The liturgical celebration of Ascension by the Latin Church has become a little confused in recent years.
In the post-Conciliar calendar used with the Novus Ordo editions of the Missale Romanum for this coming Sunday we ought - in my opinion – to be observing the 7th Sunday of Easter. Ascension Thursday should fall, appropriately, on Thursday.
However, by the same logical that dislocated Epiphany (“Twelfth Night”) from its proper place twelve days, appropriately, after Christmas, some years ago the Holy See allowed bishops to transfer the celebration of Ascension Thursday to the following Sunday.
I call this liturgical caper “Ascension Thursday Sunday”.
Those who are participating at Holy Mass with the 1962MR avoid all this. Ascension Thursday is, logically, on Thursday.
Since we should, when examining issues, pay attention to cult, code and creed, and since we have looked at the theological point of the liturgical observance of the Ascension (creed and cult) let’s look also at some law (code).
In the 1983 Code of Canon Law, can. 1246, Ascension Thursday is indicated as one of the few Holy Days of Obligation.
Nota bene: There are some dioceses where Ascension Thursday has not been transferred.
...
The bishops who did transfer the feast to Sunday were, I am sure, hoping to expose more people to the mystery of the Ascension of the Lord. Probably included in that calculation was also the notion that it is tooo haaard for people to go to Mass also on Thursday. “Mass twice in a week? Tooo haaard!”
There's more...be sure to read it!
No comments:
Post a Comment