Saint Mellitus, the first Bishop of London, depicted in a stained glass window in Canterbury Cathedral
Patrick Comerford
The Season of Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and tomorrow is the First Sunday in Lent. Today (17 February 2024), the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers the life and witness of Janani Luwum (1977), Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr.
In previous years, my Lenten reflections have journeyed with the saints, looked at Lent in Art, read poems in Lent, reflected on the music of Vaughan Williams, selected sayings from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield lexicographer, and similar themes.
This year, I am taking time each morning in Lent to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated by the Church of England in the Calendar of Common Worship. I began this series on Wednesday with a reflection on Saint Alban, England’s first martyr and saint.
Before today 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.
Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London … rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Early English pre-Reformation saints: 4, Saint Mellitus (624), first Bishop of London
Saint Mellitus (624), the first Bishop of London, is commemorated in Common Worship on 24 April.
Saint Mellitus was an abbot in Rome when he was sent to England by Pope Gregory the Great to undergird the work of Saint Augustine, who consecrated him Bishop of the East Saxons with his see at London and his first church that of Saint Paul.
After some local setbacks that forced him to live in northern France, Saint Mellitus and his fellow bishops were recalled to England, but he was unable to return to London.
He was made Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 619 and died on 24 April 624. He was buried close to Saint Augustine in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Canterbury.
The site of Saint Paul’s Cross … once a preaching cross and open-air pulpit in the grounds of Old Saint Paul’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 5: 27-32 (NRSVA):
27 After this he went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 28 And he got up, left everything, and followed him.
29 Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax-collectors and others sitting at the table with them. 30 The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 31 Jesus answered, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32 I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.’
Saint Mellitus Church in Tollington Park, Islington, is a grand Victorian neo-classical building (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 17 February 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), has been ‘Ash Wednesday Reflection.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday by the Revd Jessie Anand, Chaplain, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (17 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
Let us give thanks for the vision that inspired USPG. May we, like Thomas Bray, seek to deepen our understanding of the Gospel, be attentive to the world and promote the common good.
The Collect:
God of truth,
whose servant Janani Luwum walked in the light,
and in his death defied the powers of darkness:
free us from fear of those who kill the body,
that we too may walk as children of light,
through him who overcame darkness by the power of the cross,
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 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 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:
God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Janani Luwum:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the eve of Lent I:
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
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.
Yesterday’s Reflection: Saint Augustine (605), first Archbishop of Canterbury
Tomorrow: Saint Oswald (642), King of Northumbria, Martyr
Inside Saint Mellitus Church, Islington, built as the New Court Congregational Church (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
17 February 2024
Small synagogues and
traditional shops show
the resilience of Jewish
life in the Marais in Paris
The Foundation Roger Fleischman and the former Synagogue Beit Yossef on rue des Ecouffes in Paris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
I spent an afternoon during our visit to Paris last week walking around the Jewish district in Le Marais and strolled through the Rue des Rosiers, known affectionately in Yiddish as Pletzl or the ‘Little Place,’ and the surrounding streets, including Rue Pavée, with the Rue Pavée Synagogue, built as the Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue.
The Rue des Rosiers is the main street in the Marais and the neighbouring streets are home to many Jewish restaurants, cafés, bakeries and bookshops.
Many luxury brand shops have moved onto rue des Rosiers in recent years. A one-time community hammam, or steam bath, was in 2008 transformed into another link in the chain of Swedish fashion retailer H&M.
But these narrow, cobbled streets remain an important centre of Parisian Jewish life with their kosher food shops, bookshops, restaurants and cafés. Throughout the Marais, memorials plaques on many buildings are reminders of the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish community in Paris.
The Kosher Pizza shop on rue des Ecouffes, a little street off rue des Rosiers, was previously the Synagogue Beit Yossef. Next door at No 18, the Roger Fleischman Foundation dates from 1931, when it was set up as a study centre.
The founder, Armand Fleischman (1886-1973), was born in Paris and was an infantry sergeant major during World War I and was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Military Medal. He became President of the Fonds National Juif (FNJ) of France in 1923.
Armand Fleischman set up the Foundation Roger Fleischman in 1931 as a centre for young people to study the Torah, with a small oratory following the death of his son, a young Tzadik and medical student, at the age of 19.
This shtibel or small house of prayer is said to be one of the few places in the Marais still representative of the places of worship of Jewish immigrants who arrived from Poland in the 1920s.
It became a house of prayer for Jews from North Africa in the 1960s, and now follows the Sephardic rite, and it continues to serve as a place devoted to prayer and religious instruction.
The Tephilat Israel or Frank-Forter Synagogue on rue du Bourg Tibourg is named in honour of Rabbi Ray Israel Frank-Forter, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Tephilat Israel or Frank-Forter Synagogue is a small oratoire or prayer house at 24 rue du Bourg Tibourg in the Marais. It was founded in the 1920s for another Jewish community from Central Europe. It is named in honour of Rabbi Ray Israel Frank-Forter, who was deported during the Holocaust and murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.
It too became a Sephardic synagogue in the 1970s and is open for Shabbat services, holidays and on Sunday mornings.
During that afternoon last week, I also visited the Mémorial de la Shoah or Holocaust Museum in Marais, the Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr and the Museum of Jewish Art and History. But more about these visits on other days.
Shabbat Shalom
Many of the traditional Jewish shops continue to thrive in the Marais (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
I spent an afternoon during our visit to Paris last week walking around the Jewish district in Le Marais and strolled through the Rue des Rosiers, known affectionately in Yiddish as Pletzl or the ‘Little Place,’ and the surrounding streets, including Rue Pavée, with the Rue Pavée Synagogue, built as the Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue.
The Rue des Rosiers is the main street in the Marais and the neighbouring streets are home to many Jewish restaurants, cafés, bakeries and bookshops.
Many luxury brand shops have moved onto rue des Rosiers in recent years. A one-time community hammam, or steam bath, was in 2008 transformed into another link in the chain of Swedish fashion retailer H&M.
But these narrow, cobbled streets remain an important centre of Parisian Jewish life with their kosher food shops, bookshops, restaurants and cafés. Throughout the Marais, memorials plaques on many buildings are reminders of the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish community in Paris.
The Kosher Pizza shop on rue des Ecouffes, a little street off rue des Rosiers, was previously the Synagogue Beit Yossef. Next door at No 18, the Roger Fleischman Foundation dates from 1931, when it was set up as a study centre.
The founder, Armand Fleischman (1886-1973), was born in Paris and was an infantry sergeant major during World War I and was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Military Medal. He became President of the Fonds National Juif (FNJ) of France in 1923.
Armand Fleischman set up the Foundation Roger Fleischman in 1931 as a centre for young people to study the Torah, with a small oratory following the death of his son, a young Tzadik and medical student, at the age of 19.
This shtibel or small house of prayer is said to be one of the few places in the Marais still representative of the places of worship of Jewish immigrants who arrived from Poland in the 1920s.
It became a house of prayer for Jews from North Africa in the 1960s, and now follows the Sephardic rite, and it continues to serve as a place devoted to prayer and religious instruction.
The Tephilat Israel or Frank-Forter Synagogue on rue du Bourg Tibourg is named in honour of Rabbi Ray Israel Frank-Forter, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Tephilat Israel or Frank-Forter Synagogue is a small oratoire or prayer house at 24 rue du Bourg Tibourg in the Marais. It was founded in the 1920s for another Jewish community from Central Europe. It is named in honour of Rabbi Ray Israel Frank-Forter, who was deported during the Holocaust and murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.
It too became a Sephardic synagogue in the 1970s and is open for Shabbat services, holidays and on Sunday mornings.
During that afternoon last week, I also visited the Mémorial de la Shoah or Holocaust Museum in Marais, the Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr and the Museum of Jewish Art and History. But more about these visits on other days.
Shabbat Shalom
Many of the traditional Jewish shops continue to thrive in the Marais (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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