Since 1998, ecclesiastical provinces in the U.S. The archdiocese is referred to in ecclesiastical language as a metropolitan see, and the smaller dioceses are called suffragan sees. Leave a comment What’s an ecclesiastical province?Īn ecclesiastical province, sometimes called a metropolitan province, is a group of dioceses affiliated with an archdiocese. While dioceses in England and Wales moved the feast to Sunday in 2007, bishops in 2018 moved it back to Thursday. With a Vatican ok, the Church in Australia moved the feast to Sunday in 1992, and countries in Europe followed suit. It had taken the bishops several tries to approve that plan - it had been brought before the conference a few times during the 1990s, but did not get approval from two-thirds of the voting bishops until the fall USCCB meeting of 1998.Īfter the bishops approved the plan, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship gave it an ok, and several provinces began moving the feast to Sunday.Īnd the USCCB was not the first to get Vatican permission for a transfer. bishops’ conference approved a plan that would allow individual ecclesiastical provinces to transfer the liturgical observance of the Ascension from Thursday to the following Sunday. Share Ok, so the Ascension is 40 days after Easter - that means on Thursday, right? But John Paul II later allowed parishes the option of celebrating Rogation Days, and they are observed in some parts of the U.S. When the Church revised the liturgical calendar in 1969, Rogation Days largely fell out of use in the U.S., as their observance was left to the discretion of episcopal conferences. Rogation Days included processions taking the route of parish boundaries, the blessing of fields, rivers, trees and rocks, the litany of the saints - and the processions were followed by Rogation Masses. The Ascension feast was for more than 1,500 years preceded by a three day period called the “Minor Rogation Days” - days of prayer and fasting, in which Catholics asked God to be merciful to them, to bless their crops and labors, and to protect them from natural disasters.
The church was destroyed by the Persians in the seventh century. The site of Christ’s Ascension was commemorated in the fourth century by the construction of the Church of the Disciples, or the Church of the Olive Grove, which was commissioned by Constantine and built under the supervision of his mother, Helen. The Ascension has been observed liturgically as a Christian feast since at least the fifth century, commemorating the Ascension of the Lord Jesus into heaven.īefore it was celebrated as distinct feast, the Ascension was celebrated in the fourth century in tandem of with Pentecost.Īscension has long been celebrated 40 days after Easter, because the book of Acts recounts that Christ continued to appear to his disciples for 40 days after his resurrection, before taking his disciples to the top of Mount of Olives, and ascending from there into heaven. dioceses have had differing practices for decades - with some regions of the country sticking to Thursday, and others moving the feast to Sunday. for a feast to be a day of precept - requiring Catholics to go to Mass - in some dioceses, but not others.īut when it comes to celebrating the Ascension of the Lord, U.S.
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