A Prayer on Ascension Sunday

Gracious God, your ascended Son promised the gift of the Holy Spirit. Send your Spirit of revelation and wisdom that we may witness to Your grace and forgiveness, freedom and hope, joy and salvation.

Open our minds to understand Your will, so that when sin cripples our hope, we may discover the freedom of Your forgiveness; when suffering and death overtake our lives, we may know the joy of the Risen Christ; and when we feel abandoned, we may comprehend the power of the promised Spirit.

Holy Father, Father of the Risen and Ascended Christ, You surround us with witnesses who have shown us the way. Inspire us with your Spirit to stop looking into the heavens and start doing the work of the kingdom. Help us to seek justice, becoming a people who nourish and clothe and lament.

Help us to love kindness, becoming a people who forgive and accept forgiveness, a people who show mercy and live in charity. Help us to walk humbly with you, becoming a people whose secret identities melt away revealing the Christ living within.

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above the heavens that He might fill all things, mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to His promise, He abides with His Church on earth,
even to the end of the ages.

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
AMEN