Patrick Comerford
The Season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and yesterday was the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III, 3 March 2024).
Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in Common Worship.
Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;
2, today’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Early English pre-Reformation saints: 20, Saint Wilfrid of Ripon (709), Bishop, Missionary
Saint Wilfrid of Ripon (709), Bishop, Missionary, is commemorated in Common Worship on 12 October. Wilfrid, or Wilfrith, was born in Northumbria ca 633. He was educated at the monastery of Lindisfarne, but disapproved of what he judged to be the Celtic insularity of the monks there.
He travelled to Canterbury and then to Rome, and spent three years at Lyons where he was admitted as a monk. He was appointed Abbot of Ripon and took with him the Roman monastic system and Benedictine Rule, which he immediately introduced. At the Synod of Whitby, his dominance was largely responsible for the victory of the Roman party over the Celts.
When Saint Wilfrid was elected Bishop of York in 664 in succession to Saint Chad, he went to Compiègne to be consecrated by 12 Frankish bishops rather than risk any doubt of schism by being ordained by Celtic bishops. There were upsets first with Saint Chad and then with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, but the Roman authorities took his side and he was eventually restored to his see.
After further disputes, he resigned the See of York and became Bishop of Hexham, spending his remaining years at Ripon. His gift to the English Church was to make it more clearly a part of the Church universal, but his manner and methods did not draw people close to him at a personal level. He died on 12 October 709 and was buried in Ripon.
Luke 4: 24-30 (NRSVA):
24 And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 4 March 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘International Women’s Day Reflection.’ This theme was introduced yesterday by the Right Revd Beverley A Mason, Bishop of Warrington.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (4 March 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
Like the Syro-Phoenician, may we have the courage to transcend mental, spiritual, social and religious boundaries and humbly kneel before the Lord our God, bringing our gifts of faith, hope and love.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection: Saint Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne
Tomorrow: The Venerable Bede
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
Last edited: 14 March 2024
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