What is “leavetaking”? For most major feasts, we continue celebrating beyond just one day. For Pascha, we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection for 40 day, and it concludes on the Holy Feast of Ascension. During those days, we sing “Christ is Risen” and the hymns in the services are still the beautiful and joyful Paschal hymns! The “leavetaking” is the 39th day (aka today)! Think of it as the last day of the feast! After today, the paschal hymns are no longer sung- until next year!

Instead of saying “Christ is Risen,” we now say “He is Ascended!”

In light of the leave taking, I will be putting away our paschal decorations. I finally feel ready for this new chapter in our Liturgical cycle!

Christ is Risen!

-Khouria Destinie

Check out these blogpost for more information about the feast of Ascension:

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When beginning to live the Liturgical life, you'll begin to notice new things each year, as if we're adding a new layer of rich soil in the garden of our hearts. Maybe a certain part of the feast day hymn jumped out at you this year. Or maybe you noticed something new in the festal icon. Or you heard a line in one of the prayers that you could have sworn you never heard before. Each major feast day, I try to dive a little deeper, and prepare myself for another sweet revelation to renew my heart and mind.

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Here you’ll find 10 fun ways to celebrate Ascension as a family in hopes that one of these ideas will spark some ideas for you as you live out the Liturgical Calendar. Perhaps they will become your annual tradition for each Ascension! These are not just activities for activities sake, of course. My hope is that these will aid you in sharing more about our faith with your children in a way that is developmentally appropriate, allows for their exploration and participation in the feast, and hopefully cultivate a rich soil in their hearts that allows the seed of Truth that stays with them all the days of their life.

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Who doesn’t like a fun symbolic recipe to help us remember a Special Feast Day? This Cloud Jello Parfait recipes is SUPER easy and fun, and will help children remember the details of Christ’s ascension into heaven!

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Start off the new month with an intentional plan to incorporate the liturgical life into your home, with a few simple additions. The Liturgical calendar can be very full, so by pairing it down to, this printable has ONE saint, ONE hymn, ONE activity, and ONE family culture building activity.