Dear Friends in Christ,

What in your life feels fit to offer to God?

We are adept, in the church, at prayers for ourselves and prayers for others. We are good at thinking about what we have received from God. We are less good at thinking about what we have to offer.

I don’t believe that this failure comes from lack of devotion or lack of generosity. Rather, many of us believe, at some level, that we do not have a fit offering to bring. Our lives are ordinary at best and tarnished at worst. What need would God have of them?

Next Thursday, May 14, is Ascension Day, and the feast speaks to God’s desire to receive the offering of our lives.

On Ascension Day, we remember the story from Luke’s gospel about how Jesus, after being resurrected from the dead, rose into heaven. His human body—a body that still needed to eat and drink, the gospels insist, a body marked with wounds—ascended to be with God. All of the things that made Jesus human were not left behind. Instead, they found a place in heaven.

All of the things that make us human have a place in heaven. Because of the way Jesus shared our human lives, our humanity can be redeemed and sanctified. And it can be offered.

Ascension Day is one of the major feasts of the church year and yet it is a day when few people go to church. I encourage you to come if you can. We gather at noon at the Lady Altar and at 7:00 p.m. for an intimate and mysterious eucharist in the Malm Narthex.

Whether you make it here or not, I hope you will use the day to think about what you would like to offer to God. What in your quotidian life might have a place in heaven? What ordinary thing can you lift up as an oblation to God?

Jesus ascended so that we might one day, too.

Yours in Christ,
Anne+