The theme on the third Sunday in Advent, December 11, will be Ministering with Refugees in Baghdad. Last fall, Ascension joined several other parishes in the Diocese of New York in helping to build a community center in a refugee camp in Baghdad, Iraq. This ecumenical work is sponsored in part by the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf in the Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. On Sunday, December 11, the Ven. Bill Schwarz, Archdeacon of that diocese, will be our guest preacher and forum leader at Ascension, and will tell us more about the challenges and blessings of this vital work. For photos of an art workshop held last spring in the new space, see here. At the time, Archdeacon Schwartz wrote “It all looks so normal! For these girls, normality is a real treasure.” Here is a link to learn more about the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf.
Newsletter
Parish News: May 24
In this week’s newsletter, the rector notes Pentecost’s reversal of Babel—not by restoring a single language, but by enabling understanding across difference as each speaks and hears in their own tongue. She treasures hearing parishioners read “God’s deeds of power” in many languages during worship, and invites us to consider what it means to speak of God in our own heart language—whether shaped by mother tongue, place, trust, or profound shared experience. In a time of contempt for difference, Pentecost reveals the blessing of many tongues and the Holy Spirit’s gift of mutual understanding across culture, faith, and ethnic background.
