Forty days after Easter

For the day Christ went ahead of us.

Forty days after Easter, Christ ascended to the Father — not away from His Church but ahead of it. The feast is a holy day of obligation in many countries, and in some is transferred to the following Sunday.

The Prayer

Lord Jesus, You went up,
and the disciples stood there staring at the sky
until two angels asked them what they were doing.

Keep me from staring.
You did not leave the world; You went ahead into it,
and You left us work.

Raise my mind to where You have gone,
and my hands to what You have given me here.

And send the Spirit You promised,
because I cannot do either without Him. Amen.

The Nine Days That Follow

From Ascension to Pentecost the apostles waited nine days in prayer with Our Lady — the first novena. The Church asks that the Novena to the Holy Spirit be prayed in these days, and it is the one novena a pope has asked every parish in the world to keep.

About This Feast

The Ascension is not Christ’s absence but His presence in a new mode: no longer in one place, therefore available in every place. The disciples went back to Jerusalem, Luke says, with great joy — which is not the usual reaction to someone leaving.