Category: Newsletter

News from the rector: “Starting Sunday, June 20, we will offer a 9 am Eucharist in the church. Our initial capacity for that service will be 50 — more than we usually have for our early service on Sunday. As on Wednesdays, we will ask that all wear masks and practice distancing whether you are vaccinated or not. We will not have any socializing indoors for now, but the garden provides a lovely space to connect with each other after the service.”
 
This Sunday, May 30, we will worship online 11 a.m. via Zoom, observing the one feast of the Christian year not commemorating an event but an underlying tenet of the faith, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” Please join us! Holy, holy, holy!

The rector writes: “In the Pentecost story from Acts, the Holy Spirit opens up dreams and visions — new possibilities for being and knowing, acting and serving — to the old and the young, to women and men, to people of every background, faith and status. New truths — both profoundly wonderful and deeply disturbing — are revealed. The Spirit shakes things up, quickening our desire for God’s dream of love and communion, and also showing us how we fall short of that dream, and the ways that we must travel, the amends we must make, and the community we need to respond fully to the divine vision of a renewed and thriving creation.”
 
Join us Sunday at 11 a.m. online, via Zoom, as we celebrate the birthday of Christ’s church, the Holy Spirit come among us to wake us up and show us what is ours to do in God’s world.

Our guest preacher on May 16 — the last Sunday of Easter before Pentecost — will be the Rev. Sam Owen, who will also lead our discussion forum following the service. Father Sam is the Priest-in-Charge of the Haitian Congregation of the Good Samaritan in the Bronx, and we are delighted to welcome him back to Ascension this coming Sunday. He will preach and update us on the situation in Haiti, as well as the New York Haiti Project in which we participate, and the church and school in Martel. We’ll be worshiping online via Zoom at 11 a.m. Don’t miss it!

The feast of the Ascension, our “name day,” is traditionally celebrated 40 days after Easter Sunday. (Which means we always know it will be a Thursday!) This year, as last, we’ll be celebrating online, via Zoom. Please join us at 6pm on May 13 for the readings, hymns, anthem and sermon marking this special day for our parish and the Christian faith.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” — John 15:12

Join us Sunday at 11 a.m. via Zoom to hear the Gospel read (according to John), proclaimed (by the Rev. Meredith Ward), and sung (by the Ascension Choir, through the music of John Ireland).

During the Sunday Forum that follows the service, we’ll be discussing the introduction and first two chapters of the new book The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline and New Hope for Beloved Community, by the Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers.

Worship online with us Sunday at 11 a.m. via Zoom, followed by fellowship and catching up during our virtual coffee hour. Plus, you can now reserve a pew for in-person Eucharists on Wednesdays; just go to ascensionnyc.org/reservations to sign up to receive an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

Join us for worship online Sunday at 11 a.m. via Zoom. We are delighted to welcome the Rev. Dr. Claudio Carvalhaes as our guest preacher and forum leader at Ascension. Dr. Carvalhaes, ordained in the Presbyterian Church, is Associate Professor of Worship at Union Theological Seminary. He works at the intersection of liturgy, justice and the arts. Two years ago he led a service at UTS that became known as “Plantgate,” in which participants confessed to plants their sins against the natural world. To commemorate Earth Day, in the forum following the service we will explore how our liturgies and theology help or hinder our connections with the whole community of creation and our work of ecological love and justice.

We continue our celebration of Christ’s resurrection at 11 a.m. Sunday, via Zoom; please join us! (Pro tip: Sign on 5 minutes early for preludial music.)
 
We’re also worshiping online at 5:30 p.m. every weekday evening with the Office of Evening Prayer. (If you don’t have a prayer book at home to join in, use this link; psalms are here.) And we’re resuming our midweek, in-person Eucharist services at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, starting April 28! For now, seating is limited to 20 worshipers at a time, so that people may be safely distanced. Use this link to reserve a pew for one of the upcoming Wednesday Eucharists. Alleluia!

Please join us for worship online or by phone this Second Sunday of Eastertide. Preludial music — three pieces by baroque composer François Couperin this week — begins at 10:45 a.m., followed by a service of scripture, hymns, an anthem from Handel’s Messiah, and a sermon to be preached by our seminarian, Linda Brandt.
 

The Lord is risen indeed! Allelulia!
 
Happy Easter! Our service again this year takes place via Zoom. Preludial choral music begins at 10:45 a.m.; the service itself begins at 11 a.m. Please join us as we celebrate the resurrection, rebirth and renewal of Easter, spring, and an increasingly vaccinated city!