For reasons that seemed good to them, the Polish bishops moved the celebration of Ascension to Sunday. Which creates a dilemma. Does one begin the nine days of prayer on the Thursday, even though it’s not the Ascension, or does one begin them on the Ascension, but making them not nine days?
Laodicea 
June 1, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Surely it can’t be Sunday. You can’t finish the novena a few days after Pentecost – especially now that the Octave no longer exists.
If you live in Scotland and travel to England for the weekend, you get to observe the Ascension twice. If you live in England and travel to Scotland for the weekend, you don’t get to oberve it at all…
June 2, 2011 at 1:05 am
Regardless of whether Ascension Thursday has been moved to Sunday or not, the novena must surely start on the Thursday. One simply cannot make a novena seven days long! It simply wouldn’t work! And it would be completely unscriptural.
June 2, 2011 at 11:11 am
Yeah, but. Bit weird to start the novena before the Ascension, no? Perhaps in countries like Poland where the Ascension happens 43 days after the Resurrection, we ought to make sesinas?
June 2, 2011 at 1:44 pm
The Novena traditionally begins on Friday. Ascension Thursday is not part of it. Can no one on this blog count from one to nine?
June 2, 2011 at 4:02 pm
The things we do to provoke a reaction from Fr PF …
June 2, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Fr. PF. LOL! You’re right of course. Well, God is the one who created me blonde, so I’m sure He would have overlooked that extra day. But now He won’t have to! š
Still, the problem remains. Even though the novena does not start on Ascension Thursday, the start of it still bears a logical relation to the Ascension. Our Lady and the disciples went to the upper room to pray after and not before the Ascension, so the translation does cause some confusion.
However, it would be a shame to reduce the model of all novenas to 7 days or 8 at most if one were to pray it on Pentecost Sunday as well. I would arge, with all the authority of a random lay Catholic who cannot even count to 9, that one could look upon the translated feast as a feast postponed in the manner of a postponed birthday party.It does not change the proper date for the birthday. While the bishops certainly have the authority to move that feast in their diocese, though I personally do not like it, I think it is still valid to regard the proper day of the feast as Ascension Thursday as set by the universal Church. I believe Ascension Thursday is marked today in traditional Masses even in those diocese where the feast has been moved in the new calendar and it is not a Holy Day of obligation, so Ascension Thursday will hopefully be celebrated today somewhere in your diocese.
Of course, I do not have to worry about this where I am, as Ascension Thursday is one of only two Holy Days of obligation apart from sundays still remaining in Norway. So I have not only been able to attend Mass for Ascension Thursday today, but, after Fr. PF’s correction, will now be able to start the novena on its proper day without any chronological concerns.
June 2, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Come to think of it, if one were to attach the Novena to Vespers, one could start it together with First Vespers of the re-arranged Ascension Sunday (i.e. Saturday evening) and finish it with Second Vespers on Pentecost Sunday – which would add up to nine.
June 4, 2011 at 7:31 pm
Ascension is celebrated on Sunday in most American diocese.
In sandlot baseball, there is a thing called a ghost runner. There usually aren’t enough kids for a full team, so people have to keep coming off base to bat. They leave a “ghost runner” on their base that can move ahead and win a point if real kids or other ghost runners behind it advance. I am worried this is a terrible explanation. Google it if you don’t understand. Anyway, something is understood to be still there even though the real life kid is back at home plate trying to hit the ball.
I think of Thursday as ghost Ascension. It’s not really there anymore, but it used to be, and it’s important to pretend like it is still there for prayer purposes, so I’m using it as my placeholder for the Novena.
June 4, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Ascension is still on Thursday its just that some bishops stop you celebrating it on Thursday in the OF. In the EF (and the other Rites of the Church) it is exactly where it always was (you just have to celebrate it again on Sunday if you are an unfortunate Latin). The OF is only the Roman Rite juridically. Substantively its just something completely new made up by a committee. There is no reason why it should affect people’s private devotions.