26 March 2021

Palm Sunday, Holy Week in
Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin
Group of Parishes

‘Buro Taxi’ … riding on a donkey in Mijas, near Malaga in south-east Spain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sunday 28 March 2021

Palm Sunday, the Sixth Sunday in Lent


Due to Covid-19 guidelines from the Government and the Bishops of the Church of Ireland, there is no public celebration of the Parish Eucharist next Sunday, Palm Sunday, 28 March 2021.

However, there will be a celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday, and the sermon and intercessions will be made available online (www.patrickcomerford.com), through the parish Facebook page, and through Patrick Comerford’s YouTube channel.

In addition, the Cathedral Eucharist is livestreamed from Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, at 11.15 a.m. on Sunday mornings.

In preparation for this Sunday, or on Sunday itself, you may find it helpful to use the Sunday readings, Collects and Post-Communion Prayers.

The Readings: Isaiah 50: 4-9a; Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29; Mark 11: 1-11.

Liturgical colour: Red (or Violet).

Theme: Moving from Palm Sunday through the disappointment of Good Friday to Easter hope

The Collect of the Day (Palm Sunday):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who, in your tender love towards the human race,
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
Grant that we may follow the example
of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lenten Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Post Communion Prayer (Palm Sunday):

Lord Jesus Christ,
you humbled yourself in taking the form of a servant
and in obedience died on the cross for our salvation.
Give us the mind to follow you
and to proclaim you as Lord and King,
to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Hymns:

134, Make way, make way for Christ the King (CD 8)
231, My song is love unknown (CD 14)

Holy Week:

The pandemic restrictions also mean that, despite planning and preparation, there are no public services during Holy Week.

However, a reflection in the form of a poem on the themes of Holy Week, is being planned for the evenings from Monday to Maundy Thursday at 6.30 p.m., and at noon on both Good Friday and the Saturday before Easter.

These Holy Week reflections will be posted each day on Patrick’s blog (www.patrickcomerford.com), on his YouTube channel, and through the Parish Facebook page:

1, Monday 29 March, ‘Lent’ by Christina Rossetti (6.30 pm)

2, Tuesday 30 March, ‘Evensong’ by CS Lewis (6.30 pm)

3, Wednesday 31 March, ‘Marked by Ashes’ by Walter Bruegemann (6.30 pm)

4, Maundy Thursday 1 April, ‘Julian at the Mysteries’ by CP Cavafy (6.30 pm, with the Maundy Eucharist)

5, Good Friday, 2 April, ‘Three Hours’ with three poems by Leonard Cohen, Katharine Tynan and TS Eliot (12 noon to 3 pm)

6, Saturday 3 April, ‘If it be your will’ by Leonard Cohen (12 noon)

‘Julian … crossed himself. The Figures vanished at once; the haloes faded away, the lights went out’ (CP Cavafy, ‘Julian at the Mysteries’) … a crucifix icon from the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying in Lent and Easter 2021:
38, Holy Cross Church, Lichfield

Holy Cross Church, Lichfield … Joseph Potter’s design influenced Pugin’s design of Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During Lent and Easter this year, I am taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:

1, a photograph of a church or place of worship that has been significant in my spiritual life;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

This week I am offering photographs from seven churches that were designed by Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852), the architect singularly responsible for shaping and influencing the Gothic revival in church architecture on these islands.

Friday next (2 April 2021) is Good Friday, and so my photographs this Friday morning (26 March 2021) are from Holy Cross Church, Upper Saint John Street, Lichfield.

The church was enlarged and rebuilt in 1832 by the Lichfield-born architect Joseph Potter (1756-1842) in a mixed Romanesque and Gothic style. When Pugin was in Lichfield in 1837, Potter had completed Holy Cross Church. Pugin was commissioned to add a screen and other furnishings in 1841.

Although Pugin’s additions and furnishings have long disappeared, Potter’s designs for Holy Cross, including his entrance door and his turret of Tixall stone in a mixed Romanesque and Gothic style, later influenced Pugin’s designs for Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey, his only Romanesque-style church in Co Wexford, which is my choice of church tomorrow morning.

The entrance to Potter’s turret in Holy Cross Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 10: 31-42 (NRSVA):

31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus replied, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?’ 33 The Jews answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.’ 34 Jesus answered, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? 35 If those to whom the word of God came were called “gods” — and the scripture cannot be annulled — 36 can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, “I am God’s Son”? 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.’ 39 Then they tried to arrest him again, but he escaped from their hands.

40 He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. 41 Many came to him, and they were saying, ‘John performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.’ 42 And many believed in him there.

The interior of the Church of the Holy Cross, Upper John Street, Lichfield, today … the screen and furnishings designed by Pugin in 1841 are no longer here (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (26 March 2021), prays:

Let us pray for the people of Bangladesh as they celebrate their country’s Independence Day today.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Holy Cross Church, Upper John Street, Lichfield … the door is reflected in AWN Pugin’s designs for Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The 33 Irish men and women
who had key roles in creating
the modern Greek state

Sir Richard Church’s monument on his grave in the First Cemetery in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Greek War of Independence on 25 March 1821.

As part of the events in Ireland to mark this bicentenary, I am being interviewed later this evening (7:30) by the President of Hellenic Community of Ireland, Styliani (Stella) Xenopoulou, for a live-streatmed community programme on Facebook.

In my research, I have identified over 30 key Irish figures who had roles in Greece during the Greek War of Independence and the consolidation of the modern Greek State.

Not all 33 of these figures were involved in the struggle for Greek independence. But each one of them played an important role in Greek military, political, economic, cultural and social life in the 19th and early 20th century.

Some of this research has been published as papers in books and in journals, and I have published some of it on this blog. The names of Irish Philhellenes are in bold; there is a hyperlink in names to postings available on this blog.

1, (Captain) Edward Blaquiere (died 1832), persuaded Byron to join the Greek struggle.

2, James David Bourchier (1850-1920), Irish journalist and political activist, who was active in the union of Crete with the modern Greek state; he died in Sofia.

3, Sir Richard Church (1784-1873), commander-in-chief of the Greek army, life senator.

4, (Captain) Francis T Castle, Irish sea captain and Philhellene.

5, Edward Curling, worked for Napier on Kephallonia from 1828 to 1831, later lived in Newcastlewest, Co Limerick.

6, (Captain) Gibbon FitzGibbon (1802-1837), gunnery officer and lieutenant on the Karteria; lived on in Greece after the war of independence, and along with Sir Richard Church was one of only seven Philhellenes still living in the new kingdom when Otho arrived in Athens as king in 1833.

7, Sir George FitzMaurice (1827-1889), 6th Earl of Orkney and Viscount Kirkwall, spent four years as a civil servant in the Ionian Islands in the 1850s, left an extensive account of life there prior to reunion with Greece; decorated by the King of Greece as a Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Saviour.

8, Kathleen Ford … she had an affair with Nikos Kazantzakis during Crete’s struggle to be incorporated in the Greek state.

9, George Nugent Grenville, Lord Nugent (1788-1862), Philhellene, Governor of the Ionian Islands (1832-1835).

10, (Commodore) Gawin William Rowan Hamilton (1783-1834), British naval officer who was placed on trial for acting in Greece’s interests in the War of Independence.

11, Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1903), poet in Japan, born into a Waterford family on the island of Lefkhada. Descended from the Ven Daniel Hearn (1693-1766), Archdeacon of Cashel, but his mother was Greek and he was baptised in the Greek Orthodox Church as Patricio Lafcadio Tessima Carlos Hearn.

12, Charles Horatio Kennedy (1810-1862), visited Kephalonia to support his brother’s role in Greek politics.

13, (Dr) James Kennedy, army doctor who supported Sir Charles Napier and befriended Byron.

14, (Captain) John Pitt Kennedy (1796-1879), Sir Charles Napier’s engineer on Kephalonia and Ithaka.

15, (Sir) Edward FitzGerald Law (1846-1908), reformed the Greek economy and helped the insurgents in Crete.

16, Sir Edmund Lyons (1790-1858), later Lord Lyons, of Irish descent, British ambassador in Athens at the end of the War of Independence (1834-1849).

17, (Sir) Charles James Napier (1782-1853), used his official position in Kephalonia to assist the independence struggle, and hoped to become commander of the Greek army.

18, Henry Edward Napier, came to Greece to support his brother, Sir Charles Napier.

19, (Count) Laval Nugent (1777-1862), Irish Philhellene, offered the command of the Greek army, which he declined.

20, (Captain) Charles O’Fallon, aide-de-camp to Sir Richard Church.

21, James Ryan: among the Irish Philhellenes counted by Woodhouse, although he is sometimes listed among the ‘British volunteers.’

22, (Lieutenant) William Scanlan (died 1827), first mate on the Karteria and lieutenant on the Soter, killed in a naval battle in the Gulf of Patras.

23, Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe (1780-1855), 6th Viscount Strangford, British Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Sublime Porte (1820-1824).

24, William Bennet Stevenson (ca 1787-post 1830), secretary to Cochrane, commander of the Greek navy.

25, (Sir) James Emerson Tennent (1804-1869), Belfast-born Philhellene.

26, Robert James Tennent (1803–1880), Belfast-born Philhellene.

27, (Captain) George Thomas, born in Bath but regarded himself as Irish; commanded the Soter.

28, John Augustus Toole (1792-1829), member of Napier’s staff on Kephalonia and supporter of Kapodistrias.

29, Eliza-Dorothea Tuite, Countess Solomos.

30, Arthur Gower Winter (died 1824), fought at Messolongi, Salona, and in later went to Athens, where he died by suicide.

31, Sir Thomas Wyse (1791-1862) from Waterford, British Ambassador in Athens, buried as a Philhellene.

32, William Charles Bonaparte Wyse (1826-1892), born in Waterford, once suggested as King of Greece.

33, Sir John Young, later Lord Lisgar (1807-1876), Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands (1855-1859).

Sir Richard Church’s former house in the Plaka, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens … now covered in graffiti (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)