Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 101, Monday 18 August 2025

‘He went away grieving, for he had many possessions’ (Matthew 19: 22) … inside an antiques shop in the old town in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IX, 17 August 2025).

Before today begins, 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.

‘Give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Matthew 19: 21) … old coins in a tin box outside an antiques shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 19: 16-22 (NRSVA):

16 Then someone came to him and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ 17 And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ 18 He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; 19 Honour your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 20 The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these; what do I still lack?’ 21 Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ 22 When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

‘Sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Matthew 19: 21) … a market stall in Blackrock, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The man who comes to Jesus for advice in this morning’s Gospel reading is first of all described as ‘someone’ or merely ‘one’ (εἷς). Later, in verses 20 and 22, he is a νεανίσκος (neanískos), a young man, a man in the early stages of adult life, even a young lad.

Earlier in this chapter, in Saturday’s reading (Matthew 19: 13-15), we came across the word παιδία (padía), a term of endearment, ‘my dear children,’ that is also used alongside a similar word τεκνία (teknía) in I John as a term of familiar address or endearment for adult members of the church – our equivalent today of men addressing their friends as ‘lads’, ‘boys’ or ‘guys’. This informed my reflection on Saturday, inspired by the song Τα Παιδιά του Πειραιά (Ta Pediá tou Pireá), ‘The Children of Piraeus’, sung by Melina Mercouri in the film Never on Sunday (1960).

But, somehow, tradition has raised the young man in this morning’s Gospel reading to the status of the ‘rich young man’ or even a ‘rich young ruler’. The word ‘rich’ is used nowhere in the original text, although we are told ‘he had many possessions’ (verse 22).

He has many possessions, but he knows this is not enough. He wants to possess eternal life, and comes to Jesus for advice.

Jesus advises him to keep the commandments, and then cites just five of the Ten Commandments, and in an apparently random order: you shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honour your father and mother.’ These are the social commandments, omitting the commandment not to covet, and none of the commandments about our relationship with God are cited.

Jesus then adds a commandment that is not in the Ten Commandments: ‘also, you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’

This too is the summation of Leviticus 19, the chapter that instructs the people on how to ‘be holy.’ Leviticus 19 begins with the commandment, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (19: 2), and then offers a list of laws that mainly have to do with relationships, from honouring parents (19: 3) to caring for the foreigners who live in the land (19: 33-34).

To ‘be holy,’ then, has to do with treating other people with justice and mercy, caring for the poor (19: 9-10), being honest (19: 11-13, 35-36), having respect for elders (19: 32), and, in general, acting with moral and ethical integrity.

At the heart of these laws is the commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (19: 18). It is part of a passage (19: 17-18) that instructs the people not to hate one another, not to take revenge or bear a grudge against one another, but to love one another. This verse and 14 other verses in this chapter in Leviticus end with the refrain of the Holiness Code: ‘I am the Lord.’

The point of the chapter seems to be that because the Lord is holy, and because humans are made in the image of God, those who are called to emulate God’s holiness are to do so by acting with mercy and love toward our fellow humans.

A very similar commandment is at the end of the chapter, in 19: 34: ‘The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’

The commandment to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ is not to be understood, then, as applying only to those we see as being like us. We are also commanded to love the ‘alien,’ that is, the foreigner or outsider in our midst.

The parable of the Good Samaritan – which begins by quoting Leviticus 19: 18 and the lawyer’s question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ – makes much the same point (see Luke 10: 25-37).

Leviticus 19: 18 is, of course, the verse Jesus cites when he advises the ‘rich young man’ and he cites it again later as the second part of the greatest commandment.

A lawyer asks Jesus, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ And Jesus replies: ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 22: 34-40).

In this morning’s reading, the young man says he has kept all these commandments. Jesus then says to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this word, ‘he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’

Saint John of the Cross has written: ‘In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human success, but rather on how much we have loved.’

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a similar vein in The Cost of Discipleship: ‘Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.’

‘In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human success, but rather on how much we have loved’ (Saint John of the Cross)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 18 August 2025):

The theme this week (17 to 23 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Tell the Full Story’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced yesterday with reflections from Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 18 August 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we lift up all who suffered through the transatlantic trade, and their descendants' facing struggles with identity, agency, health, and racism. May they find healing, justice, and strength in you.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy 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:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
revive your Church in our day,
and make her holy, strong and faithful,
for your glory’s sake
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Ten Commandments on the Aron haKodesh carved for the former Walworth Road Synagogue, Dublin, by Isaac Kernoff, father of the artist Harry Kernoff (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 29, Monday 3 March 2025

‘Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Mark 10: 21) … torn and ragged banknotes in a tin box outside an antiques shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are still in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Yesterday was the Sunday before Lent (2 March 2025), and Lent begins the day after tomorrow, Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025).

Before this day begins though, 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.

‘Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Mark 10: 21) … a market stall in Blackrock, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 17-27 (NRSVA):

17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 18 Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother”.’ 20 He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ 21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ 27 Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’

‘Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Mark 10: 21) … in the market in Goreme in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading (Mark 10: 17-27), Christ continues to teach what it means to follow him. A man runs up to Jesus, and falls on his kneels as if in adoration, or like a servant before a master. It is an unusual act of piety, for people stood to pray at the time. But we came across a similar posture a few weeks ago when the Syro-Phoenician woman approached Jesus in Tyre (Mark 7: 24-30, 11 February 2025).

Christ’s response is cautious. Rabbis were not usually addressed as good, for only God is good.

When Christ puts some of the Ten Commandments to this man, the man insists that since his youth he has observed those commandments dealing with our relationships with others, those commandments that prohibit murder, adultery, theft, lying and fraud, and that call on us to honour parents, the elderly. From calling Christ ‘Good Teacher,’ the man has moved quickly to asserting that he himself is good, and a good example.

The decalogue is often divided into the four ‘theological’ commandments, which are not a matter for debate or interpretation among right-thinking Jews at that time, and the six ‘ethical’ commandments (see Exodus 20), which become matters for interpretation.

However, as Ched Myers points out in one of his commentaries on Saint Mark’s Gospel (Say to this Mountain, St Paul’s), a closer look at the list of the second grouping of commandments shows that Jesus replaces the last commandment – ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour’ (Exodus 20: 17) – with the words ‘You shall not defraud.’

This Levitical censure appears in a part of the Torah that is concerned with socio-economic behaviour: ‘You shall not defraud your neighbour; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning’ (Leviticus 19: 13).

With this fresh listing of the commandments, is Jesus (a) challenging the man to see whether he really knows the Ten Commandments; or (b) showing he is more interested in understanding how this man has acquired his riches and wealth than in accepting his claims to piety at face value?

Why did the man slink away? Because he had much property (verse 22).

What acts as a ball and chain that holds us back in our lives today, leaving us not fully free to follow Jesus? I may not have much property. But is there something else that I need to shed, in my attitudes, values, habits, behaviour, priorities, use of time, commitment or lack of commitment?

In his compassion, Christ sees this man’s weakness. He has emphasised his relationship with others. But is this founded on his desire for personal salvation, some sort of personal version of the concept of ‘karma.’

What about his relationship with God? Does he trust in God because God is God, rather than because of what God can do for him?

The man asks how he may inherit eternal life. Is eternal life something to be inherited, like wealth and social status or place in society? In that society, religion was inherited rather than a matter of personal choice – one was born a Jew, but few people ever became Jews. Is eternal life to be inherited, like religious identity and social class?

Are we in danger at times in thinking that we are entitled to our place in the Kingdom of God? And, in our behaviour, as well as in our prayers, do we let God know, and others know, this?

Christ comes to the quick when he points out that this young man puts his trust in his own piety and wealth, in his achievements, but wealth stands in the way of his relationship with God.

So, Christ tests the man. If he truly loves the poor, he will make a connection between loving God and loving others. The man is shocked and makes quick his departure. In that time, and even for many people today, wealth and prosperity are seen as a blessing and signs of God’s favour. But, without them, could this man truly trust in God?

Christ does not say that the rich and the wealthy cannot find salvation. He says that money and riches can hold us back and make it difficult to be true disciples, to enter the kingdom of God. It can be so difficult that, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (verse 25). We cannot save ourselves, but God can save us.

‘You know the commandments’ … ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth’ (Mark 10: 19-20) … the Ten Commandments on carved stones on display in a synagogue in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 3 March 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 ‘The World’s Greatest Leader: Jesus Christ.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by the Right Revd Filomena Tete Estevão, Bishop of Angola.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 3 March 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, we thank you for the example of Jesus, the greatest leader of all, who served with love, humility, and self-sacrifice. Help leaders to follow in his footsteps, seeking not power or prestige, but the wellbeing and flourishing of those they serve.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy God, we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ:
may we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
you know the disorder of our sinful lives:
set straight our crooked hearts,
and bend our wills to love your goodness and your glory
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (Mark 10: 25) … tourists clamber on camels at Achakkar beach near Tangier in Morocco (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 101, Monday 19 August 2024

‘He went away grieving, for he had many possessions’ (Matthew 19: 22) … inside an antiques shop in the old town in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII).

Before today begins, 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.

‘Give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Matthew 19: 21) … old coins in a tin box outside an antiques shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 19: 16-22 (NRSVA):

16 Then someone came to him and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ 17 And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ 18 He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; 19 Honour your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 20 The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these; what do I still lack?’ 21 Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ 22 When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

‘Sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Matthew 19: 21) … a market stall in Blackrock, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The man who comes to Jesus for advice in this morning’s Gospel reading is first of all described as ‘someone’ or merely ‘one’ (εἷς). Later, in verses 20 and 22, he is a νεανίσκος (neanískos), a young man, a man in the early stages of adult life, even a young lad.

Earlier in this chapter, in Saturday’s reading (Matthew 19: 13-15), we came across the word παιδία (padía), a term of endearment, ‘my dear children,’ that is also used alongside a similar word τεκνία (teknía) in I John as a term of familiar address or endearment for adult members of the church – our equivalent today of men addressing their friends as ‘lads’, ‘boys’ or ‘guys’. This informed my reflection on Saturday, inspired by the song Τα Παιδιά του Πειραιά (Ta Pediá tou Pireá), ‘The Children of Piraeus’, sung by Melina Mercouri in the film Never on Sunday (1960).

But, somehow, tradition has raised the young man in this morning’s Gospel reading to the status of the ‘rich young man’ or even a ‘rich young ruler’. The word ‘rich’ is used nowhere in the original text, although we are told ‘he had many possessions’ (verse 22).

He has many possessions, but he knows this is not enough. He wants to possess eternal life, and comes to Jesus for advice.

Jesus advises him to keep the commandments, and then cites just five of the Ten Commandments, and in an apparently random order: you shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honour your father and mother.’ These are the social commandments, omitting the commandment not to covet, and none of the commandments about our relationship with God are cited.

Jesus then adds a commandment that is not in the Ten Commandments: ‘also, you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’

This too is the summation of Leviticus 19, the chapter that instructs the people on how to ‘be holy.’ Leviticus 19 begins with the commandment, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (19: 2), and then offers a list of laws that mainly have to do with relationships, from honouring parents (19: 3) to caring for the foreigners who live in the land (19: 33-34).

To ‘be holy,’ then, has to do with treating other people with justice and mercy, caring for the poor (19: 9-10), being honest (19: 11-13, 35-36), having respect for elders (19: 32), and, in general, acting with moral and ethical integrity.

At the heart of these laws is the commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (19: 18). It is part of a passage (19: 17-18) that instructs the people not to hate one another, not to take revenge or bear a grudge against one another, but to love one another. This verse and 14 other verses in this chapter in Leviticus end with the refrain of the Holiness Code: ‘I am the Lord.’

The point of the chapter seems to be that because the Lord is holy, and because humans are made in the image of God, those who are called to emulate God’s holiness are to do so by acting with mercy and love toward our fellow humans.

A very similar commandment is at the end of the chapter, in 19: 34: ‘The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’

The commandment to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ is not to be understood, then, as applying only to those we see as being like us. We are also commanded to love the ‘alien,’ that is, the foreigner or outsider in our midst.

The parable of the Good Samaritan – which begins by quoting Leviticus 19: 18 and the lawyer’s question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ – makes much the same point (see Luke 10: 25-37).

Leviticus 19: 18 is, of course, the verse Jesus cites when he advises the ‘rich young man’ and he cites it again later as the second part of the greatest commandment.

A lawyer asks Jesus, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ And Jesus replies: ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 22: 34-40).

In this morning’s reading, the young man says he has kept all these commandments. Jesus then says to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this word, ‘he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’

Saint John of the Cross has written: ‘In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human success, but rather on how much we have loved.’

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a similar vein in The Cost of Discipleship: ‘Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.’

‘In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human success, but rather on how much we have loved’ (Saint John of the Cross)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 19 August 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 ‘What price is the Gospel?’ This theme was introduced yesterday day with a programme update from Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 19 August 2024) invites us to pray:

We pray for repentance and reflection by those whose ancestors colonised and enslaved others in the name of mission.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of all mercy,
in this eucharist you have set aside our sins
and given us your healing:
grant that we who are made whole in Christ
may bring that healing to this broken world,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of constant mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Ten Commandments on carved stones on display in a synagogue in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

A short visit to Dublin and Bray brings back good memories from 40 and 50 years ago

Time moves on at McCloskey’s in Donnybrook … memories of poetry readings, drama groups and rugby matches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I was back in Dublin at the end of last week for a very short family visit, and we stayed for two nights in Bray, Co Wicklow, in the Martello Hotel on the Promenade, facing out onto the sea front.

Seeing the Bray People on a news stand in a nearby supermarket on Friday evening was a reminder that this was one of the titles in the Wexford People Group of Newspapers, where I had worked 50 years ago.

Until I left the Wexford People for The Irish Times in late 1974, one of my pleasant assignments each week was the design and layout of the front page of the Bray People.

Evening lights in Bray and a table at Butler and Barry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Bray has many family links and memories. Until, perhaps, the 1960s, an aunt had lived only three days away from the Martello, at Seanchara House, once known as Tullira, in Wavecrest Terrace on Strand Road. My parents first lived on Putland Road in Bray after they were married almost 80 years ago, at end of World War II in 1945.

I also remember many childhood trips to Bray, when I was able to sneak away and enjoy the thrills of the ‘Bumpers’ and the Ghost Trains or – when some of us were more adventurous – climbing Bray Head and pretending we could see across to the coast of Wales on the other side of the Irish Sea.

In more recent decades, I often enjoyed walks along the seafront in Bray or around the harbour, followed by coffee or lunch in cafés such as Carpe Diem.

Living near Milton Keynes for the last two or three years, it is difficult (though not impossible) to find the same opportunities for a walk on any beach. So, as we had dinner in Butler and Barry on one of those evenings, it was good to share the joys of looking out onto the sea below and beyond.

Friday was a packed day, with family visits in Rathmines and Knocklyon, and the Dart connections between Bray and Lansdowne Road were ideal for setting out on a walk through some of south Dublin suburbs that retain many sweet memories for me, and that allowed me to recall some key anniversaries that take place this year.

The former Bea House on Pembroke Park … memories of student days at the Irish School of Ecumenics 40 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A short walk from the Lansdowne Road stop on the Dart line in from Bray brought me to Pembroke Park, off Herbert Park, and the house that was once known as Bea House when it was the administrative centre of the Irish School of Ecumenics.

I was burning the candle at both ends 40 years ago, when I studied post-graduate theology there in the 1980s while working at The Irish Times spending a lot of time campaigning with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

There were happy memories of Robin Boyd, who had been the director of ISE, Alan Falconer, who was my tutor and, at the time, also a neighbour, and Bill McSweeney, who supervised my dissertation, leading to my graduation through ISE from Trinity College Dublin in 1984.

Other part-time lecturers 40 years ago included Des Dinan, who was then working on his PhD and who is now a professor at Georg Mason University, while the visiting lecturers included Jürgen Moltmann, who died last week, and Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware), who died two years ago.

There were happy memories too of many walks with other students from Pembroke Park through Donnybrook and along Marlborough Road to Ranelagh and lectures in Milltown Park.

I had to stop too to see McCloskey’s pub in Donnybrook, although it is now closed and has been sold. This had been a favourite ‘haunt’ in the early 1970s, when I was involved in poetry groups and poetry groups based around the corner in Muckross Park on Marlborough Road. And there was the house at 52 Marlborough Road, where I stayed those weekends I travelled up to Dublin from Wexford until 50 years ago, when I left Wexford and the Wexford People and joined The Irish Times at the end of 1974.

Street art in Rathmines last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

I walked on through Ranelagh, once again sought out the house in Old Mountpleasant where my grandfather had once lived, and then found myself on Belgrave Road, where I worked 20 years ago, from 2002 until 2006, when I joined the Church of Ireland Theological College, later the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.

I stopped for lunch in Rathmines, visited my brother in Rathmines and once again visited the house in Rathmines where my father was born in 1918, and the house in Terenure where he spent his childhood.

By late afternoon, I was at the house where I lived in Knocklyon from 1996 until 2017, when I moved to the Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick. At the polling booth in Firhouse, I bumped into an old friend and neighbour, Dr Vincent Kenny. We caught up on many shared memories in Delaney’s, also known as the Knocklyon, before I caught a bus to Blackrock Station, and the Dart to Bray.

Evening lights at Blackrock Station last week waiting for the Dart to Bray (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024; click on image for full-screen view)

I am working on a paper for Salvador Ryan’s next collection, looking at ‘Childhood and the Irish.’ Throughout the day, I found myself thinking of the various places James Joyce had lived as a child, including Brighton Square, Rathgar, and the house where he was bor, Saint Joseph’s Church in Terenure where he was baptised, the houses in Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines, and back at Martello Terrace, Bray, where he had spent parts of his childhood years, and the place in Terenure where his mother was born.

But next Sunday is Bloomsday (16 June 2024), and perhaps I should tell some of those stories then and more of them in that planned book that Salvador Ryan is commissioning and editing.

Meanwhile, as I was on my own Bloom-like odyssey around Dublin 4 and Dublin 6, Charlotte was back in Bray, and decided to climb Bray Head. Sorry to say, she did not catch a glimpse of the coast of Wales either.

We had dinner in the Martello on Friday evening, and caught the plane back from Dublin to Birmingham yesterday (Saturday) afternoon, and were back in Stony Stratford by early evening.

The ‘Bray People’ … still going 50 years after I left in 1974 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Sam Comerford, a Dublin musician and composer now based in Brussels

Sam Comerford is a musician and composer from Dublin (Photograph © Chloë Delanghe, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Sam Comerford is a musician and composer from Dublin now living and working in Brussels. He composes for and leads the trio Thunderblender, whose critically acclaimed debut album Stillorgan (WERF records, 2020) was described by RTÉ Lyric FM as ‘the estrangement of the familiar.’

He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1991, and grew up in Stillorgan in suburban south Dublin. Starting with Irish traditional music, he played tin whistle and Irish flute from the age of nine. A love of the music of Charles Mingus made him take up saxophone at 15. After four years studying with Patrice Brun, he attended the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. Being surrounded by musicians such as Dave Douglas, Matana Roberts, Donny McCaslin and Drew Gress opened his mind to the possibilities of creative music.

Sam studied saxophone with Michael Buckley and composition with Ronan Guilfoyle, and he completed his BA in Jazz Performance at 21 in Newpark Academy of Music, Blackrock, now part of Dublin City University.

He then moved to Brussels to work on his master’s degree in Jazz saxophone from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, the Royal Conservatory of Brussels (KCB). There he studied saxophone with John Ruocco, composition with Kris Defoort, and rhythm with Stéphane Galland. At KCB he was awarded the Toots Thielemans Award, given to their most exceptional masters student.

As a saxophonist, Sam represented Ireland in the European Saxophone Ensemble from 2012-2014. Led by Guillaume Orti, the project premiered works from composers working in contemporary improvised music, and performing 22 concerts in 14 European countries. He represented Ireland twice in the 12 Points Festival, in 2015 and 2016.

Sam received the ‘Best Instrumentalist prize from the Concours Tremplin d’Avignon, when performing at the Concours Tremplin Jazz d’Avignon in 2017 with Thunderblender. He has been supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Music Network, and the Vlaamse Overheid.

Alongside his own musical activities he has a busy schedule touring and recording in projects incorporating elements of jazz, improvised music, and Irish music. These include performances at venues and festivals in Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Taiwan, with the Hayden Chisholm saxophone quartet and with the European Saxophone Ensemble, led by Guillaume Orti.

He has worked with musicians and composers such as Hayden Chisholm, Ronan Guilfoyle, Guillaume Orti, Andrew Hozier-Byrne, Joao Lobo, André Vida, Ingrid Laubrock, Stéphane Payen, Yoch’ko Seffer, Nick Roth, Utsav Lal, and many more.

Sam is active on the European scene, and specialises in creative improvised music, playing tenor and bass saxophone. His current projects include his own trio Thunderblender, with Jens Bouttery and Hendrik Lasure, Insufficient Funs, a bass saxophone/drums duo with Matthew Jacobson, Aerie, an avant-garde jazz quintet led by Ingo Hipp, Umbra, Chris Guilfoyle’s contemporary jazz quintet, Hendrik Lasure’s warm bad, Heptatomic, a Belgian septet led by Eve Beuvens, and Brilliant Corners, a free jazz quartet founded by Manolo Cabras.

Sam Comerford leads Thunderblender, a trio from Brussels. Together with two trailblazers on the Belgian jazz scene, Hendrik Lasure and Jens Bouttery, they play Comerford’s dark and unpredictable compositions with joy and abandon. All three members are laureates of the ‘Toots Thielemans Award’ from the KCB.

Their music explores intense emotions, moving between order and chaos, free improvisation and intricate writing, heavy grooves and fragile intimate moments. This is a European band with a nod to the American avant-garde, influenced by Henry Threadgill and Tim Berne, with references to 20th century classical harmony.

Sam Comerford plays tenor and the rarely-heard bass saxophone, with playing that could be characterised as equal parts abrasive and lyrical. Jens Bouttery augments his drum set with left-handed bass synth, giving him complete freedom as a one-man rhythm section. Without a conventional bass player, Lasure is free to use the full range of the grand piano, sometimes with live sampling.

They released their debut album, Stillorgan, on 11 September 2020. It was recorded with producer Koen Gisen, in CD and LP formats on WERF Records. It was accompanied by a Belgian release tour in association with Jazzlab Series.

The album features Sam Comerford on tenor and bass saxophone and composition, with Hendrik Lasure, piano and effects, and Jens Bouttery, drums and bass synth. It was recorded and mixed at La Patrie in Ghent, Belgium, in 2019 and 2020, by Koen Gisen and was mastered by Rashad Becker at clunk.

Drawing on the mixture of heavy grooves and tender lyricism contained in their first EP Last Minute Panic (2017), this album offers an intensely personal statement from the bandleader and composer, Sam Comerford.

The album title Stillorgan refers to the Dublin suburb where Sam Comerford grew up. The sleeve was designed by Jelle Martens, and the cover photograph by Susan Keyes shows Sam Comerford with his father Will Comerford.

The album tracks reflect the core themes of family life and love which is affectionately conveyed through its intimate imagery. Given their impressionistic and haunting quality, reviewers say, the imagery is both opaque, and a glaring confrontation with that lived reality.

Stillorgan’s opening number, ‘Lament’ offers melancholic atmospheres, spacious chords, dispersed percussion and damp, grizzly saxophone textures, counterposed by the slightly jarring effect of Lasure’s use of live sampling techniques.

If ‘Lament’ offers a sense of contemplative flight, the LP’s single ‘Movin On’ brings the listener back to earth with its sense of urgency. Held together by Bouttery’s propulsive, syncopated groove, the track is driven forward by a lively conversation between Sam Comerford’s escalating and sinuous saxophone articulations and Lasure’s measured piano chords. This dialogue is propelled onto different sonic planes through its continually evolving and restless structure.

Following the earthy density of ‘Movin On!’, ‘Last Light Out’ oscillates into abstract speculative chaos. Reminiscent of Henry Threadgill’s admixture of contemporary classical and free jazz idioms, ‘Last Light Out’ offers a subtle dynamic between Bouttery’s cacophonous, dexterous grooves, Lasure’s complex chord progressions, and Comerford’s frenetic, yet agile tonal explorations.

‘Doubt’ shifts gear once again by plunging the listener into an eerie, contemplative state.

‘Hope’ leaps from solemn reflection into buoyancy, where obtuse angular jabs propel the track along its zigzagging terrain: we are invited to a macabre carnival, a rhizomatic tap dance.

‘Arrival’ picks up the pieces from the carnage of ‘Hope’ by offering shimmering lyrical sound passages.

Like Samuel Beckett said of his play Not I, that the piece should ‘work on the nerves of the audience, not its intellect,’ Thunderblender’s ‘Panic Redux’ operates as its sonic equivalent, hammering out electrifying doses of distilled sound clusters.

‘Lights Out’ brings to the surface many of the melancholic themes that are lurking throughout the LP into sharp relief with a sparse compositional language that is at once haunting and densely layered.

Ian Patterson, writing on their 2017 debut EP Last Minute Panic All About Jazz, says: ‘Even in Thunderblender’s most intense improvisational flights there's an abiding sense of the three musicians locked on the same intuitive wavelength, whereby freedom and control are but two sides of the same coin. Gutsy yet melodic, rhythmically complex yet grooving, there's plenty to admire in this fine debut.’

Sam Comerford’s other projects include a solo saxophone album based on the music of Irish fiddler Tommie Potts, a second album with Thunderblender, and the soundtrack of experimental horror film Hexham Heads.

Praying in Advent 2021: 10, Saint Columba

Saint Columba baptisting a child … a fresco in the Baptistery in All Saints’ Church, Blackrock, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

At first this looked like being a busy and stormy day. A planned community project meeting in Rathkeale this morning was postponed last night because of Storm Barra. However, the launch of the ‘Downpatrick Declaration’ is expected to go ahead later this evening.

Before th storm lands in Co Limerick and before the day begins, I am taking some time early this morning (7 December 2021) for prayer, reflection and reading.

Each morning in the Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflections on a saint remembered in the calendars of the Church during Advent;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Saint Columba’s Church, Ennis, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Although today is not Columba’s Day, I have chosen Saint Columba this morning because of the launch of the ‘Downpatrick Declaration’ later this evening, as part of the celebrations of the 1,600th anniversary of the birth of Saint Colimba, who is said to be buried at Downpatrick.

Saint Columba, also known Colum or Columcille, is one of the three patrons of Ireland, alongside Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid of Kildare. He is also the patron saint of Derry and is regarded as one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’. He was born 1,600 years ago, on 7 December 521, at Gartan in present-day Co Donegal.

He is remembered as the missionary monk who introduced Christianity to Scotland, and who founded the abbey on the island of Iona.

Saint Columba studied under Saint Finnian of Movilla and Saint Finnian of Clonard, was ordained priest ca 551, and founded churches and monasteries in Derry, Durrow and Swords.

In 560, Columba became involved in a quarrel with Saint Finnian of Moville over a psalter. Columba copied the manuscript at the scriptorium under Finnian, intending to keep the copy. Finnian disputed Columba’s right to keep it, and the conflict that ensued eventually resulted in the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne in present-day Co Sligo in 561, when many men were killed.

A synod was called, and Columba was threatened with excommunication for these deaths. But Saint Brendan of Birr (29 November) spoke on his behalf. Eventually, Saint Columba set sail from the Inishowen Peninsula in Co Donegal for Scotland, where he and his 12 disciples founded a church and monastery on the island of Iona ca 563.

Iona became the springboard for the conversion of Scotland, and is regarded as the mother house of abbots and bishops in the early history of Christianity in Scotland.

Saint Columba returned with Saint Aidan to Ireland in 575, when he took a leading role in the Synod of Druim Cetta and founded the monastery of Drumcliff in Cairbre, now Co Sligo, near the battlefield.

Saint Columba spent most of his years in Iona. He died there in 597 and was buried in his abbey. he created. The Vikings first attacked Iona in 794, and Saint Columba’s relics were finally removed in 849 and divided between Scotland and Ireland. The parts of the relics that went to Ireland are said to be buried in Downpatrick, Co Down, with Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid.

Three Latin hymns have been attributed to Saint Columba, and he is associated with the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow. Saint Columba’s feast day is 9 June.

On 9 June 1186, 15 bishops, many abbots and church dignitaries and a large number of clergy and laity were present at the reburial of what were now revered as the relics of Saint Patrick, Saint Brigid and Saint Columba (Columcille) in Downpatrick.

This morning, I am also thinking of and giving thanks for many places I have stayed and prayed, and sometimes preached, including Saint Columba’s House, a retreat house on Maybury Hill in Woking, Surrey; Saint Columba’s Church, Ennis, Co Clare; Saint Columba’s Church, Swords, Co Dublin; Saint Columba’s Church, Kells, Co Meath; and the Church of Saint Columba and Saint Joseph in Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick.

Saint Columba’s Church, Swords, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 18: 12-14 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 12 ‘What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (7 December 2021) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for tea plantation workers across Asia and Africa, who often suffer from poor working conditions and meagre wages.

Yesterday: Saint Nicholas of Myra

Tomorrow: The Virgin Mary

The Round Tower at the South Gate of Saint Columba’s Church, Kells, Co Meath (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

How did George de Valero, born in New York, become Éamon de Valera in Bruree?

The Éamon de Valera homestead north of Bruree, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

On the way back from Charleville in north Co Cork to Askeaton on Saturday afternoon, I stopped at Bruree to visit de Valera’s Cottage in Bruree, Co Limerick, the childhood home of Éamon de Valera (1882-1975), the rebel leader in 1916 who went on to became Taoiseach and President of Ireland.

My memories of de Valera stretch back to a childhood near Capproquin, Co Waterford, when ‘Dev’ spoke out against the Fethard-on-Sea boycott – which was spoken of in hushed tones in every household in the south-east in the 1950s – and to schooldays when one of his grandsons sat in a desk in front of mine in the study hall in my boarding school.

Little did I realise then that I would spend many late nights as a young journalist staying up late and working into the early morning on late shifts in The Irish Times, waiting for the former president to die. I still remember how boring it was, waiting, watching, and going home as the summer dawn broke.

Éamon de Valera died on 29 August 1975, aged 92, at the Linden nursing home in Dublin. It was just before noon and one of my day’s off, which seemed to frustrate the reason behind working all those late nights and early morning shifts that marked out that first summer in Dublin after joining The Irish Times from the Wexford People a few months earlier. The obituary supplement that I had been involved in preparing went to press without my presence.

A year later, though, that supplement was published as a book edited by Peter Tynan O’Mahony, and my small meagre contribution was included – a pen and ink sketch and short description of de Valera’s coat-of-arms, which celebrated his assumed Spanish ancestry and heritage. The book was launched in Kilmainham Jail, and at the age of 24 I found unexpectedly that for the first time I had contributed to a published book.

As dusk was beginning to turn to darkness late last Saturday afternoon [5 January 2019], I eventually found the de Valera Cottage, 1 km north of Bruree. For such a large giant on the landscape of Irish history, this is a very humble homestead. The house is a labourer’s cottage, built in 1885 by Kilmallock Poor Law Union, and it still tells of the humble origins of a family could never have realised the greatness that was going to be thrust on them in the century that followed.

The small house is a detached three-bay single-storey labourer’s cottage, built around 1885, with a pitched slate roof, rendered chimneystacks and rendered walls. The sash windows and timber battened half-door help to conserve the original character of the cottage. It retains its original form and structure and is now a rare example of houses like this.

But Éamon de Valera was not born here. Rather, he was born in New York City on 14 October 1882, and while he was later known as Edward, then as Eddie, and finally as Éamon de Valera, he was first known as George and was registered at birth as George de Valero.

The child was brought to Ireland by his uncle Ned in 1885, following the death of his father, named as Juan Vivion de Valera, while his mother, Catherine Coll, stayed on in New York.

He would spend the rest of his childhood days in this cottage, even after his mother remarried. Here he lived with his widowed grandmother, Elizabeth Coll, his uncle son Patrick Coll and his aunt Hannie Coll.

As a child, the young Dev worked hard on the family’s small holding of half an acre, going to school first in a school in Bruree founded in 1862, and then to the Christian Brothers’ school in Charleville. The family could not afford a bicycle, and it must have been a tough 11 km walk each morning and evening for the boy.

Later, a scholarship gave him a place Blackrock College at the age 16, and he would spend much of the rest of his life in Dublin.

The de Valera cottage in Bruree, Co Limerick … but where are his ancestral roots to be found (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

I wondered at the weekend why the wording on the plaque at the ‘de Valera cottage’ does not name his mother, his father, his grandmother, his uncle, his aunt, or anyone other family who might have lived there.

Indeed, a marriage certificate has never been found for Éamon de Valera’s parents, and throughout his life he was long troubled by its absence and by the absence of any evidence of their wedding – or of his father’s identity. Nor is there any verifiable evidence of the supposed death of his father, Vivion de Valera, in any of the places where his mother said he had died, including Denver and New Mexico. In fact, there is little historical evidence that Juan Vivion de Valero or Vivian de Valera ever existed.

Catherine (Kate) Coll was born 21 December 1856, almost 30 years before the de Valera Cottage was built, so it is stretching history a little to say that this is his ancestral home. She emigrated to the US in 1879, still nine years before the cottage was built, and she first took a job with a wealthy French family in Manhattan.

The official story says that in this household in Manhattan she met a young Spanish man, Juan Vivion de Valero or Vivion de Valera, a former sculptor who turned to teaching music after his eye was damaged by a chip of marble. Some accounts said he was born in Spain in 1854; others said he was born in 1853 in Matanzas, Cuba, the son of Juan Manuel de Valera, and had come to the home of her employers to give music lessons to their children.

She would say they were married in 1881. According to de Valera’s biographers, Lord Longford Thomas P O’Neill (London: Hutchinson, 1970), the couple were married in Saint Patrick’s Church in Greenville, New Jersey, on 19 September 1881. But parish records show no record of any Coll-de Valera wedding, either at Saint Patrick’s or in any other church, nor is any such marriage recorded in civil records in the area in the period 1875-1887.

Her son – George, or Edward – was born the following year. The New York State records contain two de Valera birth certificates. The first, dated 10 November 1882, gives his name as George de Valero. The second is a ‘corrected certificate’ dated 30 June 1910. This second certificate, issued almost 28 years after he was born, now gives his first name as Edward and his surname as de Valera, and so George de Valero became Edward de Valera.

Kate would later say that Vivion de Valera was always in poor health, that he left his young family behind and travelled to Denver, Colorado, hoping healthier air would help him, but that he dies a few months later. Once again, however, is no relevant death certificate anywhere in the US.

Forced to work full time as a nurse, Kate sent her infant child back to her home in Co Limerick to be cared for by her mother, brother and sister.

Indeed, no record survives of Kate Coll’s marriage, there is no independent evidence in Spain or the US that the man she named as her husband ever lived, apart from the birth and baptism certificates that first named the child as George de Valero and his father as Juan Vivian de Valero.

With her young son back in Co Limerick, Kate Coll married Charles Wheelwright (1857-1929), an English-born coachman, in Saint Francie Xavier Church, Manhattan, on 7 May 1888. Without any supporting documents, the officiating priest took her at her word that she had been married before and that her first husband had died, leaving her a widow.

The church required a dispensation for the marriage, but Charles later became a Roman Catholic. The family moved to Rochester, New York, and they were the parents of a daughter Ann (1889-1897) and a son, Thomas Wheelwright (1890-1946), who was ordained a Redemptorist priest in 1916.

Charles Wheelwright died in 1929, and Kate died on 12 June 1932. They are buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester. Later in life, Éamon de Valera would say that as he child he had occasional visits from a ‘woman in black’ he believed to have been his mother.

In later life, Éamon de Valera regularly visited the cottage in Bruree, and in 1972 he opened the de Valera Museum in his former school in Bruree. The Office of Public Works restored his childhood cottage on the outskirts of Bruree in the 1980s. President Mary Robinson officially opened the refurbished de Valera Museum and Bruree Heritage Centre in his former school in 1997.

Over the years, Dev asked many people, including his half-brother, his cousin, church authorities in the US and Spain, and the Irish minister in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, to help him in this search. Proof of the marriage would silence persistent whispers about his legitimacy and prove that his mother had been telling the truth about his parentage.

But no such proof was ever found by family members, historians, biographers or genealogists.

The questions about Éamon de Valera’s ancestry are no reflection on the man’s honesty, integrity, pariotism or political acumen. His decision to lead his supporters into Dail Eireann in 1927, and the peaceful handover after the 1932 election show his commitment to a democratic transition in the new Irish state; his 1937 Constitution, if read in its time rather than by today standards, is a strong guarantee of democracy with its separation of powers at a time when Fascism was on the march throughout Europe; and his public stand brought an end to the Fethard-on-Sea boycott.

It is sad that in the Ireland of his day he felt he had to hide his background because of the prevailing prejudice and judgmentalism.

His biographer Tim Pat Coogan speculated that questions surrounding de Valera’s legitimacy may have prevented him from seeking ordination to the priesthood.

But did the questions about his father and his parents’ marriage and doubts about his ancestry also cause de Valera to become ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’?

And did the plight of a mother who felt she had to protect her son against what would have been inevitable consequences, cause him to write the articles in the Constitution that the primary place of a woman place was in the home?

Sunset at the de Valera cottage north of Bruree, Co Limerick, last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

What three things would you take with you if a fire broke out in your house?

‘Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Mark 10: 21) … a market stall in Blackrock, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 14 October 2018, the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XX):

11.30 a.m.: Morning Prayer, Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale (with Sunday School).

Readings: Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22: 1-15; Hebrews 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

During her sermon preparation last week, Archdeacon Ruth Elmes asked on Facebook: ‘If a fire broke out in your house, what three possessions would you grab?’

The answers she got were interesting. People included their laptop (with their photographs), their phone, their keys, their wallet or purse with their plastic cards, and their passport.

What would you take with you?

What do we cling to?

I have a large collection of old banknotes. There is enough there to make me a millionaire or even a multimillionaire in Weimar Germany, war-time Greece and Ceausescu’s Romania. But in reality they are worth nothing today and would earn no interest apart from the interest they might have for collectors.

They were in circulation at times when inflation became rampant in all three countries at times of crisis in Europe. Had they been spent at the time they were issued they might have bought something of value; had they been given away in their day, they might have helped the poor and the hungry.

But circumstances saw to it that those who became attached to their wealth on paper would lose all they had.

Our readings this morning challenge us to think again what we cling to and what are our true values.

Do Job’s prosperity and his sense of value and well-being depend on finding God’s favour expressed in his wealth and his prosperity?

Does the faith of the recipients of the Letter to the Hebrews falter when it produces no discernible results in terms of our temporal blessings?

Does the faith of the man who falls down before Christ in the Gospel reading depend on his own wealth and money?

When our prosperity and wealth disappear, like the fast-fading value of those banknotes, are we in danger of feeling abandoned by God?

How would we grab our faith and take it with us if we rushed to escape a crisis?

Bishop Charles Gore was the son of Irish-born parents … his statue stands at the west entrance of Saint Philip’s Cathedral, Birmingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A story is told about Charles Gore (1853-1932), one of the great – almost formidable – theologians at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

But formidable theologians are also allowed to play pranks on the unsuspecting. It is told that Charles Gore loved to play a particular prank on friends and family members when he was a canon of Westminster Abbey.

He would enjoy showing visitors the tomb of one of his collateral ancestors, the 3rd Earl of Kerry, with an inscription that ends with the words, highlighted in black letters and in double quotation marks: ‘hang all the law and the prophets.’

On closer inspection, he would point out, the words are preceded by ‘… ever studious to fulfil those two great commandments on which he had been taught by his divine Master … hang all the law and the prophets.’

Francis Thomas FitzMaurice (1740-1818) was a rich young man, for he was a child of only seven when his father died and he inherited not only the family title as 3rd Earl of Kerry but also vast estates, including 20,000 acres in Lixnaw, Co Kerry. But this rich young man sold off all that he had when he was still in his 40s, mainly to the Hare family of Listowel.

A widowed and a sad man, he spent the rest of his days in London. When he died in 1818, he was buried in Westminster Abbey and his family’s immediate connections with Co Kerry, dating back to the 13th century, came to an end.

‘Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ (Mark 10: 21) … a collection of old Greek banknotes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In the Gospel reading, the man runs up to Jesus, and falls on his kneels as if in adoration, or like a servant before a master, and asks what he should do to inherit eternal life.

Christ’s response is cautious. When he puts some of the Ten Commandments to this man, the man insists that since his youth he has observed those commandments dealing with our relationships with others, those commandments that prohibit murder, adultery, theft, lying and fraud, and that call on us to honour parents and the elderly.

The Ten Commandments are often divided into two groups: the four ‘theological’ commandments, which are not a matter for debate or interpretation among right-thinking Jews at the time; and the six ‘ethical’ commandments, which are matters for interpretation (see Exodus 20).

However, a closer look at the list of the second grouping of commandments shows that Jesus replaces the last commandment, You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife or goods (Exodus 20: 17), with the words ‘You shall not defraud.’

The full censure says: ‘You shall not defraud your neighbour; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning’ (Leviticus 19: 13).

With this fresh listing of the commandments, is Jesus challenging the man to see whether he really knows the Ten Commandments? Or is he testing the man to see how he has acquired his riches and wealth?

And why did the man slink away? Because he had much property (verse 22).

What acts as a ball and chain that holds us back in our lives today, leaving us not fully free to follow Jesus? I may not have much property. But is there something else that I need to shed, in my attitudes, values, habits, behaviour, priorities, use of time, commitment or lack of commitment?

In his compassion, Christ sees this man’s weakness. He has emphasised his relationship with others. But is this founded on his desire for personal salvation, some sort of personal version of the concept of ‘karma’?

What about his relationship with God?

Does he trust in God because God is God, rather than because of what God can do for him?

The man asks how he may inherit eternal life. Is eternal life something to be inherited, like wealth and social status or place in society? In that society, religion was inherited rather than a matter of personal choice – one was born a Jew, but few people ever became Jews. Is eternal life to be inherited, like religious identity and social class?

Are we in danger at times of thinking that we are entitled to our place in the Kingdom of God?

And in our behaviour, as well as our prayers, do we let God know, and others know, this?

Christ comes to the quick when he points out that this young man puts his trust in his own piety and wealth, in his achievements, in his inherited status. But wealth stands in the way of his relationship with God.

So, Christ tests the man. If he truly loves the poor, he will make a connection between loving God and loving others. The man is shocked and makes quick his departure.

‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22: 1) … words repeated by the dying Christ on the Cross … a cross on the nave altar in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

This rich young man may lack nothing, but he wants eternal life. Yet he fails to realise he has met the living God face-to-face, and he turns away.

When the real challenge is put to him, he may well have repeated the words in our psalm: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22: 1).

When the real challenge is put to him, he may as well have thought: ‘Hang all the law and the prophets.’

But Christ does not say the rich and the wealthy cannot find salvation. He says money and riches can hold us back and make it difficult to be true disciples, to enter the kingdom of God. It can be so difficult that, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (verse 25).

We cannot save ourselves, but God can save us. However, Peter’s implied question (verse 28) points out again how easy it is to think that being a disciple or follower of Christ should be linked with the hope of rewards in the here and now.

I find I have to ask myself again after reading this Gospel passage What do I cling onto most now that I can shed – not in terms of property and possessions, but prejudices and values – that get between me and Jesus, and between the way I live now and eternal life.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ … in the market in Goreme in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 17-31 (NRSV):

17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 18 Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother”.’ 20 He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ 21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ 27 Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’

28 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ 29 Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’

‘You know the commandments’ … ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth’ (Mark 10: 19-20) … the Ten Commandments on carved stones on display in a synagogue in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Liturgical Resources:

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Holy Spirit equips your Church with a rich variety of gifts:
Grant us so to use them that, living the gospel of Christ
and eager to do your will,
we may share with the whole creation in the joys of eternal life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘Grant … that, living the gospel of Christ and eager to do your will, we may share with the whole creation in the joys of eternal life’ (The Collect) … on the beach in Ballybunion, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Hymns:

218, And can it be that I should gain (CD 14),

643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart (CD 37),

553, Jesu, lover of my soul (CD 32).

‘Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling!’ (Job 23: 3) … Christ the Pantocrator in the dome of the church in Georgiopouli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

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