Adventures in the liturgical space-time continuum
As we all know, many dioceses in America celebrate the Feast of the Ascension this coming Sunday, not today. Back in the 1990′s I was living in the Baltimore diocese, which at that time celebrated this feast on the traditional Thursday. However, the week of the Ascension I had a business trip to Seattle, which, unbeknownst to me, had moved the celebration to the following Sunday. So when Thursday rolled around, I went looking for a Mass, figuring there would be many available on a Holy Day of Obligation like Ascension Thursday. However, I eventually realized that in Seattle it was not in fact Ascension Thursday but just Thursday in the 6th week of Easter (and no Mass was available in a time I could go). Then I returned to Baltimore on Friday and that Sunday my parish celebrated the 7th Sunday of Easter. To me, the Ascension never happened that year – I had been sucked into some liturgical black hole which swallowed up Feast Days with abandon. I felt liturgically unbalanced for years.
Now I live in the Archdiocese of Washington D.C., which celebrates the Ascension on Sunday. But last year, a friend and I went to a Divine Liturgy at Holy Transfiguration Melkite Catholic Church on Ascension Thursday, and they celebrated the feast on that day. Then the next Sunday I went to my parish, which celebrated the Ascension on that day. So to me, the Ascension happened twice last year – I had been able to defeat the liturgical black hole and recalibrate my confused liturgical inner sense.
Eric, have you been watching Star Trek?
Actually, I haven’t seen Star Trek in a long while – I dropped the habit about a year into “Enterprise” (boy was that an awful show) – and I haven’t even seen the new movie yet. But years of watching it has ingrained it in my brain.
My experience of celebrating the Ascension does remind me of one of my favorite TNG episodes where they get stuck in a “causality loop” and keep reliving the past few hours.
The sacrament of Pennance changes all things – The sins of our past are gone.
Go see Star Trek
The past is gone
And considering I started watching with original series, read al the books and watched all the series and movies since then – and still liked the movie
It(the new Movie) is as earthshaking as the a good confession of a long-time sinner