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)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 22, Wednesday 15 January 2025

Jesus heals Saint Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a stained-glass window in Saint John the Baptist Church, Blisworth, Northamptonshire (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.

Jesus Heals Simon Peter's Mother-in-Law … a panel in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Mark 1: 29-39 (NRSVA):

29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

32 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ 38 He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Jesus heals Saint Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a stained-glass window in Saint John the Baptist Church, Blisworth, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 1: 29-39) is the story of Christ healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.

There are four parts in this morning’s Gospel reading:

1, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (verses 29-31);

2, Jesus heals many other people, including people with diseases and people who are exorcised of demons (verses 32-34);

3, Jesus retreats to a deserted place to prayer but is ‘hunted’ out by Simon and his companions (verses 35-38);

4, Jesus returns to preaching in the synagogues in Galilee (verse 39).

Most people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories are unnamed, so that many of the women he heals are not named too. Indeed, in the healing stories told of men, only Lazarus and Malchus are named. But the high priest’s servant Malchus is only named by John (John 18: 10), and not in the synoptic gospels. Mark refers to blind Bartimaeus, but this is a reference only to his father’s name and not the name of the blind man himself (see Mark 10: 46).

In all the Gospel stories in which Jesus heals women, the women too are anonymous. In this morning’s Gospel reading, even Simon Peter’s mother-in-law remains unnamed, and she is identified only by her relationship to Simon Peter. Indeed, there is no reference at all to her daughter, Simon Peter’s wife.

All three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell this healing story (see Matthew 8: 14-15; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-40). Matthew says Jesus ‘touched’ the woman's hand, Mark say he ‘grasped’ it, and in Luke he simply ‘rebuked the fever’. Mark says the house was the home of Simon and Andrew, who both interceded with Jesus for the woman. Luke alone says she had a high fever.

The healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is the first story of physical healing in Saint Luke’s Gospel, and it follows immediately after the first story of spiritual healing, of an unnamed man in the synagogue in Capernaum. In Saint Mark’s Gospel, this story follows immediately after the calling of the first disciples, Andrew, Peter, James and John. In all three synoptic Gospels, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and of a demon-possessed man trigger a wave of sick and possessed people being brought to Jesus.

Mother-in-law jokes illustrated many seaside postcards and were part of the stock-in-trade of comedians in the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Those mothers-in-law were never named, and the jokes served to emphasise the domestic role – perhaps servile role – of women in homes and families in those days.

But mothers-in-law were also mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, nieces and daughters; they had careers, hopes and ambitions, fears, illnesses, and sufferings; they had love and emotions; and they had names … none of which were acknowledged in those postcards or comic sketches.

Those attitudes were reinforced by many of the ways in which I have heard men in the past interpret this morning’s reading. Yet a closer reading of this story shows that it does not reinforce a woman’s place as being servile or secondary, the ‘complementarian’ view offered by some commentators who claim they are ‘conservative evangelicals.’

It is not a story about a woman taking a late Saturday morning weekend sleep-in on her bed, and then getting up ‘to make the tea’.

The verb for serving, διακονέω (diakoneo), used in verse 31 in reference to this woman means to wait, attend upon, serve, or to be an attendant or assistant. Later, in Acts and other places in the New Testament, it means to minister to, relieve, assist, or supply with the necessaries of life, or provide the means of living, to do the work of the διάκονος or deacon (see I Timothy 3: 10, 13; I Peter 4: 11), even to be in charge or to administer (see II Corinthians 3: 3, 8: 19-20; I Peter 1: 12, 4: 10).

The word describing this woman’s service also describes the angels who minister to Jesus after he is tempted in the wilderness (Mark 1: 13; Matthew 4: 11), the work of his female disciples (Luke 8: 1-3), and describes Martha of Bethany when she serves while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet and learns, before Jesus specifically affirms Mary’s choice (Luke 10: 38-42).

Most significantly, this word describes Jesus himself, when he explains to his disciples that ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (see Mark 10: 43-45).

Being healed is not just about personal relief but also about being restored to a place where one can serve and contribute to the community. The Book of Common Prayer describes God as the one ‘whose service is perfect freedom,’ and this is modelled by Peter’s mother-in-law. Her response to Jesus healing her is a model not just for women but for all Christian service.

In the kingdom, serving is not women’s work, it is everybody’s work.

James Tissot ‘The Healing of Peter’s Mother-in-law’ (La guérison de la belle-mère de Pierre), 1886-1894 (Brooklyn Museum)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 15 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 (Wednesday 15 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray that people like Yusuf may have safe and equitable access to critical aid like food and water.

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

Christ Healing Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a fresco in Visoki Dečani Monastery, a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo and Metohija, 12 km south of Pec (© Copyright: Blago Fund, Inc)

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 search in Colchester for Camelot, Old King Cole, and the star that twinkles ‘up above the world so high’

The statue of Jane and Ann Taylor, authors of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, by sculptor Mandy Pratt, on Colchester High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.

Every fiddler he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Oh, there’s none so rare, as can compare,
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

Two of us spent much of yesterday in Colchester in north-east Essex, the second-largest town or city in Essex, with a population of over 130,000. Colchester is 80 km (50 miles) north-east of London on the Great Eastern Main Line railway, and stands on the River Colne.

Charlotte and I were on our way to the small village of Frating yesterday, but we stopped for a few hours in Colchester on the way there and back, to see the castle, the remains of the Roman Wall and some of the older churches, buildings and sites.

Colchester stands on the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital, and so it claims to be Britain’s first city. But it also has associations with Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline, and it claims to be the home of three of the best-known English nursery rhymes: ‘Old King Cole’, ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. Some local traditions also try to link Colchester with the Camelot of King Arthur.

There are several theories about the origin of the name Colchester. Some contend that it comes from the Latin words colonia, a Roman settlement with rights equivalent to those of Roman citizens, and castra, meaning fortifications and referring to the city walls, the oldest in Britain. Others link the name with the River Colne, which flows through Colchester.

Colchester claims to be the oldest recorded town in Britain because it was mentioned by Pliny the Elder, who died in 79 CE. The Celtic name of the town, Camulodunon, appears on coins minted in the period 20-10 BCE. Before the Roman conquest of Britain it was already a centre of power for Cunobelin – known to Shakespeare as Cymbeline – king of the Catuvellauni (ca 5 BCE-40 CE), who minted coins there.

Shakespeare set his play Cymbeline, also known as The Tragedie of Cymbeline or Cymbeline, King of Britain, in Ancient Britain and based it on legends about the early historical Celtic British King Cunobeline.

Although it is listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance or even a comedy. Like Othello and The Winter’s Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While the precise date when it was written is unknown, the play was produced as early as 1611.

Is the ancient name of Camulodunum a clue to a potential site of legendary Camelot? … a pub sign on Colchester High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Colchester has also been suggested as one of the potential sites of Camelot, on account of having been the capital of Roman Britain and its ancient name of Camulodunum. But this is not considered likely by academics, as in Arthurian times Colchester was under Saxon control.

Colchester claims to be the home of three of the best known English nursery rhymes: ‘Old King Cole’, ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, although the legitimacy of all three claims is disputed.

Local legend places Colchester as the seat of King Cole of the rhyme ‘Old King Cole’, a legendary ancient king of Britain. In folklore, the name Colchester was said to mean Cole’s Castle, although this theory does not have academic support. In the legend, Helena, the daughter of Cole, married the Roman senator Constantius Chlorus, who had been sent by Rome as an ambassador and was named as Cole’s successor.

Helena’s son became the Emperor Constantine I. Helena became known as Saint Helena of Constantinople and is said to have found the true cross. She is now the patron saint of Colchester. This is recognised in the emblem of Colchester: a cross and three crowns.

The medallion of the Mayor of Colchester includes a Byzantine-style icon of Saint Helena. Her statue is atop the town hall, although local legend says that it was originally a statue of the Virgin Mary that was later fitted with a cross.

The legend that King Cole of Colchester was the father of the Empress Saint Helena, and the grandfather of Constantine the Great, first appeared in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. But the claim may predate both Henry and Geoffrey.

The statue of Saint Helena at the top of Colchester Town Hall … was she the daughter of Old King Cole? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Colchester is a widely linked with the nursery rhyme ‘Humpty Dumpty’. During the siege of Colchester in the English Civil War in 1648, a Royalist sniper known as ‘One-Eyed Thompson’ sat in the belfry of the Church of Saint Mary-at-the-Walls (Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall) and was given the nickname Humpty Dumpty, most likely because of his size, Humpty Dumpty being a common insult for the overweight.

Thompson was shot down (Humpty Dumpty had a great fall) and, shortly after, the town was lost to the Parliamentarians (all the king’s horses and all the king’s men / couldn’t put Humpty together again). Another version says Humpty Dumpty was a cannon at the top of the church. The Church of Saint Mary-at-the-Walls still retains its Norman tower up to the top few feet, which are a Georgian repair.

In literary terms, Colchester also has links with Daniel Defoe, who set the first part of his 1722 novel Moll Flanders in Colchester, and George Orwell. In A tour through England and Wales, Daniel Defoe records that C5,259 people in Colchester died in the plague in 1665, ‘more in proportion than any of its neighbours, or than the city of London’. George Orwell refers to Colchester in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four, when Colchester is the scene of a nuclear detonation. He is being honoured with a new £2 coin this month to mark the 75th anniversary of his death on 21 January 1950.

It may not merit literary attention, but the third nursery rhyme associated with Colchester is ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’. It was written by the sisters Jane Taylor (1783-1824) and Ann Taylor (1782-1866), who both wrote children’s poems while they lived in West Stockwell Street, in Colchester’s Dutch Quarter, from 1796 to 1810. It was first published in 1806 with the title ‘The Star’.

The statue of the sisters Jane and Ann by the sculptor Mandy Pratt was unveiled on 4 May 2024 on Colchester High Street, opposite the Town Hall and West Stockwell Street. The opening words of ‘The Star’ are at the feet of the sculpture:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

The sisters Jane and Ann Taylor lived in West Stockwell Street in Colchester’s Dutch Quarter from 1796 to 1810 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A new blogging landmark, reaching 1 million people so far this month and over 10.5 million hits

Nighttime in Porto … Portugal has a population of over 10.5 million people

Patrick Comerford

At some point early this morning, this blog reached yet another new peak, with 10.5 million hits since I first began blogging almost 15 years ago, back in 2010. Once again this is both a humbling statistic and a sobering figure that leaves me not with a sense of achievement but a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

After I began blogging, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million hits. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013; 2 million in June 2015; 3 million by October 2016; 4 million on 19 November 2019; 5 million on 27 March 2021; 6 million on 1 July 2022; 7 million on 13 August 2023; 8 million by 30 April 2024; and 9 million on 21 October 2024.

But the rise in the number of hits has been phenomenal this month, reaching 9.5 million ten days ago (4 January 2025), 10 million two days ago (12 January 2025), and 10.5 million in the early hours of this morning.

Indeed, January 2025 is the first month this blog has ever had 1 million hits in a month – or even within a fortnight – with 1 million hits in January by the early hours today.

In recent months, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions, and five of the 10 days of busiest traffic have been in the past five days alone, and four more within the past year (2024):

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 64,077 at the end of the day (14 January 2025), or 59,095 by noon

• 35,452 hits (28 May 2024)
• 27,616 (11 May 2024)
• 26,974 (27 May 2024)
• 23,234 (3 September 2023)
• 22,436 (19 June 2024)

With this latest landmark figure of 10.5 million hits by today, and 1 million hits so far this month, once again I find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 10.5 million people look like?
• What are 10.5 million people when it comes to wating lists and refugees?
• What would £10.5 million, €10.5 million or $10.5 billion buy?
• What would £10 million, €10 million or $10 billion buy?

The Charles Bridge in Prague … the Czech Republic has a population of over 10.5 million people (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It is estimated that 10.5 million people are about 0.1 per cent of the world’s population. Countries with a population of about 10.5 million include the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal and Sweden.

The population of the surrounding suburbs of Paris is estimated at around 10.5 million, which makes it the most populous urban area in the European Union. The total population of Paris is now estimated at 11,276,700.

Cities with a population of about 10.5 million include Bogotá, Jakarta, Chennai and Lima.

More th 10.5 million people in southern California are under red flag warnings for fire danger today as gusty winds are expected to hit the area.

Reports say 10.5 million people from Mexico and Central America are expected to relocate by 2050 to flee the effects of climate change.

Analysis by Save the Children last year shows how 10 .5million children were forced to flee their homes the previous year in the world's 10 largest crises. This pushed the number of children displaced globally to more than 50 million, the highest ever, with numbers more than doubling since 2010.

Royal Mail was fined £10.5 million by the regulator Ofcom last month for failing to meet delivery targets for first and second class mail.

Europe, including Russia west of the Urals, measures roughly 10.5 million sq km.

Scientists estimate that roughly 10% of the entire Earth is covered by Rainforests. That would make the total land mass covered by Rainforests to be about 15 million sq km in distance. But this is decreasing drastically due to ranching, mining, logging and agriculture.

One of the most warming figures personally in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows my morning prayer diary is reaching by an average of 60-65 people each morning. I have been retired for almost three years now, but I think any of my colleagues would be prayerful thankful of congregations in their churches that averaged 420-450 people a week.

Today, I am very grateful to all 10.5 million readers and viewers of this blog to date, and for the small core group among them who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

Nightime in Paris … the population of the surrounding suburbs of Paris is estimated at around 10.5 million (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Updated 15 January 2025 with final figures for 14 January 2025

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 21, Tuesday 14 January 2025

‘Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words,’ Saint Francis of Assisi … ‘The Vision of Saint Francis’ (ca 1590-1595) by El Greco in the National Gallery of Ireland (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.

Later this evening, I have a meeting of a town council committee in Stony Stratford that is involved with public art and sculpture on the streets of Stony Stratford. 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.

‘When the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught’ (Mark 1: 21) … the Old Synagogue in Krakow, built in 1407, is the oldest Jewish house of prayer in Poland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 1: 21-28 (NRSVA):

21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ 26 And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching – with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

‘When the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught’ (Mark 1: 21) … on Synagogue Street in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 1: 21-28) is the story of Christ’s visit to Capernaum, where he preaches and teaches in the synagogue. When he speaks, all are astounded at his teaching. But when he actually puts what he says it into practice, they are all amazed.

Christ not only teaches, but he puts it into practice, he teaches not just with knowledge, but with authority; not only can he say, but he can do.

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist, we heard how Christ called his first disciples, Andrew and Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, James and John. Now, this morning’s Gospel reading tells us how Christ’s authority, in both word and deed, are first recognised.

Christ and his new disciples go to Capernaum, a prosperous town on the Sea of Galilee. It was the practice in the synagogue on Saturdays for the scribes, who specialised in the interpretation and application of Mosaic law to daily life, to quote scripture and tradition.

On this Saturday, however, Christ does not follow this practice. Instead, he speaks directly, confident of his authority and of his very essence. The Greek word here, ἐξουσία (exousía), has the same roots as the word in the Nicene Creed that is translated as ‘being’ or ‘substance’: ‘of one substance with the Father’ (ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί, homoúsion to Patrí).

The ‘man with an unclean spirit’ (verse 23) was, we might say, possessed, or under the influence of evil forces. In the understanding of the time, he was under Satan’s direction, separated from God.

The devil is heard speaking through this man (verse 24), asking what Christ is doing meddling in the domain of evil. He recognises who Christ is and that his coming spells the end of the power of the devil. He understands the significance of the coming Kingdom. Wonder-workers of the day healed using ritual or magic, but Christ exorcises simply through verbal command (verse 25), so clearly he is divine.

The crowd now acknowledges Christ’s ‘authority’ in word and deed (verse 27).

The parallel reading of this story in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 4: 31-37) follows the story of Christ preaching in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4: 16-30), when he proclaims the foundational text for his ministry, almost like a manifesto:

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

These are high ideals and, if put into practice, threaten social stability and the ordering of society. This threat is realised by those who hear him, and they drive him out of the synagogue in Capernaum.

Driven out of that synagogue, Christ has three options:

1, To allow himself to be silenced.

2, To keep on preaching in other synagogues, but to never put into practice what he says, so that those who are worried have their fears allayed and realise he is no threat;

3, To preach and to put his teachings into practice, to show that he means what he says, that his faith is reflected in his priorities, to point to what the Kingdom of God is truly like.

Christ takes the third option. He brings good news to the poor, he releases this poor captive, he can now see things as they are and as they ought to be, the oppressed may go free, and all are amazed.

There is a saying attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: ‘Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.’

Christ preaches with authority. But in this Gospel reading we are not told what he said. We are only told what he did.

In his actions he demonstrates the love of God and the love of others that are at the heart of the Gospel, that should be at the heart of every sermon I preach. For the love of God and the love of others are the two commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets.

‘At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region’ (Mark 1: 28) … spreading fame and news, newspapers at a kiosk near the marina in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 14 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 (Tuesday 14 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Pray for our partners in the Diocese of Jerusalem – for wisdom and strength to lead people through fear and uncertainty. Pray for bravery as they guide their communities and offer loving support.

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

‘At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region’ (Mark 1: 28) … the good and the famous in a line of sculptures on the campus of the University of 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

Kevin Roche, the Dublin-born, prize-winning international architect who designed the Convention Centre

The Convention Centre on Spencer Dock, Dublin … the Irish project of the prize-winning, Dublin-born architect Kevin Roche (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Dublin, as I travel from Dublin Airport along the quays and the banks of the River Liffey into the city centre, the Convention Centre on Spencer Dock on the north side of the river still has the same captivating, breath-taking visual impact as it had when it first opened in 2010. Back then, it immediately became a striking landmark building in Dublin.

The Convention Centre was designed as part of a Public/Private Partnership between the Office of Public Works (OPW) and Treasury Holdings, headed by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett, and was the first state-owned, public-access building built since the foundation of the Irish State. It is also the first and only Irish project of the prize-winning, Dublin-born architect Kevin Roche (1922-2019) since he moved to the US in 1948.

The Convention Centre was designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kevin Roche and is known for its many architectural innovations, including the glass frontage and numerous curved walls. The stunning glass-fronted atrium has panoramic views of the River Liffey, Dublin city centre and across to the Wicklow Mountains, and was the first carbon-neutral convention in the world.

The building was first suggested as long back as 1987, although the proposal was not formalised until 1997. The building was completed in May 2010, four months ahead of schedule and on budget, and was opened by the then Taoiseach Brian Cowen on 7 September 2010.

The lasting influence of John Ruskin on Kevin Roche’s approach to architecture is reflected in an observation he once made: ‘Architecture is a local language and a universal language. Ultimately, a great building touches both, so that artist, and common man, understand it without being conscious of it. It is interwoven. That is great architecture.’

Kevin Roche was born in Dublin but was based in the US throughout most of his career. He is seen as one of the greatest architects of the 20th century. He was a member of an elite group of third generation modernist architects that included James Stirling, Jorn Utzon and Robert Venturi, and he is considered to be the most logical and systematic designer of the group. He and John Dinkeloo, his partner in the firm KRJDA, produced over a half-century ‘of matchless creativity.’

Roche designed more than 200 landmark and famous buildings, including museums, art centres, corporate headquarters, airport terminals and university buildings. His portfolio in the US included work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the UN Plaza in Manhattan, the Oaklands Museum in California and the Ford Foundation headquarters on East 42nd Street which, in 1968, became the first modern building to be laid out around a plant-filled atrium.

The Convention Centre Dublin … the architect Kevin Roche was born at 25 Lower Camden Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Kevin Roche was born Eamonn Kevin Roche at 25 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, above his aunt’s shop, on 14 June 1922. He was the youngest of three sons of Alice (Harding) Roche (1882-1963) from Soloheadbeg, Co Tipperary, and Eamon (Edmond) Roche (1884-1956), a creamery manager who was born in Bansha, Co Tipperary. They were married in Saint Joseph’s Church, Limerick, in 1913 and Kevin Roche was born between the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

Eamon Roche fought on the Republican side in the Civil War, and was jailed twice. Kevin Roche told The Irish Times in an interview in 2017 that he was born while his father was serving his second jail sentence. When Eamon Roche was released from jail, he moved with his family to Mitchelstown, Co Cork, returned to work as a creamery manager. He successfully brought together the surrounding dairy co-operatives, forming the largest co-op in the south-west and setting up the Galtee Cheese Company later bought out by KerryGold.

Kevin Roche went to school in Rockwell College, near Cashel, Co Tipperary, where his interest in architecture developed after reading John Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture. He later recalled that the book ‘was not the easiest to read but was very interesting’. He then studied architecture at University College Dublin. After his first year in UCD, his father gave him his first commission –designing a piggery for Mitchelstown Creameries.

After graduating in 1945, he worked with the Dublin modernist architect Michael Scott on the designs for Busáras and Donnybrook bus garage (1945-1946). He then moved to London to work with Maxwell Fry in 1946, before moving to the US to study under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (1948).

Excited by the building of the United Nations headquarters and the ‘idea that people would stop fighting one another’, he moved to New York in 1949 and worked in the planning office on the UN headquarters project.

He then moved to Detroit to work with the Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, who was then being recognised as one of the world’s leading architects. He was assigned to work on the General Motors Technical Centre, a sprawling campus of 24 modern buildings that became emblematic of corporate architecture of the early 1950s. While working for Saarinen, he met his future wife Jane Tuohy (1935-2020), from Lucas, Ohio. They were married in 1963 and became the parents five children.

When Eero Saarinen died suddenly in 1961, Kevin Roche and his colleagues John Dinkeloo and Joseph Lacy took over several unfinished projects, including the Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri; the TWA Flight Centre at JFK International Airport; Dulles International Airport in Washington DC; and the John Deere headquarters in Moline, Illinois. They founded Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, based in Hamden, Connecticut, in 1966.

John Dinkeloo died in 1981, and Kevin Roche then headed the office himself. A year later, in 1982, Roche became one of the first recipients of the Pritzker Prize, described as architecture’s equivalent to a Nobel Prize. At the award ceremony he said: ‘We should, all of us, bend our will to create a civilisation in which we can live at peace with nature and each other. To build well is an act of peace. Let us hope that will not be in vain.’ The €100,000 prize money was used to create a chair of architecture at Yale in memory of Eero Saarinen.

Following these awards, Roche’s practice went global, receiving commissions for buildings in Paris, Madrid, Singaporeand Tokyo. He completed his first and only Irish project, the Convention Centre Dublin, in 2010.

The Convention Centre Dublin was Kevin Roche’s first and only Irish project (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

As well as the Pritzker Prize in 1982, this awards included the Gold Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1990), the gold medal of the American Institute of Architects (1993), the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland Gandon medal for lifetime achievement, and the French Academie d’Architecture Grand Gold Medal. He was also a trustee of the American Academy in Rome, president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a member of the National Academy of Design and the US Commission of Fine Arts.

Although he reached the top of his profession, Roche had a self-deprecating manner, little interest in celebrity and eschewed the label ‘starchitect’. His mission was to create buildings for the people who used them and for the community who would live around them. He has been credited with creating green buildings long before they became part of the public consciousness.

While he loved strong, memorable forms, he saw architecture as a matter of problem-solving as much as shape-making. Reviewers of his work say he was most comfortable when sculpting modernist shapes in glass, masonry and steel filled with light and greenery.

He had no interest in retiring and continued to work until he was 95 in the offices of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates. He died at the age of 96 at his home in Guilford, Connecticut, on 1 March 2019. He was survived by his wife Jane four adult children and 15 grandchildren.

Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates or KRJDA continues as Roche Modern, where Roche’s son, Eamon, is currently the managing director. The firm which has been described as the ‘poster child architectural firm of corporate America’.

Kevin Roche’s work has been the subject of special exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Architectural Association of Ireland in Dublin, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Yale School of Architecture, the Museum of the City of New York, the Building Museum in Washington and the University of Toronto.
Meanwhile, during the Covid 19 restrictions, the Houses of the Oireachtas moved their location temporarily from Leinster House in Kildare Street in 2020 and met in the Convention Centre in June 2020. There Micheál Martin was elected Taoiseach in the Auditorium on 27 June 2020.

The Houses of the Oireachtas sat in the Convention Centre in June 2020 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 20, Monday 13 January 2025

The calling of James and John in their boat mending the nets … a window in Saint George’s Church, Belfast (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.

Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Hilary (367), Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher of the Faith; Saint Kentigern or Mungo (603), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde and Cumbria; and George Fox (1691), founder of the Society of Friends or Quakers.

The commemoration of Saint Hilary today (13 January) explains Hilary Term, the second academic term at the University of Oxford and Trinity College Dublin. The other terms are Michaelmas term and Trinity term. These terms originated in the mediaeval legal system when courts in England, Wales and Ireland divided the legal year into four terms: Hilary, Easter, Trinity and Michaelmas. Lent term is the equivalent of Hilary term in Cambridge.

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 calling of James and John with their symbols … a window in Saint George’s Church, Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Mark 1: 14-20 (NRSVA):

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake – for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

‘The Call of the Disciples’ … a window designed by the Harry Clarke Studios in Christ Church, Spanish Point, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist the Saturday before last (John 1: 35-42, 4 January 2025), we read how immediately after his baptism by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan, Christ began calling his first disciples. First, he calls Andrew and Simon Peter. Andrew is called first, but before responding to the call to follow Christ, he goes back and fetches his brother Simon and brings him to Jesus. This was followed later in that chapter with the call of Philip and Nathanael.

Andrew and Peter are brothers, but their names indicate the early differences and divisions within the Church. Andrew’s name is Greek ('Ανδρέας, Andreas), meaning ‘manly’ or ‘valorous,’ while Peter’s original name, Simon (שמעון‎, Shimon) is so obviously Jewish, meaning ‘hearing’.

In a similar way, Philip is a strong Greek name: everyone in the region knew Philip of Macedon was the father of Alexander the Great, while Nathanael’s name is a Hebrew compound meaning ‘the Gift of God.’

It is as though we are being reminded from the very beginning, with the story of the call of the disciples, the diversity and divisions are part of the essential fabric of the Church. They are woven into that fabric, even in the names that show that the disciples represent both Jews and Greeks, the Hebrew-speakers and those who are culturally Hellenised.

In today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1: 14-20), Saint Mark follows a slightly different sequence in the call of the first disciples: first he calls the brothers Simon and Andrew, and then the brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee (see Matthew 4: 21-22). Here it is as though we are reminded that ministry and discipleship is always collaborative: we are never called alone, but called as brothers and sisters to one another.

Andrew is often referred to as the ‘first called.’ But in some ways, the other three, Peter, James and John serve, as an inner circle or a ‘kitchen cabinet’ in the Gospels.

Zebedee, the father of James and John, was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, and probably lived in or near Bethsaida in present Galilee, perhaps in Capernaum. Their mother Salome was one of the pious women who followed Christ and ‘ministered unto him of their substance.’

Saint James and Saint John, or their mother, ask Christ to be seated on his right and left in his glory. They also want to call down fire on a Samaritan town, but they are rebuked for this (see Luke 9: 51-6).

Peter, James and John are at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17: 1, Mark 9: 2; Luke 9: 28), but also at the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 9: 2; Luke 6: 51), at the top of the Mount of Olives when Christ is about to enter Jerusalem (Mark 13: 3), they help to prepare for the Passover (Luke 22: 8), and they are in Gethsemane (Matthew 26: 37).

They are the only disciples to have been given nickname by Jesus: Simon became the Rock, James and John are also known as ‘the Sons of Thunder’ (see Mark 3: 17; Luke 5: 10).

Jerome likes to refer to Peter as the rock on which the Church is built, James as the first of the apostles to die a martyr’s death, John as the beloved disciple. They are a trusted group who also serve to represent us at each moment in the story of salvation, and remind us that we are called not individually but alongside one another.

The symbols of Saint James (left) and Saint John (right) in a window in Saint George’s Church, Belfast (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 13 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 yesterday with a Programme Update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 13 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for people who are terrified, mourning and suffering. We pray to the God that can heal, asking that they may be saved from despair – for the trauma and violence they’ve experienced not to overshadow hope.

The Collect:

Everlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed your Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
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 truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Hilary to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The Transfiguration, with Peter, James and John, depicted in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on image for full-screen viewing)

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

‘10 million people can’t be wrong’ when this blog becomes a ‘mega-blog’, reaching 10 million hits

A map dividing the world into 804 roughly equal areas of population with 10 million people each (Map created by reddit user minecraftian48)

Patrick Comerford

At some point today, this blog reached a new peak, with 10 million hits since I first began blogging. It is both a humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and leaves me not with a sense of achievement but a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

After I began blogging, it took until July 2012 to reach half a million hits. This figure rose to 1 million by September 2013; 2 million in June 2015; 3 million by October 2016; 4 million on 19 November 2019; 5 million on 27 March 2021; 6 million on 1 July 2022; 7 million on 13 August 2023; 8 million by 30 April 2024; 9 million on 21 October 2024; 9.5 million earlier this month, on 4 January 2025; and 10 million today (12 January 2025).

This means that this blog continues to reach a million readers in a three-to-four month period, somewhere over 300,000 a month, and an average of over 9,500 hits for each post.

In recent months, these figures have been exceeded on occasions, and three of the 20 days of busiest traffic have been in the past three days alone, and 11 more in last year (2024):

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 100,291 hits (10 January 2025)
• 35,452 hits (28 May 2024)
• 27,616 (11 May 2024)

• 26,974 (27 May 2024)
• 23,234 (3 September 2023)
• 22,436 (19 June 2024)
• 21,999 (4 September 2023)
• 16,250 (21 August 2024)

• 15,936 (18 June 2024)
• 15,211 (7 September 2023)
• 15,193 (6 September 2023)
• 14, 676 (26 November 2024)
• 14,411 (20 June 2024)

• 14,282 (4 August 2024)
• 13,566 (1 December 2024)
• 13,362 (17 June 2024)
• 13,301 (11 December 2023)
• 12,605 (29 November 2024)

At times in recent months, there have been 8,000 to 10,000 hits a day. This has been exceeded over these past three days, with 289,076 hits yesterday (11 January alone), 134,254 hits by noon today (10 January 2025) and 100,291 hits on Friday (10 January 2025). There were 214,970 hits last month, or an average of almost 7,000 a day (December 2024).

With this latest landmark figure of 10 million hits by today, I find myself asking:

• What do 10 million people look like?
• What are 10 million people when it comes to wating lists and refugees?
• What would £10 million, €10 million or $10 billion buy?

Minarets on the skyline in Cairo … the UN defines a megacity as an urban agglomeration with over 10 million inhabitants (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population of more than 10 million people. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) in its report World Urbanization Prospects (2018) defines megacities as urban agglomerations with over 10 million inhabitants. A University of Bonn report defines megacities as metropolitan areas with a total population of 10 million or more people’.

At the last count, the world had 34 ‘megacities’ or cities with populations of more than 10 million. By 2035, the UN estimates there will be 48 megacities; by 2050, it is expected that two out of every three people will live in cities as populations grow, rural areas are absorbed by urban sprawl, and people continue to move in search of work, education and opportunity.

Understanding what it is like to live in these intense urban environments was the theme of the National Gallery of Victoria’s Megacities exhibition, an immersive multimedia exhibition in 2023 featuring about 500 images by 10 photographers in 10 megacities: Cairo, Dhaka, Jakarta, Delhi, São Paulo, Shanghai, Seoul, Lagos, Tokyo and Mexico City.

Some sources identify the Greater Tokyo Area as the largest megacity in the world, while others give the title to the Pearl River Delta or Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in China. Six countries have more than one megacity: China, India, Brazil, Japan, Pakistan and the United States. And there are megacities in Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Angola, the DRC; Russia, France, the UK, Turkey, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Argentina.

Megacities with a population of about 10 million include Bogotá in Colombia, Luanda in Angola, Nagoya in Japan, Taipei in Taiwan, and Zhengzhou in China.

In the world today there are more than 7,000 human languages, and of those, 83 different languages are each spoken by more than 10 million people worldwide. Greek, Hebrew and Swedish are among the languages spoken by 10 million people.

Countries with a population of about 10 million people include Greece and Hungary. The Russian invasion sent the Ukraine population plummeting by 10 million people.

The number of people living in England and Wales who were born outside the UK is put at 10 million people – and 10.7 million throughout the whole UK. So I could say I am one in 10 million. India, Poland, Pakistan, Romania and Ireland are the most common countries of birth among migrants now living in the UK.

Almost 10 million people in England are on NHS waiting lists for hospital appointments or treatment. Official figures in the UK show around 10 million people gave up on getting a GP appointment in a one-month period despite needing one. This could lead to countless missed or delayed diagnoses as people go without the care they need.

A recent report estimates that about 10 million people – 8.5 million adults and 1.5 million children – in England need support for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders and other mental health difficulties. That is the equivalent of 20% of all adults and 15% of all children.

The Centre for Better Living reports 10 million people in England are classed as living in conditions that may create or worsen health conditions and reduce their quality of life.

Over 10 million people have been now displaced by conflicts in Sudan, nine million inside the country, according to figures from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

During the fires in Los Angeles in January 2025, a mistaken evacuation alert was sent to nearly 10 million, causing panic in Los Angeles county.

‘10 Million People’ is a song by British recording artist Example, released by Epic Records in 2014. The song was written and produced by Example, Fraser T Smith and Alf Bamford.

Example has said that ‘10 Million People’ was written ‘after watching a documentary on early ’90s rave culture. I found this video online where they were interviewing people at an illegal rave. The guy with the microphone said to one of the revellers, ‘Surely this whole rave thing is just a fad’. And the raver replied, ‘Well 10 million people can’t be wrong’.’

Well, of course they can be wrong. Think of the additional 10 million people who voted for Trump this time round than in 2016. After Trump completely mishandled a national pandemic, spewed out daily lies on Twitter and caged children, 10 million new voters opted to vote for the convict.

During the US election campaign last August, there were rumours that the Egyptian regime had donated $10 million in cash to Trump’s 2016 campaign. Could $10 million dollars buy 10 million votes? A dollar a vote? Surely not.

It just goes to show that, yes, 10 million people can be wrong.

Still, I am still very grateful to all 10 million readers and viewers of this blog to date.

Ten million people live in Greece, and Greek is spoken by 10 million people (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Updated: 13 January 2025, with total figures for 12 January 2025.