Jesus ascended into heaven 40 days after the Resurrection. That would make the feast of the ascension today! But the powers that be in my diocese (except for the Latin Mass People for some reason) moved the feast to this Sunday. They even did that when there was a dispensation for missing mass during COVID, which totally doesn’t make any sense to me because all of the masses were live-streamed instead of in person!

Here are some ways to commemorate the Feast of the Ascension either today or this coming Sunday!.

Ways to Celebrate:

1. Go to mass. Try to be truly present for the mass, saying the responses and reciting all of the prayers.
2. At home, it’s nice to have a vase full of lilacs on the table. Lilacs are the official flower of the Ascension. The cold and even snowy spring we had this year killed all of my lilac blooms last year. This year, the blooms are almost done, so that won’t be possible. But nice-cut flowers would be a nice touch. Silk flowers would work well too!
3. Jesus literally appeared to float up to heaven! So make a light Sunday dinner with spring greens, maybe a light fish or chicken breast.
4. An angel food cake or a light parfait for dessert!
5. We use our peg saints to show Jesus leaving the apostles behind. Catholic Icing had some nice craft ideas too.

Our new decorations for Ascension Sunday

It FINALLY feels a little bit like springtime. Here in northeast Ohio, we had frost warnings last week and newly planted baby plants had to be covered or brought inside to protect them from a cold that threatened to end their young lives before they even started.

So inspiration finally found me and I wanted to do something special for Ascension Sunday. My Catholic Icing subscription provided me with some quick crafts that I could easily do to turn my dining room into a neat Ascension scene.

he card stock so that I could hang the image up over my dining room table.

Below my Ascending Jesus, I arranged my apostle peg saints on a raised dish with a pretty floral napkin underneath them. I tried to make it look like a garden or field of flowers that they were standing in to watch Jesus ascend.

My subscription for May included this lovely image of the Ascending Christ.

Of course, the favorite part of the Ascension Sunday Dinner was the desert – blue sky and cloud parfait aka blueberry jello and whipped cream!