Patrick Comerford
I have spent the past three days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – on my own, self-guided retreat in Lichfield, visiting places that I find give me spiritual nourishment, spending some time in prayer and silence, reading and reflection, walking in the countryside and by waterside, and following the daily cycle of prayer and services in Lichfield Cathedral.
Ever since my late teens, Lichfield has been my spiritual home. I have found that comfort and feeling of being at home in Lichfield Cathedral and the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, and I try to get here at least three or four times a year to recharge my spiritual batteries. I am so at home here, that it is one of those places where I feel I am back at home, alongside Wexford and Cappoquin.
I arrived here by mid-afternoon on Friday, and I have spent a lot of time thinking, praying, walking and reading, with a little time for writing too.
During these few days, I have been at Choral Evensong in the cathedral on Friday evening, at the mid-day Eucharist and Evening Prayer on Saturday, and at the Cathedral Eucharist this morning.
They have been cold, dark, windy and bitingly chilly days and nights. But there was time too for walks, and I clocked up a daily average of almost 10 km a day, so these days have been good for my physical health, as well as my spiritual and mental health.
Lichfield Cathedral – as one might expect a cathedral – is marking Advent in a careful and planned way. The services I have been at over these past few days have involved Canon Bob Payne, a retired prison chaplain who also began life training as a chartered surveyor with the College of Estate Management and Jones Lang; the Interim Dean and Canon Custos, Bishop Jan McFarlane, former Bishop of Repton; the Canon Precentor, Canon Andrew Stead; the Canon Chancellor, Canon Dr Gregory Platten; and Debbie Parkes, a lay canon and diocesan reader who was the preacher at the Choral Eucharist this morning.
In her prayers at Evening Prayer last night, Bishop Jan challenged us to tell the difference between fantasy, vision and prophecy.
In recent weeks, I have received some nasty hate mail and been the target of some anonymous letters and postings on someone else’s social media pages, challenging my integrity and my honesty, and even wishing I die and rot in hell.
It would be too dismissive not to admit they have taken their toll emotionally. So, there was comfort at Choral Evensong on Friday to hear the Psalmist too had problems such as these as I listened to Psalms 41-43:
My enemies wonder in malice
when I will die, and my name perish.
And when they come to see me, they utter empty words,
while their hearts gather mischief;
when they go out, they tell it abroad.
All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst for me. (Psalm 41: 5-7)
And:
Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people;
from those who are deceitful and unjust
deliver me! (Psalm 43: 1)
Understandably, then, I was assured and comforted by the Psalmist’s words that
… my enemy has not triumphed over me.
But you have upheld me because of my integrity,
and set me in your presence for ever. (Psalm 41: 11-12)
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God. (Psalm 43: 5)
But, perhaps, I am being a little unfair, both to myself and to those who have made possible this retreat this weekend.
I had time for walks in the countryside along the old pilgrim route that is part of Cross in Hand Lane, behind the Hedgehog Vintage Inn on Stafford Road – although I did not get anywhere as near as reaching Saint Batholomew’s Church at Farewell this weeken.
I had walks along Beacon Street – if I lived in Lichfield, this is the street I would like to live on – walks by Minster Pool, and a walk and around Stowe Pool, including time to appreciate the new willow that was planted recently as a new version of ‘Dr Johnson’s Willow’: he is remembered in the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship later this week (Wednesday 13 December).
I visited Lichfield’s own Greek restaurant, the Greek Chef, on Tamworth Street, which was once the Olive Tree, there were many double espressos, there was lunch in the Hedgehog, dinner in Sorriso on Bird Street, almost oppose the former offices of the Lichfield Mercuty, where I once worked, and some glasses of wine in the Queen’s Head on Sandford Street, one of my favourite pubs anywhere. But then this was a retreat in the best of Benedictine ways of thinking of retreats, without self-imposed ascetism.
There was joy too at Aston Villa winning 1-0 at home against Arsenal – I had thought of looking for a ticket … but I was too late, tickets were too expensive, and that was not the purpose of this weekend.
I browsed through the books in the Johnson Birthplace Museum and in the local history section in the in Waterstone’s – and I was delighted to find that in her latest edition of her Little Book of Staffordshire Kate Gomez holds onto the story of the three knocks on the doors at Comberford Hall, legendary harbingers of an imminent death in the family.
There was time too to read Leonard Cohen’s poetry, to dip into some of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, and I even picked up the latest Christmas edition of CityLife in Lichfield.
There were walks too through the Darwin Gardens behind the Erasmus Darwin House between the Cathedral Close and Beacon Street, walks in the dark under the Christmas lights in Bird Street, Bore Street, Market Street and Tamworth Street, and walks under the statues of Johnson and Boswell in Market Square.
I had thought of staying on for the Christmas Light Service in Lichfield Cathedral this afternoon. But by now I am on my way back to Stony Stratford.
TS Eliot’s magi in ‘Journey of the Magi’ says, ‘And I would do it again.’ To paraphrase him, I shall do all this again, and again, and shall continue to return to Lichfield, hopefully, for spiritual refreshment and nourishment.
Why do I continue to do this, regularly and constantly, a few times each year for more than half a century, spending time in Lichfield Cathedral and the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital?
Because, as Psalm 27 reminded me at Evening Prayer last night:
One thing I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord,
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27: 4)
Walking around Stowe Pool, beneath the spires of Lichfield Cathedral and the churches of Lichfield (Patrick Comerford, 2023)
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