My LORD’s BibleThe Roman Missal: Ascension Day to Ember Saturday in Whitsun Week (English) 1
The Masses of Ascension Day, the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, Whitsun Eve, Whit Sunday (with the Sequence Veni, Sancte Spiritus) and the days of Whitsun week through Ember Saturday, in English, as printed in the Rev. F. C. Husenbeth's Missal for the use of the Laity (London, 1853), in the form used from the Council of Trent until the liturgical reform of the 1950s. Trinity Sunday and the later feasts are in a following book. This is the English only; the Latin of the chants and psalms is to be added. The words in square brackets are the Missal's own headings and directions. A liturgy of the Catholic Church, not scripture.
1[Ascension Day.]
4Lesson. Acts i. 1—11. The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, of all things which Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day on which, giving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the apostles whom he had chosen, he was taken up. To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs, by forty days appearing to them, and speaking of the kingdom of God. And eating together with them, he commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard (saith he) by my mouth: for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence. They therefore who were come together asked him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? But he said to them, It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in his own power; but you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had said these things, while they looked on he was raised up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments, who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven.
6Gospel. St Mark xvi. 14—20. At that time, Jesus appeared to the eleven as they were at table: and he upbraided them with their incredulity and hardness of heart, because they did not believe them who had seen him after he was risen again. And he said to them, Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover. And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God. But they going preached every where, the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with the signs that followed.
7[Credo.]
8Offertory. God is ascended in jubily, and the Lord with the sound of trumpet, alleluia.
9Secret. Receive, O Lord, the gifts which we offer on the glorious ascension of thy Son, and favourably grant that we may be delivered from present dangers, and arrive at eternal life. Through the same, &c.
10[Preface. Qui post resurrectionem, &c., as in the Ordinary, page 17, which is said till Whitsunday, Communicantes, as in the Ordinary, which is said during the Octave only.]
12Postcom. Præsta. Grant us, we beseech thee, O Almighty and merciful God, that what we have received in visible mysteries we may obtain by an invisible effect. Through our Lord, &c.
13[When this Mass is repeated during the Octave, the Second and Third Prayers are as after Low Sunday, p. 368.]