Feast of the Ascension, Cycle B
May 28, 2006
Our weekly email service, clergy@priestsforlife.org, provides priests and deacons with the following resources for each Sunday of the year.
General Intercessions
Celebrant: Our hope is in our risen Lord. Confident that God will hear our prayers, we place our needs before the Lord.
Deacon/Lector:
That the Church may give witness to the Risen
Lord and call all non-believers to conversion, we pray to the Lord.
That the pope, bishops, and all clergy may be effective witnesses of the Lord
risen and ascended, we pray to the Lord.
That the nation's leaders will be mindful of the needs of the diverse people
they are called to govern and serve, we pray to the Lord.
That the Ascension may increase our awareness of the dignity of every human
life, created to share life forever in the heights of heaven, we pray to the
Lord.
That those who are in need of hope be inspired by the Ascension of our Lord and
trust firmly that God offers them eternal happiness and the means to obtain it,
we pray to the Lord.
That the members of our parish and families who have died may share in the joys
of eternal life, we pray to the Lord.
Celebrant:
God of glory, as we commemorate this day when your Son Jesus was exalted in great triumph, hear our petitions and send us your Spirit of truth. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Bulletin Insert
Are You Registered to Vote? The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory … to exercise the right to vote” (2240). Pope John Paul II wrote in 2003, "Certainly the Christian vision leads to the expectation of "new heavens" and "a new earth" (Rev 21:1), but this increases, rather than lessens, our sense of responsibility for the world today. I wish to reaffirm this forcefully at the beginning of the new millennium, so that Christians will feel more obliged than ever not to neglect their duties as citizens in this world" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, n. 20). Please make sure you are ready to exercise this Christian responsibility by registering and voting in the primaries and the General Election.
Homily Suggestions on Pro-life Themes
The Ascension is a powerful feast on which to preach the sanctity of human life, because at its core, this feast is about our human nature being exalted to the heights of heaven. Jesus prayed on the night before he died, “Father, give me the glory I had with you before the world began.” How is the glory he has in the Ascension different from the glory he had “before the world began?”
It differs only in that now, he has it in a human nature. Our humanity has been taken to the heights of heaven, fulfilling the destiny God intended for human life from the beginning. Revelation 3:21 declares, “To the one who gains the victory, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne.” God’s plan for us is not just that we will gather around the throne or fall down before the throne, but that we will sit with him on the throne!
This hope extended to the human family by the Gospel is directly contradicted when the same human beings destined for the heights of heaven are thrown in the garbage by abortion.
The human nature Jesus brings to glory in the Ascension is the same human nature you and I share, and the same human nature that the babies in the womb share. Celebrating the Ascension in daily life means treating each human life as one destined to sit with Christ on his throne.
Priests for Life
PO Box 141172
Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. 888-PFL-3448, (718) 980-4400
Fax 718-980-6515
Email mail@priestsforlife.org
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