Daniel 7:9-14
Psalms 8, 47
Hebrews 2:5-18
Matthew 28:16-20
Matthew 28:16-20
Matthew 28:16-20
Today is Ascension Day. The day that we remember Jesus ascending to his father in heaven. I am glad that we remember this occasion because if the event did not then our faith would be futile.
When my father died my mother was a non-churchgoer. Our next door neighbors were Congregationalists so my mother had his funeral in their chapel and I was sent to Sunday School. Every Ascension Day those who went to 'church', as opposed to chapel (Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians) had the day off school and went on a bus to St David's for a special service. I longed to be do that. To me St David's Cathedral was a place where you took relative and friends who had journeyed the hundred or two hundred miles from their homes in England to visit us in far West Wales. It was a tourist attraction.
When I was about eight a mission church was opened on our housing estate. Some other neighbors went to it. One Sunday we were having lunch at their house and their girls took me to the Sunday School. I liked it. For a start it was in walking distance and I did not have to be have a ride with the neighbors who had sons, not daughters. Like most babies in Britain I had been baptised as an infant. My father was from a strong Church of England family and my mother had converted to C of E from Primitive Methodist when she was in her early twenties, before she had met my father, something to do with maybe a previous boyfriend and tennis.
I announced that since I was a member of the Church then I would join that Sunday School. We also had another neighbor who had a big influence in my life who went to that church, Mrs Buckland but she is a story for another occasion. I became an Anglican, a member of the Church in Wales.
I learned about Ascension Day and the trip to St David's. I was not allowed to go. The year I was eleven was different. Ascension Day fell after the Eleven Plus exam and so it was safe me not to be in school. The Eleven Plus was the big exam which decided which secondary school we would go to.
What happened at the service? I cannot remember. I think we went to Whitesands Bay afterwards. Who else went? I cannot remember. What is important is that the cathedral was filled with youth from all parts of the diocese. We gathered in a house of prayer. We gathered together to celebrate the fact that Jesus is with us until the very end of the age.
(Photograph From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Chris Rivers)
When my father died my mother was a non-churchgoer. Our next door neighbors were Congregationalists so my mother had his funeral in their chapel and I was sent to Sunday School. Every Ascension Day those who went to 'church', as opposed to chapel (Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians) had the day off school and went on a bus to St David's for a special service. I longed to be do that. To me St David's Cathedral was a place where you took relative and friends who had journeyed the hundred or two hundred miles from their homes in England to visit us in far West Wales. It was a tourist attraction.
When I was about eight a mission church was opened on our housing estate. Some other neighbors went to it. One Sunday we were having lunch at their house and their girls took me to the Sunday School. I liked it. For a start it was in walking distance and I did not have to be have a ride with the neighbors who had sons, not daughters. Like most babies in Britain I had been baptised as an infant. My father was from a strong Church of England family and my mother had converted to C of E from Primitive Methodist when she was in her early twenties, before she had met my father, something to do with maybe a previous boyfriend and tennis.
I announced that since I was a member of the Church then I would join that Sunday School. We also had another neighbor who had a big influence in my life who went to that church, Mrs Buckland but she is a story for another occasion. I became an Anglican, a member of the Church in Wales.
I learned about Ascension Day and the trip to St David's. I was not allowed to go. The year I was eleven was different. Ascension Day fell after the Eleven Plus exam and so it was safe me not to be in school. The Eleven Plus was the big exam which decided which secondary school we would go to.
What happened at the service? I cannot remember. I think we went to Whitesands Bay afterwards. Who else went? I cannot remember. What is important is that the cathedral was filled with youth from all parts of the diocese. We gathered in a house of prayer. We gathered together to celebrate the fact that Jesus is with us until the very end of the age.
(Photograph From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Chris Rivers)
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