We’re encouraged to participate

The Council of Bishops of The Society writes:

The Ascension of the Lord marks a new moment in the life of the community of Christ’s followers. Jesus returns to the Father in order to send upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so from earliest days, Christians have used the days following Ascension Day to wait in prayer for the renewing, reviving gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This time of expectant waiting echoes the experience of the Apostles who gathered with the Blessed Virgin Mary in prayer before the Spirit came upon them.

This period of prayer is often referred to as a ‘novena’, which is an ancient practice of the Church to spend a series of consecutive days or weeks in prayer for a particular theme or intention. In praying this novena, we are uniting ourselves with the ancient tradition of the Church.

In the past few years this period has been given a particular focus through the ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ initiative; a global ecumenical movement that invites us to pray for strength in conviction as we live out our faith in our daily lives and as we strive to draw others into a lively relationship with God in Christ in the fellowship of his Church.

The circumstances of Covid-19 mean that we are unable to gather in our churches this year, but we provide these resources to encourage you to pray and act as part of ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ in your homes, asking ever more earnestly in these times for the Holy Spirit to come to renew the face of the earth.

This year The Society has produced a booklet: Praying at Home from Ascension to Pentecost (downloadable as PDF).

There are also resources on the Thy Kingdom Come website.