An Advent Calendar with Patrick Comerford: 2, 1 December 2025

Christmas decorations around the door of Gelato on the High Street, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Advent began yesterday on Advent Sunday, and the countdown to Christmas is truly under way.

At noon each day in Advent this year, I am offering one image as part of my ‘Advent Calendar’ for 2025, and one Advent or Christmas carol or hymn.

‘Bethlehem Down’ is a carol for SATB choir composed in 1927 by Peter Warlock (1894-1930), the pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine, and is one of the carols being rehearsed by for Advent and Christmas by the choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

‘Bethlehem Down’ is set to a poem by the journalist and poet Bruce Blunt (1899-1957). Warlock and Blunt wrote the carol over Christmas in 1927. They submitted the carol to the Daily Telegraph’s annual Christmas carol contest and won. ‘Bethlehem Down’ has been described as the finest of all of Warlock’s choral works and his ‘unquestioned carol masterpiece’.

When He is King we will give him the King’s gifts,
Myrrh for its sweetness, and gold for a crown,
“Beautiful robes”, said the young girl to Joseph
Fair with her first-born on Bethlehem Down.

Bethlehem Down is full of the starlight
Winds for the spices, and stars for the gold,
Mary for sleep, and for lullaby music
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.

When He is King they will clothe Him in grave-sheets,
Myrrh for embalming, and wood for a crown,
He that lies now in the white arms of Mary
Sleeping so lightly on Bethlehem Down.

Here He has peace and a short while for dreaming,
Close-huddled oxen to keep Him from cold,
Mary for love, and for lullaby music
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.



Advent Calendar 1: 30 November 2025

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 20, Thursday 20 November 2025

‘As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it’ (Luke 19: 42) … the city of Jerusalem depicted on a tile in a restaurant in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent, and this week began with the Second Sunday before Advent. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Edmund (870), King of the East Angles, Martyr, and Priscilla Lydia Sellon (1821-1876), a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England.

I hope to join some rehearsals with a playreading group in the Library in Stony Stratford later today. But, before the day begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early 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.

‘As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it’ (Luke 19: 41) … ‘The Holy City,’ a batik by Thetis Blacker in the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 19: 41-44 (NRSVA):

41 As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. 44 They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

‘As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it’ (Luke 1941: 11) … Jerusalem in bright lights in Jerusalem Restaurant in Camden Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 19: 41-44) continues the apocalyptic themes found in our readings as we prepare for the coming of Christ as Christ the King and as the Word made Flesh.

In the Gospel reading on Sunday (Luke 21: 5-19), as Jesus was hears some people talking about the Temple in Jerusalem and how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus responded, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down’ (Luke 21: 6).

Luke 21 – and the parallels in Matthew 24-25 and Mark 13 – are known as the ‘Little Apocalypse’, with prophecies about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the end times. There are warnings about tribulation, persecution, and the coming of the Son of Man, but the passage also encourages vigilance and faith in the face of these events.

In advance of the ‘Little Apocalypse’, in the Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 19: 41-44), Jesus looks over Jerusalem and he weeps over the city, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

Like Sunday’s readings, we seem to be living in days when, in the wake of Trump’s election, we ‘hear of wars and rumours of wars’. It is so very easy to alarmed, worrying about the days are to come, and the potential for nation to rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Doubtless, in the months to come, there will be the equivalent of earthquakes in many places, and the equivalent of famines: a dearth or famine of public compassion, political decency, honesty and morality and diplomatic sense and wisdom.

It is even more disheartening that whole segments of American society that call themselves evangelical Christians have voted for the apocalyptic gloom that is facing the world in the four years to come.

The former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Very Revd Dr Trevor Morrow, reposted on Facebook last year a response to the thinking of many Evangelical Christians, particularly in the US, by his Palestinian friend, the Revd Dr Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour, the Academic Dean of Bethlehem Bible College:

‘The irony for us Palestinian Christians is that evangelicals, with their emphasis on prophecy, have lost the capacity of being prophetic. You want to prove that the Bible is right? You don’t do this by pointing to self-fulfilling prophecy or by pointing to world events as prophecy fulfilment. That is not how you prove that the Bible is right.

‘We prove that the Bible is right by radical obedience to the teachings of Jesus – by proving that Jesus’ teachings actually work and that they can make the world a better place. Let us love our enemies. Forgive those who sin against us. Let us feed the poor. Care for the oppressed. Walk the extra mile. Be inclusive, not exclusive. Turn the other cheek. And maybe, and only maybe then, the world will start to take us seriously and believing in the Bible.’

The Revd Dr Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour is also the Academic Dean of Bethlehem Bible College

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 20 November 2025):

The theme this week (16 to 22 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘In the Shadow of the Carneddau’ (pp 56-57). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Bishop Andrew John, who stepped down as Archbishop of Wales and Bishop of Bangor on 27 June.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray:

Pray for one another and for good stewardship of our precious resources.

The Collect:

Eternal God,
whose servant Edmund kept faith to the end,
both with you and with his people,
and glorified you by his death:
grant us such steadfastness of faith
that, with the noble army of martyrs,
we may come to enjoy the fullness of the resurrection life;
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.

Post Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Edmund:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A modern portrait of Saint Edmund, king and martyr, in Saint Edmund’s Church, Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 4, Saturday 28 December 2024, The Holy Innocents

The Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me … ‘four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree’.

This is the fourth day of Christmas and today the church calendar remembers the Holy Innocents. The eight days of Hanukkah continue, and this is the Sabbath in Hanukkah, known as Shabbat Mikets. 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 detail from The Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)


Matthew 2: 13-18 (NRSVA):

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

A detail from the Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Christian interpretation of the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ often sees the four colly birds as figurative representations of the four evangelists or Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

It is theologically important to remind ourselves in the days after Christmas Day of the important link between the Incarnation and bearing witness to the Resurrection faith.

Saint Stephen’s Day on Friday (26 December), Holy Innocents’ Day today (28 December), and the commemoration of Thomas à Beckett, usually on 29 December, are reminders that Christmas, far from being surrounded by sanitised images of the crib, angels and wise men, is followed by martyrdom and violence. Close on the joy of Christmas comes the cost of following Christ. A popular expression, derived from William Penn, says: ‘No Cross, No Crown.’

The Church Calendar today (28 December) recalls the massacre of the Holy Innocents, who are sometimes revered as the first Christian martyrs. The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the feast on 29 December.

These dates have nothing to do with the chronological order of the event. Instead, the feast is kept within the octave of Christmas because the Holy Innocents gave their lives for the new-born Saviour. Saint Stephen the first martyr (martyr by will, love and blood, 26 December), Saint John the Evangelist (27 December, martyr by will and love), and these first flowers of the Church (martyrs by blood alone) accompany the Christ Child entering this world on Christmas Day.

This commemoration first appears as a feast of the western church at the end of the fifth century, and the earliest commemorations were connected with the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January), bringing together the murder of the Innocents and the visit of the Magi.

The story of the massacre of the Innocents is the biblical narrative of infanticide by King Herod the Great in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 2: 13-18). According to Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem to save him from losing his throne to a new-born king whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi.

In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, the visiting magi from the east arrive in Judea in search of the new-born king of the Jews, having ‘observed his star at its rising’ (Matthew 2: 2). Herod directs them to Bethlehem, and asks them to let him know who this king is when they find him. They find the Christ Child and honour him, but an angel tells them not to alert Herod, and they return home by another way. Meanwhile, Joseph has taken Mary and the child and they have escaped to Egypt.

Saint Matthew’s Gospel provides the only account of the Massacre. This incident is not mentioned in the other three gospels, nor is it mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus, who records Herod’s murder of his own sons. When the Emperor Augustus heard that Herod had ordered the murder of his own sons, he remarked: ‘It is better to be Herod’s pig, than his son.’

Saint Matthew’s story recalls passages in Hosea referring to the exodus, and in Jeremiah referring to the Babylonian exile, and the accounts in Exodus of the birth of Moses and the slaying of the first-born children by Pharaoh.

Estimates of the number of infants at the time in Bethlehem, a town with a total population of about 1,000, would be about 20. But Byzantine liturgy estimated 14,000 Holy Innocents were murdered, while an early Syrian list of saints put the number at 64,000. Coptic sources raise the number to 144,000 and place the event on 29 December.

This morning, as I reflect on the day ahead, my heart is weighed down by the plight of the children caught in war and violence in Gaza, Isreal and Palestine, in Syria and Lebanon, and in Ukraine and Russia, the forgotten child refugees on Greek islands, in Lampedusa and in Calais, in cheap hotels across this land and across Europe, and the child refugees and innocent children soon to be the victims of the appalling decisions about to be made by the incoming Trump regime.

It was distressing, to say the least, to read a report by my former colleague Helena Smith from Athens in the Guardian on Christmas Eve of a refugee ‘children’s emergency’ facing Greece, where the number of unaccompanied minors reaching the country rises and concern grows over a lack of ‘safe zones’ to host them.

Large numbers of children arrived this year (2024) along a new trafficking route from Libya to Crete, prompting NGOs to urge Greek authorities to take emergency measures that would allow children to be transferred to protected shelters or other EU member states.

‘What we are seeing amounts to a children’s emergency of the kind that we haven’t witnessed in years,’ said Sofia Kouvelaki, who heads the Home Project, an organisation that supports refugee and migrant children in Athens.

Ten years after Greece was at the centre of a refugee crisis, when nearly a million EU-bound asylum seekers crossed its borders, child arrivals have doubled this year, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. More than 13,000 minors arrived in Greece by sea in the first 11 months of this year. Landings by unaccompanied and separated children have also risen sharply, from 1,490 in 2023 to approximately 3,000 so far this year.

‘There are a huge number of kids turning up on boats every day and an urgent need for the creation of more safe spaces to house them,’ Sofia Kouvelaki said. Recent arrivals referred to the Home Project included exceptionally young children from Syria and Egypt.

Greece’s migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, predicted last week that pressure on east Mediterranean migration routes to Greece was likely to continue in 2025. By the end of the year, 60,000 people are expected to have entered Greece. Camps on Aegean islands are at full capacity, he said.

Aid groups report hundreds of children on the frontline isles of Samos, Leros and Kos without clothes or shoes and little or no access to essential services. Spending cuts by the Greek government have resulted in fewer protective shelters and about 1,500 unaccompanied children have been forced to fend for themselves throughout Greece. Incidents of violence and abuse have proliferated in overcrowded state-run reception facilities that frequently host children and adults together.

There were shocking reports this month of a teenager from Egypt being gang-raped, beaten and burned at the Malakasa refugee camp outside Athens.

Save the Children and other aid organisations report critical failures in Greece’s reception system, overcrowding in camps and asylum seeker facilities, shortages in basic services, placing children at risk as their asylum requests are put on EU funding is blocked from reaching shelters.

The Greek Council for Refugees and Save the Children report alarming living conditions that minors continue to face in the camps. ‘It is unacceptable that, even now, when so much money has been invested in Greece and we are no longer in crisis mode, that we should be discussing such basic issues,’ says Lefteris Papagiannakis, the director of the Greek Council for Refugees.

Christian CND and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship are coming together this evening to mark Holy Innocents’ Day to pray for peace with an online, half-hour vigil on Zoom at 7 pm with prayers, readings, singing and reflections on all the innocent victims of war and violence, especially children.

‘Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt’ (Matthew 2: 14) … a window in Saint Peter’s Church, Kuching, which opened on Christmas Eve (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 28 December 2024, The Holy Innocents):

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 ‘Love – Advent’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Lopa Mudra Mistry, Presbyter in the Diocese of Calcutta, the Church of North India (CNI).

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 28 December 2024, The Holy Innocents) invites us to pray:

Lord, heal all who are hurt by injustice – mend spirits, wipe tears, comfort with divine love, bring assurance that justice will prevail.

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose children suffered at the hands of Herod,
though they had done no wrong:
by the suffering of your Son
and by the innocence of our lives
frustrate all evil designs
and establish your reign of justice and peace;
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 Jesus Christ,
in your humility you have stooped to share our human life
with the most defenceless of your children:
may we who have received these gifts of your passion
rejoice in celebrating the witness of the Holy Innocents
to the purity of your sacrifice
made once for all upon the cross;
for you are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Collect on the Eve of Christmas I:

Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
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

‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879) by Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920) … a reminder of the stark reality of the hardship and deprivation suffered by a family on the run (Museum of Fine Arts Boston)

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

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 21, Thursday 21 November 2024

‘As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it’ (Luke 19: 42) … the city of Jerusalem depicted on a tile in a restaurant in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent, and this week began with the Second Sunday before Advent.

The long odyssey back from Kuching was completed yesterday when we arrived back in in Stony Stratford, having travelled through Singapore, Paris and Birmingham.

Before the day begins, before we begin to sort out matters at home that have been left unattended since mid-October, I am taking some quiet time early 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.

‘As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it’ (Luke 19: 41) … ‘The Holy City,’ a batik by Thetis Blacker in the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 19: 41-44 (NRSVA):

41 As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. 44 They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

‘As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it’ (Luke 1941: 11) … Jerusalem in bright lights in Jerusalem Restaurant in Camden Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 19: 41-44) continues the apocalyptic themes found in our readings as we prepare for the coming of Christ as Christ the King and as the Word made Flesh.

In the Gospel reading on Sunday (Mark 13: 1-8), as Jesus was coming out of the Temple in Jerusalem, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

From there, Jesus and the disciples moved on to the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, where, in another apocalyptic saying, Jesus told the disciples, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.’

Now, in the Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 19: 41-44), as Jesus looks over Jerusalem, he weeps over the city, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

Like Sunday’s readings, we seem to be living in days when, in the wake of Trump’s election, we ‘hear of wars and rumours of wars’. It is so very easy to alarmed, worrying about the days are to come, and the potential for nation to rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Doubtless, in the months to come, there will be the equivalent of earthquakes in many places, and the equivalent of famines: a dearth or famine of public compassion, political decency, honesty and morality and diplomatic sense and wisdom.

It is even more disheartening that whole segments of American society that call themselves evangelical Christians have voted for the apocalyptic gloom that is facing the world in the four years to come.

The former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Very Revd Dr Trevor Morrow, recently reposted on Facebook a response to the thinking of many Evangelical Christians, particularly in the US, by his Palestinian friend, the Revd Dr Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour, the Academic Dean of Bethlehem Bible College:

‘The irony for us Palestinian Christians is that evangelicals, with their emphasis on prophecy, have lost the capacity of being prophetic. You want to prove that the Bible is right? You don’t do this by pointing to self-fulfilling prophecy or by pointing to world events as prophecy fulfilment. That is not how you prove that the Bible is right.

‘We prove that the Bible is right by radical obedience to the teachings of Jesus – by proving that Jesus’ teachings actually work and that they can make the world a better place. Let us love our enemies. Forgive those who sin against us. Let us feed the poor. Care for the oppressed. Walk the extra mile. Be inclusive, not exclusive. Turn the other cheek. And maybe, and only maybe then, the world will start to take us seriously and believing in the Bible.’

Reflective words from the Palestinian theologian, the Revd Dr Munther Isaac of Bethlehem

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 21 November 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Coming Together for Climate Justice’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by Linet Musasa, HIV Stigma and Discrimination Officer, Anglican Council of Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 21 November 2024) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for the seven provinces in the region of Africa as they carry out the (PCC Provincial Climate Change Campaign) campaign in 47 dioceses Provincial Climate Change Campaign.

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed
to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament
you give substance to our hope:
bring us at the last
to that fullness of life for which we long;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Additional Collect:

Heavenly Lord,
you long for the world’s salvation:
stir us from apathy,
restrain us from excess
and revive in us new hope
that all creation will one day be healed
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The Revd Dr Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour is also the Academic Dean of Bethlehem Bible College

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 Irish Times’ view on Christmas 2023: Remembering the hope that the season brings

Palestinians walk in the empty square outside the Nativity Church in the Biblical city of Bethlehem ahead of Christmas amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip (The Irish Times)

‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

The lamenting words of the Prophet Jeremiah are an integral part of the first Christmas story. They are quoted in Saint Matthew’s Gospel to describe the weeping of mothers over the massacre of their children by King Herod who felt insecure and threatened in his rule in Judea.

Death, weeping and the inconsolable laments of mothers, and the violence of the capricious and the despotic, have long been part and parcel of the religious, political and social history of the region that has become known as the ‘Holy Land.’ Today, Ramah is a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, on the north-east edges of Jerusalem, but isolated from its neighbours by the Israeli-built ‘security wall’.

The massacre of the innocent children, the Christmas Gospel says, came after the visit of the Wise Men from the East, but only after Joseph had managed to flee from Bethlehem with Mary and the new-born Christ Child, finding refuge in Egypt.

The Christmas cribs and decorations in brightly decorated windows and shopfronts for the past few weeks appear distant and disconnected from that first Christmas story, which is always challenging and discomforting. The only bright light is the star over Bethlehem, but that first Christmas story is one of a family on the move, far from home and without home comforts, unable to find affordable accommodation and eventually forced to flee as refugees.

Indeed, the first Christmas story finds echoes in today’s heartbreaking reality for many on the move: mothers weeping for their children, families grieving for their loved ones, in Gaza, in kibbutzim across southern Israel, throughout the West Bank. The violence that has continued for eleven weeks since October 7th renders meaningless many plans to celebrate Christmas in the coming days in the land of the birth of Christ.

The daily news from the Middle East has made many of us forget the other dark news that continued to engulf the world throughout this year: the continuing war in Ukraine and Russia and the new refugee crisis it has created throughout Europe; accelerating climate change that has made this the hottest year on record; the looming prospect of Donald Trump’s return to office; the rise of the far-right across Europe; and the increasing antipathy towards refugees, expressed in the legislative priorities of the British government, last month’s riots on the streets of inner-city Dublin, the burning of an hotel in Co Galway and low-level but persistent and pernicious protests throughout Ireland.

Those who claim their aggressive and confrontational attitude to refugees and migrants is rooted not in prejudice and intolerance but in traditional values, need to be reminded again that – as a Meme that is popular this year says – the traditional Christmas story rejoices in the birth of a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern, undocumented migrant child.

Those who would say No to the refugees at the door of their local hotel reflect the attitude of that innkeeper who says there is no room for a family on the move and not the values that would be proclaimed by the child born at Christmas. When Donald Trump ranted in New Hampshire last weekend and again in Iowa this week about immigrants coming to the US ‘destroying the fabric’ and ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ bringing crime and disease, he was reflecting the values of a cruel and despotic Herod and repeating words in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and denying the priorities expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.

But the Christmas story remains persistently the story of hope coming into a world racked by violence, of light breaking into a world shrouded in darkness; it is the promise of rest for the sleepless, of peace in times of war and oppression, of sanctuary for refugees on the move, of joy in the midst of sorrow. The hope Christmas brings has inspired some of the greatest works of art in Western culture, from paintings and poetry to song and stained-glass. It is, as the Poet Laureate John Betjeman once said, ‘the most tremendous tale of all.’

Following the death of Shane MacGowan earlier this month, the Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ has a new-found popularity this Christmas and almost became this year’s Christmas No 1. It is a song filled with images of poverty, pathos and despair, and with images of the downward spiral that fills so many with dread at this time of the year: couples and families, the elderly and the lonely, those whose dreams have been shattered and stolen.

Yet, some lyrics in this song also summarise the hopes that so many cling to in the season of Christmas:

I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true.

This full-length Christmas editorial is published in The Irish Times today (23 December 2023)

Morning prayers in Easter with USPG: (20) 28 April 2023

The Bethlehem Chapel in the Old Town in Prague is closely linked with Jan Hus and the Bohemian Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

We are still in the season of Easter, and this is the Third Week of Easter. Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship commemorates Peter Chanel, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr (1841).

Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection. Following our visit to Prague earlier this month, I am reflecting each morning this week in these ways:

1, Short reflections on a church in Prague;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Inside the Bethlehem Chapel in the Old Town in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The Bethlehem Chapel, Prague:

The Bethlehem Chapel (Betlémská kaple) is a mediaeval chapel in the Old Town of Prague, and is closely linked with the origins of the Bohemian Reformation, especially with the Czech reformer Jan Hus (1370-1415).

The chapel was named after the Holy Innocents, massacred in Bethlehem by Herod the Great in his attempt to kill the new-born Christ Child (see Matthew 2: 13-18).

The Bethlehem Chapel was founded in Prague in 1391 by Wenceslas Kříž ‘the Merchant’ and John of Milheim. The only language used in sermons in the chapel was the Czech vernacular, breaking with German domination of the mediaeval Bohemian Church.

Bethlehem Chapel was founded in 1391 in Prague by a shopkeeper Jan Kříž and a courtier Hanuš of Műhlheim. Kříž donated a garden of about 800 sq m for building the chapel. The land included a well, and a cottage and acellar that later became the preacher’s and the custodian’s house. The front part of Kříž’s house, which fronts Dominikánská Street, now Husova Street, was used to establish a student college called Nazareth.

Bethlehem was only ever a chapel and was never officially called a church, although it could hold 3,000 people. Indeed, the chapel was withing the boundaries of the Parish of Saint Philip and Saint James, and Hanuš of Milheim paid the rector of that church 90 grossi in compensation.

In the Bethlehem Chapel, ideas found expression that previously then were only heard in debate at Charles University. Jan Hus became the preacher in the chapel in March 1402, and his sermons addressed many of the questions raised by Milič of Kroměříž, Matěj of Janov and the English reformer John Wyclif.

His sermons drew large numbers, and Queen Sophia, the wife of King Wenceslas IV, attended some of them. It is said that she would sit in an oratory built by Kříž by the east wall of the chapel and connected by a passageway to his house.

After the excommunication of Hus in 1412, the Pope ordered the Bethlehem Chapel to be pulled down, although this action was rejected by the Czech majority on the Old Town council.

Hus served in the Bethlehem Chapel until 1412, when he was excommunicated and forced to leave Prague. He was executed in 1415. Hus’s successor, Jakoubek of Stříbro, introduced Communion in both kinds.

The chapel was transferred by the university in the 17th century to the Jesuits, who reinstated Catholic liturgy. The Jesuits were expelled in 1773, the Bethlehem Chapel was linked with Saint Giles Church for a short time, and it then became the property of the state. It fell into disrepair, dangerous cracks appeared, and there was a danger of the vault falling.

The chapel was partly demolished in 1786, and the surviving masonry was incorporated into an apartment building that was built in 1836-1837 and that stood until 1949.

After World War II, the chapel was restored to its state at the time of Hus, using all the surviving materials and engravings. Most of the exterior walls and a small portion of the pulpit date back to the mediaeval chapel.

The renovated Bethlehem Chapel, including the house of the preachers, reopened to the public as a National Cultural Monument in 1954. The wall paintings are largely from Hus’s time there, and the text below is taken from his work De sex erroribus, and contrast the poverty of Christ with the riches of the Church in Hus’s time.

In 1993, the Bethlehem Chapel became the ceremonial hall of the Czech Technical University in Prague, which continues to maintain the chapel. It is the venue for graduations and an annual ecumenical meeting takes here on the anniversary of the execution of Jan Hus on 6 July 1415. The chapel and house of the preachers are open to the public.

Queen Sophia, the wife of King Wenceslas IV, attended some of the sermons by Jan Hus in the Bethlehem Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

John 6: 52-59 (NRSVA):

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ 53 So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.’ 59 He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

The Bethlehem Chapel ibcludes an exhibition on the life of Jan Hus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Today’s Prayer:

The theme this week in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Praying for Peace.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Anglican Chaplain in Warsaw, Poland, the Revd David Brown, who reflected on peace in the light of the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace earlier this week.

The USPG Prayer invites us to pray this morning (Friday 28 April 2023):

Let us pray for families hosting refugees. May their homes be a place of refuge and warmth and may host and hosted be recipients of grace and blessing.

Collect:

Almighty Father,
who in your great mercy gladdened the disciples
with the sight of the risen Lord:
give us such knowledge of his presence with us,
that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life
and serve you continually in righteousness and truth;
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.

Post Communion:

Living God,
your Son made himself known to his disciples
in the breaking of bread:
open the eyes of our faith,
that we may see him in all his redeeming work;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The well in the Bethlehem Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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 Bethlehem Chapel was restored after World War II and reopened to the public in 1954 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying in Advent with USPG: 22, Sunday 20 December 2020

The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem … ‘Christians … have maintained this site as a place of pilgrimage’ and ‘honour it as a living place of worship’ (Photograph: Neil Ward / Wikipedia)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout Advent and Christmas this year, I am using the Prayer Diary of the Anglican Mission Agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) for my morning reflections each day, and the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced at Lichfield Cathedral for my prayers and reflections each evening.

I am one of the contributors to the current USPG Diary, Pray with the World Church, introducing the theme of peace and trust next week.

Today (20 December 2020) is the Fourth Sunday of Sunday, and I am planning later this morning to celebrate the Parish Eucharist in Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry (11:30 a.m.) and to lead a Carol Service this afternoon in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (3 p.m.).

Before the day gets busy, I am taking a little time this morning for my own personal prayer, reflection and Scripture reading.

The theme of the USPG Prayer Diary this week (20 to 26 December 2020) is ‘Christmas in the Holy Land.’

Introducing this week’s theme, the Very Revd Canon Richard Sewell, Dean of Saint George’s College, Jerusalem, writes:

‘Christmas in the Holy Land is a shout of joy and a cry of pain. Christians of all denominations take the opportunity to come out of the shadows and show the wider community that though they are small in number they are present, and they have something to share.

‘From early in December until late in January, Christmas lights bedeck churches, Christian schools and homes. In Israel and Palestine these are not simply brightening the dark nights as they might do in more secular parts of the world; they do really show that the light of Christ has come and is coming into the world.

‘Christians here are aware that the world turns its eyes towards Bethlehem on 24 December. The Basilica of the Nativity and its celebrations become an opportunity to show that Christians who have maintained this site as a place of pilgrimage for many centuries also honour it as a living place of worship.

‘At Christmas, the joy to the world is declared but a cry of pain of the current suffering of Palestinians’ thwarted hopes can also be perceived. Christians everywhere should not celebrate the former without remembering the latter.’

Sunday 20 December 2020 (Fourth Sunday of Advent):

Lord, thank you for seeing us through a very strange year.
As we celebrate the birth of your son Jesus Christ,
may we strive to live at peace with each other.

The Collect of the Day (Advent IV):

God our redeemer,
who prepared the blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
Grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Advent Collect:

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Luke 1: 26-38 (NRSVA):

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 34 Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ 35 The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.’ 38 Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

Continued tomorrow

Yesterday’s morning reflection

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

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral: 17, Tuesday 15 December 2020

‘Our Lady who Brings Down Walls’ ... a display at the Elias Icon Exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral some years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout Advent and Christmas this year, I am using the Prayer Diary of the Anglican Mission Agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) for my morning reflections each day, and the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced at Lichfield Cathedral for my prayers and reflections each evening.

Advent is the Church’s mindful antidote to some of the diversion and consumerism of a modern Christmas. It prepares us to encounter Christ again in his joy and humility.

In ‘The Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar 2020,’ the Dean and community at Lichfield Cathedral are inviting us to light our Advent candle each day as we read the Bible and join in prayer.

This calendar is for everyone who uses the Cathedral website, for all the Cathedral community, and for people you want to send it to and invite to share in the daily devotional exercise.

This is a simple prayer and bible-reading exercise to help us to mark the Advent Season as a time of preparation for the coming of Christ.

It is designed to take us on a journey, looking back to John the Baptist and Mary the Mother of Jesus; looking out into the world today, into our own hearts and experience; outwards again to Jesus Christ as he encounters us in life today and in his promise to be with us always.

You can download the calendar HERE.

The community at Lichfield Cathedral offers a number of suggestions on how to use this calendar:

● Set aside 5-15 minutes every day.

● Buy or use a special candle to light each day as you read and pray through the suggestions on the calendar.

● Try to ‘eat simply’ – one day each week try going without so many calories or too much rich food, just have enough.

● Try to donate to a charity working with the homeless or the people of Bethlehem.

● Try to pray through what you see and notice going on around you in people, the media and nature.

In addition, the Dean and clergy of Lichfield Cathedral are holding three vigils on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, 13, 14 and 15 December, from 7 to 9 p.m. each evening, ending with Compline. There is a variety of places to stop, think, look, and pray, with places to sit, stand, kneel or rest. The focus this evening (15 December) is ‘Out of Bethlehem – A Cry.’

‘This is a special occasion to reflect on today’s City of Bethlehem and support its people. As we celebrate the place of Jesus’s birth each year, we reflect this year on today’s Bethlehemites. The Covid-19 crisis has taken its toll – record numbers of deaths, high levels of infection and total economic collapse, all aggravated by the failure to achieve a peaceful settlement for the Palestinian people. They live surrounded by a 28 ft high security/separation wall and under Israeli occupation and military law.’

The cathedral is inviting visitors to light bees wax candles made in Bethlehem, smell incense from Jerusalem, watch some short video clips in the Chapter House, listen to Palestinian music, meditate on pictures sent from the Bethlehem Iconographers, pray in front of the icon written on the separation walls, ‘Our Lady who brings down Walls,’ and read and endorse the Palestinian Church Leaders’ appeal to the world Church not to forget the people of Palestine and Israel.

Tuesday 15 December 2020:

Read Saint Matthew 21: 28-32 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said,] 28 ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” 29 He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

Reflection:

How do we do good even when we don’t want to or find it burdensome? Can the examples of others help? Think about and give thanks for those examples.

Continued tomorrow

Yesterday’s evening reflection

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

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral: 10, Tuesday 8 December 2020

An icon of the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-28) in Lichfield Cathedral, written by Ian Knowles, Lee Harvey and Hanna Ward, with students at the Bethlehem Icon Centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout Advent and Christmas this year, I am using the Prayer Diary of the Anglican Mission Agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) for my morning reflections each day, and the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced at Lichfield Cathedral for my prayers and reflections each evening.

Advent is the Church’s mindful antidote to some of the diversion and consumerism of a modern Christmas. It prepares us to encounter Christ again in his joy and humility.

In ‘The Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar 2020,’ the Dean and community at Lichfield Cathedral are inviting us to light our Advent candle each day as we read the Bible and join in prayer.

This calendar is for everyone who uses the Cathedral website, for all the Cathedral community, and for people you want to send it to and invite to share in the daily devotional exercise.

This is a simple prayer and bible-reading exercise to help us to mark the Advent Season as a time of preparation for the coming of Christ.

It is designed to take us on a journey, looking back to John the Baptist and Mary the Mother of Jesus; looking out into the world today, into our own hearts and experience; outwards again to Jesus Christ as he encounters us in life today and in his promise to be with us always.

You can download the calendar HERE.

The community at Lichfield Cathedral offers a number of suggestions on how to use this calendar:

● Set aside 5-15 minutes every day.

● Buy or use a special candle to light each day as you read and pray through the suggestions on the calendar.

● Try to ‘eat simply’ – one day each week try going without so many calories or too much rich food, just have enough.

● Try to donate to a charity working with the homeless or the people of Bethlehem.

● Try to pray through what you see and notice going on around you in people, the media and nature.

Tuesday 8 December 2020 (Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary):

Read Saint Luke 1: 26-28:.

Luke 1: 26-28 (NRSVA):

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’

Reflection:

Today pray for the people of Bethlehem, walled-in and isolated. Reflecting on Mary, how can we make her pattern of trust and surrender our own?

Continued tomorrow

Yesterday’s evening reflection

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 missed opportunity this week to visit three church sites in London

The Lamb of God and the Cross of Saint George … reminders of the Knights Templar on the Victoria Embankment in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Although I spent much of the past two days (18-19 November 2020) at a meeting of the trustees of the Anglican USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), responses to the pandemic mean the meeting took place virtually, hosted by Zoom, and I missed a planned overnight stay in London.

I have used these regular visits to London as an opportunity before or after meetings to visit buildings and sites of historical, architectural and ecclesiastical interest.

Had it been possible to attend the meeting in person, I had plans to visit one, if not all, of three sites I had noticed on working visits to London earlier this year, when I thought each was worth loser attention: Middle Temple and the Temple Church, off the Victoria Embankment; the site of the first Bethlehem Hospital, close to Liverpool Street Station; and the site of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, close to Bevis Marks Synagogue.

Walking along Victoria Embankment after visits to the House of Lords and Westminster Abbey earlier this year, I noticed on the gate of the Middle Temple that the emblem of Middle Temple consists of the Lamb of God with a flag bearing the Saint George’s Cross. This symbol appears in the centre of the Inn’s coat of arms, against a background consisting of the same cross.

Both the cross and the Lamb of God with the flag were symbols of the Knights Templar, and I wondered whether there were any links between the Knights Templar of Middle Temple and the Knights Templar who had a house and tower on the site of Saint Mary’s Church in Askeaton.

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers. The others are the Inner Temple, Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn.

Middle Temple is in the Temple area of London, near the Royal Courts of Justice and within the City of London. But Middle Temple and the Inner Temple are among the few remaining liberties in London. The Middle Temple is an independent extra-parochial area, outside the area of the City of London Corporation, and it is, in effect, its own local authority. It also stands outside the ecclesiastical or diocesan jurisdiction of the Bishop of London.

Middle Temple behaves as an independent enclave. Its rights as a local council are not defined by an act of parliament or legislation but are set out in a quasi-secretive decree issued by the Privy Council known as the Temples Order 1971.

In all, Middle Temple owns 43 buildings, many of them listed buildings. The ones in the Temple itself are still held under a grant from James I in 1606, but others were bought later. Some buildings are modern, replacing ones destroyed in the Blitz, but others date back to the 16th century. Middle Temple is jointly responsible with the Inner Temple for the Temple Church.

These anomalies in the church and local government organisation, date back to the 12th and early 13th centuries, when the clergy were the primary teachers of law in the City of London, and the houses of the Knights Templar in 13th and 14th centuries.

A papal bull in 1218 prohibited the clergy from practising in the secular courts, and law began to be practised and taught by laymen. To protect their schools from competition, Henry II and later Henry III issued proclamations that prohibited teaching civil law within the City of London. The common law lawyers moved to Holborn, where it was easy to get to the law courts at Westminster Hall and yet just outside the City. They were based in guilds, which in time became the inns of court.

Middle Temple is the west part of The Temple, the headquarters of the Knights Templar until they were dissolved in 1312. There have been lawyers in the Temple since 1320, when they were tenants of the Earl of Lancaster, who had held the Temple since 1315. The Temple later belonged to the Knights Hospitaller.

The Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Knights of Rhodes and later the Knights of Malta, leased the premises at the Temple to the lawyers again in 1346. The east part, which would became Inner Temple, was leased to lawyers from Thavie’s Inn, an Inn of Chancery in Holborn; the west part was leased to lawyers from Saint George’s Inn. This may explain why the Cross of Saint George remains part of the coat-of-arms of Middle Temple today.

After Henry VIII confiscated the Temple from the Knights Hospitaller in 1540, each Inn continued to hold its share of the Temple as tenants of the Crown for £10 a year. James I granted the Temple to them jointly in 1608. Much of Middle Temple was destroyed in a fire in 1678 that caused more damage to the Inn than the Great Fire of 1666.

The Inns continued as colleges for educating lawyers until 1852. They continue to provide education and support in areas such as advocacy and ethics for students, pupil barristers and new barristers. Most of the Inn is occupied by barristers’ offices, known as chambers.

The 400th anniversary of James I’s charter was celebrated in 2008 when Elizabeth II issued new letters patent confirming the original grant.

The Temple Church, between Fleet Street and the River Thames, was built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters and was consecrated by Heraclius, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, in 1185.

In the reign of King John (1199-1216), the Temple served as the royal treasury, with the Knights Templar in a role equivalent in those days of international bankers. It is a round church, a common design feature for Templar churches. It was heavily damaged by German bombing during World War II and has since been restored and rebuilt.

The Temple Church remains a ‘Royal Peculiar’ or extra-diocesan church of the Inner and Middle Temples. The church always has two clergy, called the ‘Master of the Temple’ and the ‘Reader of the Temple.’ The title of the Master of the Temple recalls the title of the head of the Knights Templar.

The Master of the Temple is appointed by the Crown. The church is a peculiar rather than a private chapel and it is outside any episcopal or diocesan jurisdiction. The present Master of the Temple, the Revd Robin Griffith-Jones, was appointed in 1999. His official title is the ‘Reverend and Valiant Master of the Temple.’

Under the Temples Order 1971, the Under Treasurer of the Middle Temple and the Sub-Treasurer of the Inner Temple were defined as local authorities with the same powers and responsibilities as Inner London boroughs except for housing. Some of those powers and responsibilities are delegated on a day-to-day basis to the City of London.

The area around the Temple Church is known as the Temple. It gives its name to Temple Bar, an ornamental processional gateway that once stood in the middle of Fleet Street, and the Temple Underground station nearby.

The ‘Site of the First Bethlehem Hospital 1247-1676’ near Liverpool Street Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

A plaque at Liverpool Street station marks the ‘Site of the First Bethlehem Hospital 1247-1676.’

A priory for the Order of the Star of Bethlehem was built on Bishopsgate at Liverpool Street in 1247, when Simon FitzMary, Alderman and Sheriff, gave his land and houses to the Latin Bishop of Bethlehem, the Italian Goffredo de Prefetti, to found the Priory of Saint Mary of Bethlehem north of Saint Botolph’s Church.

A century later, the priory started admitting patients in 1357. This was probably the world’s first institution to specialise in mental illness. But it developed into a horrible place, known as Bedlam, dedicated to the commitment of the insane.

By 1403, ‘lunatic’ patients formed the majority of the patients at the Bethlehem, Bethlem or Bedlam, and so England’s first and most infamous mental hospital was born.

After the suppression of monastic houses at the Reformation, the Priory of Saint Mary of Bethlehem became the Bethlehem Hospital for Lunatics.

Bedlam continued to function as a psychiatric hospital, although many of the patients in fact suffered from epilepsy, learning disabilities and dementia. Inside, the squalid single-storey building housed 12 cells, a kitchen, staff accommodation and an exercise yard, where inmates were manacled and chained – and treated as a tourist attraction by Londoners who paid a penny to stare at them.

The treatment of patients, usually poor, included restraint, dousing with water, beatings and isolation.

Those buried at Bedlam include Robert Lockyer, a young soldier in Cromwell’s army executed for his part in the Bishopsgate mutiny; John Lilburne, a leading ‘Leveller’ during the English Civil Wars; Lodowicke Muggleton, a controversial religious writer and founder of the Muggletonians; and Dr John Lambe, a notorious adviser to the Duke of Buckingham, stoned to death by an angry mob after allegations of black magic and rape.

The hospital moved to a site at London Wall in 1676, and it this building was adorned with the Cibber statues of Raving and Melancholy Madness.

Bedlam moved again in 1815 to the Saint George’s Fields site in Southwark, which at the time was owned by the City of London. Then, in 1930, it moved out to a site near Beckenham, and the Southwark buildings became the Imperial War Museum.

The ‘Site of the Priory of the Holy Trinity Founded 1108’ near Bevis Marks Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The Priory of the Holy Trinity, also known as Christchurch Aldgate, was founded for the Austin canons or Black Canons ca 1108 by Queen Matilda, wife of King Henry I. She was advised and helped in the foundation by Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The house was founded with clergy from Saint Botolph’s Priory, Colchester, and the first prior, Norman, was the queen’s confessor. By 1115, the liberty of East Smithfield passed to the Church of Holy Trinity within Aldgate by 1115, and the prior was ex officio an Alderman of London.

Two of Queen Matilda’s children were buried in the Priory, which had a reputation as a centre of learning.

The priory was dissolved in 1552 at the dissolution of monastic houses during the Reformation, and its buildings and lands were given or sold, to favoured courtiers and City merchants.

None of the buildings survives today, apart from some pointed arches inside as office building on the corner of Aldgate and Mitre Street. Mitre Street follows roughly the line of the nave of the priory church, while Mitre Square corresponds roughly to the former cloister.

A plaque on a wall tells the story of Holy Trinity Priory … but nothing remains of the priory buildings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Finding inspiration in two two cathedral crosses in Lichfield and Peterborough

‘If we have died with him, we will also live with him’ (II Timothy 2: 11) … Frank Roper’s ‘Crucifixion’ in the centre of the nave of Peterborough Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

I spent a lot of time this week preparing preaching and liturgical resources to go online next Monday [7 October 2019] as resources for priests and readers preparing for the following Sunday [13 October 2019].

In these weekly postings, I also try to provide appropriate illustrations relevant to each reading that can be used for PowerPoint presentations, service sheets and in parish notices and newsletters.

To illustrate the epistle reading for Sunday week, I chose the verse ‘If we have died with him, we will also live with him’ (II Timothy 2: 11), and used photographs of two Cathedral crosses that have caught my imagination this year.

The first cross is Frank Roper’s ‘Crucifixion’ in Peterborough Cathedral, where it is suspended from the ceiling in the centre of the nave, where it has a commanding and striking presence behind the main nave altar platform.

This cross is 15 ft high and weighs more than half a ton. The wooden cross, painted red with intricate interwoven gold decoration on the back, carries a more than life-size crucified Christ.

The image changes depending on the angle from which it is viewed. From one point, the figure is full and enfleshed; from another, he is thin and emaciated, almost flattened. His eyes are hollow, but again how these appear depends on where you are standing. At times they have a presence and a depth as if you are gazing through them into the mystery of the divine, an effect created by the lozenge shapes in the roof being visible through the eye openings.

Frank Roper (1914-2000) was a versatile and prolific sculptor. He became the vice-principal at Cardiff College of Art in 1947, and he stayed there until he retired in 1973.

His work included surreal beasts, fantastical machines and important church commissions, including his lettered panel for the tomb of Bede at Durham Cathedral (1970), the lady chapel screen at Saint David’s Cathedral, Pembrokeshire (1973) and his Crucifixion at Peterborough Cathedral (1974).

In the 1950s Frank Roper became interested in casting aluminium and a number of his pieces use gilding. Perhaps his most exciting period was his collaboration through the 1960s with the architect George Pace, which resulted in a series of commissions for the bombed Llandaff Cathedral, alongside Jacob Epstein and John Piper. He was the subject of two BBC films, Mind Into Metal (1964), and a programme in the documentary series Look, Stranger (1976).

From the 1960s, he collaborated with George Pace, who was also the cathedral architect in Peterborough, and his Crucifix there is the result of their working together.

He has been described as ‘a man of entrancing contradictions: a modernist whose work absorbed tradition, deeply conservative but a vivid individualist.’ These traits can be seen in his Crucifix in the central position in the nave of Peterborough Cathedral.

Ian Black, writing in the Peterborough Cathedral Friends’ Journal in 2016, says the Crucifix was the gift of Revd William Elborne, a long-standing friend of the cathedral, in memory of his wife, Gwendoline Constance Edith Elborne. At the service of dedication on 13 September 1975 the choir sang an ‘Obsecration before the Crucifix’, set to music by the donor.

When the Crucifix was first proposed in 1972, Ian Black recalls, William Elborne was opposed to a ‘hanging rood.’ George Pace was sent to discuss it with him, and he came around to the idea.

At first, it seem, the plan was to position the cross on the East side of the crossing. This did not appeal to the chapter and its present location was agreed after experiments with a full-size cardboard model. The cost rose from the original estimate of £1,500 in 1973 to £2,505 a year later.

Later, William Elborne’s cremated ashes were buried in a vault beneath the Crucifix with an inscribed ledger stone.

The Latin phrase on the Crucifix reads: Stat Crux Dum Volvitur Orbis, ‘The Cross stands still while the world turns.’ This the motto of the Carthusian Order, meaning the cross is the still and static place while the world is turbulent and revolving.

The new icon cross in Lichfield Cathedral, ‘Christ Crucified, Risen and Lord of All,’ hangs at the east end of the nave, suspended from the roof above the nave altar. It was dedicated by Bishop Michael Ipgrave of Lichfield last year on the Feast of the Holy Cross [14 September 2018].

The Lichfield icon cross is the work of the icon writer Ian Knowles and the associate staff members, Lee Harvey and Hanna Ward, both of whom teach from time to time at the Bethlehem Icon School and Lichfield Cathedral supported the Icon School by facilitating the participation of the students.

The work was completed by Ian Knowles, Lee Harvey and Hanna Ward, and the students under their close supervision. Ian Knowles says, ‘I feel this is my most important work, apart for the icon of Our Lady Who Brings Down Walls.’

This icon completes a triptych of icons in Lichfield Cathedral. It was planned as the cathedral’s lasting memorial to the centenary of the end of World War I and an invitation for all to appreciate the path through sin, violence and destructiveness that Christ has taken to redeem our evil and win us the everlasting peace and life of God’s Kingdom.

The icon measures 3 metres x 2.55 metres and takes its inspiration from the shape of the Saint Chad Cross. The only adaptation is the lengthening and broadening of the central panels.

The cross depicts the dying and rising of Christ, the paschal mystery, with two faces. On the west-facing panel, we see Christ nailed to the Cross. The cross is blossoming, symbolising the new beginning Christ’s death wins for the world. From his side, water and blood flow, streams of new life. We think of the water of re-birth in baptism and the blood of his body brought to us by the wine of the Eucharist.

The east-facing panel depicts the Risen Christ, his face serene, one hand raised in blessing, the other holding the Gospels, the good news he sends out into the world through the Holy Spirit.

‘Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel’ (II Timothy 2: 8) … one side of the icon cross in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)