Patrick Comerford
This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).
We celebrated the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Snake last night. I have a medical consultation later this morning. 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.
Mark 4: 1-20 (NRSVA):
1 Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. 2 He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ 9 And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
10 When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12 in order that
“they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven”.’
13 And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. 20 And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’
Today’s Reflection:
Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of his Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2), and in this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 1-20), he describe the ‘kingdom of God’ using images of a sower scattering seed on the ground in the hope and expectation of growth and the harvest.
I am not good at sowing, not good at growing plants or trees, and certainly not good at growing them from seed.
I like to explain this away by excuses such as heavy hay fever since childhood or claiming I do not have green fingers. But to tell the truth it may be because of a combination of faults: because I expect quick results and because I expect perfection.
I enjoy sitting in the garden, reading, eating in the open, listening to the fountain, but not wedding the flower beds, tending the plants or mowing the lawn. In short, I don’t do gardening, I don’t do garden centres.
But some years ago visiting both the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin and the Lavender Field at Avoca in Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow, on the same weekend I found myself unexpectedly appreciating gardens and growing and growth. In both cases, these are places where people with vision did not expect immediate results.
The Botanic Gardens were founded in Glasnevin in 1795 by people with vision such as the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, John Foster. But it was another 40 years or more before the basic shape of the gardens was established by 1838.
David Moore, who was appointed curator that year, had the vision to develop the glasshouse accommodation, and he commissioned Richard Turner, the great Dublin ironmaster, to provide an iron house to replace the previous wooden house.
Work on the main curvilinear glasshouse started in 1843. It was a vision for the future and a gift to the future. Those who planned it and devoted their energy to building those glasshouses in Glasnevin had no idea of the pleasure they were bequeathing to future generations, and today the glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens stand as a great achievement of Victorian engineering, planning and vision.
In many ways, the buildings they planned and the seeds sown in them have brought forth not just thirtyfold, but sixtyfold, a hundredfold, and perhaps even more. Today, the living collections at the National Botanic Gardens include over 300 endangered species from around the world, and six species already extinct in the wild. These are a vital resource, and the staff there speak of them like a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for the future.
In those glasshouses, Victorian architecture, engineering, art and science come together. Without careful, measured, timing and proper planning we would not see the results today.
The Lavender Field in Kilmacanogue, outside Bray, is a more recent example of planning carefully and reaping the benefits in measured ways over the years.
The Lavender Farm owes its origins to Brian Cox and Donald Pratt, who had the idea in 1983 of starting an Irish perfume company, and moved to Kilmacangoue in 1987. Some of their fragrances are sourced from lavender from their own field, across the road from their offices in Kilmacanogue.
Forty years or so later, this ‘field of dreams,’ nestling between the two Sugarloaf mountains, is producing top quality lavender oil and provides the inspiration for many of the company’s ideas. The lavender is harvested every summer and the Lavender Harvest Party celebrates nature’s amazing gift of the golden oil from the lavender.
Some of the lavender is actually growing along the roadside, even on the rocky waste left on the margins of the motorway. But without the seed that had fallen by the roadside and the rocky places, I might never have noticed the lavender that is growing on the deep, rich soil, and producing this abundant harvest.
Nonetheless, this lavender field has taken a generation to reach the maturity that is its glory today.
Too often we expect immediate results. And too often we judge whether a project is a success or a failure by asking whether it is producing immediate, measurable, visible apparent results. If not, we dismiss that project as an immediate failure.
Just because something works now does not mean it is right for the future. Just because something does not work now does not mean it is wrong for the future. Like the Victorian engineers who had vision in Glasnevin almost two centuries ago, we may not see the growth that follows our work today. Like a sower scattering seed, I sometimes think of God sowing seeds in the minds of many people that eventually grow into full bloom.
In one of his less well-known poems, ‘The Last Laugh’ (1974), John Betjeman wrote:
I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold.
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 29 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 Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 29 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Bless all who work to offer shelter and security to marginalised and vulnerable people and grant us generosity in supporting them.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
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:
Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
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
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