I have been a critic of the “pastoral adaptation” of the Catholic Bishops of the United States, whereby Ascension Thursday is transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter if that is the policy of an entire ecclesiastical province. Most of the United States has “adapted” except for some ecclesiastical provinces in the Northeast.

Obligation by geography within a country is a bizarre notion — though not as bizarre as what has been called the “geography of sin” according to the pastoral accompaniers of Amoris Laetitia, whereby adultery in Poland becomes “discernment” in Deutschland. Why is the Ascension transferred by province? Granted, Epiphany is not a holy day in the United States (it should be), but why then can’t some dioceses move it back to January 6, which most Americans seem now to know only as “Insurrection Day”?

Of course, obligation by geography is as strange a notion as the “no double header obligation,” by which the Assumption, for example, loses its status as a feast of precept if it falls on a Saturday or Monday, creating two days in a row to go to church, a double header now only obliging at Christmas?

I recognize that, especially with current leaders in the U.S. hierarchy and general episcopal deftness at measuring from whence ecclesiastical winds blow, the likelihood of the 27-year-old practice of moving Ascension Thursday from Thursday is unlikely to be reversed. No doubt its defenders will claim it’s “pastoral.” But, no, it’s an accommodationism behind which lurks latent clericalism. “If we leave it on Thursday people won’t go to church and so, technically, commit a sin. So, we move the feast and – voilà! – we take away the sins of the world (that wants to accommodate to the world)!”

My deepest concern, however, is spiritual. Before Jesus rose to heaven 40 days after Easter, i.e., on Ascension Thursday, He told His disciples to stay in Jerusalem, pray, and wait (Lk 24:49). He didn’t tell them how long. Most problematically, He didn’t show “pastoral” solicitude by prolonging the wait for nine whole days. He merely said to wait and pray.

There are two vital lessons here, both increasingly lost on moderns.

First, things happen in God’s time, not ours. When His disciples walked off the Mount after the Ascension, they had no idea how long they would be waiting and praying. The Paraclete would come when He was ready, not when it was convenient (even if “convenient” is now treated as a synonym for “pastoral”). Learning to be patient with God’s response time is something every generation needs.

Second, Christianity is an historical religion. Its events happened in history. The Gospel makes a big deal about when Jesus was born (“when Caesar Augustus reigned and Quirinius ruled Syria”; Lk 2:1-2). It also pegs the launch of John the Baptist’s ministry — and by extension, Jesus’ — to the terms of seven historical figures’ incumbencies (Lk 3:1-2). Luke is author of both the Gospel and Acts, which recounts the Ascension. He pays attention to when history happens. Too bad our bishops don’t. A faith that claims to be incarnational cannot evade history.