Catholics celebrated Ascension Day recently, commemorating the day that Jesus ascended into Heaven.

“The Ascension is a beautiful mystery of our faith,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York said in a recent tweet. “Today I want to share a fourth lesson with you that we can learn from it.” 

In the accompanying video, Dolan revealed the fourth lesson as one in which the Apostles prayed for the gift of the Holy Spirit. He said the simplest prayer is “Come Holy Spirit,” and the Apostles reaped the rewards of their faithful prayer on the Pentecost, which is coming up Sunday.

Ascension Day, also known as the Feast of the Ascension, is an annual observance that takes place 40 days after Easter. The day commemorates the event in which Jesus, following his Resurrection, continued to appear to his disciples for a span of 40 days. On the 40th day, he led his disciples to the Mount of Olives. From there, he ascended into heaven, thus marking his departure from Earth, The Pillar explained. This year, Ascension Day took place on Thursday, with many dioceses across the United States celebrating on Sunday. 

Different dioceses have varying practices when it comes to celebrating the Ascension. Some observe it on the 40th day after Easter, either on Thursday or the next Sunday. In certain U.S. states like Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and others, Catholics celebrate on Thursday. However, in the rest of the U.S., the feast is celebrated on Sunday, and attending Mass on Thursday is not obligatory. In November 1998, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved a plan to allow individual ecclesiastical provinces to move the liturgical observance from Thursday to Sunday after it received the approval of two-thirds of the voting bishops, The Pillar reported.

Ascension Day is celebrated globally through Mass, processions, hymns, prayer, and more. Worldwide, the faithful celebrate Ascension Day in various ways, such as seeking luck in bird songs during sunrise in Sweden, the Welsh abstaining from work, the Portuguese keeping wheat at home for prosperity, and Indonesia declaring the day a public holiday, National Today said in a report. 

"With the Ascension, something new and beautiful happened: Jesus brought our humanity into heaven, that is, in God," Pope Francis said in a Sunday tweet. "That humanity that he had assumed on earth did not remain here. It ascended into God and there it will remain forever.”