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May 25, 2006
The Ascension
Today is the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord. We are near the culmination of the Easter season, which ends in ten days on Pentecost Sunday. Christ's ascension bodily into heaven forty days after His resurrection marked the end of his earthly mission. Ascension is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic Church, meaning that because of the day's importance, attendance at Mass is required. But Ascension is important to all Christians, even the more obscure denominations. Among the Amish, a religious sect devoted to leading a simple and austere life on farms, separated from worldly outsiders, Ascension is one of the few religious holidays. They celebrate Ascension by closing their businesses (craft shops, greenhouses, etc.), visiting family, and hunting and fishing. This is appropriate, because Christ spent a good deal of the time between His resurrection and ascension visiting friends, and spent at least one of those forty days fishing.
The Ascension is one of the facts of Christ's life that is assented to among credal Christians, yet its full significance is one of the mysteries of Christian belief. Ascension's importance in today's busy world is diminishing. Maybe we should all take the rest of the day off and go fishing.
May 25, 2006 by Marty | Permalink
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Comments
Marty,
Thanks for the great post.
It contrasts nicely with my heathen post from earlier in the day.
Posted by: Chris | May 25, 2006 2:40:28 PM
He left his bride (actually she came into existence on Pentecost Sunday) to be fishermen, fishers of men.
Posted by: Paul | May 25, 2006 4:01:38 PM
Somebody light a Candle for my wayward Catholic ass, because I couldn't get to a mass today. Besides, as long as it's been since MY ass has been to church, I don't need the building falling down around me, or being sucked thru the floor to be beaten by the ghosts of old nuns with steel rulers.
Posted by: Hank Kaczmarek | May 25, 2006 5:45:32 PM
And you know that would happen, endangering the poor, rosary-fingering old lady next to you. Thanks, Hank! LMAO!
Posted by: Marty | May 25, 2006 10:08:21 PM
When I was living in Buffalo for a year (88-89)while my wife was at sea, I had both my kids at All Saints School. I had to go to one of the Parents association meetings. Outside the gym, a couple of the "Sister Mary Holy Card girls", all Mount St.Mary's girls I remembered from High School,(and both parents of school aged kids)had a desk set up outside the gym looking for donations for the "old nuns residence".
After talking to the girls for a couple minutes, I looked at them and said, "ya know, those old bitches got a lot of gall, looking for handouts in their old age after spending their prime years beating on us."
I asked if they ever went out there with the money they collected and they said that they had. So I told them "well, next time you go out there, tell Sr. X Y AND Z I said go take a nice fat shit for themselves, I ain't givin' them Jack. For what, Crippling my left hand for not writing with my right?
I used to take up the steam table to the Cloister on the 6th Floor of Kenmore Mercy Hospital when I worked there (73-75). Those women ate like KINGS!! Steak, Lobster (a couple of times a week) and had very specific requirements--Coke in the old 6 1/2 oz btls ONLY--Beer- Michelob in bottles ONLY. Certain brands of vegetables we kept on special "sisters only" shelves in the storeroom. And their Liquor cabinet was THREE full size side by side cabinets, locked of course, with nothing but the finest in any hard liquor you could imagine.
Donations my ass. They got the green.
Posted by: Hank Kaczmarek | May 26, 2006 11:36:53 AM
Wow! Those West Side nuns sure had it made. The nuns in the convent at St. Gerard's only had a poor, doe-eyed young boy to rub linament on their feet and feed them crackers with Velveeta. Right, Paul?
Posted by: Marty | May 26, 2006 2:07:18 PM
Marty
That's cold, Bro--even for you!
Posted by: Hank Kaczmarek | May 26, 2006 3:18:13 PM
Hank: It's part of the give and take of Mazurland. We've been down this road before, usually when Paul is quiet for a while. I wish I could remember in which posts from the past we had a few hysterical trash talk sessions. Quite a few of them, for some reason or other, involved the nuns of St. Gerard's convent...
Posted by: Marty | May 26, 2006 3:25:56 PM
