My Dear Friends,

Today, most Catholics in the United States are celebrating the Ascension. We celebrated the Ascension a few days ago on Ascension Thursday, which is scriptural. Sacred Scripture tells us that Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after the Resurrection.

It has never made sense to me that we move this beautiful holy day to the seventh Sunday instead of honoring the words of Sacred Scripture.

There has been talk about transferring the Ascension to Sunday in our geographical region in the Church. The reason given is that few people attend the Holy Day of Obligation so they miss the important mystery of the Ascension. If it is on Sunday, they will hear about this mystery.

There are so few holy days throughout the year. It is not a hardship to attend Mass during the week besides on Sunday. Sadly, not only the Ascension, but every other Holy Day of Obligation (Mary Mother of God, Assumption, All Saints, Immaculate Conception) is also poorly attended.

I would rather we keep Ascension on Thursday and remove the obligation. Any priest or deacon can always preach on the mystery of the Ascension on a Sunday throughout the year.

But I also believe that we as Catholics must recover the joy of celebrating every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation and attend these days so we can give thanks to God for all He has done for us. It is an act of love on our part to attend and participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Our Catholic faith is demanding, or at least it should be demanding. Nothing is worth having if it is easy. Let us not keep watering down our faith and succumb to society. Let us rather truly live the precepts and commandments of our Catholic Church.

God bless.

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