Today is Ascension Thursday. We all know what that means. That’s the day Mary goes up to Heaven, right? Or is it the day that Jesus dies on the cross and with his final words says “Rosebud?”
Remember, there are no wrong answers. Jesus told us to never judge anyone or anything.
I’ll admit it. I was the kid who was dragged to Church sometimes on New Year’s Day and had no idea why. As I’ve gotten older, the Church calendar became even murkier. This is a feast day unless it falls on a Monday in Leap Year in the seventh sun of the seventh sun. Then and only then do you have to go to Church on a Monday. God forbid!
As I’ve come to understand more about the Church’s calendar, I’ve come to understand that following it is to follow the great adventure of the soul.
The world’s calendar says you need to be here and there and visit this person and that person. The Church’s calendar reminds us to always be heading in one direction and always toward the same Being. The world’s calendar will send you speeding hourly from one thing to another. The Church’s calendar asks you to slow down to contemplate eternity.
In the Church’s calendar the week doesn’t even begin on the same day. It is different. And that is because we are supposed to be different.
William Wordsworth wrote:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
We do lay waste. We fritter away our time, one of God’s precious gifts to us. Every moment not spent in love is wasted.
Don’t be swept up and off your feet by the current of your age. Resist it. But the only way to resist it is to have something else to stand on. Nothing will support you in this effort like faith. Following the Church calendar is a way of supporting your faith. It strengthens you, allows you to see the world differently.
Ours is not merely a world of appointments, engagements, and arrangements. Ours is the miraculous world of the Ascension, the Assumption, the Immaculate Conception, and the Resurrection. Ours is a world of the daily sacrifice of Mass, feast days, sacraments, and redemption. It is a far more exciting world and it is eternal.
Close your daily planner once in a while. Remind yourself each day what day it really is and remember when you need to be heading.
