The Ascension celebrates that Jesus has come full circle because, having come from the Father to accomplish a specific mission, he returns to the Father having achieved what he was sent to do. And he was sent to save us from spiritual death and alienation from God that is due to our sins.
According to the 1962 Missal of St. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of St. John of San Facondo born in 1430 in Spain. He was a canon of the cathedral of Burgos and then entered the Hermits of St. Augustine. He was distinguished for his great devotion to the sacrifice of the Mass and for his forceful preaching. He died in 1479.
Today is also the commemoration of Sts. Basilides, Cyrinus, Nabor and Nazarius. These four martyrs have been venerated together at Rome from very early in the Church’s history.