Magazine for June 2011
Ascension Day
Ascension Day is the 40th day after Easter Sunday and always falls on a Thursday. It is usually in May, but can be as late as 3rd June, or as early as 30th April.
The last time it was on 3rd June was in 1943, and the next time will be in 2038, a gap of 95 years.
The most recent occasion it was 30th April was 1818 and it will be 535 years before it happens again, in 2353!
According to Augustine of Hippo, one of the early church fathers, the Feast of Ascension originated with the Apostles. John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa, who were contemporaries of Augustine, refer to it as being one of the oldest feasts practised by the Church, possibly going as far back as AD 68. However, real evidence of the Church celebrating Ascension Day only appears in AD 385.
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Ascension Day is associated across Britain with various water festivals, an example of which is the ’Penny Hedge’ , which is erected on the eve of Ascension Day in the harbour at Boyes Staithe, near Whitby in Yorkshire. This commemorates a medieval penance imposed by the Abbot of Whitby on some local noblemen who disturbed a holy hermit at his prayers and beat him up. The stakes and the woven twigs for the hedge have to be cut in a local wood at sunrise on Ascension Eve, carried to Whitby Harbour at low tide and made into a hedge strong enough to withstand three full tides. |
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Ascension Day is also the day for Beating the Bounds, or Boundaries, of a church’s parish. The custom was once found in almost every English parish, but now is only carried out only in a few places.
In simple terms it involves people in the locality walking around their farm, manorial, church or civil boundaries, pausing as they pass certain trees, walls and hedges that denote the extent of the boundary to exclaim, pray and ritually ‘beat’ particular landmarks with sticks.
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In London, where there is a boundary on the river Thames, a school boy holding a stick is held upside down by his feet from a boat, so that he can ‘beat’ the water’s surface! The ceremony of Beating the Bounds has existed in Britain for well over 2000 years and has no connection with Ascension Day as such. |
Our service of Holy Communion for Ascension Day is on 2nd June at 7.30 pm.
Peter Took