Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVI, 20 September).
I got home from Oxford late last night after an MRI scan in the John Radcliffe Hospital as part of the follow-up care following my stroke over four years ago (March 2022) and hospital procedures in Milton Keynes, Oxford and Sheffield. Now I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 8: 19-21 (NRSVA):
19 Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. 20 And he was told, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ 21 But he said to them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’
Today’s Reflections:
Leo Tolstoy’s opening sentence in Anna Karenina is often quoted in analyses of family life: ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
His observation is most quoted when family relationships are being discussed. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian mystic and novelist, and he took another 900 pages or so to describe three generations of unhappy family members who torment and torture each other and themselves. Although he never used the term, Tolstoy demonstrates what therapists today call the ‘intergenerational transmission of trauma.’
Tolstoy means that for a family to be happy, several key aspects must be in place, such as good health of all family members, acceptable financial security, and mutual affection. If there is a deficiency in any one or more of these key aspects, the family will be unhappy. The ‘Anna Karenina principle’ is used as a concept to explain success in many other fields, including, for example, in science.
The opening sentence of Anna Karenina seems to have a ring of truth to it. But do you think it is true at all? Are all happy families alike? And is it so that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way?
Is the family of Jesus a happy family or an unhappy family?
What helps you to discuss this: the behaviour of his family members? Or his response to them?
Defining families, let alone defining happy families or unhappy families, is not as easy a task as appears when we first accept the challenge.
Deciding who is in, and who is out, through our behaviour, may be the first indication of whether a family is happy or not.
We all know families where one brother or one sister is the last to hear family notices, the last to hear about births, marriages or deaths, to hear about family parties and celebrations, to be counted in on family news and gossip. Indeed, there are some families where I imagine each individual sibling thinks he or she is the brother or sister who is always the last to be counted in.
In other families, the definition of family can be surprisingly narrow or surprisingly broad. Do you count second cousins as family members? Do I see everyone who shares my family name as, in some way, a member of some extended family?
Despite the fictional idyllic family life of the Waltons in Little House on the Prairie, there is no ideal family or ideal family life, and no one single agreed definition of family.
What we do know is that we cannot chose our families, even if we think we would like to. We may ignore, marginalise or isolate other family members, but they remain members of the same family.
Why is it acceptable only in families to speak to one another in ways that are unacceptable in the workplace and that would lead to sanctions, discipline or even dismissal?
None of us had any choice when it comes to our family members – parents, siblings, still less remote ancestors. And if we could, we would probably make no better – and no worse – a choice than the one we live with. Indeed, researching a family tree often produces surprises when it comes to finding new family members.
Nor can we chose on God’s behalf who is in and who is out, who is part of God’s family, who is truly my brother and sister. For, in reality, we are all God’s children, and in a very real way our shared baptism makes us, truly, brothers and sisters.
I often feel that the Church is truly like a family, but not because we treat each other like we are the children of God; rather, the way we speak to each other about divisive issues such as sexuality, gender, marriage and divorce shows the Church is an unhappy family as understood by the ‘Anna Karenina principle’.
Which makes it even more difficult to pose my question: Is the family of Jesus a happy family or an unhappy family?
To paraphrase the conclusion of today’s Gospel reading: ‘My parents and my brothers and sisters are those who hear the word of God and do it.’
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 22 September 2026):
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 20 to 26 September 2026 (pp 40-41), is ‘For God and Country’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Rosie Dawson, USPG Trustee and freelance journalist.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 22 September 2026) invites us to pray:
Heavenly Father, for the peoples of the earth and the lands they inhabit, especially those displaced by war, occupation, land grabs, and ecological destruction, we pray. May the earth be honoured as a gift, not exploited as a possession.
The Collect of the Day:
O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers
of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
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 God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love is the fulfilling of the law:
grant that we may love you with our whole heart
and our neighbours as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Lord of creation,
whose glory is around and within us:
open our eyes to your wonders,
that we may serve you with reverence
and know your peace at our lives’ end,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflections
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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