Ascension Day, observed forty days after Easter on a Thursday, commemorates the bodily ascension of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ into heaven before the eyes of his assembled disciples. In ascending, Christ did not depart from his Church; rather, he entered into the fullness of his heavenly reign, taking our redeemed humanity with him into the presence of the Father. The Ascension is therefore not an absence but a new and glorified mode of presence.

The appointed Epistle from the Acts of the Apostles recounts the moment of departure: the cloud receiving him out of their sight, and two men in white apparel directing the disciples to stop gazing upward and to return to Jerusalem to await the promise of the Father. The appointed Gospel from Saint Luke records the Lord's final blessing of the disciples at Bethany, and their return to Jerusalem with great joy. Together these readings establish the twin promise of the feast: that Christ now reigns over all things at the right hand of the Father, and that his Spirit will shortly be sent to equip and enliven the Church for her mission in the world.

The Collect of Ascension Day is one of the most beloved in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. It prays that, because our Saviour has gone before us, we may in heart and mind also thither ascend and with him continually dwell. The feast is a summons to a reordered imagination — to see daily life from the vantage of the heavenly throne room, and to live accordingly.