Commontide
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 6th Sunday of Easter (Rogation Sunday)
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Easter
But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
The 6th of Easter (Rogation Sunday)
Red Letter Day
Reformer and Pastor of Geneva
Ecumenical Commemoration
Ascension Day falls on the fortieth day of Eastertide, the Thursday on which the Church keeps Christ's being taken up into heaven from the Mount of Olives. The date comes from the Acts of the Apostles, which counts forty days of appearances between the Resurrection and the ascending. It is a red-letter feast, carrying its own collect, epistle and gospel from the first English prayer book onward. In the West three days of Rogation prayer run up to it; ten days of waiting for Pentecost follow.
Ascension Day commemorates Christ's bodily ascension into heaven forty days after the Resurrection (Acts 1:1-11, Luke 24:50-53). The feast always falls on a Thursday — forty days counted inclusively from Easter Sunday. The observance is ancient. Augustine of Hippo (Ep. 54 to Januarius, c. 400) already regarded the Ascension as a feast of apostolic origin, placing it alongside Easter and Pentecost as celebrations 'which the whole Church observes throughout the world.' Eusebius of Caesarea mentions it in the early fourth century. The Ascension stands as the christological complement to the Incarnation: at Christmas, God descends to take human nature; at the Ascension, human nature is taken up into the life of God. The theological implications are enormous — our flesh, our humanity, is now at the right hand of the Father. The BCP 2019 lists Ascension among the seven Principal Feasts, giving it the highest possible liturgical precedence. The ten days between Ascension and Pentecost have traditionally been kept as days of prayer and expectation, recalling the disciples' waiting in the upper room (Acts 1:12-14). Some Anglican and Roman churches transfer the observance to the following Sunday, though the BCP 2019 does not explicitly authorize this practice.
The Ascension has shaped both the liturgical calendar and Christian architecture. The tradition of extinguishing the Paschal Candle after the Gospel reading on Ascension Day — symbolizing Christ's departure from visible presence — was widespread in the medieval West, though modern practice varies. Egeria records a vigil service at the Imbomon (the traditional site of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives) in the 380s, and the feast was well established in both East and West by the fifth century. In the Byzantine tradition, the Ascension is one of the Twelve Great Feasts, and its icon — Christ ascending in a mandorla of glory while the apostles gaze upward and angels announce his return — is among the most theologically rich in the Eastern iconographic tradition. The two men in white (Acts 1:10-11) who promise Christ's return connect the Ascension forward to the Second Coming, making it both a feast of accomplished salvation and eschatological hope. The collect in the BCP 2019 focuses on the ascent of hearts and minds: 'May our hearts and minds also there ascend, and with him continually dwell.' The season between Ascension and Pentecost — sometimes called the 'Great Novena' — is a period of prayer for the coming of the Spirit.
John Calvin, born at Noyon in Picardy in 1509, was a French lawyer and humanist who became the pastor and teacher of Geneva. Never ordained in the Roman church, he wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion at twenty-six as a plea to a king who was burning his countrymen, was twice made a Genevan against his own plans, and left behind a church order, an academy, and thousands of sermons. He died on 27 May 1564 and was buried the next day in an unmarked grave, by his own instruction.
Born in Noyon, Picardy, Jean Calvin received a humanist legal education before converting to evangelical Christianity around 1533. Fleeing Catholic France, he published the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion in Basel in 1536 — a work he expanded through four editions (final 1559) into the most comprehensive Protestant systematic theology.
Calvin spent brief time in Strasbourg under Martin Bucer before settling in Geneva, where — after an initial exile (1538-1541) — he established the Ecclesiastical Ordinances restructuring church governance around four offices: pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. Geneva became a refuge for persecuted Protestants and a training ground for Reformed ministers.
Calvin's productivity was extraordinary: he preached nearly daily, wrote commentaries on most biblical books, produced thousands of surviving letters, and shaped Geneva's religious, educational, and civil institutions. His theology emphasized God's sovereignty, predestination, Scripture's authority, and the invisible church. His role in the execution of Michael Servetus for heresy in 1553 remains controversial and reflects the coercive religious uniformity of the era. Calvin's influence extended across Europe, shaping Reformed traditions from Scotland to Hungary to the Netherlands. He died on May 27, 1564.
Calvin's legacy is interpreted differently across traditions. Reformed tradition celebrates his theological brilliance; Catholic and critical accounts stress his coercive governance and the Servetus execution. Modern ecumenical dialogue has produced more nuanced assessments.