Tag Archives: Holy day of obligation

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Some thoughts about that. Click here to support the Wednesday Blog: https://www.patreon.com/sthosdkane
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In past years when I’ve written columns and devotionals around this time of year recognizing the beginning of Lent, they’ve been on some levels joking (I once referred to this season as the past tense of to lend) while on others they’ve been overly serious and solemn. There’s certainly room for both angles. This year, I feel a little less strongly moved by the whole experience, yes, I know we’re approaching a time of great meaning and purpose, yet in my mind that’s overwhelmed by the onset of what hopefully will be better Spring weather this week. 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that the passing of the seasons impresses me differently than it used to. When I was first learning the names of the months and seasons in school, I noticed the changes quite profoundly. The first of each month was a moment of regard. Today though, month by month passes as one after another in a parade ever blending with its compatriots into one great cyclical mass of the year. I notice today more so the changing of the weather than I do the months or even the seasons. I notice the waves of warm air coming out of the southwest fighting against the cold air pushing down from the northwest. I notice now how each passing rain and snow leads either towards the warmth of summer or the cold of winter. For me the year is far more a day-by-day affair now than anything else.

So, where does that leave the liturgical year, the cycles around which my faith orbits? Honestly, I’m not sure. Perhaps because I had the opportunity to attend Catholic schools for much of my life the Catholic feast days and holidays stood out to me more at one time than they do now. The highest holy days, the Easter Triduum, Christmas, and of course the Irish feast days of Saints Patrick, Brigid, and Columcille stand out the most for me today, days when I can imagine my present moment lining up neatly with memories of my past and of the generations who came before me.

If Ash Wednesday has any potency for me today it’s in its reminder that we’re all mortal, and yes, at some point our lives are going to end. It’s a reminder of our limits, in body if possibly not in mind. I’ll go to Mass and get the ashes on my forehead as I’ve done for as long as I can remember, and yes, I’ll do the Catholic fasting (one large meal with two small meals, no meat), and I’ll likely be a bit grumpy about the whole affair. Ash Wednesday is a reminder of our lives on this Pale Blue Dot, to blend Carl Sagan’s humanism with Catholic theology. We’re all a part of this our home planet, forever tied to it, no matter how far we and our descendants might travel from its surface.A holy day like Ash Wednesday is a reminder of our worldliness, and how that world which we cherish and which we have helped build is as fragile, as mortal as we are. The ashes of the palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday are from this same world that we are. It’s an honesty that can’t be beat or diluted, we are who we are. That’s what I’ve got this week.

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Odysseus in Ithaca

Kansas City – Let me begin with a brief confession: today was the first time I had gone to Mass since my first Sunday in London exactly 2 months ago! What’s even worse about it is that I’m writing this in my blog even before heading to the confessional to admit my failure at keeping the Sabbath to my parish priest. So, today seemed like a good day to break the drought. Happy Assumption Day!

Assumption of Mary - Reubens.

Happy Assumption Day!

Assumption Day is one of those odd holy days of obligation that usually doesn’t fall on a Sunday. For my non-Catholic readership, a holy day of obligation is a day when all Catholics are required to attend Mass. The big ones are Christmas, Easter, the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil/Sunday), Pentecost Sunday, Corpus Christi, Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, and Annunciation Sunday. Then there are the Marian feasts. Assumption Day (15 August) is the feast which marks the event when the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed, that is carried up into Heaven following the Ascension of Christ. The other big Marian feast is Immaculate Conception Day, which marks Mary’s being immaculately conceived (that is conceived without sin), which falls in early December.

The reason why Assumption Day is so memorable for me is that it also falls in the middle of a sort of temporal anomaly, not in the Doctor Who or even in the physical sense, but rather in the sense of timekeeping. See, I don’t follow the seasons as they are set down based upon the Equinoxes and Solstices. Rather, I use the older Gaelic calendar, which has the aforementioned solar events placed as the middle of the seasons. So, Winter begins on All Saint’s Day (1 November), Spring on St Bridgid’s Day (1 February), Summer on Bealtaine, May Day, (1 May). However, Autumn is the problem maker. The problem arises when one looks at the traditional Gaelic start of Autumn: Lúnasa (1 August). However, this doesn’t work very well with the social calendar, which in the Anglosphere usually has Autumn beginning with the start of the academic year, which falls usually around the start of September, Labour Day Weekend here in the States. So, to mend this problem in my calendar-keeping, I decided instead of observing the start of Autumn quite early on Lúnasa, or rather late on Labour Day, I’d observe it in the middle: Assumption Day (15 August.) So, Happy Autumn!

All this being said, the coming of Autumn means the coming of another academic year. This, for me, 18th annual instalment of the start of a new school year, comes at quite an interesting time in my life. I’ve had some troubles adjusting to living here in the States again after spending those three weeks living in London. I found it hard to get the will power to leave the house on Sunday mornings and drive the short way up to my parish church for Mass. On top of that, I also find myself quite irked by the politics of this country, and of the Church in this country, after experiencing the British political system firsthand. Let’s face it, I don’t get the reasoning behind all these people screaming and shouting about how they don’t want affordable health care, as our good President has enacted, or how they’re wanting to shut down the government by blocking every possible legislative measure that is proposed by the White House or the Democrats. I mean, seriously people, grow up! It reminds me of a pair of little kids playing in a sandbox, one of the two refusing to give the other the pail and shovel with which to build a sandcastle. It’s bloody infantile!

So, when Assumption Day came around, I found myself resolved to get out of the house and go back to Rockhurst to attend the Noon Mass, as a way to end the streak of skipping, and to give myself a fresh start with the new season. In a way, it was like Odysseus returning to Ithaca. I was leaving all the suitors, all of the emotions, that had kept me away for two months behind, and faced my community once again. True, it was an odd thing seeing these people after having travelled halfway around the world, but there I was.

However, I returned with more experience, more maturity. On the 14th, I had an interview on Skype with one of the Global Ambassador coordinators at ISA, the company who I went over to England with. By the end of that 20 minute conversation, I was one of those very Global Ambassadors working as an intern for ISA! This is a job that I am looking forward to, and one which I know I will love doing.

So then, the proper return to Ithaca will take place on Saturday. To all of my Rockhurst readership, I look forward to seeing you guys soon! The packing has begun, and the great migration up Rockhill Road shall soon commence!