Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
Dearest ones,
My heart is bursting with gratitude, hope, and joy. What an absolutely profound Holy Week we’ve had together. From our gentle breaths together at our early week Evening Prayer services, to your service to one another washing feet and remembering your servanthood to each other; from your venerations of the cross, to our bursting forth from the tomb at the Easter Vigil; from the baptisms making new Christians on Saturday evening, to our voices raised in songs of celebration on Sunday…I genuinely don’t remember the last time my heart was so fully filled. Thank you, beloveds. Thank you.
This week does not happen by accident or without intention. My many thanks to:
- Our marvelous staff, especially Jody Cash who made the 100 million bulletins we needed (!),
- Our Altar Guild, especially Jerelyn Walters who calmly led the way on making sure we had all we needed and was kindly receptive to the hopes and desires of the Interim Rector’s vision,
- Our Flower Guild, who took my breath away on Saturday when I walked in and saw the symbols of our victory over death all around the church in all their beauty,
- Our Choir and musicians led by our faithful Tom Peterson who took us to new heights with their choral leadership and gorgeous voices,
- Our office volunteers who answered phones and repeated the Easter service times 1,000 times to gentle callers, folded bulletins, and provided endless hospitality,
- Our Children’s ministers, especially Shana Halpin, who saw to the preparation of our baptismal families, helping them feel welcome and at home here at CCA,
- Our hospitality and campus care teams, especially Armando Bustamante who assures that all is so beautiful and well-tended,
- Our Memorial Garden Board who assured that the Garden was ready to be visited by so many throughout Holy Week together as they visited their loved ones,
- Our remarkable clergy, who offered their hearts in sermons and participation, who also flexed around the Interim Rector’s requests (!), and who loved you all in every breath they took this week,
- Our worship ministers, especially John Walters who shepherded all of us faithfully at every service, and Ginny McNally who made sure all our teams were staffed and ready for all the services, and all the ushers, chalice-bearers, readers, greeters and beyond – you all make the church go round!
- And all of you: for showing up, for loving each other, for being resurrection life everywhere you go. You are a blessing and each day I am filled with awe that I get to be a part of your community and journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Faithfully,
Mother Erika
Merry Christmas! Today, this Eleventh Day of Christmas (for us who begin counting on December 25th), I’d like to share some wisdom from the pen of Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury. As Bishop of Durham, he was part of the episcopal entourage and inner circle of bishops surrounding Queen Elizabeth II at her Westminster Abbey Coronation in 1953 and, later, Archbishop of York before his elevation to Canterbury in 1961. In the 1980’s, after his retirement from Canterbury, Ramsey was a regular presence at my seminary in Wisconsin where I first learned about him years later. The following is an excerpt from one of Bishop Ramsey’s annual letters to his diocesan clergy on New Year’s Day. This is also good advice for all the people of God and us at Christ Church of the Ascension as we go into 2024 expectant of what lies ahead and grateful for all our many blessings, past, present and future. Here are The Baron Arthur Michael Ramsey’s five tips for the new year. 1. Thank God. Often and always. Thank him carefully and wonderingly for your continuing privileges and for every experience of his goodness. Thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow. 2. Take care about confession of your sins. As time passes the habit of being critical about people and things grows more than each of us realize. [He then gently commends the practice of sacramental confession.] 3. Be ready to accept humiliations. They can hurt terribly but they can help to keep you humble. [Whether trivial or big, accept them he says.] All these can be so many chances to be a little nearer to our Lord. There is nothing to fear, if you are near to the Lord and in his hands. 4. Do not worry about status. There is only one status that Our Lord bids us be concerned with, and that is our proximity to Him. “If a man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am there also shall my servant be” (John 12:26). That is our status; to be near our Lord wherever He may ask us to go with him. 5. Use your sense of humor. Laugh at things, laugh at the absurdities of life, laugh at yourself. Through the year people will thank God for you. And let the reason for their thankfulness be not just that you were a person whom they liked or loved but because you made God real to them. *** Amen! and Happy New Year !! Grace & peace, Fr. Rod+
Rector's Note for 12/21/23 As we enter this season of giving in celebration of the Incarnation of our Lord, I want to thank you for your generosity to Christ Church of the Ascension during 2023 in your gifts of time, talent and treasure. I want to say a special thank you also to those who have pledged for 2024! As our 2024 Stewardship Campaign continues, if you haven’t yet completed your pledge card or pledged online, I encourage you to do so as an act of spiritual worship and tangible prayer for the future of the Church in thanksgiving for all of God’s many blessings these past 60 years. Please join me in giving from the heart for the building up of this community of faith to inspire hope and love through worship and service in the Church and in the world. Make Christ Church of the Ascension part of your daily spiritual practice as you prayerfully discern what God is calling you to give in 2024 starting now. PLEDGE HERE Grace and peace, Father Rod+
A Note for Thanksgiving My series on the Collects of Thomas Cranmer will continue at a later date; but today I’d like to share with you one of my favorite stories by pastoral care pioneer Howard Clinebell. It speaks to us about the fact that the Church, our church, is not only a house of worship and prayer but a hospital for the broken, where Christ welcomes each person, where they are and for who they are. As Christ's hands and voice we then bring the healing arts of spiritual friendship and Christ-like love to all Christ brings our way. If we were all Christ-like all the time we would have no need for Christ and his Church; but everyday experiences tell us all that we have need of Christ each and every day of our lives—the healed and the healers alike. This charming and cautionary tale tells us what we are meant to be, and what we could become if we lose sight of our mission; but it is a reminder of our potential when we retain and, as necessary, reclaim our Christ-centered focus. Thus we give thanks! Please touch or click the link below to read the story. Lifesaving Station Grace and peace, Fr. Rod+
