Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 46, Wednesday 20 May 2026

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … the astrolabe in Pusey House, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday next Sunday (24 May 2026). This week began with the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII, 17 May 2026), and today the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship recalls Alcuin of York (804), Deacon, Abbot of Tours.

Later today, I hope to take part in the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. 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, reading 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 you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … the Twelve Apostles in the top row of icons in the iconostasis in the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Duke Street, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on image for full-screen view)

John 17: 11-19 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 11 ‘And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.’

‘I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves’ (John 17: 13) … the apse in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

As I was saying in my reflections on Sunday, we are, in some ways, caught in the church calendar in an in-between time, between Ascension Day, last Thursday [14 May 2026], and the Day of Pentecost next Sunday [24 May 2026].

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 17: 11-19) follows Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33), and Christ has just ended his instructions to his disciples, which conclude with the advice, ‘In the world you face persecution But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).

We are now reading from his prayer to the Father (John 17: 1-26), in which he summarises the significance of his life as the time for his glory – his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – has arrived.

This prayer is often referred to as the High Priestly Prayer, as it includes many of the elements of prayer a priest offers when a sacrifice is about to be made: glorification (verses 3-5, 25), remembrance of God’s work (verses 2, 6-8, 22, 23), intercession on behalf of others (verses 9, 11, 15, 20, 21, 24), and a declaration of the offering itself (verses 1, 5).

In the Orthodox Church, this passage is also read on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, a day remembering the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in the year 325. We celebrated the 1,700th anniversary of that council last year and its formulation of the Nicene Creed. That council condemned the heresy of Arianism that taught that the Son of God was created by the Father and that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist. Christ’s words here bear witness to his divinity and to his filial relationship with the Father.

In his time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ looks up to heaven. He prays to the Father, asking him to ‘glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.’ Christ waits to be restored to his glory. He has come to earth to provide eternal life to all who believe. Now he prays to the Father for the disciples.

He has made the Father known to those who would believe. To John, the ‘world’, or the cosmos, is notable for its unbelief and hatred. The disciples have been faithful to ‘your word,’ to truth, to God, to Christ’s teachings.

They have come to realise the relationship of the Son to the Father. They know Christ’s origin and mission. This prayer is on behalf of believers, who are God’s, and not on behalf of all people. We hear that belonging to God implies belonging to the Son. Christ’s power and authority have been shown to them.

In his High Priestly Prayer, Christ asks four things of the Father:

• that they may be ‘one,’ as he and the Father are (verse 11)

• that they may have ‘my joy’ (verse 13)

• that they may be protected from the influence of evil (verse 15)

• that they may be able then to fulfil his mission in the world (verses 17-18).

Christ asks the Father to ‘protect them in your name,’ by his authority and as his representatives. The Father has given Christ this authority. He has protected them, except for one: Judas.

In fulfilment of ‘the scripture’, or by God’s will, he asks the Father to set them apart or sanctify them as they are sent out into the world (verses 17-19) … a theme we face again next Sunday, the Day of Pentecost.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

‘I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world’ (John 17: 11) … the Friendship Globe in a park in Kuching marking Malaysia-China Friendship (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 20 May 2026):

The theme this week (17-23 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) has been ‘Breaking Barriers: Gender Justice in Malawi’ (pp 56-57). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Tamara Khismisi, Projects Coordinator, Anglican Church in Malawi.

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Wednesday 20 May 2026):

Gracious God, we pray for girls like Lina who face poverty, school dropout, and lack of guidance on menstrual and reproductive health. Grant each one access to knowledge, sanitary products, and dignity to manage health and attend school confidently.

The Collect:

God of wisdom, eternal light,
who shone in the heart of your servant Alcuin,
revealing to him your power and pity:
scatter the darkness of our ignorance
that, with all our heart and mind and strength,
we may seek your face
and be brought with all your saints
to your holy presence;
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:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Alcuin
that he served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … going out into the world from All Saints’ Church, Calverton (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 Easter 2026: 37, Monday 11 May 2026

‘And the fire and the rose are one’ (TS Eliot) … a candle and a rose on a dinner table in Minares on Vernardou Street, Rethymnon, in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season that beginning on Easter Day (4 April 2026) and that continues until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026).

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, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘The Advocate … whom I will send to you from the Father’ (John 15: 26) … Christ with the Holy Spirit depicted above as a dove on a gravestone in Calverton Road Cemetery, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 26 to 16: 4 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 26 ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

1 ‘I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. 3 And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. 4 But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.’

‘The Absinthe Drinker’ by Viktor Oliva in the Café Slavia in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Café Slavia in Prague was once the traditional hangout of Czech writers, artists, intellectuals, and political dissidents. Although those days are long gone, the Café Slavia – or Kavarna Slavia – opposite the National Theatre and overlooking the Vltava River has been a national institution since it first opened in August 1884.

The café has changed in appearances over the years – from Art Nouveau to Social Realism – leaving us with the Functionalist interior with Art Deco wall decorations of today. The walls café are lined with photographs of the writers, artists, revolutionaries and intellectuals who once came here.

The café became a cultural place where writers, poets and intellectuals met to talk and debate. The original regular clientele included the composer Bedřich Smetana, the actor Jindřich Mošna, the poet Jaroslav Seifert, and the writer Vítězslav Nezval, Josef Čapek and many others. The list of guests and visitors has been described as ‘a who’s who of Bohemian culture at the time.’

The interior was changed to the popular style Art Deco style but has remained unchanged since then, with Tonet chairs, dark wood tables and green marble walls that evoke the 1920s. During the communist era, the café became state property, but continued to draw artists, writers and intellectuals, even after the Prague Spring and the invasion by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, and it became the meeting place for dissidents.

Regular guests during the Velvet Revolution in 1989 included the poet, playwright and human rights activist Václav Havel, who later became the Czech president, and the poet and artist Jiří Kolář. More recent guests have included Hillary Clinton and the writer Arnošt Lustig. The café closed in 1992, but re-opened in 1997 with a glittering ceremony that also marked the eighth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.

President Havel sent a message saying the re-opening of Cafe Slavia was a victory of ‘reason over stupidity.’ He said its reopening was a step towards renewing the natural structure of Czech spiritual life, stressing the café’s role as a meeting place for different artistic streams and currents of opinion.

The owners of the Café Slavia have tried to recapture the atmosphere of the 1930s, when the café was in its hey-day, and in the evenings, a live piano player helps to create a romantic atmosphere in the evening.

The café is also known for ‘The Absinthe Drinker,’ a copy of the large painting by Viktor Oliva (1861-1928). The original hangs in the Zlata Husa Gallery in Prague, but this copy has been on the wall of the artist’s favourite café since 1920. Viktor Oliva was part of the ‘Parisian Bohemians’, a group of Czech artists who lived in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it was there that he discovered the comforts of the absinthe, the anise-flavoured, green, highly alcoholic spirit often known in literature as la fée verte ‘the green fairy’. It has often been portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and hallucinogen, giving rise to the term ‘absinthism’.

In among the chairs and tables of Café Slavia, a man sits alone sipping a glass of absinthe, with an open newspaper to one side. In the background, a waiter is approaching to serve him. But the man’s eyes are fixed on the figure of an alluring but transparent young green woman perched on his table.

Is she his muse?

Is he reminiscing about a past or lost love?

Or, has he fallen in love with the ‘green fairy’ – another name for the strong hallucinating drink?

What is your comforting spirit? Where do you seek or find inspiration? Is any talk of the Holy Spirit as irrelevant to you as talk about green fairies’?

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 15: 26 to 16: 4) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper in Saint John’s Gospel. Christ continues to prepare his followers for his departure, and repeats once again his promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf’ (verse 26).

Our thinking about the Holy Spirit is often made difficult by traditional images of a dove that looks more like a homing pigeon; or tongues of fire dancing around meekly-bowed heads of people cowering and hiding in the upper room in Jerusalem, rather than a room that is bursting at the seams and ready to overflow.

But the Holy Spirit is not something added on as an extra course, as an after-thought after the Resurrection and the Ascension.

Last year we marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and the agreement on the Nicene Creed, in which we say: ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit’. Do we really believe in the Holy Spirit as ‘the Lord, the giver of life,’ in the Holy Spirit as the way in which God ‘has spoken through the prophets’?

The gift of the Holy Spirit does not stop being effective the day after confirmation, the day after ordination, the day after hearing someone speaking in tongues, or the day after the Day of Pentecost.

God never leaves us alone. This is what Christ promises the disciples, the whole Church, in today’s Gospel reading. We need have no fears, for the Resurrection breaks through all the barriers of time and space, of gender and race, of language and colour.

If the Holy Spirit is the Advocate and is living in me and you, then who am I an advocate for? Who do I speak up for when there is no-one else to speak up for them?

Pentecost includes all – even those we do not like. Who do you not want in the Kingdom of God? Who do I find it easy to think of excluding from the demands the Holy Spirit makes on me and on the Church?

Pentecost promises hope. But hope is not certainty, manipulating the future for our own ends, it is trusting in God’s purpose.

‘Little Gidding,’ the fourth and final poem in the Four Quartets, is TS Eliot’s own Pentecost poem. ‘Little Gidding’ begins in ‘the dark time of the year’, when a brief and glowing afternoon sun ‘flames the ice, on pond and ditches’ as it ‘stirs the dumb spirit’, not with wind but with ‘pentecostal fire.’

At the end of the poem, Eliot describes how the eternal is contained within the present and how history exists in a pattern, and repeating the words of Julian of Norwich, he is assured:

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

I have no doubts that the Holy Spirit works in so many ways that we cannot understand. And no doubts that the Holy Spirit works best and works most often in the quiet small ways that bring hope rather than in the big dramatic ways that seek to control.

Sometimes, even when it seems foolish, sometimes, even when it seems extravagant, it is worth being led by the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit may be leading us to surprising places, and, surprisingly, leading others there too, counting them in when we thought they were counted out.

Whether they are persecuted minorities in the Middle East, immigrants threatened with deportation to a third country, cowering asylum seekers isolated in hotels and subjected to barracking baying from flag-waving activists, or people who are marginalised at home, or those we are uncomfortable with because of how they sound, seem, look or smell, God’s generosity counts them in and offers them hope.

And if God counts them in, so should the Church. And so should I.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

‘… all shall be well and / All manner of thing shall be well’ … sunset seen from the Sunset Taverna in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 11 May 2026):

The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 11 May 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for the Positive Parenting Programme and all its facilitators. May each parent, child, and community leader experience guidance, trust, and understanding that builds stronger, safer families.

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us
to eternal joy;
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:

God our Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life:
may we thirst for you,
the spring of life and source of goodness,
through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:
help your Church to obey your command
and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Café Slavia was once a place where Prague’s writers, poets and intellectuals met to talk and debate (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 Easter 2026: 18, Wednesday 22 April 2026

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35) … bread on the Isla Jane Bakery stall in Buckingham Market (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost, and this week began with the Third Sunday of Easter (Easter III, 19 April 2026).

Later this evening, I hope to be at the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35) … bread in the window of Hindley’s Bakery on Tamworth Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 35-40 (NRSVA):

35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; 38 for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35) … bread in a shop window in Hampstead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We have read in recent days about Jesus feeding of the 5,000 and walking on the water, and we are now introduced to reading the long Bread of Life discourse (verses 22-59), spoken in the synagogue in Capernaum (John 6: 59).

The day following the feeding of the 5,000, the people go in search of Jesus, but when they go to the site of the feeding, they find he is not there either. Eventually they find Jesus and his disciples near Capernaum, Jesus’ principal base in Galilee. They ask him: ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ (verse 25).

When the people push their questions onto Jesus, he insists on speaking of himself in relationship to God the Father, who has sent him.

And then Jesus uses the first of his seven ‘I AM’ sayings in Saint John’s Gospel, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35).

These seven ‘I AM’ sayings are traditionally listed as:

1, I am the Bread of Life (John 6: 35, 48)
2, I am the Light of the World (John 8: 12)
3, I am the gate (or the door) (John 10: 7)
4, I am the Good Shepherd (John 10: 11 and 14)
5, I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11: 25)
6, I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14: 6)
7, I am the true vine (John 15: 1, 5)

These ‘I AM’ sayings echo the divine name revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, ‘I AM’ (Exodus 3: 14). In the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of God’s name is closely related to the emphatic statement ‘I AM’ (see Exodus 3: 14; 6: 2; Deuteronomy 32: 39; Isaiah 43: 25; 48: 12; 51: 12; etc.). In the Greek translation, the Septuagint, most of these passages are translated with as ‘I AM’, ἐγώ εἰμί (ego eimi).

The ‘I AM’ of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint and the ‘I AM’ of Saint John’s Gospel is the God who creates us, who communicates with us, who gives himself to us.

But what does it mean to acknowledge Christ as ‘the Bread of Life’?

I once spent some time at Easter in Cappadocia, in south-central Turkey, because I was teaching a module on Patristics and I was interested in sites associated with the three Cappadocian Fathers: Saint Basil the Great (329-379), Bishop of Caesarea, his brother Saint Gregory (335-395), Bishop of Nyssa, and Saint Gregory Nazianzus (329-390), who became Patriarch of Constantinople.

They challenged heresies such as Arianism and their thinking was instrumental in formulating the phrases that shaped the Nicene Creed, and we were celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed last year.

Saint Basil is also remembered for his challenging social values. He wrote: ‘The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.’

So faith and belief must be related to how we live our lives as Christians.

Bishop Frank Weston, who was the Bishop of Zanzibar from 1908, held together in a creative combination his incarnational and sacramental theology with his radical social concerns formed the keynote of his address to the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923. He believed that a true sacramental focus gave a reality to Christ’s presence and power that nothing else could.

However, he concluded: ‘But I say to you, and I say it with all the earnestness that I have, if you are prepared to fight for the right of adoring Jesus in His Blessed Sacrament, then … you must walk with Christ, mystically present in you through the streets of this country, and find the same Christ in the peoples of your cities and villages. You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slums … It is folly – it is madness – to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children.’

So, from Basil the Great in the fourth century to great mission pioneers in the Anglican Communion in recent generations, sacramental life is meaningless unless it is lived out in our care for those who are hungry, who are suffering and who are marginalised.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

‘The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry’ (Saint Basil) … the rock-hewn Chapel of Saint Basil at Göreme in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 22 April 2026):

‘Turning Waste into Wonder’ provides the theme this week (19-25 April 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 48-49. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Linet Musasa, team member of the Partners in the Gospel Comprehensive Climate Change initiative of the Anglican Council of Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 22April 2026) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, guide the Provincial Climate Change Campaign across 47 dioceses. May it change hearts, encourage action, and strengthen the Church’s witness for creation care.

The 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.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
you filled your disciples with boldness and fresh hope:
strengthen us to proclaim your risen life
and fill us with your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Collect on the Eve of Saint George:

God of hosts,
who so kindled the flame of love
in the heart of your servant George
that he bore witness to the risen Lord
by his life and by his death:
give us the same faith and power of love
that we who rejoice in his triumphs
may come to share with him the fullness of the resurrection;
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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Aghios Vassilios (Saint Basil) in traditional icon-style on a door in Koutouloufári in Crete (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 Advent 2025: 7, Saturday 6 December 2025, Saint Nicholas of Myra

An icon of Saint Nicholas in the tiny chapel on an islet off the coast at Georgioupoli in Crete … in time, he became Santa Claus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Season of Advent – and the real countdown to Christmas – began last Sunday with the First Sunday of Advent (30 November 2025), and tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Advent. With less than three weeks to go to Christmas, the Church Calendar today celebrates Saint Nicholas of Myra (6 December), the ‘real Santa Claus’.

Later today, I hope to attend Το Στέκι Μας (Our Place), the pop-up Greek café at the Greek Orthodox Church on London Road, between 10:30 and 3 pm, with traditional Greek desserts and seasonal small gifts, as well as the usual: Greek coffees and delicacies. But, before the day 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.

An icon of Saint Nicholas in the Church of Saint Nicholas near the harbour and the bus station in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 13-16 (NRSVA):

13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

An icon of Saint Nicholas, the role model for Santa Claus, in a mosaic in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

The Gospel reading in the Lectionary for the daily Eucharist today (Matthew 9: 35 to 10: 1, 6-8) tells of Jesus going through cities and villages, teaching, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing disease and sickness. When he sees the crowds, he sees they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, and tells the disciples: ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’

Jesus gives the 12 authority to cast out unclean spirits and to cure every disease and every sickness. He tells them to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near, to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and to cast out demons.

But the Gospel reading provided for celebrating Saint Nicholas of Myra (Mark 10: 13-16) is the story of little children being brought to Jesus for blessings, and his reminder that it is ‘to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs’ (verse 14).

Today is the Feast of Saint Nicholas of Myra (6 December 2025). He is, of course, the real Santa Claus, and he is so popular in Greece that almost every town and city in Greece has a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas.

Saint Nicholas is also the patron of sailors, and in the mediaeval period almost every coastal town and city in both England and Ireland also had a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas.

The celebration of Saint Nicholas today is a joyful, child-friendly interruption in the Advent preparations as we wait for Christmas and anticipate all its joys.

Saint Nicholas, whose name means ‘Victory of the People,’ was born in Myra in Lycia, now known as Demre, near Antalya on the south coast of Anatolia in present-day Turkey.

He had a reputation as a secret giver of gifts and the protector of children, so you can see why he has links with our Santa Claus today.

There are stories too of Saint Nicholas and the defence of true doctrine. In the year 325, the Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea, attended by more than 300 bishops, to debate the nature of the Holy Trinity.

It was one of the most intense theological debates in the early Church. Arius from Alexandria was teaching that Christ was the Son of God but was not equal to God the Father, not God incarnate. As Arius argued at length, Nicholas became agitated, crossed the room, and slapped Arius across the face.

The shocked bishops stripped Nicholas of his episcopal robes, chained him and jailed him. In the morning, the bishops found his chains on the floor and Nicholas dressed in his episcopal robes, quietly reading his Bible. Constantine ordered his release, and Nicholas was reinstated as the Bishop of Myra. Which probably also makes it appropriate that the Church of Saint Nicholas on the corner of Priskosoridi street and Emmanouil Kefalogianni avenue, near the bus station in Rethymnon, is not only close to both an old fishing harbour but also close to the Church of Saint Constantine and Saint Helen.

Saint Nicholas defended doctrines that are central to the Incarnation and that make Christmas worth celebrating … the word homoousios (ὁμοούσιος) means ‘same substance,’ while the word homoiousios (ὁμοιούσιος) means ‘similar substance’. As the debate went on, the Council of Nicaea agreed with Nicholas and his views and decided against Arius. The Council of Nicaea affirmed the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of the same substance, rather than of a similar substance, and agreed on the Nicene Creed, which remains the symbol of our faith.

This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325 CE and it has been another opportunity for the churches to bear witness to the growing communion that already exists among all who are baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Leo XIV signed a Joint Declaration in the Patriarchal Church of Saint George last weekend affirming their commitment to the path towards restoring full communion and rejecting the use of religion to justify violence.

In the text, they recalled the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, calling it ‘a providential event of unity’, and noted that Christians are united by the faith professed in the Nicene Creed: ‘This is the saving faith in the person of the Son of God, true God from true God, homoousios with the Father, who for us and our salvation was incarnate and dwelt among us, was crucified, died and was buried, arose on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.’

‘Endowed with this common confession, we can face our shared challenges in bearing witness to the faith expressed at Nicaea with mutual respect, and work together towards concrete solutions with genuine hope,’ they said in their Joint Declaration.

The First Council of Nicaea by Mikhail Damaskinos (1591) in the Museum of Christian Art, Iraklion … Saint Nicholas played a key role in the credal formulation at the council (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 6 December 2025):

The theme this week (30 to 6 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘The Kingdom is for All’ (pp 6-7). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update from the Revd Magela, Vicar of Cristo Redentor Parish in Tocantins, Brazil and coordinator of Casa A+, a place of hope and healing for people living with HIV.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 6 December 2025) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for courage and compassion in public policies, so that governments, institutions and international organisations prioritise life over profits, and care over power.

The Collect:

Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who chose your servant Nicholas
to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of your grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
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:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Nicholas revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

The Collect on the Eve of Advent II:

O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power
and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness
we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy
may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Nicholas in a stained-glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 146, Sunday 5 October 2025, Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVI)

You could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you (Luke 17: 6) … a mulberry tree in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVI, 5 October), and is being observed in some churches as Creation Sunday. Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Giles Church, Stony Stratford, as a new choir term begins and Jacob Collins takes up his role as Organist and Director of Music.

Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and 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.

The sycamore fig, the mulberry and the fig are all related … a fig tree near Pavlos Beach in Platanias near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 17: 5-10 (NRSVA)

5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6 The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.

7 ‘Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table”? 8 Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink”? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”.’

5 Καὶ εἶπαν οἱ ἀπόστολοι τῷ κυρίῳ, Πρόσθες ἡμῖν πίστιν. 6 εἶπεν δὲ ὁ κύριος, Εἰ ἔχετε πίστιν ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως, ἐλέγετε ἂν τῇ συκαμίνῳ [ταύτῃ], Ἐκριζώθητι καὶ φυτεύθητι ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ: καὶ ὑπήκουσεν ἂν ὑμῖν.

7 Τίς δὲ ἐξ ὑμῶν δοῦλον ἔχων ἀροτριῶντα ἢ ποιμαίνοντα, ὃς εἰσελθόντι ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ ἐρεῖ αὐτῷ, Εὐθέως παρελθὼν ἀνάπεσε, 8 ἀλλ' οὐχὶ ἐρεῖ αὐτῷ, Ἑτοίμασον τί δειπνήσω, καὶ περιζωσάμενος διακόνει μοι ἕως φάγω καὶ πίω, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα φάγεσαι καὶ πίεσαι σύ; 9 μὴ ἔχει χάριν τῷ δούλῳ ὅτι ἐποίησεν τὰ διαταχθέντα; 10 οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς, ὅταν ποιήσητε πάντα τὰ διαταχθέντα ὑμῖν, λέγετε ὅτι Δοῦλοι ἀχρεῖοί ἐσμεν, ὃ ὠφείλομεν ποιῆσαι πεποιήκαμεν.

‘If you have faith the size of a mustard seed’ (Luke 17: 6) … Wisdom (Sophia) and her daughters Faith, Hope and Love depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading (Luke 17: 5-10) is a short one. But it is a reminder that our relationship with God makes obedience to God a duty to be fulfilled and not an occasion for reward.

The apostles ask for an increase in faith. But I imagine, once again, like so many other occasions, they are missing the mark. They want an increase in faith rather than a deepening of faith. It is one of those moments when the people involved think that quantity matters more than quality, and Jesus replies by giving a good illustration of how they might considered the concept that in many cases less may mean more and more may mean less.

I have discussed in the past the trees in this reading, and a similar image in Saint Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 17: 14-20), the size of a mustard seed and mustard bush, and the connections between mulberry trees, sycamore trees and fig trees. But, whatever about the size of seeds, bushes, and trees, how could we possibly measure the size of faith?

Is the immeasurable size of faith more important than valuing a faith that is alive and growing. Surely a small measure of faith that relates to God is more important than a faith that we use to seek attraction to ourselves or to browbeat our theological and political opponents? This is displayed in a recent blasphemous video clip in which Pete Hesgeth recites the Lord’s Prayer, dramatic music swells and the the screen is filled with images of fighter jets and missiles flying, paratroopers tumbling from planes, a waving American flag and Hegseth standing and saluting alongside Donald Trump.

This was not patriotism, this was idolatry. The Lord’s Prayer is about God’s reign, not America’s military might. To merge the gospel with nationalism is to distort it into a false religion. Christian nationalism confuses the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of this earth. The Lord’s Prayer should never be a soundtrack for missiles and tanks – it is the prayer of the poor, the meek, the merciful, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

I find it interesting how the apostles’ request in verse 5, Πρόσθες ἡμῖν πίστιν (‘Increase our faith!’) is phrased in the plural, and that Christ replies to them in verse 6 in the plural, Εἰ ἔχετε πίστιν (‘If you had faith …’ ), and continues to address them collectively.

Too often, I hear people relate this passage to personal, internalised faith, and the need for individuals to find and nurture such faith. But, in the year we are marking the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, it is worth reminding ourselves that the faith expressed in this Creed, is expressed collectively and in the plural: Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα Θεὸν Πατέρα παντοκράτορα … ‘We believe in One God, the Father Almighty …’. The Nicene Creed is about the salvation of all humanity and not about individual salvation (τὸν δι' ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους); and we conclude collectively, ‘we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’ (προσδοκοῦμεν ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν, καὶ ζωὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος).

It is regrettable that the Latin liturgical version turned this into an individual confession of faith: Credo in unum Deum …, ‘I believe in one God …’ This was carried over at the Anglican reformation into the Book of Common Prayer. This was rectified in the past half century in the English translations of the Nicene Creed by the International Consultation on English Texts in 1975 and by the English Language Liturgical Consultation in 1988, texts now in general use among Roman Catholics and Anglicans. But the version in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is still in use in many churches of the Anglican Communion.

There are two other Greek words in this short passage that are also worth considering.

In verse 8, the word to serve, διακονέω (diakonéo), relates particularly to supplying food and drink. It means to be a servant, attendant, domestic, to serve, wait upon. It is the same term that gives us the word ‘deacon’ in the ministry of the Church.

The story is told about a young curate in his first year of ordained ministry, and who was attending a parish function for pensioners. When he was asked by the rector’s wife to go around the tables and top up the cups of tea, he protested, insinuating that this was not what he had been ordained for.

‘Oh,’ said the rector’s wife. ‘Did you not know it’s a deacon’s job to serve at tables.’

In the New Testament, the service of this type of servant is different to the role of a steward or a slave. It means to minister to someone, to render service to them, to serve or minister to them; to wait at a table and to offer food and drink to the guests. It often had a special reference to women and the preparation of food. It relates to supplying food and the necessities of life.

The second word, δοῦλος (doulos), in verses 7, 9 and 10, refers to a slave, someone who is in a servile condition. But it also refers metaphorically to someone who gives himself or herself up to the will of another, those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause.

Are ordinands expecting to be servants and slaves in the ministry of the Church?

When we become priests, we need to remember that we still remain deacons.

Indeed, with the announcement of a new Archbishop of Canterbury two days ago, we need to remember too that bishops and archbishops remain deacons in the Church of God, slaves and servants of God and of his Kingdom.

Faith (centre), Hope and Charity in the window by Sir Edward Burne-Jones in Saint Edburg’s Church, Bicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 5 October 2025, Trinity XVI):

The theme this week (5 to 11 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Disability inclusion in Zimbabwe’ (pp 44-45). This theme is introduced today with Reflections from Makomborero Bowa, Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy Religion and Ethics at the University of Zimbabwe:

After my brother was severely injured, I became frustrated by the lack of provisions for people with disabilities, especially in the Church. In principle, the Zimbabwean government is one of the most ‘disability friendly’ nations supported by a world-leading National Disability Policy, launched in 2021. In practice, however, the reality is very different and many experience heightened exclusion and social suffering which is felt in relation to poverty, including in churches.

I believe the break between policy and practice must be solved by a change in attitude. Policy has failed. We need a greater solution, and the Church already has it! When we look at Jesus’ life, we see numerous examples of disability inclusion. Think how different things would be if we anchored our activities around His example and were inspired by the fact that all are made in the image of God.

Adapting buildings without changing attitudes makes no sense – it’s hypocritical. Our church leaders are the key authority to bring about transformation, but we can all lead the way in creating a truly inclusive community. They command the moral authority necessary for achieving the kind of progressive and inclusive future envisaged in the message of Christ. My vision for the Anglican Communion is a thought-provoking process of self-reflection – ‘What have we done and what have we not done?’ There is still time to correct our mistakes. The whole message of Christ is about redemption. We can still do the right thing.

Makomborero Bowa is part of the Fellowship of Anglican Scholars of Theology, a network of scholars with fresh perspectives on theology. Find out more: uspg.org.uk/feast

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 5 October 2025, Trinity XVI) invites us to pray by reading and meditating on Luke 17: 5-10.

The Collect:

O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers
of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love is the fulfilling of the law:
grant that we may love you with our whole heart
and our neighbours as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord of creation,
whose glory is around and within us:
open our eyes to your wonders,
that we may serve you with reverence
and know your peace at our lives’ end,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα Θεὸν Πατέρα παντοκράτορα … ‘We believe in One God, the Father Almighty …’ (Nicene Creed) … Christ the Pantocrator depicted in church domes in Rethymnon, Panormos and Iraklion in Crete (Photographs: 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 Ordinary Time 2025: 144, Friday 3 October 2025

‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me’ (Luke 10: 16) … listening ears in street art on Tottenham Court Road, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 28 September). Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers George Bell (1881-1958), Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker (3 October).

I may have a lengthy return journey to Heathrow Airport later today. The choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church begins a new term later this evening, with rehearsals in Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and 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.

‘They would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes' (Luke 10: 13)’ … could the disciples have expected the same rejection in Galilean towns and in Phoenician towns? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 10: 13-16 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 13 ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But at the judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum,

will you be exalted to heaven?
No, you will be brought down to Hades.

16 ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’

‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me’ (Luke 10: 16) … the Ear of Dionysius, near Syracuse in Sicily, where legend says the tyrant Dionysius I eavesdropped on prisoners (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We have been reading in Saint Luke’s Gospel this week how Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, and a Samaritan village had refused to welcome his messengers (Luke 9: 51-62). But Christ rebuked James and John for their response to this rejection, and he then sent out 70 (or 72) disciples on a mission of healing and proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God.

In this morning’s readings, Christ tells the Seventy to expect but not to be dejected when they meet hostility, and to leave rejection to God’s own judgment and God’s own time.

The term ‘woe’ (Greek: ου̉̀αὶ, ouai) is often used in prophetic literature to express divine displeasure and impending judgment, and it appears frequently in prophetic writings, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and in Christ’s teachings.

Could the disciples could have expected to face rejection in these familiar Galilean town or even similar rejections in the Phoenician towns of Tyre and Sidon?

Chorazin was about 3 km (two miles) north of the Sea of Galilee, and archaeological excavations suggests the small town had a thriving Jewish community. Bethsaida, on the north-east shore of the Sea of Galilee, was the hometown of apostles Peter, Andrew and Philip, and the town where Jesus healed a blind man (Mark 8: 22-26). Capernaum is often called Jesus’ own city (Matthew 9: 1), it served as the centre for his Galilean ministry, and he taught and healed in the synagogue.

Tyre and Sidon were ancient Phoenician coastal cities, known for their wealth and maritime trade. Prophets often denounced them for their pride and wickedness (Ezekiel 26-28, Isaiah 23). Sodom was infamous for its wickedness and destroyed by God in the time of Abraham (Genesis 19), and became a byword for divine judgment and extreme sinfulness among Jews and Christians.

But Jesus and the disciples often retreated to Tyre and Sidon, the Syrophoenician woman in Tyre begged for healing for her daughter (Matthew 15: 21-28; Mark 7: 24-37), and the deaf man was healed in Sidon (Mark 7: 31-36).

The woes serve as both a lament and as a warning, expressing sorrow over the cities’ current state and educating those who are listening about the future consequences of such a state.

They are a challenge too to think of how the very threats we face in life are not always the ones we fear, and those who offer us comfort and support in life may be those we least expect to offer it.

‘Lord God, as we reflect on the history of the Council of Nicaea, renew us afresh with the beautiful truths of who you are’ (USPG Prayer Diary) … ‘Receiving Nicaea’ is a two-day conference at Pusey House, Oxford, on 12-13 November 2025

Today’s Prayers (Friday 3 October 2025):

The theme this week (28 September to 4 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘One Faith: Many Voices’ (pp 42-43). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 3 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord God, as we reflect on the history of the Council of Nicaea, renew us afresh with the beautiful truths of who you are.

The Collect:

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
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:

Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
defend your Church from all false teaching
and give to your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church resumes rehearsals this evening (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: 142, Wednesday 1 October 2025

‘Disturb us, Lord … when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore’ … after sunset on the shore below the Fortezza in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We begin a new month today and we are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. The week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 28 September), and the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Remigius (533), Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, and Anthony Ashley Cooper (1801-1885), Earl of Shaftesbury, Social Reformer.

These are the Days of Awe, or the High Holy Days in the Jewish calendar. The Kol Nidre service begins at sunset this evening, marking the start of Yom Kippur. This solemn service is a prayer for annulling vows made over the past year, allowing individuals to approach the Day of Atonement with a clean conscience. The fast of Yom Kippur concludes tomorrow evening (Thursday 2 October).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and 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.

‘Disturb us, Lord … when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore’ … sails and boats in the harbour in Rethymnon at sunset (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on image for full-screen viewing)

Luke 9: 57-62 (NRSVA):

57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ 58 And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ 59 To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ 60 But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ 61 Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ 62 Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’

Sir Francis Drake … ‘it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same unto the end, until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory’

Today’s Reflections:

Saint Luke is a great story-teller, and we are all captivated by his stories of healing and his parables: the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the unjust steward, and so on.

So this morning’s Gospel reading comes as a little surprise. The first impression is that there’s no story here, no drama, no healing, no showing how society’s perceived underdog is really a model for our own behaviour, for my behaviour – indeed a model of how God behaves, and behaves towards us.

Instead, what we have what reads like a series of pithy statements from Jesus: like a collection of sayings from the Desert Fathers or even a collection of popular sayings from Zen masters.

Good stories about wayward sons and muggings on the roadside make for good drama, and healing stories are great soap opera. But they only remain stories and they only remain mini-stage-plays if all we want is good entertainment and forget all about what the main storyline is, what the underlying plot in Saint Luke’s Gospel is.

The context of this reading is provided a few verses earlier, when Saint Luke says the days are drawing near and Jesus is setting his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9: 51).

It is a challenge to us all. We are called to live not for the pleasure of a dramatic moment, but to live in the one great drama that is taking place: to set our faces on the heavenly Jerusalem; to live as if we really believe in the New Heaven and the New Earth.

We are called not to be conditional disciples – being a Christian when I look after everything else, sometime in the future. We are called to be committed disciples – to live as Christians in the here-and-now.

There is the man who wants to follow Jesus, but only if he can hold on to his wealth and property (Luke 9: 57-58). There is the man who wants to follow Jesus, but not until he has looked after burying his father (Luke 9: 59-60). There is the man who wants to follow Jesus, but who thinks first he must consider what his friends and those at home would think before he leaves them (Luke 10: 61-62).

Of course, it is good to have a home of my own and not to live in a foxhole. Of course, it is good that each of us should take responsibility for ageing parents and to bury them when they die. Of course, it is good that we should not walk out on our families, our friends and our responsibilities.

Of course, domestic security, filial duty and loyal affection are high ideals. But they are conditional, while the call of the kingdom is compelling, urgent and imperative. And it demands commitment in such a way that it puts all other loyalties in second place.

Christ is not saying that these men had the wrong values. But he sees how we can use values so that we can end up with the wrong priorities.

As GB Caird pointed out in his commentary on Saint Luke’s Gospel, sometimes the most difficult choices in life for most of us are not between good and evil, but between the good and the best. I am sure these three ‘wannabe’ disciples presented good excuses. But discipleship on my own terms is not what Christ asks of me. It can only be on his terms. There is no conditional discipleship, there is only committed discipleship.

As advertisers remind us constantly, there are terms and conditions attached to most things in life. But there can be no terms and conditions attached when it comes to being a disciple, to being a follower of Jesus.

As his ship, the Elizabeth Bonaventure, lay at anchor at Cape Sakar on 17 May 1587 after the sacking of Sagress, Sir Francis Drake wrote to Elizabeth I’s secretary of state, Sir Francis Walsingham: ‘There must be a begynnyng of any great matter, but the contenewing unto the end untyll it be thoroughly ffynyshed yeldes the trew glory.’

These words were later adapted by Eric Milner-White (1884-1963), who is credited with introducing the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols during his time as Dean of King’s College, Cambridge (1918-1941). In a collection of prayers he compiled and published in 1941 as he was moving from King’s to become Dean of York, he adapted Drake’s words in what has become a well-known prayer:

O Lord God,
when thou givest to thy servants
to endeavour any great matter,
grant us also to know that it is not the beginning,
but the continuing of the same unto the end,
until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory;
through him who for the finishing of thy work
laid down his life, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

— after Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596)

But there is another prayer that is also attributed to Francis Drake. After the Golden Hinde sailed from Portsmouth to raid Spanish Gold before sailing on to California, he is said to have written:

Disturb us, Lord,
when we are too well pleased with ourselves;
when our dreams have come true
because we have dreamed too little,
when we arrived safely
because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
we have lost our thirst
for the waters of life;
having fallen in love with life,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision
of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly –
to venture on wider seas
where storms will show your mastery;
where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
the horizons of our hopes;
and to push back the future
in strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
who is Jesus Christ.

This prayer exists in different versions, and many of these versions include lines that sound too modern to be Drake’s own words. Indeed, it is difficult to be certain whether any of this prayer was written or prayed by Drake himself, although, as the first person to circumnavigate the globe, he would certainly have understood its sentiment.

There is a well-known saying: ‘A ship in the harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.’ Food, shelter, and warmth are not enough on their own. In order to flourish, we need a dream – a sense of purpose. A dream come true is, by definition, not a dream any more. And when our dreams come true, we need to dream new dreams, for: ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’ (Proverbs 28.19).

So often, it is true, church life is a tussle between young people who want to try new things and older people who so want to keep things as they are. But young adventurers also need older people with wisdom and perspective who can still retain and nurture a healthy sense of adventure.

Drake’s prayer expresses the excitement of faith. It is so easy for some to dismiss faith as a crutch for the weak and prayer as a sign of weakness. But if all our prayers were prayers for help, then would there be nothing more to life than merely coping with it and whatever it brings us?

‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God’ (Luke 9: 62) … sculpture in Kanturk, Co Cork, of Thady Kelleher (1935-2004), World and All-Ireland Ploughing Champion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 1 October 2025):

The theme this week (28 September to 4 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘One Faith: Many Voices’ (pp 42-43). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 1 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we give thanks for those who have passed down the faith and your faithfulness through the generations.

The Collect of the Day:

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
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:

Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
defend your Church from all false teaching
and give to your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Foxes have holes … but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’ (Luke 9: 57) … a fox in street art in Lichfield (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