Please check the following websites for regular updates on information related to the COVID 19 pandemic:

• ascensionnl.ca
• anglicanenl.net (You will find the most recent weekly letter from our Bishop under our Bishop’s Writings)
• anglicanenl.net/home/covid19/
• mountpearl.ca
• who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/

• On-Line Church Service: This Sunday, August 23, at 11 a.m., the Parishes of St. Michael and All Angels, St. Mary the Virgin, the Good Shepherd, and the Ascension are hosting morning prayer / BCP. Come and join us at thetransmission.ca. You do not need to be on Facebook to view the live service.
• Grass and Outdoor Painting:  The city of Mount Pearl has hired a summer student to mow grass and do light outdoor painting jobs. If you are interested in availing of this service you must be 60 years or older, own your own equipment and supplies and live in Mount Pearl. Please contact 748-6485 for further information.
• Resurrection Reminders: Resurrection reminders will continue after Labor Day.
• New Website and E-mail addresses for Church of the Ascension: The Ascension website was launched on Sunday, May 3. There are certain parts of the website that are under review/construction due to limited resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. We can now be found at www.ascensionnl.ca. Please visit us at this address for up-to-date information on church activities. Information regarding on-line services is available through the calendar on the new website. Here is a list of new e-mail addresses and helpful links you may find useful:
  • Reverend David Burrows - [email protected]
  • Reverend Lynn Courage - [email protected]
  • Ina Kearley - [email protected]
  • Office Administrator - [email protected]
  • Church Website - ascensionnl.ca
  • Link to view on-line services - thetransmission.ca
  • YouTube Channel - Parish of the Ascension NL
• Historic Pictures of the Church: As many of you know, recently the Church of the Ascension has launched a new website. During the last month or so, a small group has been getting to together on-line to discuss the history of the Parish. We have reached a point where we have assembled considerable text on a number of issues but we do not have very much in the way of photographs. We would like as many of you as possible to dig deeply into your personal photo collections and search out pictures that you feel could add to the history of the Parish. You can forward electronic ones by email. Actual prints can be dropped off for scanning and we will return them to you unharmed. Please submit them to the Church Office over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, you may see some of them on our website down the road.
• Outreach: This is a time for our faith community to come together to uplift each other. Please don’t forget to regularly check on your family, friends and neighbors. If you are in need of pastoral contact, or if you know of anyone who is struggling at this stressful time, please let one of the clergy know.
• Food First NL: Food First NL works with communities in Newfoundland & Labrador to ensure everyone has access to affordable, healthy, and culturally appropriate food. Please visit their website at foodfirstnl.ca/covid19 to find updates to NL Community Food Programs.
• Clergy Contact During the COVID 19 Pandemic: During the outbreak of COVID-19, the clergy will be reaching out to all parishioners. They will do their best to contact everyone, however our parish list may need to be updated. If you have not received a call or an e-mail since the closure ofthe church building, please e-mail your updated contact information to [email protected]. In the event that you do not have e-mail available, please call the parish office and leave a message.

We enter into the fullness of August, and for me, there are bittersweet reminders on the calendar, and in the Scripture. August is the time for the Perseids, a meteor shower that I and my family try to watch out on our back deck every year. It is also the time for us to begin shifting the schedule from the pattern of summer living to the rhythm of school schedules and work commitments. I have memories of birthdays, wedding anniversaries, trips to Iona, and preparations for targanlfd.com. It is a time to remember the deaths of lifelong friends, and of the endings of rest before the busyness of the fall. It is the time to witness some of the glory of the garden – vegetables growing, flowers in full bloom, birds, and insects busy.

It is a shifting time for me, much like twilight. It is a place to look back and to move forward, keeping the memories and the learning of the past, and stepping forward into newer possibilities, and further growth in the life and work within family and community. I remember the things ‘done and left undone’ so that I am prodded to return to unfinished business, and continue to work at the tasks that need to be accomplished. The learning that is coming to mind for me this year is sacrificial selfless love and the destruction of oppressive systems. Perhaps this is too deep, or even too negative a pattern in this time, and yet I cannot help but consider in this pandemic pattern, this COVID reality, there is much need for selfless sacrificial love and the shattering of systems of oppression.

Into this time, I hear the words of Scripture of the Exodus from Egypt, and the story of Moses and the Israelite people beginning a sojourn out of slavery and oppression into a promised land with a new life and new being. It begins as an act of defiance and an act of deep love.

Moses and the Exodus is a narrative about an oppressive state enacting law that begins a process of cultural and ethnic genocide: male infanticide to assimilate a population into further slavery and oppression. Into this ethos, a mother, midwives, and a privileged princess birth a child hide a child and rescue a child. This rescued infant in turn rescues an entire community through their following of the Holy One. While some may see this as a story of Hebrew identity, or a story of ancient history, I see this as a reminder of the brokenness and redemption of humanity. The brokenness is seen in the need for the cessation of slavery and oppression, the presence of class structure, of opulence, of racism and of unjust incarceration. The redemption is seen in the defiant protest, the challenge of faith structures, and the trust to enter into a void wasteland with the presence of the Holy One.

So for me, I see the possibility of acts of defiance and acts of deep love in this pandemic time. I see that there are prophetic voices in society that, like Moses, are challenging systems of governance and cultural expectation in the demand they are voicing for humanity to re-examine leadership and power, systems of policing and incarceration, systemic racism, gender-based violence, the autonomy of indigenous peoples, care for creation, and human dignity.

In the carious calls and demands for society to re-examine, I am thankful for acts of protest and defiance, for they, like the act of saving Moses, offer hope and deep love to individuals, communities, and society as a whole. We need to inspect and scrutinize all ways in which we as individuals and communities live and be, such that we offer respect and care, love, and dignity to friend and stranger, family, and neighbour, no matter what the circumstance.

Peace,

• Donations to Ministry: If you are interested in continuing to donate to the parish ministry during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are a variety of ways for you to do so.
  • Church Envelopes: You may still use your envelopes during this time. You may drop them in the mailbox at the main entrance of the church or you can put your givings in the mail.
  • Pre-authorized Givings: You can have your givings automatically deducted on a schedule that works for you. If you are interested in setting up pre-authorized givings, please contact the church office at 368-5693.
  • Canada Helps: You can sign up to make donations to Canada Helps through our parish website.
  • Food Bank Donations: The need for food donations is still great. If you are able to donate to the food bank, we ask that you drop your donation directly to St. Vincent de Paul Food Bank at either St. Peter’s Parish Hall on Ashford Drive or Mary Queen of the World on Topsail Road. All donations are gratefully appreciated.

Leader: Let us pray for Christ’s holy Catholic Church, that is for the whole congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the world; that it may please God to confirm and strengthen it in purity of faith, in holiness of life, and in perfectness of love, and to restore to it the witness of visible unity. More especially, let us pray for that branch of the church to which we belong, that in all things we may work according the God’s will, serve faithfully, and worship acceptably.
Lord, hear our prayer.
All: And let our cry come unto thee.

Leader: let us pray for Elizabeth our Queen, Julie the Governor General of Canada, Justin our Prime Minister, Judy our Lieutenant-Governor, Dwight our Premier, and all who bear the weight of leadership in the world. Let us pray that all who are set in authority over us, in their several callings, may serve truly and faithfully, to the building up of God’s people.
Lord, hear our prayer.
All: And let our cry come unto thee.

Leader: Let us pray for the ministers of God’s holy Word and Sacraments: the archbishops and Bishops, especially Geoffrey our Bishop, and also other pastors and teachers, lay and ordained. Let us pray that they may minister faithfully and wisely, and in all things seek to discern what God is doing in the world, and make haste to join in that work.
Lord, hear our prayer.
All: And let our cry come unto thee.

Leader: Let us pray for all people of this country and the world, that we may live in charity forwards one another as God’s children. Let us pray for all who travel by land, water or air; for all prisoners and captives, for all who are in sickness or sorrow, and for all who have fallen into sin. Let us pray for all who, through temptation, ignorance, helplessness, grief, trouble, dread, or the near approach of death, especially need our prayers.
Lord, hear our prayer.
All: And let our cry come unto thee.

Leader: Finally, let us give God high praise and hearty thanks for all those who are departed out of this life in the faith of Christ, and for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all his saints, who were chosen vessels of his grace, and lights of the world in their generations. We especially remember Stirling Ivany and Stanley Boone Let us pray that we may have grace to direct our lives after their good example, that this life ended, we may be partakers with them of the glorious resurrection in the life everlasting.
Lord, hear our prayer.
All: And let our cry come unto thee.

Ascension Prayer Cycle: Andrea, Aubrey, Audrey, Barbara, Baxter, Bill, Brenda, Brian, Brittany, Brandon, Carl, Charlie, Christina, Cindy, Clarence, Claude, David, Debra, Delilah, Dennis, Don, Donna, Dot, Dulcie, Edgar, Edith, Elaine, Elizabeth, Erin, Finnley, Frederick, Flo, George, Georgina, Gerry, Gilbert, Gordon, Harry, Herb, Ike, Ina, Jack, Jason, Jenny, John, Josephine, Junior, Kevin, Kim, Laura, Leo, Leonie, Lori, Madeline, Marina, Marion, Maurice, Maxine, Maxwell, Melissa, Melvin, Nancy, Pam, Phyllis, Randell, Rodney, Roland, Ruby, Ruth, Rita, Scott, Sean, Stan, Stephen, Tina, Todd, Valerie, Verna and Wayne.

Collect

Almighty God, we are taught by your word
that all our doings without love are worth nothing.
Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts
that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and
of all virtue; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. AMEN

A Reading from the Book of Exodus

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labour. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labour. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live." But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live." Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, "This must be one of the Hebrews' children," she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Yes." So the girl went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water." Exodus 1:8-2:10

Reader: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God

Psalm

REFRAIN Our help is in the name of the Lord. If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel now say; if the Lord had not been on our side, when enemies rose up against us; then would they have swallowed us up alive in their fierce anger toward us;

Then would the waters have overwhelmed us and the torrent gone over us; then would the raging waters have gone right over us.

Blessed be the Lord! he has not given us over to be a prey for their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we have escaped.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 124

A Reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. Romans 12:1-8

Reader: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God

Reader: The Lord be with you
People: And also with you

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew

People: Glory to You, Lord Jesus Christ

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. Matthew 16:13-20

Reader: The Gospel of Christ
People: Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ.

Prayer over the Gifts

God of glory,
receive all we offer this day as a symbol of our love,
and increase in us that true and perfect gift.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN

Prayer after Communion

Living God,
increase in us the healing power of your love.
Guide and direct us
that we may please you in all things,
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN

How Firm a Foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
to you who to Jesus for refuge have fled?

"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed!
for I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee,
and cause thee to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never- no, never- no, never forsake!”

Fight the Good Fight

Fight the good fight with all thy might;
Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right:
lay hold on life, and it shall be
thy joy and crown eternally.

Run the straight race through God's good grace,
lift up thine eyes, and seek his face;
life with its path before us lies,
Christ is the way, and Christ the prize.

Faint not, nor fear, his arms are near;
he changeth not, and thou art dear;
only believe, and thou shalt see
that Christ is all in all to thee.

The Church’s One Foundation

The church's one foundation
is Jesus Christ, our Lord;
we are his new creation
by water and the Word:
from heaven he came and sought us
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought us,
and for our life he died.

Elect from every nation,
yet one o’er all the earth,
our charter of salvation one Lord,
one faith, one birth;
one glorious name we hallow,
partakes one holy food,
and to one hope we follow,
with every grace endued.

‘Mid toil and tribulation,
and tumult of our war,
we waits the consummation
of peace for evermore;
till with the vision glorious
her longing eyes are blessed,
and the great church victorious
shall be the church at rest.

For All the Saints

For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;
thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
thou, in the darkness drear, their one true light.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
the saints triumphant rise in bright array;
the King of glory passes on his way.
Alleluia! Alleluia!