic cups.)

Related:

"Fr. Z’s annual rant about Ascension Thursday Sunday" (WDTPRS, June 1, 2011)