21.05.2020
The Parting at Ascension Has Echoes for Today – Archbishop Preaches on Ascension Day
Archbishop Michael Jackson celebrated and preached at the Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, at noon to mark Ascension Day. The service was streamed live on the cathedral’s webcam
In his address he recalled the hymn which said it was time for Jesus to be ‘parted from their [the disciples] sight’. The Archbishop said that Ascension not only ushered in Pentecost. It also made possible an independent discipleship. He suggested that it was this type of independent discipleship that Christians have been able to contribute to the general good during this time of a particular parting as a result of Covid–19.
“Because of the rigorous social distancing, generations have been parted from one another, most poignantly perhaps grandparents from grandchildren. But there have been other partings and we are increasingly feeling the strain: partings from places of work and places of learning and teaching, partings from the privacy of what was once our home and now seems to be the roving office space of anyone who has a computer and has work or study deadlines to meet; partings in death where there has been no grieving but greater and greater grief – grief unvoiced in this new strangely still and silent world. For those of us with ears to hear this connects us directly with the experience of The First Disciples at the time of Resurrection and Ascension.”