The Daily Telegraph

The point of Ascension Day being a Thursday

- CHRISTOPHE­R HOWSE

Quite an important change to the life of Catholics in England and Wales has just been announced by their bishops. They will go to Mass on the day of the Epiphany (January 6) and Ascension Thursday. The importance is in moulding the identity of believers in doing things on set days, just as they go to church on Sundays and eat fish (or rather don’t eat meat) on Fridays.

This is the more critical when they live in a world that behaves differentl­y. The world always does behave differentl­y, of course, but it was more noticeable when the state grew hostile.

In 1698, a century after harsher persecutio­n, was passed An Act for Further Preventing the Growth of Popery, which provided that “every Person and Persons who shall apprehend and take One or more Popish Bishop Priest or Jesuite and prosecute him or them soe apprehende­d and taken untill he or they be convicted of saying Mass or of exercising any other Part of the Office or Function of a

Popish Bishop or Priest within these

Realmes shall have and receive from the

Sheriffe or Sheriffs of the

County where such Conviction shall be made for every such Offender soe convicted the Summe of One hundred Pounds”.

That was the world into which the crook-backed little poet Alexander Pope was born in 1688, forbidden to go to a Catholic school, forbidden to go to university, forbidden to live within 10 miles of London, forbidden to own a horse.

He was no pattern of virtue, but in theory he was obliged to attend Mass (for all the threat of an informer hanging around to collect £100) on more days than Catholics have to now, including St George’s Day and Lady Day, the feast of the Annunciati­on.

He was also meant to abstain from meat and to fast on ember days and vigils of which few now have any inkling.

In our own times, the English bishops have, I take it, tried to avoid laying burdens on poor folk’s backs that they might be unwilling to bear. So instead of telling them that they should go to Mass on Ascension Thursday, an ordinary working day, the bishops decided in 2006 to move Ascension Day to the nearest Sunday. The same happened to Corpus Christi and the Epiphany.

The trouble was that moving Ascension Day made nonsense of the liturgy, which quotes the scriptural account of Christ’s ascent into heaven (pictured below in a 12th-century Cyprist wall painting) 40 days after the Resurrecti­on on Easter Sunday.

The difficulty was just as acute for the Epiphany, which has for many centuries been associated in the public consciousn­ess with Twelfth Night.

This week’s announceme­nt leaves only Corpus Christi transplant­ed from its proper Thursday to the next Sunday. It is not such an ancient feast, having been introduced in the 13th century. But it was designed to allow a focus on the Eucharist that might have been overtaken on Maundy Thursday by the hurry of events commemorat­ing the suffering and death of Jesus in the days before Easter.

It was that connection with the Last Supper and the institutio­n of the Eucharist that caused Corpus Christi to be celebrated on a Thursday. I can see that (since every Sunday is dedicated to the Eucharist, as a weekly version of Easter) Corpus Christi can shelter under a Sunday celebratio­n, but it loses something.

Calendars and fasts and feasts don’t matter a jot in themselves, but they serve as a ritual enactment of who worshipper­s are, in relation to the life of Christ.

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