Pause for Prayer: ASCENSION DAY

The image above is of a sculpture protruding from the ceiling of the Chapel of the Ascension at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in England.

The Ascension is so much more than just an exit line after the Resurrection: the Ascension, the rising of the Risen Lord, home to his Father in heave, fulfills Jesus' mission and brings it to completion.  The Risen One rises...

Pause for Prayer

Just 40 days after Easter, Lord,
you brought your friends together,
to say goodbye, to bid them all farewell...

Taking leave was bittersweet:
    the memory of what was,
    the promise of what yet would be,
    the pledge that on a day to come
    you'd all be one again...

There'd been coming and going, meeting and knowing,

    sorrow and sadness, miracles and joy,

    deserts and dinners, feasting and fasting,

    preaching, parables, words of wisdom, 

    comfort and conflict, judgment and suffering,

    surrender and sacrifice, dying, rising

    and hope born again with promise for all

    of life without end...

You left your friends
    but didn't abandon them, Lord:
you promised your Spirit, the Spirit of truth
    to lead and guide, console and comfort
to show us the path we're called to walk,
    the way that leads us home to you
and to that day, still yet to come,
    when all will be one, Lord, once again...

Amen.

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