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.
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.
The Church of the Ascension presents a film screening of The Philadelphia Eleven, a documentary about the first women ordained as priests 50 years ago. Join us on Saturday, March 16, at 4 pm in the Parish Hall, 12 W. 11th St. All are welcome! Please let us know (by phone or this reservation form) if you are coming.
This week, the rector suggests we do a self-check to see how our Lent is going. Maybe you have settled into a rhythm of Lenten practice. Or maybe Lent feels disjointed to you this year. Maybe you are longing for rest and finding it hard to stop. “If you find yourself unmoored this Lent, remember that this season is not about doing everything right. Lent is an invitation to discover and trust in God’s grace.” At Sunday’s Forum, we welcome our friend the Rev. Sam Owen, who will share recent news of the New York Haiti Project, of which we are proud to be a partner parish, as well as the situation in Haiti. Please join us!
This week: The rector shares a Lenten prayer from Cole Arthur Riley’s book Black Liturgies. The Lent Forum discussion on Amy-Jill Levine’s book The Gospel of Mark: A Beginner’s Guide to the Good News continues this week following the 11 am service. And yet another book — The Ascension 2024 Lenten Devotional, made up of 40 personal reflections from members of the parish and clergy at Ascension — is available in the narthex; suggested donation: $5 to help defray production costs.
From the rector: “The first Sunday of Lent always features the gospel story of Jesus’ temptation, but of course each writer tells it differently. I think Mark’s version, which we will hear this Sunday, is my favorite. It is spare and short, and doesn’t tell us details of the temptations — which allows us to imagine Jesus’ struggles in light of our own.” Also this week at the Sunday Forum following the 11 am service, the start of a weekly discussion through Lent and into Eastertide based on the book (and videos) by Amy-Jill Levine “The Gospel of Mark: A Beginner’s Guide to the Good News.” Join us!