Ascension of the Lord

The Ascension is first of all a date. The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, promulgated by Saint Paul VI in 1969, fix it in a single sentence: "The Ascension of the Lord is celebrated on the fortieth day after Easter"^[10]. It falls in the heart of Eastertide, those fifty days that run from the Sunday of the Resurrection to Pentecost and which the same norms ask to be celebrated "in joy and exultation, as though it were a single feast day, or better 'one great Sunday'"^[11]. On this season, see Easter.

The name of the feast

The Roman Missal entitles it In Ascensione Domini, "On the Ascension of the Lord". The oldest Roman liturgical books, the sacramentaries known as Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian, prefer the form Ascensa; Saint Augustine, who commonly says Ascensio, also calls the feast Quadragesima, "the fortieth"^[12]. The Churches of Greek tradition call it Analepsis, "elevation", from the word Saint Luke uses to announce the event (Lk 9:51); the Armenian Church, Hambardzoum^[13]. In France, everyday language simply says "Ascension Thursday".

Forty days after Easter: calculating the date

"Fortieth day" is counted in the ancient manner, including Easter Sunday: Ascension Thursday falls thirty-nine days after Easter, in the sixth week of Eastertide. Since Easter varies between 22 March and 25 April, the Ascension varies between 30 April and 3 June^[14]. The feast therefore follows the whole movable calendar that depends on the date of Easter. The following table gives, for the coming years, the date of Easter, that of Ascension Thursday, that of the Sunday of transfer and that of Pentecost.

|| Year | Easter | Ascension Thursday | Seventh Sunday of Easter (transfer) | Pentecost | || --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | || 2026 | 5 April | 14 May | 17 May | 24 May | || 2027 | 28 March | 6 May | 9 May | 16 May | || 2028 | 16 April | 25 May | 28 May | 4 June | || 2029 | 1 April | 10 May | 13 May | 20 May | || 2030 | 21 April | 30 May | 2 June | 9 June | || 2031 | 13 April | 22 May | 25 May | 1 June |

The extreme dates are rare: the Ascension will fall on 3 June in 2038, and not before 2285 on 30 April^[15].

Thursday or Sunday? The transfer to the seventh Sunday of Easter

The Code of Canon Law ranks the Ascension among the ten feast days which the Latin Church must observe "as holy days of obligation", besides Sundays: the Nativity, Epiphany, the Ascension, the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Mary Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, Saint Joseph, Saints Peter and Paul and All Saints^[16]. On those days, the faithful are bound to take part in Mass and to abstain from work that hinders the worship due to God; the anticipated Mass of the previous evening satisfies the obligation^[17].

The same canon allows a conference of bishops, "with the prior approval of the Holy See", to suppress certain holy days of obligation "or transfer them to a Sunday"^[18]. For the Ascension, the General Norms fix the rule: where it is not of obligation, it is assigned to the seventh Sunday of Easter, "as its proper day"^[19]. The lectionary then provides weekday readings for the Thursday of the sixth week^[20], and the Missal an alternative formulary for that day^[21].

The two usages coexist even in Rome. On Sunday 4 May 2008, Benedict XVI thus opened the Regina Caeli: "Today, in various countries, including Italy, we celebrate the solemnity of the Ascension of Christ into heaven, a mystery of faith which the book of the Acts of the Apostles places forty days after the resurrection (cf. Acts 1:3-11), and that is why, at the Vatican and in certain nations of the world, it was already celebrated last Thursday"^[22].

The episcopates have made different choices. In Italy, a law of March 1977 removed the Ascension from civil public holidays, and the feast immediately moved to Sunday: "the feast of the Ascension, fixed on the Thursday just past, is transferred to this Sunday", Saint Paul VI announced at the Regina Caeli of 22 May 1977^[23]. The Holy See had confirmed the same measure for Spain in March of the same year^[24]. In the United States, in 2026, only the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha and Philadelphia still celebrated the Ascension on Thursday; all the others had transferred it to Sunday^[25]. Conversely, England and Wales, which had transferred it to Sunday in 2006, restored it to Thursday in 2017: the Congregation for Divine Worship then granted that it be celebrated "on its proper day, namely forty days after Easter"^[26].

A holy day of obligation, and a public holiday in France

In France, the Ascension is celebrated on the Thursday itself, as shown by the French liturgical calendar published by the AELF^[27]: it therefore keeps its character as a holy day of obligation, with Christmas, the Assumption and All Saints^[28]. This list goes back to the Concordat. Pius VII, through his legate Cardinal Caprara, reduced in 1802 the number of holy days kept in France, because the country needed, "after so many events and so many wars", to repair its losses and the prohibition of work made this recovery difficult; the indult of 9 April 1802 kept, besides Sundays, only "the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Ascension, the Assumption of the most holy Virgin, the feast of All Saints"^[29].

The Ascension is also a public holiday. The Catholic Church in France recalls that the Ascension, the Assumption, All Saints and Christmas "are public holidays pursuant to the decree of 29 Germinal Year X (19 April 1802) stemming from the Concordat and Article 42 of the law of 9 December 1905 on the separation of Church and State"^[30]. The Labour Code counts the Ascension among the statutory public holidays^[31]. Ascension Thursday is likewise a public holiday by law in Germany, in all sixteen Länder, in Austria, in Belgium, in the twenty-six Swiss cantons, in the Netherlands, in Sweden and in Norway^[32].

On holy days of obligation in general, see holy days of obligation.

The rank of the Ascension in the calendar

The 1969 Norms classify every day of the year in a "table of liturgical days according to the order of precedence". The Ascension does not figure there among the mere solemnities of the Lord: it occupies, with the Nativity, Epiphany and Pentecost, the second rank of the table, just after the Easter Triduum, at the same level as the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Eastertide, Ash Wednesday, the weekdays of Holy Week from Monday to Thursday and the days of the Easter octave^[33]. No feast of a saint can therefore displace it.

Like every solemnity, its celebration begins on the previous evening, at First Vespers; certain solemnities also have a proper Mass of the vigil, and the Ascension is one of them^[34]. Its liturgical colour is white, the colour of Eastertide and of feasts of the Lord that do not concern his Passion^[35]. "The weekdays after the Ascension until the Saturday before Pentecost inclusive are a preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit the Paraclete"^[36].

Saint Luke recounts the Ascension twice: at the end of his Gospel (Lk 24, 50-53) and at the threshold of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1, 1-11), which the Council of Trent, in drawing up the list of the sacred books, describes as "written by the evangelist Luke"^[37]. The same event thus closes the narrative of the life of Jesus and opens that of the Church. Saint Mark sums it up in a single sentence (Mk 16, 19), Saint John has Christ himself announce it (Jn 3, 13; 6, 62; 20, 17), and the letters of the Apostles presuppose it everywhere^[38].

The liturgy of the feast draws on these three layers of the New Testament: each year the account from Acts, then one of the three Gospels according to the lectionary cycle, then a psalm and an apostolic letter that give its meaning^[39]. What follows presents the texts that the feast proclaims; the exegetical study of the narrative belongs to the article on the Ascension of Jesus.

The account in Acts: forty days, a cloud, two men in white

Acts opens with a summary of the days following Easter: Jesus "presented himself alive after his Passion; he gave them many proofs, since, for forty days, he appeared to them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God" (Acts 1, 3). In the course of a meal, he orders the Apostles not to leave Jerusalem and to wait there for "the promise of the Father": "you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit before many days have passed" (Acts 1, 4-5). To those who question him about the restoration of the kingdom for Israel, he refuses to give a timetable — "It is not for you to know the times and moments that the Father has fixed by his own authority" (Acts 1, 7) — and entrusts them with a mission on a worldwide scale: "you will then be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1, 8)^[40].

"After these words, while the Apostles were watching him, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. And as they were still gazing at the sky where Jesus was going, behold, standing before them were two men in white garments, who said to them: 'Galileans, why do you stand there looking towards heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up to heaven from among you will come in the same way as you saw him go towards heaven.'" — Acts of the Apostles 1, 9-11^[41]

Every detail of the account points back to the Old Testament. The cloud is the sign of the presence of God who guided Israel in the desert (Ex 13, 22) and who enveloped the disciples at the Transfiguration (Lk 9, 34-35); the Catechism reads in it "the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolised by the cloud"^[42]. The two men in white garments recall those who, on Easter morning, stood before the women "in dazzling apparel" (Lk 24, 4). The forty days take up the number of the forty days of Moses on the mountain (Ex 24, 18), of Elijah's journey to Horeb (1 Kgs 19, 8) and of the fasting of Jesus in the desert (Mt 4, 2): a complete time of preparation, which the Church also finds in Lent^[43].

The account closes on a place and a community. The Apostles return to Jerusalem "from the place called the Mount of Olives, which is near it", go up to the upper room, and "all, with one heart, were assiduous in prayer, with women, with Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers" (Acts 1, 12-14). The feast of the Ascension thus opens the days of prayer that lead to Pentecost^[44].

The Gospel according to Saint Luke: the blessing at Bethany

In the Gospel, the last meeting begins with a lesson in the Scriptures: the Risen One "opened their minds to the understanding of the Scriptures" and sums up their content — the Christ had to suffer, rise on the third day, and "conversion would be proclaimed in his name, for the forgiveness of sins, to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Lk 24, 45-47). He announces to them the gift of the Spirit under the image of a garment: "remain in the city until you are clothed with a power from on high" (Lk 24, 49)^[45].

"Then Jesus led them out, as far as Bethany; and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. Now, while he was blessing them, he parted from them and was carried up to heaven. They bowed down before him, then returned to Jerusalem in great joy. And they were continually in the Temple blessing God." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 24, 50-53^[46]

Three features of this ending nourish the feast. The gesture of hands raised in blessing is that of the high priest who, on coming out of the sanctuary, "lifted up his hands over the whole assembly of the sons of Israel to give himself the blessing of the Lord" (Sir 50, 20): Jesus leaves his own as a priest, and his blessing does not close again. The disciples bow down, a gesture of adoration reserved for God. Finally they set off again "in great joy", even though their Master has just vanished from their eyes, and the Gospel, begun in the Temple with the service of Zechariah (Lk 1, 9), ends in the Temple with the praise of the disciples (Lk 24, 53)^[47].

Luke had announced this outcome from the middle of his Gospel: "As the time was fulfilled when he was to be taken up to heaven, Jesus, his face set, took the road to Jerusalem" (Lk 9, 51). The Greek word translated as "being taken up to heaven", analèmpsis, appears in this single verse alone in the New Testament^[48]; it is the same word, Analepsis, that designates the feast in the Churches of Greek tradition.

Saint Mark: "seated at the right hand of God"

The ending of the Gospel according to Saint Mark condenses the event into a sentence that would become an article of the Creed:

"The Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up to heaven and sat at the right hand of God. As for them, they went out to proclaim the Gospel everywhere. The Lord worked with them and confirmed the Word by the signs that accompanied it." — Gospel according to Saint Mark 16, 19-20^[49]

The Catechism opens its exposition of the Ascension precisely with this verse^[50]. This ending (Mk 16, 9-20) belongs to the text that the Church receives as canonical: the Council of Trent defined that the sacred books must be received "in their entirety, with all their parts, as they are customarily read in the Catholic Church"^[51], and the liturgy proclaims it in year B^[52]. It unites two movements that the feast never separates: the Lord ascends and sits down, the disciples set out and proclaim — and the Lord "worked with them".

Saint Matthew does not recount the Ascension. His Gospel ends on a mountain in Galilee, where the Risen One declares: "All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go! Make disciples of all nations [...]. And I am with you always until the end of the world" (Mt 28, 18-20). The liturgy reads it in year A: the visible departure of Christ is not his absence^[53].

What Saint John and the letters of the Apostles say

In the Gospel according to Saint John, the Ascension is announced by Jesus as the return of the one who had come: "no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man" (Jn 3, 13); "And when you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before!..." (Jn 6, 62); "I came from the Father and have come into the world; now I leave the world and go to the Father" (Jn 16, 28). On Easter morning, he says to Mary Magdalene: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (Jn 20, 17). And he presents his departure as a good thing: "it is better for you that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (Jn 16, 7)^[54].

The apostolic letters draw the theology from it. The hymn quoted in the first letter to Timothy sums up the mystery of Christ in six verbs, the last of which is "taken up in glory" (1 Tim 3, 16). The letter to the Hebrews sees in Jesus "the great high priest par excellence, the one who passed through the heavens" (Heb 4, 14), who "entered heaven itself, in order to stand now for us before the face of God" (Heb 9, 24), "always living to intercede on their behalf" (Heb 7, 25). Saint Peter says of him that he is "at the right hand of God, after he went to heaven", above the angels and the powers (1 Pet 3, 22). Saint Paul deduces from it a way of living: "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the realities above: that is where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God" (Col 3, 1)^[55].

"That is why Scripture says: He ascended on high, he captured captives, he gave gifts to men. What does it mean: He ascended? — It means that he had first descended into the lower regions of the earth. And the one who descended is the same one who ascended above all the heavens to fill the universe." — Saint Paul, Letter to the Ephesians 4, 8-10^[56]

The psalms of the Ascension

Four psalms give the feast its words. Psalm 46 (47) is the psalm of the Mass, with its refrain: "God ascends amid acclamations, the Lord, to the sound of the horn" (Ps 46, 6)^[57]. Psalm 109 (110), "Sit at my right hand" (Ps 109, 1), is the one that Saint Peter applies to the glorified Christ from the day of Pentecost onwards: "David, indeed, did not ascend to heaven, although he himself says: The Lord said to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand'" (Acts 2, 34). Psalm 67 (68), "You ascended on high, capturing captives" (Ps 67, 19), is the one quoted by the letter to the Ephesians^[58].

Psalm 23 (24) furnished the Fathers with the most dramatic image of the feast: "Gates, lift up your lintels, rise up, everlasting doors: let the king of glory enter! Who is this king of glory?" (Ps 23, 7-8)^[59]. From the middle of the 2nd century, Saint Justin sees in it the entry of the risen Christ into heaven, and the heavenly powers questioning the one they do not recognise under the features of a crucified man:

"This psalm can only be understood of our Christ, who went back up to the heavens after his resurrection. Then God commanded the princes of the heavenly host, arrayed in order, to open the gates of heaven, so that the King of glory might enter [...]. But the powers of heaven, not recognising him in the poor, humble, abject state in which they see him, ask and cry out: 'Who then is this King of glory?'" — Saint Justin, Dialogue avec Tryphon, XXXVI, 5-6^[60]

The Ascension has been confessed from the beginning: the hymn in the First Letter to Timothy already sings of Christ "taken up in glory" (1 Tim 3:16), Saint Justin reads it in the Psalms in the second century^[61], and the Apostles' Creed makes it an article of faith. What changed over the first four centuries was not faith in the event, but the day on which the Church celebrates it. For a long time, the Ascension was celebrated within the fifty days following Easter, and often on the fiftieth day itself, together with the gift of the Spirit; only at the end of the fourth century did a proper feast appear, fixed on the fortieth day, in accordance with the account in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:3)^[62].

The early centuries: a memory at the heart of the fifty days

Around the year 200, at Carthage, Tertullian advises baptising at Easter or during Pentecost, a word which then designated the whole fifty-day period. He describes it as a time in which all the mysteries following the Resurrection press together, the Ascension included:

"Then Pentecost is, for the ordering of baptisms, a most joyful span of time, during which the resurrection of the Lord was often manifested among the disciples, the grace of the Holy Spirit was inaugurated and the hope of the coming of the Lord left in glimpse, because it was then, when he had been taken back up to heaven, that the angels told the apostles that he would come in the same way as he had gone up to heaven." — Tertullian, On Baptism, 19, 2^[63]

More than a century later, Eusebius of Caesarea explains that the fifty days "seal", by their last day, "the most solemn day of the Ascension of Christ"^[64]. Recounting the death of the Emperor Constantine, which occurred on the last day of the Pentecost of 337, that is on 22 May^[65], he specifies that this seven-week feast is "sealed" by the single day on which, according to the Scriptures, took place "the taking up to heaven of the common Saviour and the descent of the Holy Spirit among men"^[66]. A Syriac collection of canons attributed to the Apostles, the Doctrine of the Apostles, likewise prescribes: "At the completion of the fifty days after his resurrection, keep the memory of his ascension to his glorious Father"^[67].

At Jerusalem, around 350, Bishop Cyril reminds his catechumens that he commented on the Ascension the day before, a Sunday in Lent, because the order of the readings brought up its account; he mentions no proper feast. Yet he already names the place: "The Mount of Olives still stands today, where the cloud received him, when he went up to Heaven in the sight of the faithful"^[68].

In Spain, at the beginning of the fourth century, canon 43 of the Council of Elvira corrects a "bad custom" touching Pentecost. A few ancient manuscripts specify that one must celebrate "the fiftieth, not the fortieth" day; it is often read as the condemnation of a community that closed the Easter season on the fortieth day, that of the Ascension. The exact meaning of the canon remains debated^[69].

Jerusalem around 383: Bethlehem on the fortieth day, the Imbomon on the fiftieth

The pilgrim Egeria, whose journey to the East lasted from 381 to 384, describes the liturgical year of Jerusalem with precision^[70]. On the fortieth day after Easter, a Thursday, the whole Church leaves the evening before for Bethlehem, where the vigils are celebrated "in the church of Bethlehem, in which is found the cave where the Lord was born", then the Mass of the day, with preachings "suited to the day and the place"^[71]. Egeria does not name the Ascension on this occasion.

It is on the fiftieth day, the Sunday of Pentecost, that she mentions it. In the morning, the descent of the Spirit is celebrated on Mount Sion; in the afternoon, all the people go up to the Mount of Olives:

"First they go to the Imbomon, that is, to the place from which the Lord went up to heaven. [...] There is also read the passage of the Gospel which speaks of the ascension of the Lord, and the passage of the Acts of the Apostles which speaks of the ascension of the Lord to heaven after the resurrection is read again." — Egeria, Travel Journal, XLIII, 5^[72]

At Jerusalem, the Ascension and Pentecost were thus still celebrated on the same day, each with its own readings^[73]. For the station at Bethlehem on the fortieth day, Fr Paul Devos proposed an explanation: in 383, that fortieth day fell on 18 May, the date on which a manuscript of the Armenian lectionary of Jerusalem places the commemoration of the Holy Innocents at Bethlehem. Egeria would thus have attended the feast of the Innocents rather than a feast of the Ascension, whose content remained attached to Pentecost^[74].

The feast of the fortieth day spreads

In those same years, the Apostolic Constitutions, a vast collection of discipline compiled in Syria around 380, give the rule that would prevail everywhere:

"And again, counting forty days from the first Sunday, from the Sunday to the fifth day, celebrate the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, on which, having accomplished the whole economy and the whole ordinance, he went back up to God the Father who had sent him, sitting at the right hand of the power and waiting until his enemies should be placed under his feet." — Apostolic Constitutions, V, 20, 2^[75]

The same collection fixes Pentecost "ten days after the Ascension" and ranks the Ascension among the days on which slaves must be exempted from work, "because of the completion of the economy according to Christ"^[76]. The oldest homilies for the feast date from those years. Saint Gregory of Nyssa preaches in Cappadocia a sermon "for the day of the Ascension of Christ"; Cardinal Jean Daniélou dated it to 18 May 388 and saw in it the first certain witness of an Ascension distinct from Pentecost^[77]. At Antioch, between 386 and 397, Saint John Chrysostom preaches for this "bright and glorious day", which the assembly celebrates this time "outside our walls"^[78]:

"What then is the feast we are celebrating? It is great and august, my dearest brethren [...]. Today God has been reconciled with the human race; today an ancient enmity and a long war have been ended; today has been sealed for us that admirable peace which we would never have hoped for." — Saint John Chrysostom, Homily for the Day of the Ascension, 2^[79]

Around 400, Saint Augustine can write that the feast is observed by the whole Church. Answering a correspondent about customs that do not come from Scripture, he distinguishes those that are universal:

"As for unwritten things, which we keep by tradition, and which are practised throughout the whole earth, it must be understood that they have been commended and prescribed to us either by the apostles themselves, or by the general councils whose authority is so profitable to the Church: such is the solemn annual celebration of the passion of the Lord, of his resurrection, of his ascension, of the descent of the Holy Spirit." — Saint Augustine, Letter 54 to Januarius, 1, 1^[80]

At Constantinople, the historian Socrates, recounting the election of Bishop Sisinnius in 426, notes that in the suburb of Elaia, across the harbour, the whole population gathered each year, according to an ancient custom, to celebrate the Ascension of the Saviour^[81]. At Rome, in the middle of the fifth century, Saint Leo the Great opens his first sermon for the feast by announcing that "there ends today [...] the number of the forty holy days"^[82]. In less than a century, the fortieth day established itself from Syria to Africa and from Constantinople to Rome. The author of the "Ascension" article in the Dictionary of Christian Archaeology and Liturgy, Dom Fernand Cabrol, noted that "the fortieth day was too natural a date for one to be able to affirm that everywhere people waited so long to separate the Ascension from Pentecost"^[83].

The Mount of Olives, the place of the feast

The two accounts of Saint Luke agree on the place. The Gospel leads the disciples "as far as Bethany" (Lk 24:50), a village situated "near the place called the Mount of Olives" (Lk 19:29), and the Acts bring them back to Jerusalem "from the place called the Mount of Olives" which is near it (Acts 1:12)^[84].

The feast first had a place. Around 333, the anonymous pilgrim of Bordeaux notes on the Mount of Olives only the basilica built by order of Constantine, on the spot where the Lord taught his apostles before his Passion^[85]. Eusebius of Caesarea attributes its construction to the Empress Helena, who raised on the top of the mountain an edifice "in memory of his ascension to heaven", above a cave where, according to tradition, the Saviour had instructed his disciples^[86]. It is the church that Egeria calls the Eleona, "in which is the cave where the Lord, seated, taught the apostles"^[87].

The precise place of the Ascension, a little higher up, on the highest point of the hill, is called the Imbomon, no doubt from the Greek for "on the height". In 383, Egeria mentions no church there; between that date and 392, a wealthy Roman woman, Poimenia, has the church of the Ascension built there^[88]. Latin writers around the year 400 report that the ground on which the feet of the Lord had rested for the last time had been left uncovered there. Sulpicius Severus writes that this place "could not be joined by a pavement to the rest of the ground" and that the footprints remained visible there, although pilgrims carry away its dust each day^[89]; Saint Paulinus of Nola specifies that, in the whole basilica, this spot alone remained covered with grass, so that one could say with the psalm: "we worshipped where his feet stood"^[90].

At the end of the seventh century, the Irish abbot Adomnán of Iona describes, from the account of the pilgrim Arculf, a large round church whose centre remained open to the sky, "so that, from the place where the divine footprints had rested for the last time when the Lord was taken up to heaven in the cloud, the way remains always open and directed towards heaven for the eyes of those who pray there". Each year, on the night of the feast of the Ascension, countless lights were added there to the eight ordinary lamps, so that the Mount of Olives seemed entirely "not only illuminated, but on fire"^[91].

The sanctuary rebuilt by the Crusaders was abandoned by the Latins after the taking of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187; a deed of 1188 made it an Islamic inalienable endowment (waqf)^[92]. The octagonal edicule of Crusader date, crowned with a dome, shelters a stone in which tradition recognises the imprint of the right foot of Jesus. Christians return there each year for the feast: already in 1461, a pilgrim notes there the gathering of Latins, Greeks and Armenians on Ascension Day^[93]. Still today, it is the only day of the year on which Mass may be celebrated there. On the evening before, the vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land presides over first vespers; the Franciscan friars walk three times round the edicule singing the litany of the saints; Masses follow one another all night long, in several languages, in and around the chapel, until the solemn Mass celebrated at dawn in the open air. The Eastern Churches in turn celebrate the Ascension there on the date of their own calendar, according to the rules of the status quo^[94].

To enter into what the Church celebrates on this day, two words from the Catechism suffice: the Ascension is an event "at once historical and transcendent"^[95]. Historical, because it took place at a precise moment, in a precise place, before witnesses who recounted it. Transcendent, because it brings the humanity of Jesus — his risen body, his wounds, his human nature — into a realm the eyes cannot follow: that of God. Jesus truly rose before the eyes of the Apostles; but the cloud that hides him from their gaze is not the vehicle of a journey through space: it marks the threshold of divine glory. Saint Thomas Aquinas already said it: the cloud "did not provide Christ, at his ascension, with aid like that of a vehicle. It appeared as a sign of the divinity"^[96].

"He ascended into heaven": an article of the Creed

The Apostles' Creed confesses that Christ "ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead"; the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, sung at Sunday Mass, says: "He ascended into heaven; He is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and His kingdom will have no end"^[97]. The feast thus unfolds, in a single day, three articles of the faith: the elevation, the session at the right hand of the Father, the expectation of the return.

The Catechism places the event at the end of the forty days. During this time, the Risen One eats and drinks with his disciples, but "his glory remains veiled beneath the features of an ordinary humanity"; the final apparition "ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory"^[98]. This is the meaning of the word to Mary Magdalene, "I have not yet ascended to the Father" (Jn 20:17): it points, says the Catechism, to "a difference of manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of Christ exalted at the right hand of the Father"^[99].

Saint Thomas Aquinas devotes an entire question of the Summa Theologiae to the Ascension, in six articles: was it fitting for Christ to ascend into heaven? according to which nature? by his own power? above all the heavens? above all spiritual creatures? what are its effects?^[100] His first answer is common sense: a body entered into incorruptible life calls for a dwelling that corresponds to it.

"The [place] must be proportionate to what resides in it. Christ, by his resurrection, began an immortal and incorruptible life. Now, the place where we dwell is one of generation and corruption, but heaven is one of incorruption." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 57, a. 1^[101]

Seated at the right hand of the Father: the reign of Christ begins

"To sit at the right hand" does not designate a place in space. The Catechism takes up Saint John Damascene's definition: "By the right hand of the Father we mean the glory and honor of the divinity, where he who existed as Son of God before all ages as God and consubstantial with the Father, sat down bodily after he became incarnate and his flesh was glorified"^[102]. The expression comes from Psalm 109 (110), "Sit at my right hand," which Saint Peter applies to Christ from Pentecost onward (Acts 2:34-35).

This session is an enthronement. It "signifies the inauguration of the reign of the Messiah, the fulfillment of the prophet Daniel's vision of the Son of Man" (Dan 7:14), and, from that moment on, "the apostles became witnesses of the 'Reign that will have no end'"^[103]. Saint Thomas distinguishes two senses of the word "to sit": the rest of him who "remains eternally incorruptible in the beatitude of the Father," and the power of him who "reigns with him and holds from him his judicial power, as one who sits at the king's right hand assists him in reigning and judging with him"^[104]. The reign inaugurated at the Ascension is the one the Church celebrates at the end of the liturgical year, on the solemnity of Christ the King.

Saint Gregory the Great, quoted by Saint Thomas, paused over an apparent contradiction: Saint Mark sees Christ "seated," while the deacon Stephen, at the moment of his death, sees him "standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56).

"To sit is the attitude of the judge; to stand, that of combat or of help. Stephen, still in the midst of combat, saw standing the one who came to his aid." — Saint Gregory the Great, quoted by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 58, a. 1, ad 3^[105]

The high priest entered into the sanctuary of heaven

The Letter to the Hebrews reads the Ascension through the gestures of Israel's worship. Once a year, the high priest passed beyond the veil of the Holy of Holies; Christ, for his part, "did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a figure of the true sanctuary; he entered heaven itself, to appear now before the face of God on our behalf" (Heb 9:24), and he is "always living to intercede" for those who draw near to God through him (Heb 7:25). The Catechism concludes: "In heaven Christ permanently exercises his priesthood"; he is "the center and principal actor of the liturgy that honors the Father in heaven"^[106].

The same paragraph links the Cross and the Ascension through the word of Jesus: "I, once lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (Jn 12:32). "Elevation on the Cross signifies and announces the elevation of the Ascension into heaven. It is its beginning."^[107] For Saint Thomas, Christ's very presence before the Father is a prayer: "His very presence, through the human nature he brought into heaven, is indeed an intercession for us. God, who so exalted the human nature of Christ, will also have pity on those for whom the Son of God assumed human nature"^[108]. The Catechism sums up: Christ "unceasingly intercedes for us as the mediator who permanently assures us the outpouring of the Holy Spirit"^[109].

"It is better for you that I go away": an absence that makes us grow

The Ascension takes from the disciples their Master's visible presence. Jesus had announced it as a gain: "it is better for you that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you" (Jn 16:7). Saint Thomas explains why this departure "was more useful to us than that presence itself would have been": it makes faith grow, "whose object is what is not seen"; it raises hope, for "Christ, by taking into heaven the human nature he had assumed, gave us the hope of reaching it"; it turns charity toward heaven, and prepares the gift of the Spirit, "the love that ravishes us toward heavenly realities"^[110]. The same article recalls Matthew's promise: Christ, present "by his divinity," remains with his own "until the end of the age" (Mt 28:20).

Saint Leo the Great, pope from 440 to 461, gave this idea its densest formula, taken up by the Catechism: "what was visible in our Savior has passed into his mysteries"^[111]. The sacraments prolong, in the Church, the gestures Christ performed with his own hands. Faith, he says, emerges greater from it:

"It was then, my beloved, that this Son of Man was known, in a higher and holier way, as the Son of God. When he returned into the glory of his Father, he began in a mysterious manner to be more present by his divinity, even as he was more distant in his humanity." — Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 74 (second sermon on the Ascension), 4^[112]

"The Ascension of Christ is our own elevation"

The feast looks not only to Christ: it looks to man. Saint Leo says it in his first sermon on the Ascension, in a sentence the Roman liturgy took up in the opening prayer of the Mass of the day:

"Since the ascension of Christ is our own elevation, and where the glory of the Head has gone before, the hope of the body is in turn called, let us exult, my beloved, with a worthy joy, and rejoice in pious thanksgiving. For today, not only have we been confirmed in the possession of paradise, but we have even penetrated, in Christ, into the heights of heaven." — Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 73 (first sermon on the Ascension), 4^[113]

The Latin word translated as "elevation," provectio, denotes a promotion: human nature, in Christ, is raised higher than the angels. Tertullian already said it to those who denied the resurrection of the flesh: Christ "received from us the pledge of the flesh, and carried into heaven the guarantee of the whole deposit"; "Flesh and blood, take courage then; you have conquered both heaven and the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ"^[114]. The preface of the Ascension, quoted by the Catechism, puts it in terms of the body: Christ alone opened to man access to the Father's house, "so that we, his members, may have the hope of joining him where he, our Head and our Principle, has gone before us"^[115]. Saint Thomas clarifies the logic: the Passion opened heaven by removing sin, but "the ascension of Christ is the direct cause of ours, because it began it in our head, to whom his members must be united"^[116]. Pope Francis put it with a mountaineer's image: Christ "is like a roped party leader when climbing a mountain, who has reached the summit and guides us to him by leading us to God"^[117].

Saint Augustine draws from it a rule of life, which the Church has read at the Office of Readings on Ascension Day:

"Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascends into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. [...] He did not leave heaven when he came down from it to come to us; and he did not leave us when he ascended to return to heaven. [...] He came down from heaven out of mercy, and he alone ascended there, but by grace we too have ascended in his person." — Saint Augustine, Sermon for the Ascension, Office of Readings for the Ascension^[118]

It faithfully echoes Saint Paul's instruction: "seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God" (Col 3:1), and his certainty: God "made us sit together in heaven, in Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:6).

"He will return in the same way"

The last word of the Acts narrative is a promise: "This Jesus who was taken up into heaven from among you, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). The Ascension thus opens a time of waiting with a direction: Christ has entered the realm of God "from which he will return," but which "meanwhile hides him from the eyes of men"^[119]. Saint Leo indicates its end: Christ remains at the right hand of the Father "until the divinely appointed times for multiplying the sons of the Church are fulfilled," and he will come to judge the living and the dead "in the very flesh with which he ascended"^[120]. Jesus' refusal to disclose "the times and seasons" (Acts 1:7) forbids all calculation: the Ascension gives not a date but a direction. On this expectation, see the glorious return of Christ.

Ascending by his own power: Ascension, Assumption, and the takings up of Enoch and Elijah

Scripture knows of other elevations. Enoch "vanished, for God had taken him" (Gen 5:24); Elijah "went up to heaven in a whirlwind," parted from Elisha by a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11). The Catholic faith also confesses that the Virgin Mary, at the end of her earthly life, "was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory"^[121]. The vocabulary of the feast underlines the difference: Christ ascends, Mary is assumed. Saint Thomas quotes Saint Gregory the Great:

"It is said of Elijah that he ascended into heaven in a chariot; this is to show clearly that one who is but a man needed outside help. As for our Redeemer, he rose neither in a chariot nor with the help of angels: he who made all things was borne above all things by his own power." — Saint Gregory the Great, quoted by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 57, a. 3^[122]

The following table compares these elevations, based on the texts quoted in this article and the doctrine of the Church.

For the Marian dogma, see the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and Why believe in the Assumption?.

"Of all the great feasts of the liturgical year, none is perhaps as far removed from the modern mind as the feast of the Ascension of Christ," wrote the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, in 1967^[123]. The feast does indeed face three frequent objections. The first comes from modern cosmology, the second from comparing Saint Luke's two accounts, the third from simple common sense: why rejoice at a departure? The Church's answers take nothing away from the account; they clarify its scope.

Is heaven above the clouds?

The objection is well known. Since we have known that the Earth turns in a universe with neither up nor down, the account of a man rising until he disappears into a cloud would seem to assume a storeyed world, with a heaven set above the clouds. The Ascension would then be only an image, bound to an outdated picture of the world. The Protestant exegete Rudolf Bultmann gave it its sharpest form in 1941: "What sense does it make to confess today 'descended into hell' or 'ascended into heaven', if the one who confesses does not share the three-storey picture of the world underlying these formulas?"^[124]

The Church has never taught that the heaven where Christ sits is a region of the physical universe, located higher than the atmosphere. The Catechism speaks of "the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven"^[125]: here the word "heaven" denotes the domain of God, and the cloud is its sign, as at Sinai or at the Transfiguration. Benedict XVI explained it while preaching on the feast day:

"The event is described not as a journey upwards, but rather as an action of the power of God, who introduces Jesus into the space of divine closeness. [...] The word 'heaven' does not indicate a place above the stars, but something much stronger and more sublime: it indicates Christ himself, the divine Person who fully and for ever welcomes humanity, the One in whom God and man are for ever inseparably united. The being of man in God — that is heaven." — Benedict XVI, homily for the solemnity of the Ascension, Cassino, 24 May 2009^[126]

These lines repeat almost word for word the 1967 article, in which Joseph Ratzinger answered Bultmann: in the Greek of Acts, Jesus "was lifted up" (Acts 1:9), then "taken up" (Acts 1:11); written in the passive, the account therefore describes "an action of the power of God", not an aerial journey^[127].

It does not follow that the account is a mere image. Acts describes what the Apostles saw: "as they were looking on, he was lifted up" (Acts 1:9). When Judas has to be replaced, Peter demands a witness who accompanied them "from the beginning, at the baptism given by John, until the day he was taken up from us" (Acts 1:21-22): the day of the Ascension closes the period to which the Apostles must bear witness. Saint John Paul II, in the cycle of catecheses he devoted to the Creed, held together both dimensions of the event:

"We have already pointed out that this is a 'mystery', which is an object of faith. It completes the very mystery of the Incarnation and is the ultimate fulfilment of the messianic mission of the Son of God who came to earth to accomplish our Redemption. It is, however, also a 'fact' that we can know through the biographical and historical elements of Jesus reported by the Gospels." — Saint John Paul II, general audience of 12 April 1989^[128]

The visible and the invisible thus meet in the same event, which the Catechism calls "at once historical and transcendent"^[129]. The risen body of Jesus truly rises before the disciples' eyes; what they can no longer follow is his entry into the glory of the Father. The cloud did not carry Christ like a vehicle: it marked, for human eyes, the threshold of God's glory, which no instrument observes.

Does Luke place the Ascension on Easter evening?

Read in one go, the last chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke makes the Ascension seem to follow immediately upon the Easter evening appearance (Lk 24:36-51). There would be no forty days left, and the date of the feast would rest on one account contradicted by the other.

The two accounts nevertheless have the same author, who himself refers from one to the other: "O Theophilus, in my first book I spoke of all that Jesus did and taught, from the time he began, until the day he was taken up to heaven" (Acts 1:1-2). It is in this second book, and not in the first, that Luke specifies the duration: "for forty days he appeared to them and spoke of the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). The ending of the Gospel moreover gives no indication of day for the going out towards Bethany: "Then Jesus led them out" (Lk 24:50). Saint Augustine had already noted the difficulty in his treatise on the harmony of the Gospels: "Saint Luke, after keeping silence on all that was accomplished during the forty days that followed the resurrection, passes immediately, without warning, from the resurrection to the day of the ascension"^[130]. Saint John Paul II took up the same answer in the catechesis already quoted:

"If we keep to this text of Luke, isolated from the others, we would deduce that Jesus ascended into heaven on the very day of the Resurrection, at the end of his appearance to the apostles (cf. Lk 24:36-49). But if we read the whole page carefully, we realize that the evangelist wants to sum up the last events of Christ's life, whose saving mission, completed by his glorification, he was keen to describe. [...] As for the question of time, we see no reason why we could deny that Jesus appeared to his own on several occasions for forty days, as Acts affirms." — Saint John Paul II, general audience of 12 April 1989^[131]

The same pope noted that the number forty, which in the Bible denotes a span fully sufficient to reach its purpose, is taken up by Jesus himself: forty days in the desert before his ministry, forty days of appearances before ascending definitively into heaven^[132]. It is on this datum from Acts that the Church ordered its calendar. The proper feast of the fortieth day, generalized at the end of the 4th century, expressly follows Acts 1:3, as the Apostolic Constitutions and Saint Augustine recalled; the 1969 General Norms repeat it in one sentence^[133].

Why celebrate a departure?

A feast presupposes joy. Yet the Ascension marks the end of Jesus' visible presence among his own: celebrating a departure seems paradoxical, and one would rather expect a remembrance tinged with regret.

The paradox is in the Gospel itself. After seeing their Master disappear, the Apostles "returned to Jerusalem with great joy" (Lk 24:52). Pope Francis paused over this detail:

"Usually, when we are separated from our parents, from our friends, for a final departure and especially because of death, there is in us a natural sadness, because we will no longer see their faces, we will no longer hear their voices, we will no longer be able to enjoy their affection, their presence. The evangelist, on the other hand, stresses the apostles' deep joy. But why? Precisely because, with the eyes of faith, they understand that, although removed from their sight, Jesus remains with them for ever, he does not abandon them and, in the glory of the Father, he sustains them, guides them and intercedes for them." — Francis, general audience of 17 April 2013^[134]

The Ascension therefore does not withdraw Christ from the world; it changes the mode of his presence. Joseph Ratzinger noted in 1967: for the disciples, it did not mean "the provisional absence of Christ from the world", but "the new, definitive and irrevocable form of his presence, through participation in the royal power of God"^[135]. The Risen One had promised it before leaving: "I am with you always, to the end of the world" (Mt 28:20). Saint Leo the Great saw in it the moment when Christ begins "to be more present by his divinity, while being more distant as to his humanity"^[136]. Pope Leo XIV, at the Regina Caeli of Sunday 17 May 2026, a day on which many countries celebrated the feast, likewise set aside the idea of a distant event: "we are united to Jesus, as the members to the head, in one body, and his ascension into Heaven draws us too, with Him, towards full communion with the Father. [...] The Ascension therefore does not speak to us of a distant promise, but of a living bond"^[137].

A vigil Mass and a Mass of the day

The Roman Missal promulgated after the Second Vatican Council, in its third typical edition (2002), gives the Ascension two formularies. The vigil Mass is celebrated "on the evening before the solemnity, before or after First Vespers of the Ascension"; the Mass of the day follows on the Thursday. Both include the Gloria and the Credo, the preface of the Ascension and, with the Roman Canon, a proper Communicantes; a solemn blessing may conclude the celebration^[138]. The same Missal specifies: "Where the solemnity of the Ascension is not a holy day of obligation, it is assigned, as its proper day, to the Seventh Sunday of Easter"^[139].

The opening prayer of the vigil Mass sums up the feast in a symmetry:

"God, your Son ascended to heaven today in the presence of the Apostles; grant us, according to his promise, to merit to live, he ever with us on earth, and we with him in heaven." — Roman Missal, vigil Mass of the Ascension, collect^[140]

The Mass of the day opens with the introit Viri Galilaei, the angels' words to the Apostles: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?" (Acts 1:11). Its opening prayer, Fac nos, omnipotens Deus, takes up almost word for word the phrase of Saint Leo the Great quoted above: "the Ascension of Christ your Son is our elevation, and where the glory of the Head has gone before, the hope of the body is called likewise"^[141]. The Liturgy of the Hours in French offers a free adaptation: "God who raises Christ above all things, open us to joy and thanksgiving, for the Ascension of your Son is already our victory: we are the members of his body, he has gone before us in glory to you, and it is there that we live in hope"^[142]. The communion antiphon is the last sentence of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, "I am with you always, to the close of the age"; the prayer after communion asks that the impulse of Christian devotion may tend "to where our nature is with you"^[143].

The Mass readings over three years

The Roman lectionary lays down a simple rule, stated in its Praenotanda: the solemnity keeps the account of the Acts of the Apostles as its first reading, completed by apostolic readings on Christ exalted at the right hand of the Father, and each year of the cycle reads the Gospel proper to that year's evangelist^[144]. The following table gives, for each of the three years, the readings of the Mass of the day according to the 1981 Ordo lectionum Missae and the French lectionary published by AELF.

In France, AELF publishes for years B and C the optional second reading proper to each year (Ephesians 4; Hebrews 9–10)^[145]. Where the Ascension is transferred to Sunday, the Thursday of the sixth week receives weekday readings, beginning with Acts 18:1-8^[146].

The two prefaces of the Ascension

The preface, the song of thanksgiving that opens the eucharistic prayer, is proper to the feast. The first, De mysterio Ascensionis, is the one the Catechism quotes to explain the Ascension^[147]:

"For the Lord Jesus, King of glory, conqueror of sin and death, ascended today to the highest heavens, under the wondering gaze of the angels, he, the Mediator between God and men, the Judge of the world and the Lord of hosts; not to withdraw from our lowly condition, but so that we, his members, may have the assurance of following him where he, our Head and our Beginning, has gone before us." — Roman Missal, Preface I of the Ascension^[148]

The second, inherited from the Missal prior to the reform, holds in a single sentence: after his resurrection, Christ "showed himself to all his disciples, and was lifted up into heaven before their eyes, to make us sharers in his divinity"^[149]. Both prefaces conclude on the same image: at the Ascension, "paschal joy spreads" and "the whole world exults" over all the earth^[150].

The proper Communicantes and the solemn blessing

When the priest uses the Roman Canon, the first eucharistic prayer, he inserts a mention proper to the feast into the Communicantes, the prayer that unites the assembly with the Virgin Mary and the saints. The French translation in use since 2021 says: "United in one communion, we celebrate the most holy day on which our Lord, your only Son, having taken our nature with its weakness, made it enter into your glory, at your right hand"^[151].

The solemn blessing offers three wishes, to which the assembly responds "Amen": that God may bless the faithful, he whose Son "pierced on this day the heights of heaven" and "opened for them the way to ascend to where he is"; that Christ, who appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, may appear to them "gracious for eternity" when he comes for the judgment; and finally that they may experience in joy the truth of his promise, that he remains with them "to the close of the age"^[152].

The paschal candle: once extinguished at the Gospel, now kept lit for fifty days

For centuries, one gesture made the Ascension visible: at the Mass of the day, after the reading of the Gospel, the paschal candle, lit since the Easter Vigil night, was extinguished. The 1962 Roman Missal still prescribes it in a single line: "The Gospel said, the paschal candle is extinguished"^[153]. An older form of the rubric added that it was not lit again, except on the Saturday of Pentecost for the blessing of the baptismal fonts^[154]. The symbol was limpid: Christ, light of the world, was leaving the sight of the disciples.

The liturgical reform moved this gesture to the end of the fifty days. The paschal candle remains lit throughout the whole of Eastertide, Ascension included, and is extinguished only at the close of Pentecost Sunday^[155]. The circular letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship on the preparation and celebration of the Easter feasts (1988) specifies:

"The paschal candle, which has its place either by the ambo or by the altar, shall be lit at least at all the more solemn celebrations of this season, whether Mass, Lauds or Vespers, until Pentecost Sunday. This concluded, the paschal candle shall be kept with honour at the baptistery, and lit for the celebration of baptism." — Congregation for Divine Worship, Paschalis sollemnitatis, no. 99^[156]

The change expresses the unity of the fifty days: the Ascension is not the end of Eastertide, but one of its stages. On the meaning of this light, see the symbolism of candles.

In the Roman Missal before the reform

The 1962 Roman Missal, the last edition prior to the liturgical reform, preserves several ancient features of the feast. The Ascension is there a first-class feast, with the indication "Station at Saint Peter's", which designates the church where the pope formerly celebrated with the people of Rome: the Vatican basilica^[157], the very place where, in the 6th century, Saint Gregory the Great had preached for the feast^[158]. The vigil, on Wednesday, had its own proper vigil Mass, of the second class, opened by the introit Vocem iucunditatis ("Proclaim a voice of joy")^[159].

The Gregorian chants of the Mass of the day all draw their words from Acts and the psalms of the Ascension. The introit Viri Galilaei takes up the angels' words (Acts 1:11); the Alleluia sings "God mounts his throne to shouts of joy, and the Lord to the sound of the trumpet" (Ps 46:6) and "He ascended on high, he led captivity captive" (Ps 67:19); the offertory takes up the same verse of Psalm 46, and the communion, Psallite Domino, sings of the Lord "who mounts above the heaven of heavens, towards the east" (Ps 67:33-34)^[160]. The collect of this missal, "that we who believe that on this day your only Son, our Redeemer, ascended into heaven, may also dwell in spirit among heavenly realities", became the alternate collect of the 2002 Missal, and its preface, given a new conclusion, became Preface II of the Ascension^[161].

Until 1955, the Ascension also had an octave, eight days of prolonged feast. The decree Cum nostra hac aetate of the Congregation of Rites, of 23 March 1955, retains only the octaves of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, and suppresses all the others; it keeps the vigil of the Ascension among the "common" vigils^[162]. Until the vigil of Pentecost, the following days remained ferial days of Eastertide on which the Mass of the Ascension was repeated, without the Credo^[163].

In the Liturgy of the Hours

The office of the Ascension has its own Latin hymns: Iesu, nostra redemptio at Vespers, Aeterne Rex altissime at the Office of Readings, Optatus votis omnium at Lauds; in the days that follow, Vespers sings the Veni, Creator Spiritus, a prayer of waiting for the Spirit^[164]. The French hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours are original compositions, not translations^[165].

The antiphon of the Magnificat of Vespers of the day is the O Rex gloriae, already in use in the Tridentine Roman Breviary, where it occupied the same place^[166]. It addresses Christ who ascends "today, as conqueror, above all the heavens" and asks him not to leave his own orphaned. The French liturgical translation renders it thus:

"King of glory, God of the universe, you who ascend to the highest heavens, do not leave us orphans, send us the one whom the Father promised, the Spirit of truth, alleluia." — Liturgy of the Hours, Vespers of the Ascension, antiphon of the Magnificat^[167]

The Office of Readings gives us Saint Augustine's sermon for the Ascension, "let our heart ascend there with him"^[168]; in the days surrounding the feast, it has the two sermons of Saint Leo the Great on the Ascension read, the first on the Wednesday before it, the second on the Friday after^[169]. At Lauds, the first antiphon takes up the angels' words: "Men of Galilee, why gaze at heaven? You have seen Jesus ascend into heaven; so shall he return, alleluia"^[170].

In the East: the Analepsis

In the Churches of Byzantine tradition, the Ascension, called Analepsis, ranks among the twelve great feasts of the year, alongside Easter which alone forms "the feast of feasts"; it is one of the three great feasts of the paschal cycle, with the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem and Pentecost^[171]. On the eve, the Church closes the feast of Easter with its "apodosis"; the feast of the Ascension then extends until its own apodosis, the Friday before Pentecost, and the office of that day repeats, with a few exceptions, that of the feast^[172].

The troparion of the feast, sung at every office, sums up Saint Luke's account:

"You ascended in Glory, O Christ our God, after filling Your disciples with joy by the promise of the Holy Spirit. Your blessing confirmed to them that You are the Son of God, the Deliverer of the universe!" — Troparion of the Ascension (tone 4), Byzantine liturgy^[173]

The kontakion insists on the presence that remains: "Having accomplished for us the divine Economy and having united the inhabitants of earth with those of heaven, You ascended into heaven in glory, Christ God, without separating Yourself from us, but remaining ever among us, and You say to those who love You: 'I am with you, and no one shall prevail against you.'"^[174] Depending on the year, the date of the feast differs between Catholics and Orthodox, because their Easters do not always coincide: they fall on the same day in 2025, 2028, 2031 and 2034^[175].

In the Armenian Apostolic Church, the feast bears the name Hambardzoum; it is also the day of the pilgrimage to Etchmiadzin, seat of the Catholicos, and recalls the return of the Catholicosate from Sis to Etchmiadzin in 1441^[176]. Armenian folk tradition attaches to it the vičak, a fortune-telling rite prepared by groups of young girls and accompanied by songs, which Armenia has inscribed on its list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding^[177].

The Ascension opens a waiting. Jesus said to the Apostles: "remain in the city until you are clothed with power from on high" (Lk 24:49); they return from the Mount of Olives, go up to the upper room, and "all with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers" (Acts 1:14)^[178]. The liturgy makes these days a proper season: the Universal Norms specify that "the weekdays after the Ascension until the Saturday before Pentecost inclusive are a preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete"^[179]. From the Friday after the Ascension to the Saturday before Pentecost, there are nine days.

The first novena, in the Upper Room with Mary

Tradition sees in the days between the Ascension and Pentecost the first novena, that prayer of nine days which the Church afterwards practised in preparation for feasts. For the Catholic Encyclopedia, Christ himself gave "the best model and the best example" of every novena in "the first novena of Pentecost": after the young Church had persevered "nine whole days" in prayer, the Holy Spirit came "as the precious fruit of this first Christian novena"^[180]. The Virgin holds there the place given her by the book of Acts: among the disciples, before the gift of the Spirit.

The novena of Pentecost, from Leo XIII to today

Pope Leo XIII made the novena of Pentecost a practice of the whole Church. As early as 1895, he invited Catholics to pray "at the time of the novena preparatory to the solemnities of the holy day of Pentecost", following the example of the Virgin and the Apostles, for "no time seems more favourable than that in which the apostles of old, after the Ascension of the Lord, gathered together, persevering with one mind in prayer with Mary, the Mother of Jesus"^[181]. Two years later, in the encyclical Divinum illud munus on the Holy Spirit, he made it a rule:

"We therefore decree and ordain that throughout the Catholic world, this year and in the years to come, a novena be made before Pentecost in all parish churches, and, if the Ordinary sees fit, in all churches." — Leo XIII, Divinum illud munus, 9 May 1897^[182]

The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001) recalls that "during the nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, the apostles 'with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with some women, including Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and his brothers'", and observes that such a novena "is already present in the Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours, especially Vespers"; it therefore recommends, where possible, living it through the solemn celebration of Vespers^[183]. On the feast of the fiftieth day itself, see Pentecost and Pentecost and the birth of the Church.

World Day of Social Communications

The Second Vatican Council asked, in the decree Inter mirifica on the means of social communication, that "each year in the dioceses, at the judgment of the bishops, a day be held on which the faithful shall be instructed in their duties in this matter and invited to pray for this cause and to contribute their offering"^[184]. The first World Day of Social Communications was celebrated on Sunday 7 May 1967, with a message from Saint Paul VI^[185]. It is fixed, in most countries, on the recommendation of the bishops, on the Sunday before Pentecost^[186]: where the Ascension is transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the two celebrations fall on the same day.

The Rogation Days, three days of prayer before the Ascension

The three days preceding the Ascension long bore a proper name: the Rogation Days, from the Latin rogare, "to ask". They were born in Vienne, in Gaul, around 470-475, in a year of calamities: earthquakes, fires, wild beasts roaming the town. Bishop Saint Mamertus then prescribed fasting and prayer processions, and the custom spread throughout Gaul^[187]. Gregory of Tours, at the end of the 6th century, speaks of these Rogations "which we celebrate before the triumph of the Lord's ascension" and notes that they are celebrated in all the churches "with compunction of heart and contrition of spirit"^[188].

The closest witness to the events is Sidonius Apollinaris, who wrote to Mamertus from Auvergne and whose Arvernian people in turn adopted the Rogations^[189]. He contrasts the old public prayers, "vague, lukewarm, poorly attended", with those instituted by Mamertus:

"But in these, instituted by the holy pontiff, there is fasting, prayer, psalmody, weeping. I invite you to these feasts where brows are lowered, to these devout gatherings of citizens humbly prostrate." — Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters, V, 14^[190]

The First Council of Orleans, in 511, extended the practice to all the churches of the Frankish kingdom: the litanies are celebrated before the Ascension, the three-day fast ends on the feast, and during these three days "all male and female slaves must be exempted from all work, so that the whole people may gather"^[191]. Rome then knew only one great prayer procession, that of 25 April^[192]. Pope Leo III (795-816) introduced there the three days of litanies before the Ascension, with three processions: on Monday from Saint Mary Major to the Lateran, on Tuesday from Saint Sabina to Saint Paul, on Wednesday from the Jerusalem church to Saint Lawrence outside the Walls^[193].

Since 1969, the Rogation Days are no longer set by the universal calendar. The Universal Norms entrust the conferences of bishops with regulating their date and form, to pray "for the fruits of the earth and the work of men", according to the needs of each region^[194].

The Christ hoisted into the vault and the Rogations dragon

The Middle Ages wanted to make the feast visible. In several churches, a statue of Christ was raised through an opening in the vault, and a figure of the devil was sometimes lowered at the same time^[195]. The Württemberg State Museum in Stuttgart keeps one of these statues, carved around 1430: "On Ascension Day, this figure of Christ was hoisted by means of a rope up into the vault of the church, during the solemn office, before the eyes of the faithful"^[196]. In 2023 the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg acquired a similar figure, produced around 1505-1510 in the workshop of Tilman Riemenschneider: its cloud base and the fixing holes on its back indicate that it was very probably suspended to stage the Ascension narrative^[197]. The vault opening, called the "heaven hole", also served to lower a dove at Pentecost; at Bad Windsheim in Franconia, where the hospital church still has one, the abolition of these stagings at the time of the Reformation left it disused^[198].

The Rogation processions had their own images. In the 13th century, Bishop William Durand reports that in some places a dragon with a long tail, "raised and swollen", walked before the cross and banners on the first two days; on the third, it followed behind, "with its tail empty and flat". This dragon, he explains, "designates the devil"; yet "in the time of grace, he has been vanquished by Christ"^[199]. On Ascension Day itself, triumphal processions with torches and banners commemorated Christ's entry into heaven; in England, the lion banner led the march and the dragon banner closed it, to signify Christ's triumph, in his ascension, over the Evil One^[200].

The Church of England's prayer book, in 1662, still calls the Ascension Holy Thursday: it sets the three Rogation days "before Holy Thursday, or the Ascension of our Lord"^[201]. The English processions through the fields became the beating the bounds, the walking of the parish boundaries, which the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth I maintained in 1559 with a thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth^[202]. In London, the parish of All Hallows by the Tower still performs it on Ascension Day^[203].

In Venice, the Sensa and the wedding of the sea

The Republic of Venice gave the Ascension, which it called in Venetian the Sensa, one of the most famous civic ceremonies in Europe. It starts from a feat of arms. According to the chronicle of John the Deacon, Doge Pietro II Orseolo wished to hear Mass with his men, on the feast of the Ascension, in the church of Saint Peter of Olivolo; Bishop Dominic handed him a triumphal banner, and the fleet set sail that very day for Dalmatia^[204]. The modern editor of the chronicle places this departure on Ascension Day in the year 1000, 9 May, although the chronicler speaks of the doge's seventh year, that is 998^[205]. The expedition secured Venice predominance over the Adriatic, and Venetian tradition links to it the ceremony of the "marriage of the sea"^[206].

In the 16th century, Francesco Sansovino describes the rite. On Ascension morning, the doge and the Signoria board the Bucentaur, the state's ceremonial galley, reach the Lido, where a High Mass is celebrated at Saint Nicholas, then go out to the harbour mouth. The clergy sing psalms, the sea is blessed "because of the shipwrecks that so often occur", and the doge casts a ring into the water "as a sign of the wedding", saying: "We wed thee, sea, as a sign of true and perpetual dominion". That same day opened a ten-day public fair, also called the Sensa^[207].

Sansovino attributes the ring to Pope Alexander III, who is said to have given it to Doge Sebastiano Ziani in 1177, after a naval victory over Otto, son of Emperor Frederick I; as proof he cites the paintings of this story at the Vatican and in the hall of the Great Council^[208]. The account belongs to Venetian tradition: the historical notices devoted to the doge and the pope describe the congress gathered at Venice in 1177 and the agreement that emerged from it, with no mention of either naval battle or ring^[209]. The name Bucentaur appears in Venetian documents in 1252; the last ship of that name, launched in 1728, served for the feast of May 1729 and was destroyed by the French in 1798^[210].

The Ascension in Christian art

One of the oldest images of the scene is an ivory tablet carved in Rome or Milan around the year 400, known as the "Reider tablet", today in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich. It brings together on a single panel the empty tomb and the Ascension: Christ climbs a mountain and the hand of God, coming out of a cloud, grasps him to draw him to heaven, while disciples, at his feet, are dazzled by the light^[211]. The same object unites the Resurrection and the Ascension, as the liturgy of the first centuries united them in the joy of the fifty days.

In 586, the Gospels copied by the scribe Rabbula at the monastery of Saint John of Beth Zagba, in Syria, devote a whole page to the Ascension (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. I. 56, f. 13v)^[212]. Christ appears there in a mandorla borne by angels; below, at the centre of the Apostles, the Virgin stands, haloed, her hands raised in the gesture of prayer^[213]. The Acts narrative does not mention Mary on the Mount of Olives, but shows her immediately afterwards, in the Upper Room, among the disciples at prayer (Acts 1:14): the image places the Mother of Jesus at the heart of the Church awaiting the Spirit.

Medieval illumination invented a striking image: Christ disappearing into the cloud, of whom only the lower body can still be seen. The art historian Meyer Schapiro made it the subject of a study that has become classic; Robert Deshman, who situates its invention in the theology and reflection on the image of the 11th century, sees in it a meditation on the limits of corporeal vision, which the Ascension compels us to surpass^[214]. The Renaissance returns to the full vision of Christ in glory: the altarpiece that Perugino painted from 1495 to 1498 for the Benedictines of San Pietro at Perugia, whose central panel and lunette, given by Pope Pius VII in 1816, are kept at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, orders the whole composition along an axis running from the Virgin, on earth, to Christ in his mandorla, then to God the Father^[215].

Saint Augustine: "let us ascend with him"

Saint Augustine often preached for the Ascension: the Nuova Biblioteca Agostiniana, the Italian edition of his complete works, lists twelve of his sermons under this feast, one of which was delivered at Carthage, in the basilica of Faustus^[216]. They all return to the same conversion of gaze: what the Apostles saw, we believe, and the feast is true only if the heart ascends with the Lord.

"The resurrection of the Lord is our hope; his ascension, our glory. Today we celebrate the solemnity of the Ascension; if then we celebrate this feast of the Lord rightly, faithfully, devoutly, holily and piously, let us ascend with him and hold our heart on high. [...] He came down to heal you; he ascended to raise you. You fall if you raise yourself; you remain raised if it is he who raises you." — Saint Augustine, Sermon 261, 1^[217]

In another sermon, preached at Hippo, he stresses witness: "Today then, that is, the fortieth day after the resurrection, the Lord ascended into heaven. We did not see him; let us believe. Those who saw him proclaimed it; they spread this fact throughout the universe", and he concludes: "So this day is a feast in the whole universe"^[218]. To those troubled by the date of Christ's return, he answers with a rule of life that closes the door to all calculations:

"When will he come? What is that to you? Hold yourself ready for the moment. [...] Live as if it were to be today, and when the hour comes you will have nothing to fear." — Saint Augustine, Sermon 265, 4^[219]

Saint Gregory the Great: Christ's leaps and the steps of love

Pope Saint Gregory the Great preached the Ascension "to the people, in the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter", on the Gospel of Saint Mark^[220]. He comments there on the white garments of the two angels in Acts: at the Lord's birth, the angels wore none, for "the divinity appeared humbled"; at the Ascension, they wear them, for "humanity is exalted", and "he who at his birth had appeared humble God showed himself, at his ascension, exalted man"^[221]. He sees in the feast the wiping away of Adam's condemnation: "this nature to whom it had been said: You are earth and to earth you shall return, has today ascended into heaven"^[222].

Taking up the Song of Songs — "It is he, he comes... He leaps upon the mountains" (Song 2:8) — he sums up Christ's whole life in five leaps:

"Do you wish, dearest brethren, to know these leaps? From heaven he came into his mother's womb, from the womb into the manger, from the manger onto the cross, from the cross into the tomb, from the tomb he returned to heaven." — Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, II, 29, 10^[223]

The conclusion of the homily is an invitation to follow the Lord where we cannot yet go:

"We must follow him with our heart where we believe he ascended with his body. [...] And if we are still held back here by the weakness of the body, let us at least follow him with steps of love." — Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, II, 29, 11^[224]

The Bishop of Geneva: ascended into heaven and present in the Eucharist

Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, left the outline of a sermon for the feast, dated by his editors to Ascension Day 1607. He answers there the controversies of his time on Christ's presence: some said he was everywhere, others only in heaven, so that, as he sums up, "the former deny that he ascended, the latter that he remained". The Church, he continues, passes between the two: "Christ is neither everywhere, nor nowhere in this world, but he is where he willed, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist". There was, for his opponents, an impossibility: "it is an article of faith that Jesus 'ascended into heaven', so he is not in the Eucharist; but the Church says: yes, he is up there, and he is in the Eucharist. The whole reason for the act lies in the omnipotence of Him who acts"^[225]. On this mystery, see the Eucharist.

The same saint writes to Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, on an Ascension Day his editors place in 1612, a letter that is entirely an act of thanksgiving:

"I give you the joy of our Saviour's ascent into Heaven, where he lives and reigns, and wills that one day we live and reign with him. O what triumph in Heaven and what sweetness on earth! May our hearts be where their treasure is, and may we live in Heaven, since our life is in Heaven. My God, my Daughter, how beautiful this Heaven is, now that the Saviour serves it as sun and his breast as a fount of love from which the Blessed drink their fill!" — Saint Francis de Sales, Letter to Mother de Chantal, Annecy, 31 May 1612^[226]

The letter ends on Christ's glorified body, which, "as I think, gave the Angels a desire to have such bodies", and on the hope of our own: "Ah! how happy our bodies are to await one day a share in so much glory, provided they serve the spirit well in this mortal life!"^[227]

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity: ten days in the Upper Room

At the Carmel of Dijon, the days between the Ascension and Pentecost were lived as a retreat. Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity writes this on the feast day itself, in 1905, to a sick priest:

"Today the divine Master returns to his Father, who is our Father, and he goes to prepare a place for us in his inheritance of glory. [...] This morning we have our last recreation, and we enter into retreat in the Upper Room until Pentecost. During these ten days I feel I shall be even closer to you, since I shall be more in Him." — Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, letter dated "Ascension 1905"^[228]

On an Ascension Day when she was already ill in the infirmary, her prioress noticed her "wholly transfigured countenance". According to the latter's account, the Carmelite confided to her that a word of the Gospel had been spoken to her in the depths of her soul — "If anyone loves me, my Father will love him: we shall come to him and make our dwelling in him" — and that she had seen the three divine Persons "holding in me their council of love". From that day, the prioress reports, she called the Trinity her "all-powerful Council"^[229]. The feast of Christ's departure thus became, for her, that of his presence in the innermost depths of the soul.

The Book of Heaven: departing and remaining

The Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947) followed the liturgical year day by day, and several pages of the Book of Heaven are dated to the feast itself^[230]. On 29 May 1924, Ascension Day, she writes: "I was reflecting on the ascent into Heaven of my sweet Jesus on the day of his glorious Ascension, and on the sorrow of the apostles, thus deprived of so great a good"^[231]. The answer she records reverses the meaning of this sorrow: the deprivation of the visible presence made the disciples apostles.

"But when they saw Me ascend into Heaven, the sorrow of losing Me tore the veil. And they recognised Me as the true Son of God, with such certainty that the intense sorrow of no longer seeing Me among them breathed into them Firmness in good and Strength to suffer all for Love of Him whom they had lost. [...] Their sorrow transformed them and formed in them the true character of apostles. What they could not obtain in My Presence, they obtained through the suffering of the deprivation of My Presence." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 16, 29 May 1924^[232]

On 20 May 1936, the eve of the feast, she notes: "After that I accompanied the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven". The word she receives holds together departure and presence, as Saint Leo did: Christ leaves his sufferings and his examples "like a seed", he remains in hearts, and he remains in the Eucharist^[233].

"I can say that I left My Sufferings, My Examples and My very Life like a seed that grows to form the Kingdom of My Divine Will. So I was departing and remaining at the same time. I remained by virtue of My Sufferings. I remained in their hearts to be loved. [...] So I remained in the Most Holy Sacrament so as always to be able to give Myself to them and that they may continually receive Me, to find rest, relief and remedy for all their needs." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 34, 20 May 1936^[234]

The same passage looks to the Mother of Jesus among the disciples: "The most beautiful symbol is that of my Mother present among my disciples to witness my departure for Heaven. She is thus the Queen of my Church, to help her, protect her and defend her."^[235] In La Vierge Marie dans le Royaume de la Volonté Divine, a collection of meditations for the month of May, it is the Virgin herself who narrates: "The forty days ended, Jesus instructed his apostles and, leaving them his Mother as guide and teacher, He promised them the descent of the Holy Spirit." The day's meditation concludes with a simple practice: "you will make three genuflections in memory of the Ascension of my Son into Heaven and you will pray that He make you rise with Him in the Divine Will"^[236].

On Sunday 12 May 1929, three days after the feast, the Book of Heaven finally links the Ascension to the heart of the doctrine of the Divine Will: the gift by which God wills that his will become the very life of man, "on earth as in heaven", and no longer merely a rule man strives to follow^[237]. Jesus explains there that he ascended into heaven with a humanity made anew as it had come from the Creator's hands, to present himself to the Father as "the Head of all" and ask him for what man had lost^[238].

"I ascended into heaven to accomplish, with my first task, my second task, which is to ask for and give the Kingdom of my Divine Will on earth. [...] It was therefore necessary for Me to ascend into heaven with My glorified Humanity to be able to acquire anew the Kingdom of My Fiat for My brothers and My children." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 26, 12 May 1929^[239]

The "first task" is the Redemption — "I have redeemed it by My death", Jesus says of humanity in the same passage; the second is the fulfilment of the prayer Christ taught: "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". The "Fiat" of the quotation is that same word: in Latin, fiat, "let it be", is the word by which God creates ("Fiat lux", Gen 1:3), and the Our Father says fiat voluntas tua. Read in the light of these pages, the intercession of the glorified Christ, "always living to intercede" (Heb 7:25), has a precise object: that the Father's will reign in men as it reigns in heaven. "For about two thousand years this Humanity has been praying", adds the same passage: in this light, the Ascension is not only the end of Jesus' visible life; it opens the time in which his glorified humanity prays for the coming of this Kingdom^[240].

• Easter — the solemnity of which the Ascension marks the fortieth day, and the whole of Eastertide.
• Pentecost — the fiftieth day, toward which leads the novena opened by the Ascension.
• Pentecost and the birth of the Church and Why is Pentecost important? — the gift of the Spirit promised on Ascension day.
• The Ascension of Jesus — the event itself, from the point of view of Scripture and the life of Jesus.
• The glorious return of Christ (the Parousia) — the promise of the angels: “he will come in the same way”.
• Christ the King — the kingship of Christ inaugurated at the Ascension, celebrated at the end of the liturgical year.
• The Liturgical Year and Holy Days of Obligation — the place of the Ascension in the calendar and the precept.
• Christmas (25 December), Epiphany (6 January) and Corpus Christi — the other solemnities of the Lord named here for their rank and obligation.
• Easter Vigil (Easter night) — the night of the new fire and the paschal candle, present at celebrations until Pentecost.
• The Assumption of the Virgin Mary and Why believe in the Assumption? — the other elevation to heaven confessed by the Church.
• Why does Lent last forty days? — the biblical symbolism of the number forty.
• The symbolism of candles — the paschal candle and the light of Eastertide.
• Eastern liturgy — the Analepsis in the Eastern Churches.
• Gregorian chant — the chant of the Viri Galilaei and the O Rex gloriae.
• Saint Leo the Great, Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Gregory of Nyssa and Saint Cyril of Jerusalem — the Fathers who preached on the feast.
• Saint Thomas Aquinas — the question of the Summa Theologica devoted to the Ascension.
• Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622) — the Ascension and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
• The Divine Will, Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947) and The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will — to go deeper into the reading of the feast in the writings of Luisa.

Principal sources

• Bible, official liturgical translation (AELF): Acts 1, 1-14; Luke 24, 44-53; Mark 16, 15-20; Matthew 28, 16-20; Ephesians 1, 17-23 and 4, 1-13; Hebrews 9, 24-28 and 10, 19-23; Psalms 46, 23, 67 and 109.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 659-667 and 1115.
• Code of Canon Law (1983), canons 1246-1248.
• General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 1969, in the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, 2002.
• Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, 2002, “In Ascensione Domini”; Missale Romanum of 1962; Ordo lectionum Missae, 1981; Liturgy of the Hours (AELF).
• Tertullian, On Baptism; Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine and On the Paschal Solemnity; Apostolic Constitutions, ed. F. X. Funk, 1905.
• Egeria, Travel Journal, ed. and trans. P. Maraval, Sources chrétiennes 296, Paris, Cerf, 1982.
• Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, XIV; Saint John Chrysostom, Homily for the Day of the Ascension; Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Sermon on the Ascension of Christ.
• Saint Augustine, Sermons 261-265 and 263/A; Letter 54.
• Saint Leo the Great, Sermons 73 and 74; Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, II, 29.
• Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIIa, q. 57-58.
• Fernand Cabrol, art. “Ascension”, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. I/2, Paris, 1907.
• Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Corpus, vol. III, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Leo XIII, brief Provida Matris caritate, 1895; encyclical Divinum illud munus, 1897.
• Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, 2001.
• Saint John Paul II, general audience of 12 April 1989; Benedict XVI, homily of 24 May 2009 and Regina Caeli of 4 May 2008; Francis, general audience of 17 April 2013; Leo XIV, Regina Caeli of 17 May 2026 (vatican.va).
• Indult of Cardinal Caprara, 9 April 1802; French Labour Code, art. L3133-1.
• Francesco Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima et singolare, Venice, 1581.
• Joseph Ratzinger, “Christi Himmelfahrt”, Geist und Leben 40, 1967.
• Saint Francis de Sales, Œuvres, Annecy ed., vols. VIII and XV; Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, Souvenirs, 1913.
• Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volumes 16, 26 and 34; La Vierge Marie dans le Royaume de la Volonté Divine.