Working for the Weekend

He Has Ascended... Or Not Yet, notes Rocco Palmo on the horizontal movement of the observance of the Ascension.

"In 1993, the five Western provinces – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Anchorage – were permitted by Rome to shift the observance to the Seventh Sunday, the petition citing low attendance on the work-week feast and the scarcity of priests. At the close of the five-year trial run for the change, the bishops of every US province were granted a binding vote on the holy date for their respective turfs, and 26 of the then-32 jurisdictions chose Sunday, the Thursday celebration – and, indeed, the holy-day collection – retained only in the provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Omaha."