Category: Newsletter

In this week’s newsletter, a special prayer for the Day of Pentecost, giving thanks for the church — and especially for this church, its people and the many ways they do the work of God, lift each other and their neighbors up, and strive to walk in love as Christ loves us. This Sunday is also the last until the fall with our full choir, so come worship and be transported by beautiful voices, for which we will also give thanks at a special Coffee Hour reception following the service!

This week: Happy Mother’s Day! And a special prayer for all sorts and conditions of motherhood.

This week, the rector asks: “When have you experienced love, and when have you practiced it? When has it been easy, and when very difficult? What have you learned about the work of love? What helps you to persist in loving?” Also, this Thursday: We are delighted to welcome The Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool, Assisting Bishop of New York, to preach, celebrate, and confirm and receive new members on our special feast day, Ascension Thursday, May 9, at 7 pm! The service will be followed by a joyful reception in honor of the bishop, the confirmands and receptees, and all the people of Ascension. Join us!

This week: An update from the rector and wardens with some good news and some not-so-good news (but still, overall, good news!) about repairs to the Fifth Avenue Bell Tower brownstone. As is often the case with old national landmarks in a landmarked district, further repair needs were discovered and that work will require more time and more money. But we’re getting there! And the repairs can be feasible and finished with your help! Also in this newsletter: Mark your calendars for our Ascension Day celebration with Bishop Mary Glasspool, Thursday, May 9th at 7pm!

This week, the rector invites you to attend the Sunday Forum following the 11 am service: “This Sunday, April 21, our forum will focus on how we care for ‘this fragile earth, our island home.’ How can we remember earth, our fellow creatures and those who work for environmental justice in our liturgy? What prayer practices deepen your sense of connection with creation, perhaps especially with a particular place you love and care for?”

In this week’s newsletter, the rector offers thanks to those who made our Holy Week and Easter celebrations possible, and says: “Easter is 50 days long — longer than Lent. That’s because resurrection is harder to grasp than disciplines, mortality and loss. May the joy of this season continue to work on you, and may you meet the risen Christ in the most unexpected places.”

This week, a poem (and painting, above) by e.e. cummings seems best to sum up the Easter hope for new life seen through new eyes:

From the rector: “It is always a gift to participate in these liturgies at this holiest time of our liturgical year. I feel as if we are a little band of pilgrims, trudging deeper into the story together, connecting it too with the joys and struggles of our lives and the suffering and wonder of our world. I hope you will join as much as you are able.” Included in this week’s newsletter is the full calendar of all Ascension’s Holy Week services. Please join us at whatever services you can as we move together from the streets to a table, from a garden to the cross, and from a tomb to joy.

The rector writes: “This Saturday, March 16 at 4 pm, we will screen the documentary film The Philadelphia 11, which tells the story of the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church on July 29, 1974. The film will be followed by a panel of women ordained in the fifty years since, one for each decade.” Join us! And Sunday is the last in Lent, which means next Sunday is the start of Holy Week! Check this week’s newsletter for the schedule of worship services.

In this week’s newsletter, consider the humble worm. “Do you experience God’s image in unlikely creatures — the ugly, the frightening, the unassuming or strange?” the rector asks. “Do you find God’s image in your own depths and shadows as well as those of the natural world?” A poem by Gideon Heugh makes the case that, rather than the lion or the lamb, the common earthworm — “quietly making and remaking the ground beneath our feet” — is the most apt animal image of God for us to imagine, the one “creating, often unseen.” Consider, also, participating in one of the many Lenten worship opportunities, activities and moments for spiritual reflection at Ascension you’ll find listed here.