Ascension Sunday

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

O God, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

Here and here are two past posts of mine about the feast of the Ascension.

I should really have posted about Ascension on Thursday, but I was at the zoo with the children. Lovely day for it, with beautiful peacocks strutting about everywhere crying, "Help! Help!" I'd forgotten they do that.

Ascension is a feast that always lifts up my heart. A correspondent wrote me a short while ago that there is something a little sad about the Ascension, because Jesus is "no longer on earth" and the Paschal candle is blown out. But I can't find it in my heart to look at it that way. At the Ascension Jesus returned to the Father and intercedes for us there--and heaven knows we need plenty of intercession! At the Ascension Jesus went back in triumph ("Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates!"). And because of the Ascension, Jesus sent the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.

So, for what's left of the octave, a blessed Ascensiontide to my readers.