Ascension Day

 

The Book of Acts tells us that forty days after the Resurrection our Lord gathered the disciples together and charged them to wait in Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It was after giving this final charge that St. Luke records for us:

 

And when he had spoken these things, while they behled, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. (Acts 1:9)

 

Thus it is forty days after Easter that we keep the feast of our Lord's Ascension as one of the principle feasts of the Christian year.  On this day we celebrate the culmination of the earthly ministry of our Lord.  Jesus Christ - the Word that became flesh, who was born, baptized, died, and rose again in his flesh now takes that same resurrected human body and ascends into heaven. 

 

As St. Augustine teaches: "For unless the Savior had ascended into heaven, his nativity would have come to nothing...his passion would have borne no fruit for us and his most holy resurrection would have been useless." (quoted in Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven) 

 

The Ascension teaches us that Christ not only redeems us from the Fall of Adam, but raises us up with him far higher than our original edenic state would allow.  In the Ascension, writes St. Gregory, "our nature has...entered heaven." (Homily 29)

 

A service of Holy Communion (with hymns) for the Feast of the Ascension will be offered this Thursday, May 29 at 7:00 PM.  A potluck reception will follow.  

Please bring a dish to pass if you are able.

 

As with many of the principle feasts of the year the collect for the Ascension is prayed throughout the Octave in both Morning and Evening Prayer. 

 

Collect for the Ascension:

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.  Amen.  (BCP, 177)