I am a canonical member and instituted acolyte of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, and it happens often that I hear the same common confusion about what one’s obligations are regarding the Ascension holy day and whether one needs to participate in Mass on the traditional Thursday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter or on the following Sunday. This article seeks to answer all the confusion for all members of the Latin Rite in the United States with a focus on members of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.

Here are the main points: You must participate in any Mass in any Catholic rite at any point from Wednesday evening (4 pm) through the end of Thursday in the sixth week of Easter AND keep the regular Saturday evening/Sunday requirement if you are a canonical member of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter or of one of the following dioceses. If you are a canonical member of any other diocese (including the Archdiocese for the Military Services), you are only obliged to keep the Sunday precept, and nothing additional is required.

The mentioned dioceses are:

Archdiocese of Boston

Archdiocese of Hartford

Archdiocese of Newark

Archdiocese of New York

Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Archdiocese of Omaha

Diocese of Albany

Diocese of Allentown

Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown

Diocese of Bridgeport

Diocese of Brooklyn

Diocese of Buffalo

Diocese of Burlington

Diocese of Camden

Diocese of Erie

Diocese of Fall River

Diocese of Grand Island

Diocese of Greensburg

Diocese of Harrisburg

Diocese of Lincoln

Diocese of Manchester

Diocese of Metuchen

Diocese of Norwich

Diocese of Ogdensburg

Diocese of Paterson

Diocese of Pittsburgh

Diocese of Portland (Maine)

Diocese of Providence

Diocese of Rochester

Diocese of Rockville Centre

Diocese of Scranton

Diocese of Springfield in Massachusetts

Diocese of Syracuse

Diocese of Trenton

Diocese of Worcester

The above information is the bare minimum to answer any Latin Rite US Catholic’s question about their obligation. However, it is just that. Many Catholics will want to know more than just the bare minimum to satisfy the law. Hopefully, you do too! So read on to hear about why this is such a baffling situation.

An excellent place to start is to go to the authoritative resource mandating holy days of obligation: Canon Law. Turning to the current Code of Canon Law of 1983, Canons 1246 through 1248 state the following:

Can. 1246 §1. Sunday, on which by apostolic tradition the paschal mystery is celebrated, must be observed in the universal Church as the primordial holy day of obligation. The following days must also be observed: the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Ascension, the Body and Blood of Christ, Holy Mary the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, Saint Joseph, Saint Peter and Saint Paul the Apostles, and All Saints. 2. With the prior approval of the Apostolic See, however, the conference of bishops can suppress some of the holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday. Can. 1247 On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in the Mass. Moreover, they are to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body. Can. 1248 §1. A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass. 2. If participation in the eucharistic celebration becomes impossible because of the absence of a sacred minister or for another grave cause, it is strongly recommended that the faithful take part in a liturgy of the word if such a liturgy is celebrated in a parish church or other sacred place according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop or that they devote themselves to prayer for a suitable time alone, as a family, or, as the occasion permits, in groups of families.

The confusion begins with the fact that there are two different days on which the Ascension may fall, which is permitted by Can. 1246 §2. With this authority granted them by Canon Law, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decreed in 1999 that each ecclesiastical province may transfer the Solemnity of the Ascension to the next Sunday provided two-thirds of the province’s bishops vote in favor of it. This decree was approved by St. John Paul II. An ecclesiastical province is a juridical grouping of several dioceses, including one archdiocese, whose archbishop has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over other bishops of the province.

Most provinces in the United States have transferred the feast to Sunday, except a few: Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, Philadelphia, and the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter. For most Latin Rite Catholics in the US, the answer to the obligation is easy: if you are a canonical member in one of the dioceses of these provinces, you attend Mass on Thursday and Sunday; if you are a canonical member in a diocese of any other province, you only need to attend Mass on Sunday.

For most Catholics attending a regular parish in a diocese, there’s no confusion there. You just check your diocesan calendar and attend whenever the Ascension is celebrated. But it does get especially tricky for canonical members of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter or Catholics who attend the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, sometimes known informally as the Traditional Latin Mass or the Tridentine Mass. I will discuss the Personal Ordinariate first.

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter (POCSP) is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction equivalent to a diocese, that allows priests and laity with an Anglican background to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining many elements of their Anglican patrimony. It spans the United States and Canada with about 44 parishes or communities and is part of the Latin Rite. Being its own ecclesiastical province, the bishop gets to make the determination on his own of when Ascension will be celebrated, and he has decided it shall be kept on the traditional Thursday.

The difficult part about this is the unique situation of the POCSP. Most of the parishes or communities exist within the geographical territory of provinces that celebrate the Ascension on Sunday, making the Ordinariate parish one of the only churches in the area offering an Ascension Mass on Thursday. The question is if you are not able to make it to your Ordinariate parish for Ascension Thursday Mass, should you go to Mass elsewhere on the Thursday, where the liturgy is not of the Ascension, or should you skip and go to the Ascension liturgy at a diocesan parish on Sunday?

Go back to Canon Law to answer this. Can. 1248 §1 reads: “A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.” The focus here is “on the feast day itself.” This canon is not concerned with the liturgy of the Ascension being celebrated; it is concerned with attending Mass on the date of the feast day, even mentioning “a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite”. For Ordinariate members, the feast day is in fact, on the Thursday, and so, POCSP members must attend any Mass anytime on Thursday or on Wednesday evening. Note that this also applies to Ordinariate Catholics in Canada because the POCSP is legally a United States province, even though its territory extends to Canada.

A similar case would arise for Catholics who attend the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. But the main difference is, those Catholics follow the diocesan calendar regarding their days of obligation. However, by design of its liturgical calendar, the EF must always observe Ascension on Thursday. You only need to follow what the requirement is for your diocese since you are a diocesan member. While you may attend an Ascension Thursday Mass in the Extraordinary Form, it would not necessarily be because of the holy day. In most dioceses, you need not ever attend a Mass for the Ascension, but you would still be obeying the law.

Of course, all this is simply the bare minimum required of the law. I would certainly recommend making an effort to always attend the liturgy of the Ascension. Understandably, a typical American layperson’s schedule can be busy, and so we do what we can, and so it is helpful for this matter that the letter of the law is known well. The spirit of the law certainly doesn’t replace the letter of the law, but they should work together, and it is my hope that this article is a helpful point of reference.

Sources:

http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/canon-law/complementary-norms/canon-1246.cfm

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P4N.HTM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_dioceses_in_the_United_States

http://www.milarch.org/holy-days-of-obligation/

http://www.ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur242.htm

https://www.thoughtco.com/ascension-a-holy-day-of-obligation-542410

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Ordinariate_of_the_Chair_of_Saint_Peter