Christ in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus … a panel in the Herkenrode glass windows in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and the week began with the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
The East Window in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Watford, Northamptonshire, shows Christ in the home of Mary and Martha (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 10: 38-42 (NRSVA):
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ 41 But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Diego Velázquez (1630)
Today’s Reflection:
Saint Luke’s story of the meal that Jesus has with his friends Mary and Martha is not found in the other synoptic gospels, and the only other parallel is in the Fourth Gospel, where Jesus visits Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus.
So the meals Jesus has with Mary and Martha must be understood in the light of the Resurrection, which is prefigured by the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
For many women, and for many men too, the story of the meal with Martha and Mary raises many problems, often created by the agenda with which we now approach this story, but an agenda that may not have been possible to imagine when Saint Luke’s Gospel was written.
Our approach to understanding and explaining this meal very often depends on the way in which I understand Martha and the busy round of activities that have her distracted, and that cause her to complain to Jesus about her sister’s apparent lack of zeal and activity.
These activities in the Greek are described as Martha’s service – she is the deacon at the table: where the NRSV says ‘But Martha was distracted by her many tasks,’ the Greek says: ἡ δὲ Μάρθα περιεσπᾶτο περὶ πολλὴν διακονίαν (‘But Martha was being distracted by much diaconal work, service at the table’).
Quite often, when this story is told, over and over, again and again, it is told as if Martha is getting stroppy about having to empty the dishwasher while Mary is lazing, sitting around, chattering with Jesus.
Does Martha see that Mary should only engage in kitchen work too?
Does she think, perhaps, that only Lazarus should be out at the front of the house, keeping Jesus engaged in lads’ batter about the latest match between Bethany United and Jerusalem City?
Is Jesus being too dismissive of Martha’s complaints?
Or is he defending Mary’s right to engage in a full discussion of the Word, to engage in an alive ministry of the Word?
Martha is presented in this story as the dominant, leading figure. It is she who takes the initiative and who welcomes Jesus into her home (verse 38). It is she who offers the hospitality, who is the host at the meal, who is the head of the household – in fact, Lazarus isn’t even on the stage for this scene, and Mary is merely ‘her sister’ – very much the junior partner in the household.
Yet it is Mary, the figure on the margins, who offers the sort of hospitality that Jesus commends and praises.
Mary simply listens to Jesus, sitting at his feet, like a student would sit at the feet of a great rabbi or teacher, waiting and willing to learn what is being taught.
Martha is upset about this, and comes out from the back and asks Jesus to pack off Mary to the kitchen where she can help Martha.
But perhaps Martha was being too busy with her household tasks.
I was once invited to dinner by people I knew as good friends. And for a long time I was left on my own with the other guest as the couple busied themselves with things in the kitchen – they had decided to do the washing up before bringing out the coffee … the wife knew that if she left the washing up until later, the husband would shirk his share of the task.
But being left on our own was a little embarrassing. Part of the joy of being invited to someone’s home for dinner is the conversation around the table.
When I have been on retreats, at times, in Greek Orthodox monasteries, conversation at the table has been discouraged by a monk reading, usually from the writings of the Early Fathers, from the Patristic writings.
But a good meal, good table fellowship, good hospitality is not just about the food that is served, but about the conversation around the table too.
One commentator suggests that Martha has gone overboard in her duties of hospitality. She has spent too much time preparing the food, and has failed to pay real attention to her guest.
On the other hand, Mary has chosen her activity (verse 42). It does not just happen by accident. Mary has chosen to offer Jesus the real hospitality that a guest should be offered. She talks to Jesus, and real conversation is about both talking and listening.
If she is sent back into the kitchen, then – in the absence of Lazarus, indeed, in the notable absence of the disciples – Jesus would be left without hospitality, without words of welcome, without conversation.
Perhaps Martha might have been better off she had a more simple lifestyle, if she had prepared just one dish for her guest and for her family – might I be bold enough to suggest, if she had been content for them to sup on bread and wine alone.
She could have joined Mary in her hospitality, in welcoming Jesus to their home and to their table; they could have been in full communion with one another.
In this way, Martha will experience what her sister is experiencing, but which she is too busy to notice – their visitor’s invitation into the hospitality of God.
One commentator, Brendan Byrne, points out the subtle point being made in this story:
‘Frenetic service, even service of the Lord, can be a deceptive distraction from what the Lord really wants. Luke has already warned that the grasp of the word can be choked by the cares and worries of life … Here the cares and worries seem well justified – are they not in the service of the Lord? But precisely therein lies the power of the temptation, the great deceit. True hospitality – even that given directly to the Lord – attends to what the guest really wants.’
‘Christ at the home of Martha and Mary,’ Georg Friedrich Stettner (1639)
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 8 October 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 the ‘Humanitarian Corridors project in Leuven, Belgium.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rebecca Breekveldt, Second Secretary, Central Committee of the Anglican Church in Belgium.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 8 October 2024) invites us to pray:
We pray for strength and peace for the families welcomed as they navigate the countless obstacles of resettling in a country so far from home.
The Collect:
O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
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:
Holy and blessed God,
you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son
and filled us with your Holy Spirit:
may we honour you,
not only with our lips
but in lives dedicated to the service
of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Faithful Lord,
whose steadfast love never ceases
and whose mercies never come to an end:
grant us the grace to trust you
and to receive the gifts of your love,
new every morning,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
The Risen Christ with Mary of Bethany (left) and Mary Magdalene (right) … a stained glass window in Saint Nicholas’s Church, Adare, Co Limerick (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
08 October 2024
Portico, pillars and pediment
survive as reminders of
the long-lost Centenary
Methodist Church in Dublin
The surviving portico, pillars and pediment of Centenary Methodist Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
The façade of the former Centenary Methodist Church on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green has one of the most impressive surviving classical porticos in Dublin, rivalled only by the GPO on O’Connell Street, te former Houses of Parliament or Bank of Ireland on College Green, Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, or, perhaps, the former Saint George’s Church on Temple Street or Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church.
At one time, there were three churches on Saint Stephen’s Green, the other two being Newman’s Catholic University Church, also on the south side of the Green, and the Unitarian Church on the west side, and which I was writing about yesterday (6 October 2024).
In addition, there were chapels in Wesley College, once shared a campus with Centenary Methodist Church, and in Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Loreto College, the Dominican Hall Covent and the former palace of the Church of Ireland Archbishops of Dublin at No 16 on the north side, where I had lunch in Peploe’s 10 days ago (27 September 2024) with my year group from Gormanston College (1969).
The church took its name from the Methodism celebrations in 1838-1839 of the centenary of the conversion of John and Charles Wesley on Whitsunday, 21 May 1738.
The Methodist congregation on Saint Stephen’s Green traced its story back to the first visit of John Wesley to Dublin in 1747. During his 21 visits to Ireland between 1747 and 1788, Wesley toured most of the country, preaching in churches, hired halls and in the open air. Early meetings in Dublin were held in Marlborough Street and Cork Street, and a congregation used a disused Lutheran Meeting House near the present Abbey Theatre.
That first Methodist chapel in Dublin was wrecked by a mob, and a number of other temporary chapels followed before the first purpose-built Methodist church in Ireland was built on Whitefriar Street in 1752, on land that was leased for 99 years.
In time, the site was expanded to include a day boys, a school for orphan girls, housing for two minister’s residence, a widows’ almshouse and a book room.
The Methodist celebrations of the Welsey centenary in 1839 generated immense enthusiasm and generosity. Throughout Britain and Ireland, £220,000 was raised – perhaps the equivalent of more than £29 million today. The money was to be used for outreach at home and abroad and £5,000 was allocated in Ireland to build a new ‘Centenary Church’ on Saint Stephen’s Green.
The site was bought for £1,700 and the new church designed by the Dublin architect Isaac Farrell (1798-1877) was built in 1842-1843. Farrell who was responsible for many Methodist churches, including the Methodist church on Charleston Road, Ranelagh, as well as Donegall Square Methodist Church in Belfast and Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church in Dublin.
The church was a good example of the early Victorian classical church design favoured by Methodists during that period. Its well-balanced proportions broke the continuity of the Georgian-style terraces that dominate this part of Dublin. It was a five-bay two-storey church, with a tetrastyle Ionic portico to the central three bays and with a dentilled pediment.
The 99-year lease on the chapel site in Whitefriar Street was running out, and the congregation moved into the prestigious new church in June 1843.
The Methodist interest in education prompted the foundation in 1845 of the Wesleyan Connexional School by a group of Methodist ministers and others for the Methodist community on land to the rear of the church and adjoining Iveagh Gardens. It renamed Wesley College in 1879.
The gates that once led into Wesley College, beside the former Centenary Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Revd William Benjamin Lumley (1854-1942) recalled a church at peace with itself, warm and friendly, deeply and very generously committed to overseas missions, a church enlivened by attendance of the boy and girl boarders from neighbouring Wesley College.
The congregation continued to worship in the Methodist Centenary Church for over a century. Then, on Sunday 22 December 1968, members of the congregation arriving for a morning carol service were greeted by a charred ruin of smoking embers. The fire was started by a disgruntled former caretaker the night before.
Over half a century later, I still remember the traumatic impact of that fire on my Methodist friends and neighbours.
Following the fire, the congregation worshipped for a time in the Memorial Chapel in Wesley College until the school moved to Ballinteer in the south Dublin suburbs.
Methodist Centenary Church received several offers of hospitality before accepting an invitation in 1972 from Christ Church, Leeson Park, the Church of Ireland parish church beside the Molyneux Home for the Blind.
The insurance payout and the sale of the site on Saint Stephen’s Green paid for a suite of buildings called Wesley House for the use of both congregations. A church hall, student accommodation, a manse for a student chaplain and meeting rooms were completed in 1977 and these are linked to Litton Hall, built 100 years earlier as a workshop for the blind. The site, now known as Wesley House, also has a grass area, lime trees and herb garden.
When Christ Church was leased to the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2005, Litton Hall became an ideal space for the Methodist Centenary congregation.
Meanwhile, a new, five-storey office block was built behind the principal north façade of the former Centenary Church in 1975. In the redevelopment, the temple-like portico of the former church was preserved, including the four pillars with ionic capitals, the pediment, the steps and the cast-iron railings.
For a time, the building was a bank and then home to the offices of the Department of Justice. The Department has since moved to 51 Saint Stephen’s Green, and the building now numbered No 94 is the Irish headquarters of Kennedy Wilson, a global real estate investment company with $27 billion of assets under management.
Despite the extensive alterations over the past half century, the elevation of the former church remains an imposing presence on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green, and a reminder of Methodist history and heritage in Dublin.
The building is part of the historic character of Saint Stephen’s Green, close to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Iveagh House, the Museum of Literature Ireland in Newman House, Newman University Church and the Iveagh Gardens.
The façade of former Centenary Methodist Church … now the Irish headquarters of Kennedy Wilson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
The façade of the former Centenary Methodist Church on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green has one of the most impressive surviving classical porticos in Dublin, rivalled only by the GPO on O’Connell Street, te former Houses of Parliament or Bank of Ireland on College Green, Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, or, perhaps, the former Saint George’s Church on Temple Street or Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church.
At one time, there were three churches on Saint Stephen’s Green, the other two being Newman’s Catholic University Church, also on the south side of the Green, and the Unitarian Church on the west side, and which I was writing about yesterday (6 October 2024).
In addition, there were chapels in Wesley College, once shared a campus with Centenary Methodist Church, and in Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Loreto College, the Dominican Hall Covent and the former palace of the Church of Ireland Archbishops of Dublin at No 16 on the north side, where I had lunch in Peploe’s 10 days ago (27 September 2024) with my year group from Gormanston College (1969).
The church took its name from the Methodism celebrations in 1838-1839 of the centenary of the conversion of John and Charles Wesley on Whitsunday, 21 May 1738.
The Methodist congregation on Saint Stephen’s Green traced its story back to the first visit of John Wesley to Dublin in 1747. During his 21 visits to Ireland between 1747 and 1788, Wesley toured most of the country, preaching in churches, hired halls and in the open air. Early meetings in Dublin were held in Marlborough Street and Cork Street, and a congregation used a disused Lutheran Meeting House near the present Abbey Theatre.
That first Methodist chapel in Dublin was wrecked by a mob, and a number of other temporary chapels followed before the first purpose-built Methodist church in Ireland was built on Whitefriar Street in 1752, on land that was leased for 99 years.
In time, the site was expanded to include a day boys, a school for orphan girls, housing for two minister’s residence, a widows’ almshouse and a book room.
The Methodist celebrations of the Welsey centenary in 1839 generated immense enthusiasm and generosity. Throughout Britain and Ireland, £220,000 was raised – perhaps the equivalent of more than £29 million today. The money was to be used for outreach at home and abroad and £5,000 was allocated in Ireland to build a new ‘Centenary Church’ on Saint Stephen’s Green.
The site was bought for £1,700 and the new church designed by the Dublin architect Isaac Farrell (1798-1877) was built in 1842-1843. Farrell who was responsible for many Methodist churches, including the Methodist church on Charleston Road, Ranelagh, as well as Donegall Square Methodist Church in Belfast and Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church in Dublin.
The church was a good example of the early Victorian classical church design favoured by Methodists during that period. Its well-balanced proportions broke the continuity of the Georgian-style terraces that dominate this part of Dublin. It was a five-bay two-storey church, with a tetrastyle Ionic portico to the central three bays and with a dentilled pediment.
The 99-year lease on the chapel site in Whitefriar Street was running out, and the congregation moved into the prestigious new church in June 1843.
The Methodist interest in education prompted the foundation in 1845 of the Wesleyan Connexional School by a group of Methodist ministers and others for the Methodist community on land to the rear of the church and adjoining Iveagh Gardens. It renamed Wesley College in 1879.
The gates that once led into Wesley College, beside the former Centenary Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Revd William Benjamin Lumley (1854-1942) recalled a church at peace with itself, warm and friendly, deeply and very generously committed to overseas missions, a church enlivened by attendance of the boy and girl boarders from neighbouring Wesley College.
The congregation continued to worship in the Methodist Centenary Church for over a century. Then, on Sunday 22 December 1968, members of the congregation arriving for a morning carol service were greeted by a charred ruin of smoking embers. The fire was started by a disgruntled former caretaker the night before.
Over half a century later, I still remember the traumatic impact of that fire on my Methodist friends and neighbours.
Following the fire, the congregation worshipped for a time in the Memorial Chapel in Wesley College until the school moved to Ballinteer in the south Dublin suburbs.
Methodist Centenary Church received several offers of hospitality before accepting an invitation in 1972 from Christ Church, Leeson Park, the Church of Ireland parish church beside the Molyneux Home for the Blind.
The insurance payout and the sale of the site on Saint Stephen’s Green paid for a suite of buildings called Wesley House for the use of both congregations. A church hall, student accommodation, a manse for a student chaplain and meeting rooms were completed in 1977 and these are linked to Litton Hall, built 100 years earlier as a workshop for the blind. The site, now known as Wesley House, also has a grass area, lime trees and herb garden.
When Christ Church was leased to the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2005, Litton Hall became an ideal space for the Methodist Centenary congregation.
Meanwhile, a new, five-storey office block was built behind the principal north façade of the former Centenary Church in 1975. In the redevelopment, the temple-like portico of the former church was preserved, including the four pillars with ionic capitals, the pediment, the steps and the cast-iron railings.
For a time, the building was a bank and then home to the offices of the Department of Justice. The Department has since moved to 51 Saint Stephen’s Green, and the building now numbered No 94 is the Irish headquarters of Kennedy Wilson, a global real estate investment company with $27 billion of assets under management.
Despite the extensive alterations over the past half century, the elevation of the former church remains an imposing presence on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green, and a reminder of Methodist history and heritage in Dublin.
The building is part of the historic character of Saint Stephen’s Green, close to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Iveagh House, the Museum of Literature Ireland in Newman House, Newman University Church and the Iveagh Gardens.
The façade of former Centenary Methodist Church … now the Irish headquarters of Kennedy Wilson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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