The Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord is celebrated on the 40th day after Easter Sunday, also called Ascension Thursday. It is a Holy Day of Obligation, and among the oldest and most solemn feasts on the liturgical calendar. The Feast of the Ascension commemorates the Ascension of Christ into heaven, according to Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and Acts 1:2. On this feast day, we remember the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ into Heaven to the ‘right hand of the Father’. This feast day is important to Christians as the ascension shows that Jesus not only overcame death but that He will live forever. It falls ten days from the end of the Eastertide period, a period which is joyous in tone as Christians celebrate the “glorious risen Christ”. After Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead, He continued to appear to His disciples for a period of 40 days. After this time, with His Apostles gathered around Him on the Mount of Olives, Jesus was taken up bodily into heaven, as recorded in the Gospels. To comfort them in His physical absence, He promised to send them a Consoler and Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to be with them and to guide them into all truth until the end of the world.
In the Eastern Church this feast was known as analepsis, “the taking up”, and also as the episozomene, the salvation, denoting that by ascending into His glory, Christ completed the work of our redemption. The terms used in the West, ascensio and, occasionally, ascensa, signify that Christ was raised up by His own powers. Tradition designates Mount Olivet near Bethany as the place where Christ left the earth. The feast falls on Thursday. It is one of the Ecumenical feasts ranking with the feasts of the Passion, of Easter and of Pentecost among the most solemn in the calendar. The feast has a vigil and, since the fifteenth century, an octave which is set apart for a novena of preparation for Pentecost, in accordance with the directions of Leo XIII.
Traditionally, the Ascension of Our Lord was held 40 days after Easter, falling on a Thursday. In the United States, the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia have retained the celebration of the Solemnity of the Ascension on the proper Thursday. However in most dioceses in the United States and in many dioceses in the world the observance of the Solemnity of the Ascension is transferred to the following Sunday, this year it’s celebrated on June 1, 2025 superseding the 7th Sunday of Easter.
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