Ascension Episcopal Church

05/01/2024

This is our new page!!

Ascension Episcopal Church has been serving the community of the Town of Amherst since 1848.

01/22/2024

Welcome to the NEW Ascension Episcopal Church page. We are located at 253 S. Main Street in the heart of the Town of Amherst nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Please join us each Sunday right here on Facebook at 11 a.m. for a live Facebook service. We look forward to sharing with you our ministry and church events.

10/22/2023

09/14/2023

We have decided to move our page to a new account so we may better serve you and improve our administrative capabilities. We hope you will like our new page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550855657132

We will host a live Facebook service every Sunday at 11 a.m. So please continue to follow us as we share our ministry and church events with you!

Ascension Episcopal Church has been serving the community of the Town of Amherst since 1848.

08/12/2023

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, Nurse, 1910

O God, who gave grace to your servant Florence Nightingale to bear your healing love into the shadow of death: Grant to all who heal the same virtues of patience, mercy, and steadfast love, that your saving health may be revealed to all; through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Florence Nightingale was born to a wealthy English family in Florence, Italy, on May 12th, 1820. She trained as a nurse in a hospital run by a Lutheran order of Deaconesses at Kaiserwerth, and in 1853 became superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in London. In response to God’s call and animated by a spirit of service, in 1854 she volunteered for duty during the Crimean War and recruited 38 nurses to join her. With them she organized the first modern nursing service in the British field hospitals of Scutari and Balaclava.

Making late-night rounds to check on the welfare of her charges, a hand-held lantern to aid her, the wounded identified her as “The Lady with the Lamp.” By imposing strict discipline and high standards of sanitation she radically reduced the drastic death toll and rampant infection then typical in field hospitals. She returned to England in 1856, and a fund of £50,000 was subscribed to enable her to form an institution for the training of nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital and at King’s College Hospital. Her school at St. Thomas’s Hospital became significant in helping to elevate nursing into a profession. She devoted many years to the question of army sanitary reform, to the improvement of nursing, and to public health in India. Her main work, Notes on Nursing, went through many editions.

An Anglican, she remained committed to a personal mystical religion, which sustained her through many years of poor health until her death in 1910. Until the end of her life, although her illness prevented her from leaving her home, she continued in frequent spiritual conversation with many prominent church leaders of the day, including the local parish priest, who regularly brought the Eucharist to her. By the time of her death on August 13th, 1910, her accomplishments and legacy were widely recognized, and she is honored throughout the world as the founder of the modern profession of nursing.

Copied from Forward Day by Day
Photo copied from www. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/florence-nightingale/

07/31/2023

Yesterday the church held an Art and Silent Auction fundraiser in our Parish Hall. Four paintings by church member Jackie Beidler were auction off. A buffet luncheon was served. Thank you to all who made this fundraiser a success.

07/28/2023

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH, Composer, 1750

Sound out your majesty, O God, and call us to your work; that, like thy servant Johann Sebastian Bach, we might present our lives and our works to your glory alone; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685, into a family of musicians. As a child, he studied violin and organ and served as a choirboy at the parish church. By early adulthood, Bach had already achieved an enviable reputation as a composer and performer.

His assignments as a church musician began in 1707 and, a yearlater, he became the organist and chamber musician for the court of the Duke of Weimar. In 1723, Bach was appointed cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig and parish musician at both St. Thomas and St. Nicholas churches, where he remained until his death in 1750.

A man of deep Lutheran faith, Bach’s music was an expression of his religious convictions. Among his many works are included musical interpretations of the Bible, which are his “Passions”. The most famous of these is the “Passion According to St. Matthew.” This composition, written in 1727 or 1729, tells the story of chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew and was performed as part of a Good Friday service. He also wrote music for eucharistic services, the most renowned of which may be his “Mass in B Minor”.

Bach’s music compositions to be widely used and to profoundly influence the musical traditions of many Christian churches. Even beyond their technical merits, they may be understood as deeply theological interpretations of the Christian faith which have been translated into the language of music.

Copied from Foward Day by Day

Photograph taken from Episcopal Church.org.

07/26/2023

THE PARENTS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Almighty God, heavenly Father, we remember in thanksgiving this day the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and we pray that we all may be made one in the heavenly family of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The gospels tell us little about the home of our Lord’s mother. She is thought to have been of Davidic descent and to have been brought up in a devout Jewish family that cherished the hope of Israel for the coming kingdom of God, in remembrance of the promise to Abraham and his descendants.

In the second century, devout Christians sought to supply a more complete account of Mary’s birth and family, to satisfy the interest and curiosity of believers. An apocryphal gospel, known as the Protevangelium of James or The Nativity of Mary, appeared. It included legendary stories about Mary’s parents Joachim and Anne. These stories were built out of Old Testament narratives of the births of Isaac and of Samuel (whose mother’s name, Hannah, is the original form of Anne), and from traditions of the birth of John the Baptist. In these stories, Joachim and Anne—the childless, elderly couple who grieved that they would have no posterity—were rewarded with the birth of a girl, whom they dedicated in infancy to the service of God under the tutelage of the temple priests.

In 550, the Emperor Justinian I erected in Constantinople the first church to Saint Anne. The Eastern churches observe her festival on July 25th. Not until the twelfth century did her feast become known in the West. Pope Urban VI fixed her day, in 1378, to follow the feast of Saint James. Joachim has had several dates assigned to his memory; but the new Roman Calendar of 1969 joined his festival to that of Anne on this day.

Copied from Forward Day by Day

07/23/2023

We’ll be going LIVE this morning on Facebook at 11 a.m.

07/22/2023

The Feast of SAINT MARY MAGDALENE, July 22

Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Mary of Magdala, a town near Capernaum, was one of several women who followed Jesus and ministered to him in Galilee. The Gospel according to Luke records that Jesus “went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out…” (Luke 8:1–2). The Gospels tell us that Mary was healed by Jesus, followed him, and was one of those who stood near his cross at Calvary.

It is clear that Mary Magdalene’s life was radically changed by Jesus’ healing. Her ministry of service and steadfast companionship, evenas a witness to the crucifixion, has, through the centuries, been an example of the faithful ministry of women to Christ. All four Gospels name Mary as one of the women who went to the tomb to mourn and to care for Jesus’ body. Her weeping for the loss of her Lord strikes a common chord with the grief of all others over the death of loved ones. Jesus’ tender response to her grief—meeting her in the garden, revealing himself to her by calling her name—makes her the first witness to the risen Lord. She is given the command, “Go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). As the first messenger of the resurrection, she tells the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18).

In the tradition of the Eastern Church, Mary is considered “equal to the apostles” and “apostle to the apostles”; and she is held in veneration as the patron saint of the great cluster of monasteries on Mount Athos.