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The Matter of Trust


I confess to you, my new friends: this moment in our church life is a daunting one for us to be starting a new relationship. We’ve had but one (!) Sunday together in which we could get to know each other…and now this Sunday, we will walk into Christ’s death together. I would likely not choose for us to have to get this vulnerable together so soon. I’d rather we had the room to get to know each other, to build trust, to find our way together so that when this moment came…a moment of grief, confusion, loss, and discomfort, we would have a stable ground to work from.


Instead, life the calendar, and the fact that there is no ‘pause’ in the story of our faith means we will need to bravely look to each other—to give each other trust now—so that we can fully engage the Christian story we are about to experience.


Trust is a dicey thing in community. We most often don’t notice it until it is not present. Then we experience the pain of that lack which leads to a different way of being than we desire. And on top of that, trust is built differently for everyone! What looks like trust-building to some may not look like that to others. So there is learning for us to do in this season. Learning about and with each other so that we can be the community we seek to be.


The mysteries of Holy Week, of death leading to life, and the thin veil that exists between the two, tends to bring me back to the contemplatives, and this past week or so, I have been spending time with Consenting to God as God Is by Thomas Keating. He reminds the reader that “…He who is everything and who has everything wants to give it all away. This is the most extraordinary revelation of who God is: non-possessive love. In Greek this is called agape or pure love, a love that seeks no reward and has no attachment to itself.”


As we walk into Holy Week together, I invite you to contemplate: what does trust mean to you? What does love that seeks no reward mean to you? How would you like to live those truths? How would you like to see CCA live those truths? I look forward to discovering this and so much more together with you, beloveds in Christ, particularly during the liturgical journey we are about to embark upon. Let us go to the cross…to the grave…together…trusting that an empty tomb awaits us.


Peace,

Mother Erika


The Rev. Erika von Haaren

Interim Rector, Christ Church of the Ascension

Paradise Valley, Arizona

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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