Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 26, Sunday 19 January 2025, Second Sunday of Epiphany

The Wedding at Cana … a detail in the window by John Hardman & Co of Birmingham in Saint Mary’s Church in St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). Today is the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II), with readings that focus on the Wedding at Cana, the third great Epiphany theme, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ.

Two of us are in York for the weekend, and we are at a family celebration in Harrogate yesterday. Later this morning, I hope to attend the Eucharist in Saint Olave’s Church, York.

This is the Second Day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The miracle at Cana depicted in an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 2: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4 And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ 6 Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

The Wedding at Cana, depicted by Giotto in a fresco panel in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Christmas lights and Christmas trees on Stony Stratford’s High Street came down last Sunday. But, of course, we are still in the Season of Christmas and Epiphany for another two weeks, until 2 February. The Greek word ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia) means ‘manifestation,’ or ‘striking appearance.’ It is an experience of sudden and striking realisation, and in the classics it often describes the visit of a god to earth.

This morning’s Gospel reading, the story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), is one of the three great Epiphany themes, along with the Visit of the Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12, 6 January 2025, The Epiphany), and last Sunday’s story of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist (Luke 3: 17-17, 21-22, 12 January 2025). These three themes at Epiphany tell us who Christ truly is: truly God and truly human.

In each of these three events, Christ is manifest as God-incarnate at a point that marks the beginning of his ministry or his presence among us. It is the moment when we are caught off guard as we realise that this seemingly helpless new-born child, or this one among many in the team of visitors to John the Baptist at the Jordan, or this anonymous guest among many at a provincial wedding, is in fact the omnipotent God, the King and Ruler of the universe.

The star of the Epiphany, the light the three wise men have the courage to follow on a hazardous journey, is the same light that enlightens us at the Epiphany so that we realise who Christ is – for us and for the world.

The water in which Christ is baptised is the very same as the water that becomes wine at Cana, and the water that flows from Christ’s side when his life comes to an end on the Cross.

But the Epiphany stories also have a built-in thread or reminder of journey and return:

• The three kings return to their own country, albeit by another road, yet carrying their new revelation to all they return to (see Matthew 2: 12).

• After his Baptism, Christ goes into wilderness (see Matthew 4: 1) and then withdraws to Galilee to begin his ministry (see Matthew 4: 12; Mark 1: 14; Luke 3: 23; John 1: 43).

• After the wedding at Cana, Jesus goes down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples (see John 2: 12).

So, the feast of the Epiphany is linked with the call to return to the world with the message of the kingdom of God.

The wise men represent not only the three Magi adoring the Christ Child over 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem, but they also represent the Gentile world hurrying to the wedding feast at the end of time, when humanity’s wedding with the divine Bridegroom is celebrated. The gold, frankincense and myrrh they bring are not only presents for the Child-King, but royal wedding gifts for the mystical marriage feast of heaven.

The lectionary readings take a diversion this morning, away from this year’s cycle of readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel, to tell us the story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), a story that is unique to Saint John’s Gospel.

In the beginning, Saint John’s Gospel introduces us to a new creation, a new creation that is in Christ. After the Prologue, there are six days in this new creation, and now we come to Day Seven.

What did God do on the Seventh Day in the account of creation in Genesis? God rested. And now that we have arrived at Day Seven in the opening week of Saint John’s Gospel, we come to the Day that Christ rests with his disciples, and to a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet, which is the completion of God’s creation. ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19: 9).

Seven has a symbolic meaning or significance in this Gospel. This is the first of the seven miraculous signs by which Saint John attests to Christ’s divine status. This Gospel is structured around these signs, and the word used by John is unique.

Turning Water into Wine at Cana is the first of the Seven Signs in Saint John’s Gospel, followed by healing a royal official’s son at Cana (4: 46-54), healing the paralysed man at Bethesda (5: 1-9), feeding the 5,000 (6: 1-14); walking on water (6: 15-24); healing the blind man (9: 1-7); and raising Lazarus from the dead (11: 17-45).

These are completed then by the Greatest Sign, the Resurrection (see 2:18-22).

So, the first of the seven signs comes on the seventh of the seven days that introduce the Gospel.

And it seems so right that this Epiphany moment this morning takes place in a very divine and a very human moment: at a family weekend wedding, which is as earthy as you can get, I suppose; and on the seventh day, when God rests in the creation story, when Christ rests in his grave after his passion.

We are now invited into the eighth day. We are invited to be God’s partner in creation after the creation story in Genesis; we are invited by Christ to the heavenly banquet; we are invited in the Eucharist, at Holy Communion, to eat and drink with him. He offers us food and drink that shall never run out.

Throughout the Bible, we have promises that there will be an abundance of wine in the time of the Messiah (Genesis 27: 27-28; 49: 10-12; Amos 9: 13-14), especially at the wedding feasts (see Isaiah 62: 4-5).

The six stone jars at Cana contain water for rites of purification. These are ceremonial rites, not hygienic rites. But each jar contains 20 or 30 gallons, so we are talking about 180 gallons of wine – roughly speaking, in today’s terms, 1,091 bottles of wine. And because the wine was so good (see 9-10) in those days, water was added to it. This may have double the amount – so perhaps up to 1,500 or 2,000 bottles of wine by today’s reckoning. It is enough to ensure they party for days. It is a joyful and generous miracle.

The wine in this story represents the overflowing and abundant blessings of God coming to fruition, to fulfilment.

Of course, I imagine the Kingdom of God is just like a big wedding. Those who are invited are going to include people I at first may be uncomfortable to sit with at the same table. But I am not the host, I am the guest. As it says in the Book of Revelation, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19: 9).

I cannot choose who is invited to the wedding, but I can accept the invitation to the meal, and the invitation to be part of the new family, the kingdom.

And if we accept the invitation, we have no right to pick and choose, to discriminate against my fellow guests, to cheat them out of their place at the table, to refuse to eat and drink with them.

We do not know who the bride and groom were at the wedding in Cana. But we know we are invited to the banquet, not as spectators but as family members, as members of Christ’s own family, as full members of God’s family. We are loved abundantly, we are loved generously, we are loved truly, and there is a place for each and every one of us at God’s banquet of love.

‘The Wedding at Cana’ (John 2: 1-11) … one of 20 white porcelain ceramic panels by Helena Brennan at the Oblate Church in Inchicore, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 19 January 2025, Epiphany II):

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 ‘Whom Shall I Send?’ This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG:

The second year of the ‘Whom Shall I Send’ leadership, ministry, and mission training took place on 26 August in Famagusta, in partnership with the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East and the Anglican Alliance. Young people from dioceses across the region, including the United Arab Emirates, Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, Qatar, and Jerusalem, gathered to strengthen cross-cultural leadership grounded in understanding diverse contexts.

The theme for the week, ‘Under the Tent of Abraham and Sarah,’ guided discussions on welcoming strangers, peacebuilding in religious conflicts, and partnering with God.

The group visited key locations such as Nicosia and Varosha, using Cyprus’ history of conflict and reconciliation as a learning tool. Their time together was rooted in worship, prayer, and spiritual reflection, culminating in a Holy Communion service where participants committed to carrying their newfound insights into their local communities.

The Right Revd Sean Semple, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Cyprus and The Gulf shared at the opening Eucharist: ‘It is important for us to be gathered in a place of division like Cyprus, seeking God’s inspiration to be peacemakers.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 19 January 2025, Epiphany II) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

‘I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you’ (Genesis 17: 7).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
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 of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Waiting for a wedding reception at the Boot and Flogger in Southwark … there is a place for each and every one of us at God’s banquet of love (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

Colchester Town Hall has been described as ‘a triumphant expression of Colchester’s civic pride’

Colchester Town Hall was designed by John Belcher ‘with more braggadocio than anyone’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Colchester in Essex has one of the finest and most imposing town halls in England with an imposing Victoria Tower. The town hall was designed in the Edwardian Baroque by the London architect John Belcher (1841-1913) and was built in 1897-1902.

Colchester Town Hall is the headquarters of Colchester City Council and is a Grade I building. It has been described by the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘a triumphant expression of Colchester’s civic pride, the embodiment of the borough’s history and tradition’. Pevsner says Belcher completed the design ‘with more braggadocio than anyone.’

The first building on the site, a moot hall, was built in 1277. It was remodelled in 1374 but was demolished in 1843. The second building on the site, which was designed by John Blore and John Raphael Rodrigues Brandon in the neoclassical style with six full-height Doric order pilasters, was completed in 1845. After it was found to be unstable, Colchester’s civic leaders decided to build a new building on the site in the late 19th century.

The new town hall was designed by John Belcher in the Edwardian Baroque style. Construction began in 1897, and it was opened by a former Liberal Prime Minister, Archibald Primrose, Earl of Rosebery, in May 1902.

Belcher designed one of the first neo-baroque buildings in London, the Chartered Accountants Hall (1890), and many of his later commissions, including Colchester Town Hall, are outstanding examples of lavish Edwardian municipal architecture.

Belcher was born in Southwark, the son of John Belcher (1816-1890), also an architect, and was articled with his father. He spent two years in France from 1862, and became a partner in his father’s practice in 1865. His first work was the Royal Insurance building in London (1865) in a French Renaissance style. He also designed the Mappin & Webb building (1870) in Gothic style on the corner of Queen Victoria Street and Poultry, and was joint architect with his partner John James Joass of Whiteleys department store.

Belcher’s design of the Chartered Accountants Hall (1890) for the Institute of Chartered Accountants was one of the first neo-baroque buildings in the City of London. It featured extensive sculptural work by Sir Hamo Thornycroft, Harry Bates and others. Belcher and Joass also he designed Electra House (1900) in the City. His major commissions outside London include Colchester Town Hall (1898–1902) and the Ashton Memorial (1906-1909), Lancaster. Both of these are in the Baroque style, typical of the lavish creations of the Edwardian era.

His other works include: Southwark Church, Camberwell New Road (1877), now the Greek Orthodox Cathedral; and the headquarters of the Royal Zoological Society (1910-1911), Regent’s Park, London. Belcher was the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1904-1906. A deeply religious man, he was a prominent member of the Catholic Apostolic Church and was an angel (priest) at the Southwark Church in Camberwell from 1908 until his death.

Belcher’s design for Colchester Town Hall involves a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto the High Street. The central section features an arched doorway with the borough coat of arms in the tympanum and flanked by Doric order pilasters.

There is an ornate balcony above the doorway and there three pairs of huge engaged Corinthian order columns spanning the first and second floors each carrying a broken pediment.

LJ Watts’s four statues facing the High Street: Eudo Dapifer, Thomas Audley, William Gilbert and Archbishop Samuel Harsnett (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The main façade at third-floor level are six life-sized statues of figures associated with the history of Colchester and carved a by a local stonemason LJ Watts, four on the south elevation facing the High Street, and two on the east side facing West Stockwell Street:

• Eudo Dapifer, involved in building Colchester Castle and steward to William the Conqueror;
• Thomas Lord Audley, town clerk of Colchester (1514), MP for Essex (1523-1538) and Lord Chancellor of England (1533-1544);
• William Gilbert (1544-1603), physician, physicist and natural philosopher;
• Archbishop Samuel Harsnett (1561-1631), headmaster of Colchester Royal Grammar School, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge and Archbishop of York (1629-1631);
• Boudica who captured Colchester when she led a revolt against Roman Rule in 60-61 CE;

• Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons (899-924), who expelled the Danes from Colchester.

LJ Watts’s two statues facing West Stockwell Street of Queen Boudica and King Edward the Elder (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The clock tower or Victoria Tower at the east end of the town hall was built to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It was funded by James Noah Paxman, the founder of local engineers, Davey, Paxman & Co.

At the top of the tower, 59 metres (192 ft) above the High Street, is a bronze figure of Saint Helena, the patron saint of Colchester, holding the True Cross. Councillor Arthur Jarmin travelled as far as Italy to locate a suitable statue of the saint, but could only find one of the Virgin Mary, which then had to be modified locally.

Below the statue of Saint Helena, four bronze ravens by Francis Carruthers Gould represent the portreeve who ran Colchester’s medieval port. Below them, four allegorical figures, also carved by LJ Watts, represent engineering, military defence, agriculture and fishery.

The chiming clock with five bells was placed in the tower with another 15th-century bell that is thought to have hung in the original moot hall. The clock is known locally as Charlie, after Charles Hawkins, who paid for it. It was manufactured by Smith & Sons of Derby. The bells were by John Warner & Sons.

The clock tower or Victoria Tower, topped with a statue of Saint Helena, patron saint of Colchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The interior includes an imposing marble staircase with a seated statue of Queen Victoria and a monument to the Colchester Martyrs. The first floor includes a mayoral suite, a committee room and the Council Chamber with a painted domed ceiling by Charles Baskett illustrating the 12 months of the year and stained glass windows by Clayton and Bell depicting the Roman history of Colchester.

The second floor has a large assembly hall, the Moot Hall, which annually hosts the Oyster Feast, Mayor Making event and other civic functions. The pipe organ with three manuals was designed and built by Norman and Beard and was donated by the local MP, Sir Weetman Pearson.

Works of art in the town hall include a painting depicting a spotted dog, with the Golden Horn in the background, by Otto Hoynck; a painting depicting merrymaking in a Flemish village by David Vinckboons; a painting depicting Dutch Protestants fleeing religious persecution by the Duke of Alba and seeking permission to live in Colchester in 1570 by the local artist, Harry Becker; a portrait of the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Charles Abbott, Lord Colchester, by James Lonsdale; and a portrait by John Lucas of a former local MP, Charles Gray Round.

The building was supplemented with additional accommodation to the west of the main site in 1965, and was later connected by a tunnel under West Stockwell Street to new facilities at Angel Court, to the east of the main site, in 1988.

Today, the Town Hall is a prestigious building, with lavish, decorated rooms, and accommodates a wide range of large-scale to intimate events, including weddings, Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties, murder mystery evenings, meeting and conferences.

Colchester Town Hall hosts a wide range of events (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 25, Saturday 18 January 2025

The Triptych of Saint Matthew by Andrea di Cione (1343-1368), also known as Orcagna, in the Uffizi, Florence … Saint Matthew is also identified with Levi

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). Tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II, 19 January 2025), with readings that focus on the Wedding at Cana, the third great Epiphany theme, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ.

Today is the First Day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the life and work of Amy Carmichael (1951), founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship and spiritual writer.

Two of us are in York for the weekend, having arrived late yesterday, and we are hoping to join a family celebration in Harrogate later in the day. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Saint Matthew represented in a group of the Four Evangelists on columns at the porch in University Church, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 13-17 (NRSVA):

13 Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. 14 As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.

15 And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples – for there were many who followed him. 16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

The gravestone of a Levite family in the Jewish cemetery in the Lido, Venice … hand-washing and foot-washing are part of the ministry of Levites (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Christ is in Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. He has told a paralytic man that his sins are forgiven, but some religious authorities doubt his ability to do this, saying only God can forgive sins. He has proved that he is from God by also healing the man.

Tax collectors were considered unclean ritually, they worked for the occupying power and they were suspect financially. As with Peter and Andrew, Christ sees Levi the tax collector beside the sea, and he responds immediately to Christ’s call to follow him. Is this the same person as Matthew (see Matthew 9:9), the author of the first Gospel?

Christ first called fishers as first four disciples: Andrew and Peter, then James and John. His next choice of a tax collector seems a bold move. Tax collectors were typically local Jews who were employed by the Romans to collect taxes from the people. They extracted money from their neighbours and local people to cover the expenses of the foreign rulers and occupiers.

Some translations use the word publican instead of tax-collector. The word publican is a translation of the Greek word for tax-farmer, and we come across it also in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18: 9-14).

The Romans paid tax collectors well, and seemingly did not care if the collectors took more than the tax required. They were free to take as much as they could for themselves – once the Romans had been paid.

Rome collected three principal kinds of taxes: a land tax, a head tax, and a customs tax of 2% to 5% of the value on goods being moved around. A tax office or booth stood near a city gate or port to collect the custom tax from people engaged in commercial trade, such as fishers exporting dried fish or farmers sending surplus crops to a larger city.

Tax collectors were seen as collaborators and as greedy, and they were despised. This attitude was reflected in the words of Jesus when he said: ‘If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector’ (Matthew 18: 17).

The Greek terminology indicates Levi is a low-level tax collector. Unlike Zacchaeus, he is not a chief tax collector. The words tax booth, or tax office translate the Greek τὸ τελώνιον (to telōnion, ‘revenue or tax office’ (Mark 2: 14). Perhaps Levi’s booth indicates he collects tolls along the road along the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. He would have been seen as a state-sponsored thief who socialised on the fringes of respectable society.

When Jesus walks along the shore (Mark 2: 13-14), he sees Levi. But instead of passing by, ignoring Levi or showing contempt or disgust, he calls him to follow him. Levi becomes now the disciple of a rabbi who is well-respected, invited him into his home, and organises a welcoming banquet for Jesus, to which he invites other tax collectors.

Dining with Levi damages Jesus’ reputation in the eyes of the religious leaders, local Pharisees and teachers of the law (Mark 2: 16). To eat with a Gentile or tax collector was regarded by the strict Pharisees as rendering one spiritually or ceremonially unclean, to the point that even a house entered by a tax collector could be considered unclean.

The identity of Levi and his identity with Matthew are the subject of much speculation. Saint Mark also identifies Levi as the son of Alphaeus (Mark 2: 14). But he is also identified with Matthew in lists of the Twelve (see Luke 6: 14-16). Saint Matthew’s Gospel lists him specifically as Matthew the tax collector (see Matthew 10: 3), identified with the author of Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

Matthew is a Greek form of a Hebrew name, מַתִּתְיָהוּ‎ (Matityahu), meaning ‘Gift of God’ and transliterated into Greek as Ματταθίας (Mattathias). Many New Testament figures have two names: Simon becomes Cephas or Peter, Saul becomes Paul.

Mark and Luke name the tax collector as Levi, indicating he may have been a descendent of the tribe of Levi, which included the priests and Levites. But instead of a holy service in the Temple, this Levi is an unholy civil servant in his tax booth.

The roles of the Levites include washing the hands, and sometimes the feet of the kohanim after they remove their shoes and before they ascend the bimah or platform to give the priestly blessing to the congregation. As this custom developed, the association of the Levites with this washing led to iconographic depictions of pitchers, ewers, and bowls on the tombstones of Levite families.

Levi abandons his lucrative business as a tax collector, and is called too to be a new form of Levite, to minister hand and foot to Christ the great high priest.

In accepting Jesus’ invitation, Levi extends his own invitation: he invited Jesus to dinner in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others eat with them in his large house, suited to a wealthy man. Yet those who are invited are seen as thieves, unbelievers, open sinners and social pariahs.

Did the guests also include Peter and Andrew, James and John, who once despised Levi who extracted tolls on their fish exports. When they see Jesus warmly accepting Levi, did they too accept him? Or did it take time? Were they hurt to hear their new fellow disciple put down with the question put not to Jesus but to them: ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ (Mark 2: 16).

Christ dines with people whose trades made them ritually unclean and social outcasts. When the religiously powerful question his actions, Christ replies: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners’ (Mark 2: 16). comes to call and to invite into his Kingdom those in need of repentance, not those who think they are righteous in God’s eyes.

Saint Matthew the Evangelist represented in a carving on the choir stalls in the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, Penkridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 18 January 2025):

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 ‘A Bag of Flour’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 18 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, we praise you that Al-Ahli Anglican Hospital can provide important medical services. We thank you for the Anglican Alliance Partnership network that supports the Diocese of Jerusalem in its ministry of healing.

The Collect:

Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit:
grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit,
that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children;
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:

Lord of all time and eternity,
you opened the heavens and revealed yourself as Father
in the baptism of Jesus your beloved Son:
by the power of your Spirit
complete the heavenly work of our rebirth
through the waters of the new creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Heavenly Father,
at the Jordan you revealed Jesus as your Son:
may we recognize him as our Lord
and know ourselves to be your beloved children;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Collect on the Eve of Epiphany II:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
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

Continued Tomorrow

Two evangelists, Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, depicted in a window in All Saints’ Church, Calverton (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 Jewish community in Colchester was one of the most important in mediaeval England

Stockwell Street was at the centre of Jewish life in Colchester in the 12th and 13th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Colchester earlier this week, I went in search of the stories of both the mediaeval and the modern Jewish communities in the Essex town that claims to be the oldest town in England, as well as being one of the newest cities.

The modern Colchester Synagogue is close to the Roman Walls and the ruins of Saint Botolph’s Priory. But there was a Jewish community in mediaeval Colchester from at least 1185 for over a century until the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.

The mediaeval Jewish community in Colchester was centred on Stockwell Street, now part of the Dutch Quarter immediately north of the High Street and west of the castle. The Jewish community in mediaeval Colchester was so important that it was one of the 26 centres in England with an archa. These archae were official chests, provided with three locks and seals, and they held and preserved all the deeds and contracts of the Jewish communities.

The archae were part of the reorganisation of English Jewry ordered by Richard I following the massacres of Jews in England 1189-1190. During the riots and massacres after his coronation, the mobs had destroyed Jewish financial records, resulting in heavy losses of Crown revenues. The archae were introduced to safeguard royal interests in case of future disorder.

All Jewish possessions and financial transactions were registered in designated cities. In each city with an archa, a bureau was set up with two reputable Jews and two Christian clerks, under the supervision of a new central authority known as the Exchequer of the Jews. Other centres with an archa included London, Canterbury, Lincoln, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Winchester, Bedford and possibly Bristol, Gloucester and Northampton or Nottingham.

The centres had increased in number to 27 by the mid-13th century. By the time of the mass expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, Jews had already been excluded from eight of these centres and only 19 archae were active.

Jews are first mentioned as living in the Stockwell Street area of Colchester in 1185 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Jews are first mentioned as living in Colchester in 1185, when Benedict of Norwich paid a heavy fine of £40 for selling goods without licence to, among others, Aaron, Isaac and Abraham of Colchester.

Five years later, a wave of anti-Jewish attacks that started in Lynn, Norfolk, in 1190 spread to Colchester.

Colchester was ranked ninth in importance among the Jewish communities in England in 1194, according to the Northampton Donum, a rescript to the Jews of England by Richard I, Richard the Lionheart, when he returned from Germany, imposing a levy of 5,000 marks to be paid by them towards the expenses of his ransom from captivity. In all, £1,803 7s 7d was collected, with the Jews of Colchester contributing £41 to the levy of 5,000 marks, an indication of the wealth within the community.

The community had a special bailiff in 1220. He was named Benedict and his role was probably to collect the taxes imposed upon the community.

A deed in 1252 shows the Jewry of Colchester was located in Stockwell Street.

The position of the Jews of Colchester as vassals of the Crown is illustrated in 1255 when Henry III granted the custody of the Castle of Colchester and the lands belonging to it to Guy de Rochefort. The grant expressly excluded the woods of Kingwood and the Jews of the town. The king claimed sole jurisdiction over the Jewry of Colchester, and when he granted the castle to Guy of Rochfort, he reserved the right to enter the town and the hundred of Colchester to search for Jews’ debts.

A grant of the Castle of Colchester in 1255 excluded the Jewry of Colchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

An agreement dated 1258 shows the Jewish community in Colchester was living in Stockwell Street. The Victoria County History records that in 1258 a rabbi, Samuel son of the Rabbi Jechiel, was given 15 years tenure of a house in East or West Stockwell Street that may have contained the synagogue recorded in 1268.

Friendly community relations in Colchester are disclosed in a curious incident in December 1277 when several Jews and Christians were involved in an infringement of the forest laws. They were severely fined, the Jews more heavily than the others, and the Christians stood surety for Jews and vice-versa. The Jews of Colchester were named as Saute, son of Ursel, Cok and Samuel, sons of Aaron, and Isaac, their chaplain.

One of the Jewish offenders escaped to Lincoln, but he returned 10 years later, when a portrait of him was drawn upon the Forest Roll by the scribe who had described his offence. The caricature is the earliest dated portrait of a Jew in England. He wears a yellow badge with the Tablets of the Law on his upper garments, and was named as ‘Aaron, Son of the Devil.’

Jews were expelled en masse from England in 1290, including the Jewish community in Colchester in 1290. By then, the Jews of Colchester had become the seventh largest Jewish community in England. They included nine families of about 50 individuals, with nine houses in Stockwell Street and a ‘schola’ or synagogue that was confiscated and transferred to the Crown.

Later, the area immediately north of the High Street in Colchester became known as the Dutch Quarter. It includes: Maidenburgh Street, West Stockwell Street, East Stockwell Street, Stockwell Street, Saint Helen’s Lane, Northgate Street and Nunn’s Road.

Flemish Protestant refugees fleeing religious persecution after a rebellion against their Spanish Catholic rulers settled in these streets in the 16th century. The houses pre-date the Dutch arrival and previously had been inhabited by the Jewish community and other immigrants.

When Jews began to return to England in the 1650s, a small number initially returned to Stockwell Street, and there was a small number of Jews in Colchester by the end 18th century. It seems there was a synagogue in Colchester by the late 18th century in what was then known as Synagogue Yard, in Angel Lane, near West Stockwell Street, although little is known about it.

The Dutch Quarter fell into relative decay by the early decades of the 20th century. The area was regenerated in the 1970s and received a Civic Trust Building award. Today, the Dutch Quarter is a quiet residential area just off of the High Street.

But more about the modern Jewish community in Colchester on another Friday evening, hopefully.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

East Stockwell Street … the Jews of Colchester were the seventh largest Jewish community in England by 1290 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 24, Friday 17 January 2025

The healing of the paralytic man … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the First Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany I, 12 January 2025), with readings that focus on the Baptism of Christ.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Antony of Egypt (356), Hermit and Abbot, and Charles Gore (1932), Bishop and Founder of the Community of the Resurrection. We are travelling to York later today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

A blessing in the Chapel of the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 1-12 (NRSVA):

1 When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3 Then some people came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. 4 And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ 8 At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? 10 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ – he said to the paralytic – 11 ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ 12 And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’

Inside the Chapel in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 2: 1-12) is another healing story that follows yesterday’s story of Christ healing a man with leprosy and the story the day before of him healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.

Today’s Gospel reading has its synoptic parallels in Matthew 9: 2-8 and Luke 5: 18-26

I had one of my regular injections for my B12 deficiency last week, two appointments or consultations earlier in the month, and another one within the next week or two. Meanwhile, I continue to have regular appointments in Milton Keynes University Hospital and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, monitoring my pulmonary sarcoidosis and as part of the care and attention I continue to receive as a follow-up to my stroke almost three years ago in March 2022.

I remain truly grateful for the caring and attentive treatment I receive in both hospitals and in Sheffield, and I am even more grateful for the way Charlotte Hunter recognised I was having a stroke, brought me to hospital, ensured I received the attention I needed, visited me every day, and brought me back to Stony Stratford.

Some years ago, at an event in Saint Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, when people were asked to bring along their favourite poems, Charlotte brought Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Miracle’, from his collection Human Chain (2010).

In these poems, written after his stroke in 2005, Seamus Heaney speaks of suffering and mortality. This poem ‘Miracle’ retells the story of the miraculous healing of the man variously described as a paralytic man and a man with palsy. The story is told in all three synoptic Gospels, including this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 5: 17-26), and – like Seamus Heaney, I suppose – my situation makes me wonder whether this man was also suffering after a stroke.

It is interesting how Heaney tells the story of healing and this man from the perspective of the man’s friends. In this way, his poem becomes an expression of gratitude by the poet to all who helped his recovery after his stroke.

When Jesus looks at the paralysed man brought to him by his friends, he sees not just the faith of the man, but the faith of his friends too. In other words, this is a story of the blessing of friendship and the miracle of community as much as it is a story of miraculous healing.

Heaney’s focus is on neither Christ as the healer nor the invalid, but on the friends who helped this sick man to reach Jesus by lowering him through a skylight in the roof. The title of the poem refers to the miracle in the Gospel story, but for the poet the miracle is found in the opening lines:

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in.

The friends of this man love him and seek his healing, no matter what it takes for them to do, and so they become the true miracle at this moment. They are there when no one else is, they care for their friend, and they give him the priceless gift of friendship.

When they hear in Capernaum that Jesus is healing the sick, they give their friend one more gift. They carry him to Jesus. And when they cannot get him through the door, they then lower him through the roof.

What persistent love they show their friend, like the persistent love of one who calls a taxi, packs all my bags, brings me to the A&E unit, stays with me while I am admitted, transferred to the emergency unit, and then, late at night, when I am moved to a ward.

This poem sees the Gospel story through the eyes of this man’s faithful friends. So often, I read this story through the eyes of the paralysed man, through the eyes of the crowd, or even through the eyes of the Pharisees and teachers. But Seamus Heaney invites me to join the man’s friends, who stand with

their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat.

We are invited to stand with those friends, with the hope and the faith and the love that brings them there, to stand with them on behalf of all who hurt, to feel the burn in their hands from the paid-out rope, the ache in their backs from the burden they have carried, to see the gift of this miracle, this grace, that was all gift, but that required something extra of them.

There are many miracles in this story and many lessons. This poem reminds us how sometimes we need to be carried by our friends, while at other times we are the ones who need to help ‘bear one another’s burdens’ (Galatians 6: 2).

Miracle, by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in —

Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat. And no let up

Until he’s strapped on tight, made tiltable
and raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
Be mindful of them as they stand and wait

For the burn of the paid out ropes to cool,
Their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
To pass, those who had known him all along.

Today’s Prayers (Friday 17 January 2025):

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 ‘A Bag of Flour’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 17 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Father God, may we be bold with our prayers, actions and words. May our lament turn into action.

The Collect:

Most gracious God,
who called your servant Antony to sell all that he had
and to serve you in the solitude of the desert:
by his example may we learn to deny ourselves
and to love you before all things;
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 God,
who gave such grace to your servant Antony
that he served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

An image of Saint Antony above the entrance to Saint Antony’s Church in Mitropolis Square, Rethymnon … he is commemorated in the Church Calendar on 17 January (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 magnolia tree in a courtyard in the hospital in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Frating Hall Farm in Essex was once home to a pacifist experiment in community living

‘Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice’ (Psalm 96: 12) … the sun sets behind the fields at Frating Hall Farm, near Colchester in Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have been writing these evenings about our visit to Colchester earlier this week. But for two of us the primary purpose in being in that part of Essex on Monday was to visit Metallic Elephant, a printing machinery business based in Frating Hall Farm Industrial Estate.

Frating is almost half-way between Colchester and Clacton and the home of Metallic Elephant, a family-owned business with a lengthy experience in the printing industry and a team of dedicated, skilled craft workers and engineers.

Frating is a small village with a population of about 540, on the Tendring Peninsula, about 8 km (5 miles) east of Colchester and 15 km (9 miles) north-west of Clacton-on-Sea. The nearest railway station is 3 km (2 miles) away at Great Bentley, so Charlotte and I took a taxi from Colchester through the village of Elmstead Market.

Frating includes both Frating Green and Hockley. The parish church is now a private house and Frating also has a village hall, Frating War Memorial Hall, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2022, and one public house, the King’s Arms.

Frating is recorded as Fretingham in the Domesday Book and Frating Church dates from the 12th century. Frae is the Saxon word for a lord, and the name means the settlement of the people of Fraete.

The village sign incorporates a fruited apple tree, recalling the apple-growing industry in Frating during the 20th century, a bell representing the three church bells of Frating Church, a cartwheel representing the 19th century wheelwright of Haggar’s Lane, and a ram’s head from the coat of arms of the Bendish family of Steeple Bumpstead.

Sir Thomas Bendish (1540-1603) of Steeple Bumpstead married Eleanor Ford, a daughter of John Ford of Frating Hall, and was buried at Frating Church. Their son, Sir Thomas Bendish (1568-1636), was created a baronet in 1611 and was High Sheriff of Essex in 1618-1619 and 1630-1631. His son, the royalist Sir Thomas Bendish (1607-1674), was the English ambassador to the Ottoman court in Constantinople in the mid-17th century. Another son, Richard Bendish, inherited Frating Hall.

The barns on Frating Hall Farm, near Colchester in Essex, probably date from the 17th or 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The barns on Frating Hall Farm probably date from the 17th or 18th century. The more recent history of Frating Hall Farm is an interesting chapter in the history of pacifist communitarianism, and the links between pacifism and agrarianism, or the ‘back-to-the-land’ movement, in the mid-20th century, when farm work offered a way for pacifists and conscientious objectors to remain within the law.

Frating Hall Farm is associated with key figures in the pacifist and anti-war movements from the 1930s to the 1950s, including Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth and a founding figure in the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) in 1936, along with the Dean of Canterbury, Dick Sheppard (1880-1937), the poet Max Plowman and the literary critic John Middleton Murry, a friend of DH Lawrence.

For many years, a photograph of Dick Sheppard, a former Vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, hung over my desk in my study in the house in Firhouse where I lived for 20 years until the mid-1990s. His pacifism and his social activism were among the many influences on the development of my Anglicanism and my spirituality.

By the end of the 1930s, the Peace Pledge Union had almost 100,000 members, all of whom had signed a pledge declaring: ‘War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war.’

Two pacifist settlements in Essex played a major role in developing the link between the peace movement and farming: the Adelphi Centre in Langham (1934-1942) and Frating Hall Farm (1943-1954).

The Adelphi Centre at the Oaks, a rural Edwardian mansion at Langham near Colchester, was a socialist education centre with a degree of agricultural self-sufficiency, and had links with George Orwell, John Middleton Murry and other intellectuals.

Frating Hall Farm, on the other hand, was a Christian pacifist community where a 300-acre arable and livestock farm was home to more than 50 people, including refugees and former prisoners-of-war. The story of Frating Hall Farm is told by Ken Worpole in his recent book No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen: back to the land in wartime Britain (2001). The title of his book is from the opening paragraph of DH Lawrence’s novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), and Worpole charts the history of the Frating community over 11 years.

The pacifist community at Frating Hall Farm lasted from 1943 to 1954 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A group from Murry’s failing project in Langham took over Frating Hall Farm in 1943 and ran it as a radical pacifist settlement until 1954. At its peak, more than 50 people lived and worked at Frating, one of the most successful of the pacifist rural initiatives providing legitimate alternatives to conscription during World War II.

The settlement also provided shelter and accommodation for visiting supporters at harvest time, and offered sanctuary to refugees and former German prisoners-of-war. Over time, Frating Hall Farm became a centre for the arts, winning the grudging respect of their neighbours.

It was an extraordinary geographical and international cultural mingling of religious and political interests – between the steelworks and mines of north-east England, bohemian London, rural Anglicanism, Russian anarchism and Jewish phenomenology. Many of the community members at Frating Hall shared strong religious beliefs and an interest in the works of Leo Tolstoy, DH Lawrence, and religious philosophers, writers and theologians such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Martin Buber and Simone Weil – all referred to in letters and farm broadsheets.

Shirley Williams (1930-2021), later a Labour cabinet minister, went to work there as the ‘second cowman’ after leaving school at the age of 18. She was in charge of ‘a herd of Ayrshire dairy cows, handsome red-and-white animals of a certain temper.’

Her mother Vera Brittain (1893-1970) contributed towards buying the farm. Shirley Williams learnt much of her politics at Frating from the earnest radicals there, particularly the charismatic Joe Watson. She later recalled her experiences at Frating in her autobiography Climbing the Bookshelves.

When the co-operative structure was dissolved in 1954, a former Quaker member bought the farm at Frating Hall, and eventually bequeathed it to his stepson, Martyn Thomas, who arrived there at the age of four and then continued to farm there with his wife Barbara.

Frating is part of Clacton constituency, where the MP is Nigel Farage. I had thought of visiting Clacton-on-Sea for a walk on the beach. But, by the time we had finished our afternoon business, darkness had enveloped the Essex countryside, and we returned to Colchester under the January full moon, which is known as the Wolf Moon – because it was thought wolves howled more at this time of year as there was less food in the middle of winter.

The parish church in Frating dates from the 12th century and is now a private house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 23, Thursday 16 January 2025

‘If it be your will / If there is a choice / Let the rivers fill / Let the hills rejoice’ (Leonard Cohen) … the River Great Ouse at St Neots in Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the First Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany I, 12 January 2025), with readings that focus on the Baptism of Christ.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Leonard Cohen on stage in Dublin at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 1: 40-45 (NRSVA):

40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ 41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ 42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44 saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ 45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Abandoned houses on Spinalónga, off the coast of Crete, Europe’s last ‘leper colony’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 1: 40-45) follows yesterday’s story of Christ healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law with another healing story, the healing of a man with leprosy.

Jesus stretches, out his hand and touches the man, who is made clean and restored to health and his place in his community, socially, economically and religiously. We heard a similar story on Saturday (Luke 5: 12-16, 11 January 2025).

In both readings, Jesus tells the man to stay quiet, to ‘say nothing to anyone’ (Mark 1: 43), ‘to tell no one’ (Luke 5: 14). But why?

I have often said with humour, but with full sincerity, that when my coffin is being taken into the church at my funeral (later than sooner, I hope), that I want to hear Leonard Cohen’s ‘If it be your will’ … and when my coffin is being carried out I want to hear his ‘Dance me to the end of love.’

So often I want to be in control. I want to control the agenda, I want to control conversations, I want to control discussions. And I particularly want to control the words I use, the words others are going to hear me say.

And so, I am humbled at times when I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, ‘If it be your will.’

I was at most of Leonard Cohen’s concerts in Ireland. He ended many of those concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit:

Leonard Cohen sings of his nearly complete subjection to the divine will.

If he is told to be silent, he will be silent; if he is told to sing, he will sing.

If he is allowed to express his true voice (‘if a voice be true’), he will sing in praise of God from ‘this broken hill’ … from Calvary?

The mercy of God, the compassion of God, the love of God, redeems the burning hearts in hell … if it is God’s will.

Leonard Cohen’s great hope in this will leads to prayer, to the one who can ‘make us well’ if we devote ourselves to God, pray to God, sing to God.

But he still prays to God to act on behalf of the suffering.

Cajoling God in song and poetry, Cohen says God has the power to ‘end this night’ of the darkness of the human condition, in which people are dressed in only dirty ‘rags of light’ that are fragmented, that are not fully whole and illuminated.

In this song, I imagine Christ on the cross as he speaks to God the Father as his agony comes to its close:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before.

The broken hill is Golgotha where he has been crucified, the rugged and rocky Mount of Calvary.

‘Let the rivers fill’ may refer to the water of his thirst, the water of his sweat, the water that streams from his side, the waters of baptism, the Living Water that will never leave us to thirst.

If it be your will
To make us well
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell.

Advent is a time of waiting. The Dominican theologian Timothy Radcliffe says: ‘We must wait for the resurrection to break the silence of the tomb.’ We must speak up when it is necessary, and to have the courage to speak is ‘ultimately founded upon the courage to listen.’

But at the grave, at times of desolation, at times when there is no answer, we may also be called to be silent.

Leonard Cohen, If it be your will:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

‘From this broken hill / All your praises they shall ring / If it be your will’ (Leonard Cohen) … in the mountains in Siburan, near Kuching in Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 16 January 2025):

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 ‘A Bag of Flour’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 16 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Pray that we remember that all people are made in God’s image and that our hearts should break when we see people suffering. May we not disconnect from injustices happening in other countries just because they are far away or long-lasting.

The Collect:

Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit:
grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit,
that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children;
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:

Lord of all time and eternity,
you opened the heavens and revealed yourself as Father
in the baptism of Jesus your beloved Son:
by the power of your Spirit
complete the heavenly work of our rebirth
through the waters of the new creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Heavenly Father,
at the Jordan you revealed Jesus as your Son:
may we recognize him as our Lord
and know ourselves to be your beloved children;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow


‘If It Be Your Will’ … Leonard Cohen and The Webb Sisters, Live in London

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

A walk around the Roman Wall in Colchester, the earliest and the best-preserved in Britain

The Balkerne Gate is one of the best-preserved sections of the Roman wall in Colchester and the oldest surviving Roman gateway in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During our visit to Colchester earlier this week, I walked alongside parts of the Roman wall, which is the earliest and the best-preserved Roman town wall in Britain. The walls were once almost 6 metres high, with six gates, and the length of the circuit of the entire wall is 2,800 metres (1¾ miles).

Only two of the six gates survive above ground today, but the locations of the other four are marked by metal plaques and strips in the pavement, and three further gates were added to the wall in the mediaeval period.

The Romans began building the wall between 65 CE and 80 CE after the destruction of the town during the revolt by Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni. When she rebelled against Roman rule, one of her first acts was to destroy Colchester, then the Roman town of Camulodunum and capital of the new Roman colony of Britannia.

The Roman legions of Camulodunum were away on campaign, and Boudicca was almost unopposed. After moving on to sack St Albans and London, she was eventually defeated, but the ease with which she had taken Colchester alarmed the Roman authorities. They set about building a wall around Camulodunum to defend the town and its inhabitants against further attacks and as a statement of Roman power.

The Romans began building the wall around 70 CE and finished it around 90 CE. It took about 40,000 tonnes of building material and was built by legionaries and local Britons. The area that is now Essex had no good quality building stone, so the wall was built of fired clay bricks, flint and septaria, a brittle stone brought from the coast near Walton-on-the-Naze and Harwich. The wall was built over a foundation trench 3 metres wide and 1.2 metres deep, and that was filled with layers of brick and mortar.

The clay for bricks was dug locally. Much of Essex was heavily forested at the time, supplying wood for firing the clay to make bricks. The lime for making mortar came from Kent. The Romans also used material left behind by Boudicca’s army.

The Romans began building the wall in Colchester after the destruction of the town by Boudicca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Above ground, the wall consisted of: inner and outer faces built of courses of clay bricks and stone blocks, ‘dressed’ to a roughly square shape, and an inner core of rubble and mortar. In many places, the outer and inner faces were removed after the Roman period and used in new building projects in the town so that only the rubble core remains. However, the outer face survives near Balkerne Gate.

The wall was freestanding when it was first built. After about 100 years, an internal bank was added to strengthen the wall, and can still be seen in Castle Park, close to Duncan’s Gate. The wall included a series of rectangular towers and drains. None of the towers survive above ground, but the bases of several towers have been seen in archaeological excavations.

In the Roman period, the wall had six gates located at regular intervals. Of these only two survive above ground today: Balkerne Gate and Duncan’s Gate. The area around the Balkerne Gate is one of the best-preserved sections of the Roman wall and the oldest surviving Roman gateway in Britain. It was the original main entrance to Camulodunum and the gate for the main road leading towards London. It had two large archways for wheeled vehicles and two smaller ones for people on foot.

The gate was transformed into a Triumphal Arch between 50 and 60 CE to celebrate the conquest of Britannia by the Emperor Claudius. When the wall was built, the archway was incorporated into the structure. Later, the main gateway was moved further south to the Head Gate, at the junction of Headgate and Southway. Today, only the southern pedestrian archway and guardroom survive, representing less than a quarter of the original gateway. One side of the gate opening is now filled by the aptly-named pub, the Hole in the Wall.

One side of the opening of the the Balkerne Gateis now filled by the Hole in the Wall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Just south of Southway, by the police station, are the foundations of the oldest known Romano-Christian church, built beside a graveyard outside the wall.

Duncan’s Gate is a small postern gate named after Dr PM Duncan, a former Mayor of Colchester and the 19th century amateur archaeologist who led one of the earliest excavations at the site in 1853. As well as the remains of the single entrance, some fallen masonry was part of the archway over the gate. This gate was conserved and left visible following further excavations in the 1920s.

North Gate provided access to the river Colne and the northern suburbs of Colchester. The original Roman design is thought to have been a single archway with an overhead walkway. North Gate remained in use for many centuries and was only demolished in 1823.

The East Gate was built in the Roman period to provide access to the town’s port on the river Colne. The gate was rebuilt in the mediaeval period but was badly damaged in the Siege of Colchester in 1648 and collapsed three years later.

Saint Botolph’s Gate was originally a Roman gate used to reach the cemeteries outside the town wall. It was also on the processional route between the Temple of Claudius and the Circus, or chariot-racing track. The gate was demolished in 1814.

Head Gate became the main gate for the road to London when Balkerne Gate was blocked in the late Roman period. Head Gate was built as a double-arched gateway and its foundations have been found in recent years. In mediaeval times it was rebuilt as a single, wide gateway. Head Gate was demolished by 1766.

There is a Roman drain beside Saint James’ Church on East Hill, sections of the wall can be seen at the north edge of Castle Park, and other sections of the wall are visible from the raised section at the north end of the Upper Park, behind the castle.

At the end of the Roman period, the town wall was abandoned around 400 CE and, along with the rest of the town, it fell into disrepair. Rebuilding may have begun in the 10th century when the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Elder strengthened the wall after he expelled the Vikings from Colchester in 917.

One of he surviving bastions or small projecting round towers in Priory Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Normans made further repairs to the town wall after 1066 as they strengthened their hold on Colchester. Three further gates were added to the wall during the medieval period, ca 1400.

Scheregate, built in the mediaeval period, takes its unusual name from the Anglo-Saxon word sceard, meaning a gap or notch. It gave people a short cut through the town wall to Saint John’s Abbey to the south. As in the mediaeval period the gateway still has shops to either side.

Saint Mary’s Steps, near Balkerne Hill, were created in the 15th century when a Roman drain was enlarged to create a small pedestrian gate or postern. Nearby is the base of an internal rectangular tower of Roman date. The name of the gate comes from Saint Mary at the Walls Church, now the Colchester Arts Centre.

Scheregate and Saint Mary’s Steps are still in use, but there are no surviving traces of Rye Gate.

Roman bricks are built into the arches and walls of the ruins of Saint Botolph’s Priory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

At Priory Street, the wall follows the curve of the street, past the ruins of Saint Botolph’s Priory, where Roman bricks are built into the ruined priory arches and walls.

The main evidence for the mediaeval period is seen in the surviving bastions, or small projecting round towers in Priory Street and Vineyard Street. Four of the original eight bastions remain above ground today. They were built into the thickness of the wall at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1380. Saint John’s Abbey gatehouse nearby was built after the abbey was attacked by the rebels, and the town authorities feared further outbreaks of violence.

This section of wall was heavily damaged by artillery fire during the Siege of Colchester in the Civil War in 1648, and was repaired with profuse use of red brick. At the end of the siege, Parliament decided to demolish part of the wall in Priory Street to prevent it from being used for defensive purposes in the future.

When the wall lost its significance it ceased to be regularly maintained. Houses were built up against the wall, passages and cellars were cut through and into it nd stone was removed for new building projects. A large section of the wall along Balkerne Hill fell into the road in 1795.

Regular repairs and maintenance of the wall began again in the 1940s and have continued, so that today the Roman wall in Colchester is the earliest and the best-preserved Roman town wall in Britain.

The Roman wall in Colchester is the earliest and best-preserved Roman town wall in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)