This weekend we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. This is one of the solemnities that bishops transfer to Sunday. The Ascension is traditionally celebrated on the Thursday after the 6th Sunday of Easter. I wish it stayed on Thursday.
      The reasons why I think its better to be celebrated on its traditional day because it is closer to its actual day. What we are told in Scripture is that the Apostles went to the temple rejoicing after Jesus ascended into Heaven. We also know they went into the Upper Room, where Matthias was chosen to replace Judas, and they also prayed. Scripture doesn’t tell us how many days they spent, but the Fathers of the Church hold that they prayed in the Upper Room for 9 days. If we count 9 days back from Pentecost, not counting the day of the Ascension when the Apostles were rejoicing, the Ascension does indeed occur on a Thursday. So keeping it on Thursday retains this chronology that is supported by both Scripture and the Church Fathers.
  There is also another reason why I think the Ascension should be celebrated on a Thursday that gets lost on us if it isn’t. The number 9 should be a familiar number to us. What popular devotion is done repetitively for 9 times? If you guessed novenas you are correct. The word “novena” is a derivative of the Latin word novem which means “nine.” This is why novenas are prayed for nine consecutive days. So the 9 days the Apostles spent in the Upper Room was the first novena ever prayed in the Church. They spent 9 days prayerfully preparing to receive the Holy Spirit. When we pray novenas we are harkening back to this. If the Ascension gets transferred to Sunday, instead of being celebrated on Thursday, all of this gets lost on us.
  The next logical question might be, “Why do the bishops do this?” To their credit, some bishops in the U.S. have transferred it back to Thursday. Six dioceses have done this, but the rest keep it on Sunday. I do not know the reason why. I can only speculate to the reason, which is that I believe the bishops think it is too much to ask the average Catholic in the United States to go to Mass twice in one week. I think Catholics need the exact opposite treatment. Catholics need to be challenged, or they fall into mediocrity. We challenge ourselves in other areas of life, so we should be challenging ourselves in our faith. G.K. Chesterton has this to say, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”