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The Conciliar SSPX follows the Conciliar Church for the Feast of the Ascension - Stone - 05-14-2021
The celebration of the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the fortieth day after Easter, always on a Thursday, is one of 'great antiquity,' dating back from Apostolic times:
Quote:Feast of the Ascension
The fortieth day after Easter Sunday, commemorating the Ascension of Christ into heaven, according to Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and Acts 1:2.
In the Eastern Church this feast was known as analepsis, the taking up, and also as the episozomene, the salvation—denoting that by ascending into His glory, Christ completed the work of our redemption. The terms used in the West, ascensio and, occasionally, ascensa, signify that Christ was raised up by His own powers. Tradition designates Mount Olivet near Bethany as the place where Christ left the earth. The feast falls on Thursday. It is one of the Ecumenical feasts ranking with the feasts of the Passion, of Easter and of Pentecost among the most solemn in the calendar, has a vigil and, since the fifteenth century, an octave which is set apart for a novena of preparation for Pentecost, in accordance with the directions of Leo XIII.
History
The observance of this feast is of great antiquity. Although no documentary evidence of it exists prior to the beginning of the fifth century, St. Augustine says that it is of Apostolic origin, and he speaks of it in a way that shows it was the universal observance of the Church long before his time. Frequent mention of it is made in the writings of St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and in the Constitution of the Apostles. The Pilgrimage of Sylvia (Peregrinatio Etheriae) speaks of the vigil of this feast and of the feast itself, as they were kept in the church built over the grotto in Bethlehem in which Christ was born (Duchesne, Christian Worship, 491-515). It may be that prior to the fifth century the fact narrated in the Gospels was commemorated in conjunction with the feast of Easter or Pentecost. ...
St. Pius X codified the eight Holy Days of Obligation for the Universal Church which, included the Feast of the Ascension, in the 1917 Code of Canon Law.
In the U.S. because of the influences of the different Catholic immigrants coming into America from all over Europe, the American bishops met in Baltimore to give uniformity to American Holy Days of Obligation:
Quote:When the Third Plenary Council met in Baltimore [1884], the bishops approved the uniform calendar of six holy days now observed: Mary, Mother of God; Ascension: Assumption of Mary; All Saints; Immaculate Conception; Christmas. The decision of the bishops was approved by the Holy See in 1885.
But as we all know, after Vatican II nothing went unscathed by the 'reforms' and in 1991, the US bishops removed the Feast of the Ascension as a Holy Day of Obligation.
![[Image: Capture.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/gj8Dbht3/Capture.png)
It has been noted quietly for a few years that the now-Conciliar SSPX has followed suit in several of their U.S. chapels and now notes that the Feast of the Ascension is no longer a Holy Day of Obligation. Here is the bulletin for St. Mary's Kansas (for 2021) making it very clear the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a Feast honored since the time of the Apostles, is no longer obligatory in U.S. SSPX chapels [PDF here]:
![[Image: Capture.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/66ZThLm5/Capture.png)
The language from the Conciliar SSPX is now identical to that of the Conciliar Fraternity of St. Peter [see here]:
![[Image: Capture.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/43hnF6x5/Capture.png)
Sadly, this is yet another example of the slide of the now-Conciliar SSPX toward the modernism of the Conciliar Church, the Church of the Second Vatican Council, which we have been witnessing since the formal, never-retracted Doctrinal Declaration of Bishop Fellay on behalf of the SSPX in 2012.
RE: The Conciliar SSPX follows the Conciliar Church for the Feast of the Ascension - Stone - 05-14-2021
Fr. Hewko speaks of this change in the now-Conciliar SSPX in the beginning of this sermon for the Feast of the Ascension, beginning about here:
RE: The Conciliar SSPX follows the Conciliar Church for the Feast of the Ascension - Stone - 05-14-2021
To show the importance of the great Feast of the Ascension, now relegated to nearly an afterthought by the Conciliar Church and now the Conciliar SSPX, the following is taken from Dom Prosper Gueranger's The Liturgical Year by for the Friday after the Ascension as a simple illustration of how vital the commemoration and observance of the Ascension is:
Quote:The Feast of the Ascension shows us the work of God in its completion. Hence it is that the Church, in her daily offering of the holy Sacrifice, thus addresses the Eternal Father: the words occur immediately after the Consecration, and contain the motives of her confidence in the divine mercy:
Quote:“Wherefore, O Lord, we thy servants, as also thy holy people, calling to mind the blessed Passion of Christ thy Son our Lord, his Resurrection from the dead, and his admirable Ascension into heaven, offer unto thy most excellent Majesty a pure, holy, and unspotted Host.”
It is not enough for man to hope in the merits of his Redeemer’s Passion, which cleansed him from his sins; it is not enough for him to add to the commemoration of the Passion that of the Resurrection, whereby our Redeemer conquered death: man is not saved, he is not reinstated, except by uniting these two mysteries with a third—the Ascension of that Jesus who was crucified and rose again. During the forty days of his glorified life on earth, Jesus was still an exile; and like him, we also are exiles until such time as the gate of heaven, which has been closed for four thousand years, shall be thrown open, both for Him and for us.