The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord, which occurred forty days after Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter, is the final moment of our redemption that Christ began on Good Friday.
It is on one hand, the culmination of our redemption and on the other hand it is the foreshadowing of the life to come promised by Christ. As recounted in the Gospels, on this day, the risen Christ, in the sight of His apostles, ascended bodily into Heaven. Not spiritually, but bodily. Tradition designates Mount Olivet near Bethany as the place where Christ left the earth. The feast falls on Thursday. Luckily for us in our area, we still celebrate this feast on its customary day. Many places have transferred the celebration of the Ascension to the following Sunday. But the Ascension is one of the major feasts of the Church ranking with the feasts of the Passion, Easter and Pentecost – among the most solemn in the calendar, which is why it is a Holy Day of Obligation.
The reality of the bodily Ascension of Jesus is so important that the creeds (the basic statements of our faith and belief) of Christianity all affirm that Jesus ascended bodily into heaven. This is because Christ’s bodily Ascension foreshadows our own entrance into Heaven not simply as souls, after our death, but as glorified bodies, after the resurrection of the dead at the Final Judgment. In redeeming mankind, Christ not only offered salvation to our souls but began the restoration of the material world itself to the glory that God intended before Adam’s fall.
The Feast of the Ascension also marks the beginning in the Church of the first “novena”, or nine days of prayer. Before His Ascension, Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit to His apostles. Their prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit, which began on Ascension Thursday, ended with the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, ten days later. Today, Catholics recall that first novena by praying the Novena to the Holy Spirit between Ascension and Pentecost, asking for the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. What a great idea it is for us, that we, too, like the Apostles, make a novena and pray for the Holy Spirit to come to us.
While there are special prayers for each day, below is a prayer meant to be prayed every day of the novena from the Ascension to Pentecost.
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who before ascending into Heaven didst promise to send the Holy Ghost to finish Thy work in the souls of Thine Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom, that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal; the Spirit of Understanding, to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy Divine truth; the Spirit of Counsel, that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven; the Spirit of Fortitude, that I may bear my cross with Thee and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation; the Spirit of Knowledge, that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints; the Spirit of Piety, that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable; the Spirit of Fear, that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, Dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples, and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.
God bless you, Father Joseph Byerley
Source: strosenj.com Author: Fr. Joseph Byerley