Happy New Year!
Dear Ones,
Happy New Year! I hope your holiday celebrations were a source of joy and connection for you and yours. January is already turning into a busy month in our parish life, so there are a few things I want to draw your attention toward:
- Tomorrow evening is our Parish Social Hour from 5pm-7pm in Parish Hall – come out for some relaxed fun.
- Parish Clean-Up Day is Saturday, Jan 14 – all hands on deck! We want to make the place sparkle for Bishop Reddall’s visit!
- Bishop Reddall’s Visitation will be the following weekend: Sunday, Jan 22. We will confirm and/or receive over a dozen faithful people from age 14 on up! What a joyful morning it will be!
- Our Pastoral Care Training Weekend is January 27-28 (Friday evening & Saturday day) – if you want to learn the skills and protocols to care for your fellow parishioners, this is for you! RSVP to info@ccaaz.org.
- The Annual Meeting is Sunday, January 29 at 11:30am– when we elect our nominees (they were detailed in an email yesterday!), deal with the business of the church, and celebrate all that’s to come in 2023. It will be a potluck, and signups are in the Narthex – please bring something to share!
Blessings to all of you. I know we are still in this ‘in-between’ time which can be hard, but I urge you: keep showing up, keep supporting your church, keep loving one another…all we have is this moment, right now. We cannot live in the past, we cannot live in the future – we can only follow Jesus Christ right now, together. It’s a privilege to do just that with you
.
Fondly,
Mother Erika
The Rev. Canon Erika von Haaren
Interim Rector
Christ Church of the Ascension
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+
