The Ascension, kept on the fortieth day after Easter (Acts 1:3), commemorates Christ's return to the Father. "He was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight" (Acts 1:9), and the disciples were left gazing upward on the Mount of Olives, addressed by two angels who promised his return in the same way. In many countries the feast is transferred to the following Sunday.
The traditional site of the Ascension is the summit of the Mount of Olives, in Jerusalem, where a small octagonal chapel — now shared by Muslims, who revere Jesus — marks the spot. The chapel belongs to the complex of the Eleona and the Church of the Pater Noster nearby, where the disciples are said to have asked Jesus to teach them to pray. The footprint of Christ, impressed into the rock, was long shown in the chapel floor.
The Ascension is also the feast of hope: Christ ascends so that he might come again. Every creed ends with the words "he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead," and the angels at the Ascension promise the same. The mount from which he rose is the mount to which he will return, and pilgrims who climb the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem stand where the disciples stood — looking up, looking forward.
