In this week’s newsletter, the rector offers thanks for the past almost 7 years we have had Mother Posey Krakowsky with us. As she and her husband prepare for a season of transitions and moves, we will enjoy our remaining time with her until we have a proper celebration on June 16, following the 11 am service. Mark your calendars!
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:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
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.