Ascension Day
Today we celebrate Ascension Day, "celebrate", for the majority of churchgoers, being a concept rather than something they will actually take part in. This day is a strong candidate for the least-observed of the church's principal feasts, suffering partly from its close proximity to Pentecost, but mostly from being forever fixed on a Thursday. I read a piece once (sadly I can't remember where) by the son of a clergyman, who traced his father's journey of many years before to take an Ascension Day service in some remote country church. There, in the register, he found his dad's own handwriting, saying "nobody came". The Ascension also suffers a bit in the doctrinal arena, too, mostly from people who think it's clever to point out that if Jesus really ascended, he would have gone into orbit. They say this because they have no poetry or biblical literacy. The Ascension is important because it marks the final point of the arc of Jesus's...