Ascension Day – prayers & resources

We’re getting quite a few visitors looking for Ascension Day Prayers and resources, especially folks following links from Christine Sine’s blog Godspace. Yesterday, Christine posted a great roundup of links and prayers in her entry  Ascension Day is Coming – Do You Know What it Means.  (I especially like her poem about how Christ’s Ascension ensures His advocacy and intercession for us at the Father’s right hand.)

No time to look for new resources today, but here are a few links to some great resources we’ve posted in previous years (in no particular order, sorry…!):

Church Year.Net has an excellent collection of Collects for Ascension.

Anglican Mainstream: Two Meditations on the Ascension (Meditations from Leo the Great and St. Augustine)

Splendor in the Ordinary: Ascension Hymn

Splendor in the Ordinary: Ascensiontide (ideas for a family celebration)

Fr. Tim Fountain chimes in with some thoughts about Christ’s Ascension here.

Fr. Rob Lord has reflections on a quote from Dallas Willard and Christ’s ministry of intercession for believers — “Christ is Pulling for You” (from the web archive)

Dr. Peter Toon has two posts:
Ascensiontide —a precious season of 10 days before Pentecost
Feast of the Ascension—why a much neglected Festival?

Oswald Chambers:  His Ascension and Our Access

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Also:  DO NOT FORGET the Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon’s TitusOneNine!

Kendall is known for his news & cultural commentary posts, but TitusOneNine is also an amazing treasure trove of prayers, quotes and theological reflection.  Kendall has an Ascension Day category!   In browsing that category (and doing a word search), I found no less than 21 great prayers, quotes, sermons and other resources about the Ascension!

I’ll post some of the specific links tomorrow…

Praying the Pascha Nostrum through the 50 Days of Easter

A great post at the Rector’s Corner blog this morning on praying the Pascha Nostrum throughout the 50 Days of Easter.

Christ our PassoverPascha nostrum

1 Corinthians 5:7‑8; Romans 6:9‑11; 1 Corinthians 15:20‑22
Alleluia.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; *
therefore let us keep the feast,
Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, *
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia.

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; *
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; *
but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So also consider yourselves dead to sin, *
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia.

Christ has been raised from the dead, *
the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For since by a man came death, *
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, *
so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.

The rector who writes the blog, Brandon Filbert, writes:

The point to be remembered is that the Pascha nostrum underscores the power of Christ’s rising as a complete break with the old life…something that each Christian must not only celebrate at Eastertide, but learn to live in the daily life of discipleship.

 Praying these words will, at times, cast the light of the Resurrection on those corners of our life we are still trying to live the old way, with “the leaven of malice and evil.” For that knowledge we need to give thanks: it is the active work of the Spirit in our life as Christians this Eastertide and always.

A great exhortation and reminder.  Amen!

A compilation of Easter Prayers

I’m coming to realize that the “compilations” of prayers and resources and quotes that I have put together over the years for Advent, Lent, and more recently Holy Week and Easter, are the posts that our readers have found the most helpful. 

I think we now have enough Easter prayers posted to merit a new compilation.  I’ll try to update this at least weekly throughout Easter 2012.

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last updated: April 10, 2012

(oldest entries on top, newest entries last)

Daily Prayers and Reflections for Each Day of the Easter Octave

The readings and the collect for Easter Monday

An Easter Prayer for the Persecuted Church

Collects for Tuesday & Wednesday of Easter Week

An Easter Blessing prayer

A Prayer of Adoration for Easter: Te Deum Laudamus

Easter Prayers: Blind us to All But Christ

An Easter Prayer: dying daily to sin that we may live in the joy of Christ’s resurrection

A Wonderful Daily Prayer for the Easter Season

An Easter Prayer by Brother Roger of Taize: If You Were Not Risen

An Easter Prayer: born anew to a living hope

Collect for the Second Week of Easter

Collects & Prayers for the Third Sunday of Easter

Victor Hoagland: The Thomas in All of Us

St. Gregory the Great’s Easter Prayer

An Easter Prayer by Helen Steiner Rice: May this Easter Grandeur Awaken Faded Flowers of Faith

An Easter Praise Litany from New Zealand

Easter Prayer: Vivify, Justify, Save

St. Hippolytus’ Easter Prayer

St Paul’s (REC) Baton Rouge: Lenten Resource Booklet

Continuing our series highlighting some newly-discovered  excellent and explicitly *ANGLICAN* Lenten devotional resources

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Wow!!  I’m surprised I’ve not come across this before.  This small booklet produced by St. Paul’s Anglican Baton Rouge, an REC parish, looks to be MUST READING for Anglicans serious about Lent

The table of contents for the full booklet is here.

Here is a list of the articles.

• Why Should We Fast and Weep?
• The Holy Season of Lent
• Three Dangers to Guard Against in Lent
• Prayers for Lent
• Some Hints for Lent
• Good Friday Meditations
• Thoughts on Lent for Busy People
• A Guide for Self Examination

• The complete Lenten Issue in PDF format

In addition to a sermon and some resources from the rector of the parish, this contains some truly CLASSICAL gems of Anglican devotion and prayer:

- Excerpt from a sermon by the Rt. Rev. Wm. Ingraham Kip D.D.Bishop of California. New York: Pott, Young and Company 1874.

- Lenten reflections and wisdom from the Rt. Rev. A.C.A. Hall, Bishop of Vermont, 1891

- Prayers from the 1928 BCP

- A prayer for Lent by Bishop Jeremy Taylor

- A Prayer that God Would Grant Us the Graces and Virtues of the Christian Life, by Richard Hele (Hele’s Select Offices of Private Devotion, 1856)

- Excerpts from the Good Friday Addresses on the Seven Last Words of Our Lord, by the Rev. George Hendric Houghton, 1880

What a WONDERFUL & beautiful collection of Lenten resources with some true jewels from our heritage as Anglicans!

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For more of our recently-posted ANGLICAN Lenten devotional resources, check out our Anglican Heritage category

Lenten Devotional Resources from St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Tallahassee

In my online digging this week to identify excellent *ANGLICAN* Lenten and devotional resources, I discovered that St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Tallahassee, FL has an excellent Lenten Devotional guide – online and as a PDF.

Here are the links:

St Peter’s Anglican Church in Tallahassee:

online daily Lenten devotional (for the current day).  Also available by email

Calendar of all devotionals for the entire Lenten Season

The 2012 Lenten Devotionals as a PDF

Each day’s devotional has a short reflection on a Scripture passage, and a “Living Out Lent” challenge.

 

The St. Peter’s Website also has two articles about Lent:

Lent: A Time of Renovation
Fr. Michael Petty

Lent: Why Do We Do the Strange Things We Do?
Fr.  Eric Dudley

Finally, there is:  A Guidebook for walking the Stations of the Cross

Daily office website

A priest and a female cantor — cradleofprayer.com . The Cradle of Prayer is a place to connect to the ancient order of life in Anglican prayer through the complete morning and evening prayer service including confession, reading of The Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms, and prayers from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (BCP). Select scriptures from the King James Bible are read for the corresponding day, complemented by professionally recorded prayers and song – all ready to download and enjoy in the privacy of home, car, or on the iPod. It’s free!

St Philoxenus of Mabbug

One of our readers adapted the Communion Prayer of St Philoxenus of Mabbug as an intercession for the 4th Global South Encounter in Singapore, for the Anglican Communion and all of the Church, for each of us.

When you have extended your hands and taken the body, bow, and put your hands before your face, and worship the living Body whom you hold. Then speak with him in a low voice, and with your gaze resting upon him say to him:

When we gather, we are privileged to carry You, the Living GOD, Who is incarnate in the bread, and we embrace You in our palms, LORD of the worlds whom no world has contained.

You have circumscribed Yourself in a fiery coal within our fleshly palms–You LORD, Who with Your palm measured out the dust of the earth. You are holy, GOD incarnate in my hands in a fiery coal which is a body. See, we hold You, although there is nothing that contains You; our bodily hands embrace You, LORD of natures whom a fleshly womb embraced. Within a womb You became a circumscribed body, and now within each hand, You appear to us as a small morsel.
You alone have made us worthy to approach You and receive You. You enable our hands to embrace You confidently–You make us worthy, LORD, to eat You in a holy manner and to taste the food of Your body as a taste of your life.

Instead of the stomach, the body’s member, may the womb of our intellect and the hand of our mind receive You. May You be conceived in us as You were in the womb of the Virgin. There You appeared as an infant, and Your hidden self was revealed to the world as corporeal fruit; may You also appear in each of us here and be revealed by us in fruits that are spiritual works and just labors pleasing to Your will.

And by your food may our desires be killed; and by the drinking of Your cup may our passions be quenched. And instead of just feeding the members of our human body, may our thoughts receive strength from the nourishment of Your Body. Like the manifest members of our body, may our hidden thoughts be engaged in exercise and in running and in works according to Your living commands and Your spiritual laws.

From the food of Your Body and the drinking of Your Blood may we grow in integrity and unity and wax strong inwardly, and excel outwardly, and run diligently, and attain to the full stature of an interior human being, individually and corporately. May we each and in our global and local covenant communities, become more like The Perfect Man, mature in intelligence, residing in all our spiritual members, our head being crowned with the crown of Thy perfection, obedient to the Word and Command of Your Father in all of our behavior. May we, Your Church, become a royal diadem in Your hands, as You promised us, O hidden GOD whose manifestness we embrace in the perfection of Your Body.

Liturgy: http://sor.cua.edu/Liturgy/Anaphora/Philoxenus.html
Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philoxenus_of_Mabbug

Called

Rev. Rob Eaton has posted a thoughtful reflection on being called by God and the subsequent impact on the body of Christ. The questions he poses are universal ones.

Lent Resources – An Online Lenten Calendar: “40 Ideas for 40 Days”

This falls into the “how could I have possibly missed this resource?!” category… Do check this out!

Thanks to a blog that I just discovered this morning and linked below, Catechist’s Journey, by Joe Paprocki, I’ve discovered an online Lenten Calendar:

40 Ideas for 40 Days

(Note: Click on the activity title on each day to visit the activity detail.)

Here’s how Joe Paprocki describes the calendar:

These activities come from a variety of sources: from my own experience as a catechist, from various Web sites that I credit accordingly, and from catechists like you who shared their creative ideas with me. The activities are grounded in the symbols, Scripture readings, devotions, and traditions of the Lenten season. Be sure to check this calendar each day to find another Lenten activity that you can adapt for your own setting.

More on Lent for families / Lent in the home

Somehow I missed Amy’s post at Splendor In the Ordinary last week about how she and her family decorate their home for Lent.

Amy also has a post on Children’s books for Lent, and a lovely reflection and testimony about attending Ash Wednesday services with small children: Worshipping with Little Children.

Also on the family front, I’ve been remiss in not linking Jessica’s Homemaking through the church year blog. (Not being a mom, it’s a blog I don’t visit so often…, but it is excellent.) You can find all of her Lent posts here. Her Lenten posts so far this year have primarily focused on fasting as a family, including a ton of meatless recipes for Lent

Finally today, while looking for something else online, I came across an excellent blog Catechist’s Journey with ideas for Sunday School lessons for Lent – but many of these could also be used by families at home.  This looks like a truly WONDERFUL site.  I think I’m going to add it to our sidebar…  Hie thee hence!

Check out the following entries:

First Sunday of Lent – Needs vs. Wants

A CALENDAR of 40 Lenten Activities!

Lots ‘o Lenten Links

Don’t forget you can find all our posts on Lent resources for family and children here.

Lent Quotes: David Mills – Ash Wednesday’s Double Meaning

So the imposition of ashes has a double meaning, one despairing, because it describes the reality of what we have made ourselves; the other hopeful, because it describes the new reality God has made for us. For the Christian, hope trumps despair. “In Adam all die” and “In Christ shall all be made alive” are both true, but Christ has conquered death.

But this is not a reason to feel good about yourself on Ash Wednesday. That would be to presume upon God’s good will and take the Lord’s death for granted. Ash Wednesday is a fast day given us to remember what we have done and to try to learn how much of the old Adam remains in us. And of course the more you see what Jesus did for you, the more you will want to face your sins, to track them down to the places they have hidden, drag them into the light, and with God’s help drive them away.

From David Mills’ wonderful essay on Ash Wednesday, published in Touchstone Magazine in March 2004.

The whole article is a must read for those wanting to reflect on the meaning of the Ash Wednesday service and liturgy.

A Lenten Prayer of Confession Based on the Decalogue

From the web archive of Todd Granger’s Confessing Reader blog.  This wonderful prayer of confession was originally posted at the old Lent & Beyond site in 2006:

For his 1534 Liturgy for the Church of Strassburg, Martin Bucer wrote a paraphrase of the Decalogue in the form of an extended prayer of confession to serve as the third form of the reformed Confiteor, the corporate confession of sin. The text is from Bard Thompson’s Liturgies of the Western Church, 1961.

I poor sinner confess to thee, O Almighty, eternal, merciful God and Father, that I have sinned in manifold ways against thee and thy commandments.

I confess that I have not believed in thee, my one God and Father, but have put my faith and trust more in creatures than in thee, my God and Creator, because I have feared them more than thee. And for their benefit and pleasure, I have done and left undone many things in disobedience to thee and thy commandments.

I confess that I have taken thy holy Name in vain, that I have often sworn falsely and lightly by the same, that I have not always professed it nor kept it holy as I ought; but even more, I have slandered it often and grossly with all my life, words and deeds.

I confess that I have not kept thy Sabbath holy, that I have not heard thy holy Word with earnestness nor lived according to the same; moreover that I have not yielded myself fully to thy divine hand, nor rejoiced in thy work done in me and in others, but have often grumbled against it stoutly and have been impatient.

I confess that I have not honored my father and mother, that I have been disobedient to all whom I justly own obedience, such as father and mother, my superiors, and all who have tried to guide and teach me faithfully.

I confess that I have taken life: that I have offended my neighbor often and grossly by word and deed, caused him harm, grown angry over him, borne envy and hatred toward him, deprived him of his honor and the like.

I confess that I have been unchaste. I acknowledge all my sins of the flesh and all the excess and extravagance of my whole life in eating, drinking, clothing and other things; my intemperance in seeing, hearing, speaking, etc., and in all my life; yea, even fornication, adultery and such.

I confess that I have stolen. I acknowledge my greed. I admit that in the use of my worldly goods I have set myself against thee and thy holy laws. Greedily and against charity have I grasped them. And scarcely, if at all, have I given of them when the need of my neighbor required it.

I confess that I have born false witness, that I have been untrue and unfaithful toward my neighbor. I have lied to him, I have told lies about him, and I have failed to defend his honor and reputation as my own.

And finally I confess that I have coveted the possessions and spouses of others. I acknowledge in summary that my whole life is nothing else than sin and transgression of thy holy commandments and an inclination toward all evil.

Wherefore I beseech thee, O heavenly Father, that, thou wouldst graciously forgive me these and all my sins. Keep and preserve me henceforth that I may walk only in thy way and live according to thy will; and all of this through Jesus Christ, thy dear Son, our Saviour. Amen.

The full entry is here.

Lent 2010 Around the Blogosphere (updated)

Update: there is now a Lent category at Anglican Mainstream.  You’ll find Anglican Mainstream’s  daily Lenten devotionals here.

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The roundup below is listed in alphabetical order by blog, not in order of priority.

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At Awakenings, my Lutheran pastor friend Eric Swensson (aka the Pietist) posted a great prayer last week on the theme of Christ’s transfiguration and praying that His light would shine in the darkness of our hearts.  I like it as a Lenten prayer. Eric usually has lots of good devotional material, so well worth bookmarking his site for Lent.

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Orthodox priest and blogger Fr. Stephen Freeman has a number of recent posts in preparation for Lent at his wonderful blog Glory to God for All Things.

The Instinct of Repentance (This probably will form the basis for a stand alone entry here soon)

The Great Fast (I’m likely to post an excerpt from this tomorrow.)

A Sermon on Repentance (after St. John Chrysostom)

By the Waters of Babylon (a traditional Orthodox Lenten-season hymn)

Also, this morning I’ve reposted a previous Lenten reflection from Fr. Stephen “The Difficulty of Lent” from our old blog’s archives.

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Christine Sine at Godspace today has posted Morning and Evening Prayers for Lent.

Lent and Ash Wednesday Activity Ideas for Families

From Amy at Splendor in the Ordinary blog and her Shrove Tuesday post, comes this list of ideas for Lent family activities – particularly appropriate for Ash Wednesday:

Activities:

• Plant seeds in a flower pot to sprout by Easter, an easy symbol of new life for children to grasp.
• Play a game to see who can remember the most 40s mentioned in the Bible and see which ones fit the rubric of fasting and feasting that we see in Lent to Easter.
• Discuss as a family what Lent means and why it is a practice of the church, particularly sharing with each other what God has done in past Lenten Seasons as a means of encouragement to begin the fast again but also so that our children may see our hearts rather than what some may believe is just a time of guilt and rules and restrictions.
• Color a picture of the imposition of the ashes to prepare the children for what will happen during the Ash Wednesday service. Also coloring a cross to hang in their room. I’m also trying to think of something to do to illustrate our theme this year of “an undivided heart.“
• Read the Scripture for Ash Wednesday so we may begin to meditate and receive of His Word.
• We end by praying the Litany of Penitence.

Northern Plains Anglican: Daily Devotionals for Lent

This is great news!

Fr. Tim Fountain (a wonderful cyber-friend and former contributor here at Lent & Beyond) and his congregation have put together a Lenten Devotional Booklet.

Fr. Tim will be posting each day’s entry at his blog: Northern Plains Anglicans

Here’s an excerpt of his explanatory post this morning:

With the help of some parishioners, I put together a Lenten devotional booklet for Good Shepherd. Today, I will post the explanatory page. Starting tomorrow, I will begin posting each day’s very short reflection. I hope they are useful to some of you for your churches. They are written to help a congregation identify God’s vision, confess the ways in which the church falls short, and turn together in the direction that God desires.

“WE confess…”

We pray from The Book of Common Prayer. All that we say, we offer with one voice, as one body in Christ. Our General Confessions are written this way: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins,” “we confess that we have sinned…”

For Lent, I encourage us to examine our life as a congregation, looking for those ways in which we are not “Helping One Another Put Jesus First.” I ask that we confess these things and turn instead to greater unity as “parts of Christ’s body, working for the common good”

(I Corinthians 12).

Lent reminds us that Jesus endured 40 days of spiritual testing to prepare for his God-given work. We keep Lent on 40 days from Ash Wednesday thru Holy Saturday, not including the five Sundays which are there to refresh us along the way.

You can read all the details here.