Dear People of Ascension

This Sunday we will celebrate the feast of All Saints — the only one of the seven annual principal feasts of the Christian year that we are allowed to transfer to the Sunday after the day of the actual feast. This week will be one of remembrance and introspection since we transferred All Souls as well, celebrating that feast on Wednesday of this past week. In a time of ongoing uncertainty and pandemic, we gather to contemplate the beloved saints and souls who have gone before us, and to acknowledge that we too will take our place along the continuum of the communion of saints. One of the great powers of being in community is to share our joys as well as our burdens, and to remember that we are never alone. This Sunday we will baptize some new members into the communion of saints, a tangible and visible practice of hope in these troubling times!

On Wednesday at All Souls we heard stories of beloveds who have entered the larger life, told by parishioners who shared what was on their hearts this week. We also created an ofrenda, inspired by the annual Dia de los Muertos celebrations in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. People brought images and items that held resonances of their loved ones to place on the ofrenda. Wednesday night’s service was solemn and joyful and healing all at once.

We also hung up a Dia de los Muertos quilt that I made for my husband Philippe over twenty years ago. Philippe was born in Mexico City and lived there until he was nine, when his family moved to the United States. The first time I ever visited Mexico was on our honeymoon in 1991. At the time, we explored several Mesoamerican archeological sites on the Yucatan peninsula. Inspired by some carvings of skulls on the walls at Chichen-Itza, the quilt was created ten years later when our own children were quite young. I made it to celebrate the country and culture of Philippe’s birth and early childhood. If you get up close, you will find all kinds of beading and tiny objects attached to the quilt’s surface, many of them connected to Mexican culture. My personal favorite detail is the inclusion of a white fabric with black ants in the ‘mouths’ of some of the skulls. Showing the ants feeding on our remains might be seen as macabre to some, but for me it represents resurrection and rebirth — the full cycle of life that we proclaim as Christians. Just as Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality, so too does Dia de los Muertos remind us that we are never really gone, but continue to remain in God’s loving embrace even when we are no longer present in the flesh.

Blessed All Saints to one and all!

Posey

Be sure to set your clocks back one hour this Saturday evening.

Click this link for this Sunday's bulletin & hymns.

A Note About Prayers - For our Zoom participants, in order for us to collect your prayer intentions, please put them in the Zoom chat after the service has started and before the end of the sermon.

Holy Eucharist - in the Church - 9:00 a.m.

Holy Eucharist and Baptism with Music - in the Church - 11:00 a.m.

How to join the livestream service:

Ascensionnyc.org/Sunday or zoom.us/j/322793633

If you do not have a device with a camera, you can still join with your phone by dialing the following number: 929-205-6099, and enter the meeting ID: 322 793 633.

We are in the home stretch! The cameras are in place - now we need to balance the sound and get trained on how to do it. We can see the finish line from here!

When we go live, we will still need some on-line volunteers to act as Zoom hosts for our online participants. If that's something you'd like to help with, please email Andrew at info@ascensionnyc.org. Ideally we'd have a pool of Zoom hosts we can rotate through so no one person has to bear the brunt of it.

Join us each weeknight at 5:30 for Evening Prayer & discussion. Click this link to join: ascensionnyc.org/eveningprayer. To call in (voice, no camera), dial 929-205-6099; the meeting ID is 770 597 201.

The Church is open for prayer and meditation every weekday; Monday through Friday, Noon to 3:00 p.m. Open Church will begin with Noonday Prayer, led by Brother Andrew, OSF.

All Saints Sunday, This Sunday, November 7- We celebrate the festival of all the saints on the Sunday after November 1, which this year is November 7.

Monday Evening Lectionary Bible Study -- Join us Monday evenings at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom. This is an opportunity to read and discuss the readings for the upcoming Sunday. If you are interested in joining, please contact Sibyl Piccone.

Needlecraft Guild – Next meeting will be Wednesday, November 10; 6:30 p.m. – The next Needlecraft Guild is moved to November 10 (this month only!). We will meet via Zoom. For more information, please contact Mtr. Posey.

Next Racial Justice Group meeting Thursday, November 18 at 6:30 pm. We continue to read and discuss Clint Smith's How the Word is Passed: a Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. In a review of the book earlier this year in the NY Times, Julian Lucas writes, "Gregarious, learned and engagingly open-minded, the book meets America where it is on the subject- which is to say, all over the place. Beginning in his hometown, New Orleans, Smith visits nine places that memorialize or distort their link to the legacy of slavery, from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello to the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan. He skillfully braids interviews with scholarship and personal observation, asking, 'How different might our country look if all of us fully understood what had happened here?'" Please join us for what will surely be a lively conversation! For November 18, please read the fourth and fifth chapters (pages 118-206).

Angel with a Flaming Sword - Dr. Dennis Raverty, an art historian at New Jersey City University, contacted Ascension last fall to ask permission to photograph Edwin Howland Blashfield's Angel With a Flaming Sword, the dramatic painting on the rear wall of our nave. He has written an article about Blashfield which appeared in this week's Living Church. Take a look here!

Holy Eucharist (Church) 9:00 a.m.

Holy Eucharist and Baptism w/ Music (Church) 11:00 a.m.

(Live Stream of the service will be available)

Coffee & Tea (Front Garden) following the service

Church open for prayer & meditation; Noon to 3:00 p.m.

Evening Prayer (Zoom) 5:30 p.m.

Church open for prayer & meditation; Noon to 3:00 p.m.

Evening Prayer (Zoom) 5:30 p.m.

EfM (Parish Hall/Zoom) 6:00 p.m.

Finance Committee (Zoom) 11:30 a.m.

Church open for prayer & meditation; Noon to 3:00 p.m.

Evening Prayer (Zoom) 5:30 p.m.

Midweek Eucharist (Church) 6:00 p.m.

Church open for prayer & meditation; Noon to 3:00 p.m.

Evening Prayer (Zoom) 5:30 p.m.

Church open for prayer & meditation; Noon to 3:00 p.m.

Evening Prayer (Zoom) 5:30 p.m.

Diocesan Convention (Zoom & Cathedral of St. John the Divine)

Holy Eucharist (Church) 9:00 a.m.

Holy Eucharist w/ Music (Church) 11:00 a.m.

(Live Stream of the service will be available)

Coffee & Tea (Front Garden) following the service

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