The Heart Of Our Christian Call


Beloveds,


I wish this was a week we could just say Happy Thanksgiving and go forth in joy. But I came out of church on Sunday to learn that another mass shooting had occurred, this time at an LGBTQ+ bar in Colorado on Saturday night, leaving 5 Children of God dead and 18 injured. To make it even more cruel, it happened the night before the Trans Day of Remembrance when those who have died as a result of anti-trans violence are honored. Over 30 people just this year have been murdered solely because they were transgender. 

 

Acclaimed non-binary author and speaker Alok V. Menon recently said, “The focus has been on comprehension, not compassion. People will say ‘I don’t understand.’ Why do you need to understand me in order to say that I shouldn’t be experiencing violence?”

 

This is the heart of our Christian call, friends. To have compassion first. The person who chose to terrorize this community decided that because they couldn’t understand what it meant to be LGBTQ+, that they were allowed to therefore destroy however many people they wanted to in that bar. They decided people there deserved his violence for simply being different than him.

 

We must, as followers of a Jesus who spent more of his affection on outcasts than anyone else in the scriptures, stand firmly against this. If comprehension is something you seek, I expect that in your compassion, you will faithfully seek it from those who have a lived experience of it. 

 

No LGBTQ+ person imagines their life will be simple. In fact, so many are tortured by it and try to resist who they are because religion has told them God has no place for them in this world. We must loudly proclaim that all have a place in God’s Kingdom and it has not been, nor ever will be, our job to be the gatekeepers of God’s infinite love. We must be people of compassion for one and all. Period.

 

May the souls of the departed rest in peace and rise in glory, into the arms of a faithful God who loves them more fully than we could imagine.


PS: in just these few days between Sunday and now, 6 more Children of God have been murdered at a Wal-Mart in Virginia. Pray for the repose of their souls as well. Then let us all examine the role of this type of violence in our nation and our individual lives and how we might help change occur so no one need face so many possibilities of death when they walk out into the world. God bless us all, but particularly those who must now suffer these holidays without their loved ones. Christ have mercy.

 

In Christ,

Mother Erika


The Rev. Canon Erika von Haaren

Interim Rector

Christ Church of the Ascension

Merry Christmas!

By The Rev. Fr. Rod Hurst+ • January 4, 2024
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

By The Rev. Fr. Rod Hurst • December 21, 2023
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

By The Rev. Fr. Rod Hurst • November 16, 2023
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+
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