Ιερός Ναός Αγίου Αντωνίου Ρεθύμνου The Church of Saint Antony, Rethymnon:

Saint Antony of Egypt, celebrated throughout the church. He is the key figure among the Desert Fathers and is regarded as the Father of Monasticism (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Inside the tiny Church of Saint Antony in the heart of the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Looking out onto the streets of Rethymnon from the small church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Antony's Church is tucked into a corner of Rethymnon, set back from a restaurant and behind trees (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A map of Rethymnon on the wall of Havesiliki, beside Saint Antony's Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today (17 January) is the Feast of Saint Antony of Egypt, celebrated throughout the church. He is the key figure among the Desert Fathers and is regarded as the Father of Monasticism.

The tiny, beautiful Church of Saint Antony (Ιερός Ναός Αγίου Αντωνίου) in Rethymnon is on the corner of Mousourou street and Tombazi street, facing the east end of Rethymnon’s Cathedral and the cathedral bell tower, virtually opposite the Bishop’s Palace.

The church is tucked in behind tall trees and Havesiliki, a small restaurant on the street corner, so that few tourists ever notice and even fewer wander in to experience its peace and calm.

I used one of these photographs in my prayer diary on my blog this morning (here).

Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 24, Saturday 17 January 2026

The Triptych of Saint Matthew by Andrea di Cione (1343-1368), also known as Orcagna, in the Uffizi, Florence … Saint Matthew is also identified with Levi

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). Tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II, 18 January 2026), with readings that continue to focus on the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist, one of the three great Epiphany theme, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Wedding at Cana.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Antony of Egypt (356), Hermit and Abbot, and Charles Gore (1835-1932), Bishop and Founder of the Community of the Resurrection.

Meanwhile, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Saint Matthew represented in a group of the Four Evangelists on columns at the porch in University Church, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 13-17 (NRSVA):

13 Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. 14 As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.

15 And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples – for there were many who followed him. 16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

The gravestone of a Levite family in the Jewish cemetery in the Lido, Venice … hand-washing and foot-washing are part of the ministry of Levites (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Mark 2: 13-17), Christ is in Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. He has told a paralytic man that his sins are forgiven, but some religious authorities doubt his ability to do this, saying only God can forgive sins. He has proved that he is from God by also healing the man.

Tax collectors were considered unclean ritually, they worked for the occupying power and they were suspect financially. As with Peter and Andrew, Christ sees Levi the tax collector beside the sea, and he responds immediately to Christ’s call to follow him. Is this the same person as Matthew (see Matthew 9:9), the author of the first Gospel?

Christ first called fishers as first four disciples: Andrew and Peter, then James and John. His next choice of a tax collector seems a bold move. Tax collectors were typically local Jews who were employed by the Romans to collect taxes from the people. They extracted money from their neighbours and local people to cover the expenses of the foreign rulers and occupiers.

Some translations use the word publican instead of tax-collector. The word publican is a translation of τελώνης (telōnēs) the Greek word for tax-farmer, a collector of revenue or tolls, and we come across the same word in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18: 9-14).

The Romans paid tax collectors well, and seemingly did not care if the collectors took more than the tax required. They were free to take as much as they could for themselves – once the Romans had been paid.

Rome collected three principal kinds of taxes: a land tax, a head tax, and a customs tax of 2% to 5% of the value on goods being moved around. A tax office or booth stood near a city gate or port to collect the custom tax from people engaged in commercial trade, such as fishers exporting dried fish or farmers sending surplus crops to a larger city.

Tax collectors were seen as collaborators and as greedy, and they were despised. This attitude was reflected in the words of Jesus when he said: ‘If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector’ (Matthew 18: 17).

The Greek terminology indicates Levi is a low-level tax collector. Unlike Zacchaeus, he is not a chief tax collector. The words tax booth, or tax office translate the Greek τὸ τελώνιον (to telōnion, ‘revenue or tax office’ (Mark 2: 14). Perhaps Levi’s booth indicates he collects tolls along the road along the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. He would have been seen as a state-sponsored thief who socialised on the fringes of respectable society.

When Jesus walks along the shore (Mark 2: 13-14), he sees Levi. But instead of passing by, ignoring Levi or showing contempt or disgust, he calls him to follow him. Levi now becomes the disciple of a rabbi who is well-respected, who invites him into his home, and he organises a welcoming banquet for Jesus, to which he invites other tax collectors.

Dining with Levi damages Jesus’ reputation in the eyes of the religious leaders, local Pharisees and teachers of the law (Mark 2: 16). To eat with a Gentile or tax collector was regarded by strict Pharisees as rendering one spiritually or ceremonially unclean, to the point that even a house entered by a tax collector could be considered unclean.

The identity of Levi and his identification with Matthew are the subject of much speculation. Saint Mark also identifies Levi as the son of Alphaeus (Mark 2: 14). But he is also identified with Matthew in lists of the Twelve (see Luke 6: 14-16). Saint Matthew’s Gospel lists him specifically as Matthew the tax collector (see Matthew 10: 3), identified with the author of Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

Matthew is a Greek form of a Hebrew name, מַתִּתְיָהוּ‎ (Matityahu), meaning ‘Gift of God’ and transliterated into Greek as Ματταθίας (Mattathias). It is similar to but not to be confused with the name Matthias (Ματθίας), another apostle, and the Greek word μαθητής (mathētēs), meaning disciple or learner, often used in the New Testament for followers of Jesus.

Many New Testament figures have two names: Simon becomes Cephas or Peter, Saul becomes Paul.

Mark and Luke name the tax collector as Levi, indicating he may have been a descendent of the tribe of Levi, which included the priests and Levites. But instead of a holy service in the Temple, this Levi is an unholy civil servant in his tax booth.

The roles of the Levites include washing the hands, and sometimes the feet of the kohanim after they remove their shoes and before they ascend the bimah or platform in the synagogue to give the priestly blessing to the congregation. As this custom developed, the association of the Levites with this washing led to iconographic depictions of pitchers, ewers and bowls on the tombstones of Levite families.

Levi abandons his lucrative business as a tax collector, and is called too to be a new form of Levite, to minister hand and foot to Christ the great high priest.

In accepting Jesus’ invitation, Levi extends his own invitation: he invited Jesus to dinner in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others eat with them in his large house, suited to a wealthy man. Yet those who are invited are seen as thieves, unbelievers, open sinners and social pariahs.

Did the guests also include Peter and Andrew, James and John, who once despised Levi who extracted tolls on their fish exports? When they see Jesus warmly accepting Levi, do they too accept him? Or does it take time? Are they hurt to hear their new fellow disciple put down with the question put not to Jesus but to them: ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ (Mark 2: 16).

Christ dines with people whose trades make them ritually unclean and social outcasts. When the religiously powerful question his actions, Christ replies: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners’ (Mark 2: 16). He comes to call and to invite into his Kingdom those in need of repentance, not those who think they are righteous in God’s eyes.

Saint Matthew the Evangelist represented in a carving on the choir stalls in the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, Penkridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 17 January 2026):

The theme this week (11-17 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Gaza Crisis Response’ (pp 18-19). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update from the Diocese of Jerusalem.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 17 January 2026) invites us to pray:

We pray for the Christian Care Centre in Honiara and the women and children who find refuge there. May they experience safety, healing, and hope, and may the Sisters be strengthened in compassion and wisdom.

The Collect:

Most gracious God,
who called your servant Antony to sell all that he had
and to serve you in the solitude of the desert:
by his example may we learn to deny ourselves
and to love you before all things;
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 Antony
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.

Collect on the Eve of Epiphany II:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
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

An image of Saint Antony above the entrance to Saint Antony’s Church in Mitropolis Square, Rethymnon … he is commemorated in the Church Calendar on 17 January (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 5, Monday 29 December 2025, The Holy Innocents

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

Patrick Comerford

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

This is the fifth day of Christmas and the calendar of the Church of England today remembers the Holy Innocents. The Festival of The Holy Innocents is usually observed on 28 December, and was observed in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, yesterday. But many churches and parishes marked yesterday as the first Sunday of Christmas, and for them the observance has been moved to today (Monday 29 December 2025).

If the Holy Innocents were commemorated yesterday, then the Church of England remembers Thomas Becket (1170), Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr, today. The calendar of Eastern Orthodox Church also remembers the Holy Innocents on 29 December.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

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

Matthew 2: 13-18 (NRSVA):

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

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

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

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

Today’s Reflections:

The Christian interpretation of the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ often sees the five gold or golden rings as figurative representations of the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), the Pentateuch or the Torah.

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

Saint Stephen’s Day on Friday (26 December), Holy Innocents’ Day (usually 28 December), and the commemoration of Thomas à Beckett (usually today, 29 December), are reminders that Christmas, far from being surrounded by sanitised images of the crib, angels and wise men, is followed by martyrdom and violence. When the Church Calendar recalls the massacre of the Holy Innocents, they are sometimes revered as the first Christian martyrs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In previous years, Christian CND and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship have come together to mark Holy Innocents’ Day and to pray for peace with prayers, readings, singing and reflections on all the innocent victims of war and violence, especially children. This morning, as I reflect on the day ahead, my heart is weighed down by the plight of the children who have been caught in war and violence in Gaza, Isreal and Palestine, in Syria and Lebanon, and in Ukraine and Russia, the forgotten child refugees on Greek islands, in Lampedusa and in Calais, in cheap hotels across this land and across Europe, and the child refugees and innocent children who have become the victims of the appalling decisions about to be made by the Trump regime in the past year.

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

Large numbers of children arrived last year (2025) along a new trafficking route from Libya to Crete, prompting NGOs to urge Greek authorities to take emergency measures that would allow children to be transferred to protected shelters or other EU member states.

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

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

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

Greece’s migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, predicted last Christmas that pressure on east Mediterranean migration routes to Greece was likely to continue this year (2025). By the end of last year, 60,000 people had entered Greece, and camps on the Aegean islands were at full capacity, he said.

Aid groups report hundreds of children on the frontline isles of Samos, Leros and Kos without clothes or shoes and little or no access to essential services. Spending cuts by the Greek government resulted in fewer protective shelters and about 1,500 unaccompanied children were forced to fend for themselves throughout Greece. Incidents of violence and abuse proliferated in overcrowded state-run reception facilities that frequently host children and adults together. There were shocking reports of a teenager from Egypt being gang-raped, beaten and burned at the Malakasa refugee camp outside Athens.

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

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

The situation has continued to deteriorate in the past 12 months. Last month (November 2025), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) submitted comments to the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) on the follow-up to the collective complaint ICJ and ECRE v Greece. Their submission details several aspects of Greece’s continuing non-compliance with the European Social Charter (ESC) concerning the rights of migrant and refugee children.

Their concerns include continued resort to detention or detention-like restrictions of migrant and refugee children as a substitute for reception; prolonged confinement in what should be ‘safe zones’ with unrelated adults; persistent substandard reception conditions on the islands; the continued lack of appropriate shelter for unaccompanied children on the mainland; recurrent barriers to healthcare and schooling; a deficient current age-assessment framework; concerns about medical tests, lengthy appeal deadlines; and violations of children’s rights.

Malcolm Guite is a Cambridge poet and priest. At the request of King Charles, one of his poems was read by Dame Kristin Scott Thomas on the Sunday before Christmas (21 December) at the Chapel Royal Carol Service:

We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.
But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.

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

Today’s Prayers (Monday 29 December 2025, the Holy Innocents):

The theme this week (28 December 2025 to 3 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Mother and Child’ (pp 14-15). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 29 December 2025) invites us to pray:

God of compassion, we continue to ask that you bless the faith and dedication of those working at Mvumi.

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose children suffered at the hands of Herod,
though they had done no wrong:
by the suffering of your Son
and by the innocence of our lives
frustrate all evil designs
and establish your reign of justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
in your humility you have stooped to share our human life
with the most defenceless of your children:
may we who have received these gifts of your passion
rejoice in celebrating the witness of the Holy Innocents
to the purity of your sacrifice
made once for all upon the cross;
for you are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

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

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

Christmas Cards from Patrick Comerford: 4, 28 December 2025

‘La Sagrada Family’ … a modern interpretation of the Flight into Egypt by Kelly Latimore

Patrick Comerford

I sent out very few Christmas cards this year. Instead, at noon each day throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas, I am offering an image or two as my virtual Christmas cards, without comment.

The Gospel reading this morning tells the story of the flight into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-23). My image for my Christmas Card at noon today (28 December 2025), is ‘La Sagrada Family’, a modern interpretation of the Flight into Egypt in an icon by Kelly Latimore, located on the border between the US and Mexico.

Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 4, Sunday 28 December 2025, First Sunday of Christmas (Christmas I)

The Presentation in the Temple and the Flight into Egypt … scenes from Christ’s childhood years in windows designed by Father Vincent Chin in Saint Peter’s Church, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

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

This is the fourth day of Christmas and today in the church calendar is the First Sunday of Christmas (Christmas I, (28 December 2025), and later this morning I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist 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, 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 Flight into Egypt … a stained glass window by the Harry Clarke Studios in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 2: 13–23 (NRSVA):

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

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

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

19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’

‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879), by Luc-Olivier Merson

This Sunday can be something of an anti-climax for many people, after all that has happened on Christmas Day and the day after, Saint Stephen’s Day.

The ‘four calling birds’ on the fourth day of Christmas are said to represent the four Gospel writers. But Saint Matthew is alone among the Gospel writers in recounting the flight into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-23). We hear this morning how Saint Joseph learns after the visit of the Magi that King Herod the Great is plotting to murder the infants in his kingdom.

Herod the Great fears the new-born ‘King of the Jews’ that the Magi speak about is going to be a threat to his throne, and so he sets out to kill all innocent children under the age of two.

The wise men from the East (verse 1) came to Herod the Great asking ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’ (verse 2). Now They have visited the child with Mary (verse 11), paid him homage, and offered him gifts. They have now returned to their own country (verse 12).

In yet another dream, an angel warns Saint Joseph of the plot, and so he takes the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with him, and the family flee to Egypt (verse 13).

Egypt was to the west or south-west of Bethlehem a logical place to seek refuge: it was outside Herod’s kingdom, but both Egypt and Palestine were part of the Roman Empire, linked by a coastal road known as ‘the way of the sea.’ After a time, the Holy Family returns from exile in Egypt and settles in Galilee.

In this account, Matthew 2: 15 cites Hosea (11: 1) as prophetically fulfilled in their return from Egypt: ‘… and out of Egypt I called my son.’

We have yet to read about the Circumcision and Naming of Christ (1 January) and the Epiphany (6 January), so this Gospel reading, with its story of Saint Joseph’s dream and the Flight into Egypt, may seem out of sequence.

This story can be read as a comparison with either Moses leading the people out of exile in Egypt or with the forced exile for many generations in Babylon. In either case, Christ is seen, from the beginning of his life, as leading people out of exile and slavery.

The story is often read as the final episode in the Nativity narrative, and is associated with this season of Epiphany. Perhaps this reading, with its events and its geographical setting, may present many parishes with an interesting opportunity to consider the plight of refugees, particularly in North Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Or, perhaps, given the present political climate in the US, Russia and many other countries, the story could provide an interesting opening to discuss the policies and whims of capricious, demanding and despotic rulers.

Herod has all the infants in the area around Bethlehem area killed because he fears that Jesus may succeed to his throne, rather than one of his own sons (verse 16). The Gospel then recalls the Prophet Jeremiah (verse 18) and how Rachel weeps over the exile of her sons, and then (verse 20).

In Joseph’s next dream, the angel’s message recalls God’s words to Moses as he sends him to lead Israel out of bondage. In this way, Christ is presented as the new leader of God’s people.

Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas, ruled Galilee benignly, compared to how his brother Herod Archelaus ruled in Judea. Some commentators suggest Joseph may also have chosen to make his home in Nazareth (verse 23) because he could find work at Sepphoris, the city being rebuilt 6 km nearby.

The closing quotation is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Perhaps Saint Matthew is misquoting Isaiah, who says ‘a branch [nezer] shall grow’ out of Jesse’s ‘roots’ (see Isaiah 11: 1) – David was Jesse’s son.

The painting ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879) by Luc-Olivier Merson (1846–1920) is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is in Oil on Canvas and measures 71.8 cm x 128.3 cm. It was bought in Paris by George Golding Kennedy (1841-1918) of Boston, who bequeathed it to museum in 1918.

The scene Merson depicts is haunting and full of fatigue. An exhausted Saint Joseph is asleep, perhaps suffering from mental and physical exhaustion in his flight from danger with his wife and her baby, stretched out on the desert sands as he tries to doze off.

The Virgin Mary is resting in the arms of the Sphinx, cradling the Christ Child, both unable to sleep because of their plight, because of what they have witnessed.

The Christ Child seems to light up the whole scene but is beginning his life in exile, in homelessness, a refugee, an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land.

The donkey – that little donkey who becomes a domestic pet in children’s carols – is worn out from the journey from Bethlehem, and scavenges in the dark in the desert soil, seeking what few blades of grass he can find to eat.

By the time the 12 days of Christmas have passed, most of us will be tired of the seven swans a-swimming, the six geese a-laying … and only too happy to get back to work, and to begin looking at summer holiday brochures.

However, this is not what it is like for the Holy Family in the days after their first Christmas. That first Christmas was not one filled with tedium and boredom. Their first Christmas was the very opposite to our comfortable holiday season in Northern Europe.

This painting by Merson reminds us of the stark reality of the hardship and deprivation suffered by a family on the run. Who among us would swap the tedium and boredom of the coming week for that time Mary and Joseph had with the Christ Child?

Harried by Herod’s hunters, they barely escaped a maniacal plot for mass murder, and ended up in exile where their ancestors had once been slaves, seeking succour and refuge with the Jewish diaspora by the Nile and the Pyramids.

The Flight into Egypt was no bargain package holiday. Rather, it was an ordeal that inspired artists throughout the centuries. It has been painted by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Carpaccio, Durer, Claude Lorrain, Tintoretto, Barbieri, Tiepolo … the great Dutch and Italian masters, indeed most of the great Western artists.

Saint Matthew’s unique account of this event in this reading had many resonances for his first readers: it is a powerful restructuring of the story of Joseph forced into exile in Egypt because of the evil plots hatched against him. And the exodus from Egypt in later, safer, days, would point anew towards redemption from slavery and sin and offer the hope of imminent salvation.

Later legends surrounding the Flight into Egypt include the family hiding in a cave and being protected by a spider’s web, the beasts of the desert bowing in homage to the Christ Child, an encounter with two thieves who would be crucified beside Christ on the Cross on Calvary, and palm trees bending in reverence as Mary and Joseph passed by with the Child Jesus.

Legend says that when they found shelter on the banks of Nile, the Holy Family lived in an area known as Babylon in Egypt, where there was a long, continuous Jewish presence. Although those stories of flight and exile are unique to Saint Matthew’s Gospel, they also appear in the Quran, and are part of the way Muslims come to own the story of Jesus within their own religious traditions.

On various visits to Egypt, I was aware that the stories of the flight into Egypt, the refuge, the welcome and the asylum offered to the Holy Family there, are stories shared and definitive for all Egyptians, including Muslims, the large Christian community, and the dwindling but ancient Jewish community.

Many shrines and churches are claimed as places where the family rested or dwelt, none more so than Abu Sergha or the Church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, one of the oldest Coptic Churches in Egypt, and the place where many Patriarchs of Alexandria or Coptic Popes were elected.

Every Egyptian today – Jew, Christian and Muslim – identifies with both the Holy Family and those who offered them asylum. But who would we here identify with if you and I were hearing this story of mass murder and enforced exile for the first time?

Would I have been among the innkeepers who first refused them a welcome at my inn or hostel in Bethlehem?

Would I have been willing to work with the political apparatus around the Herod of my day, holding onto power and privilege, inspiring fear rather than respect and loyalty, no matter who had to be trampled on, no matter who suffered, no matter how the innocent would be counted among the victims?

Would I have had the courage of the wandering Magi, not only to seek truth, even if it is outside my own area of learning and knowledge, but also willing to take the risks involved in refusing to respect the immoral demands of those holding the reins of power when they are lawful but patently immoral?

When was I last like Joseph, realising that God’s promptings are not idle dreams but that they demand discipleship and action, even if this puts my personal security at risk?

When did I listen to the voice of today’s Rachels, the weeping mothers and widows, whether at a local level it was listening to the grief of someone who has lost a dear family member at Christmas time, or at a global level it was listening to those who are weeping in grief in Ukraine and Russia, in Gaza, Israel and Palestine, in Afghanistan or Sudan, or facing hostility from local communities asked to host asylum seekers and refugees in hotels and shelters?

The story of Herod’s jealous plot and of a family fleeing in search of refuge continues to have radical relevance today.

We cannot be open to the plight of the fleeing Holy Family unless we are open to the plight and needs of the families who have come to live among us today – whatever their political, social or ethnic backgrounds may be.

We cannot understand the plight of families who saw the hope of future generations sacrificed in the interest of political greed unless we too are willing to stand against political and personal greed today.

We cannot praise the disobedience of the Magi unless we are willing to say regularly that morality in politics must overrule the personal interests, gain and profit of those who hold office.

We cannot rejoice in the welcome the Egyptians gave to Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus unless we too are willing to rejoice in every initiative, every stage in the process of dialogue that brings Jews, Christians and Muslims together in our own country.

We cannot pity the plight of that family in exile unless we can acknowledge the needs of the new families living among us today.

Christmas is the story of the true insider who becomes a real outsider in order that we who in our reality are outsiders may truly become insiders.

Today’s Gospel story is an unsettling story. Perhaps it’s a story that reminds us how we can make Christmas too easy, too comfortable.

This is not a ‘family-friendly’ story, if you think of what happens to the Holy Family, to Joseph, Mary and Jesus. The Christmas story is not complete without tyrannical rulers, mass murder, refugees and families fleeing injustice.

Perhaps the Christmas story is a reminder to us that everywhere today we find oppressive rulers, the denial of human rights, child abuse, and the creation of mass numbers of refugees there is something very wrong, there is a denial of the Kingdom of God that Christ has come into the world to announce, that the state of our world today is a clear denial of the message of Christmas, of what Christmas is all about.

That’s the dark and bitter side of Christmas.

The Flight into Egypt … a stained glass window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 December 2025, Christmas I):

The theme this week (28 December 2025 to 3 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Mother and Child’ (pp 14-15). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG, who writes:

‘As we celebrate the coming of Christ, I think of the mothers I met in Tanzania and the hope I saw in their eyes. None more so than Alice, a young mother I met at Mvumi Hospital.

‘Alice and her husband both live with HIV. After losing a child and suffering several miscarriages, she feared she would never hold a healthy baby again. Through the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission programme, she received treatment, counselling, and care throughout her pregnancy.

‘When I met her, she was sitting quietly on her hospital bed, holding her one-year-old son. They had come in for a regular check-up. With deep emotion, she said, “I never thought I would see my child so healthy and strong. This hospital has given us hope and a reason to keep going.”

‘In the waiting rooms, other mothers, including many who were expecting, waited for check-ups, chatting softly and comforting one another. It was lovely to witness. I remember thinking that this is what partnership truly looks like; a church and hospital working hand in hand, creating a community and space for mothers to bring healthy children into the world.

‘It is a powerful reminder that the story of new life we celebrate at Christmas is still unfolding every day at Mvumi Hospital.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 28 December 2025, Christmas I) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 2: 13-23.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son shared at Nazareth the life of an earthly home:
help your Church to live as one family,
united in love and obedience,
and bring us all at last to our home in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God in Trinity,
eternal unity of perfect love:
gather the nations to be one family,
and draw us into your holy life
through the birth of Emmanuel,
our Lord Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Flight into Egypt in Harry Clarke’s ‘Presentation Window’ in Saint Flannan’s Church, Killaloe, Co Clare (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: 111, Friday 29 August 2025

The Execution of Saint John the Baptist … an early 18th century icon from the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Anopolis, in the Museum of Christian Art in the Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai in Iraklion in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began on Sunday with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X, 24 August 2025). The Church Calendar today remembers the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (29 August 2025), a lesser festival in the Eucharistic Lectionary.

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.

The daughter of Herodias dances for the head of Saint John the Baptist … a fresco in the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 14:1-12 (NRSVA):

1 At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2 and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3 For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7 so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9 The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10 he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

The beheading of Saint John the Baptist … a fresco in the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

It is about six or seventh months since the Gospel reading told the story of the execution of Saint John the Baptist (Mark 6: 14-29, 7 February 2025) and little more than two months since we commemorated the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (24 June 2025). Now, the Church Calendar today again marks his Beheading with a lesser festival.

Today’s Gospel story (Matthew 14:1-12) is full of stark, cruel, violent reality. To achieve this dramatic effect, it is told with recall, flashback or with the use of the devise modern movie-makers call ‘back story.’

Cruel Herod has already executed Saint John the Baptist – long ago. Now he hears about the miracles and signs being worked by Jesus and his disciples.

Some people think that Saint John the Baptist has returned, even though John has been executed by Herod. Others think Jesus is Elijah – and popular belief at the time expected Elijah to return at Judgment Day (Malachi 4: 5).

On the other hand, Herod, the deranged Herod who has already had John beheaded, wonders whether John is back again. And we are presented with a flashback to the story of Saint John the Baptist, how he was executed in a moment of passion, how Herod grieved, and how John was buried.

When I was reflecting on this story in Saint Mark’s Gospel earlier this year (7 February 2025) I asked: Did you ever get mistaken for someone else? Or, do you ever wonder whether the people you work with, or who are your neighbours, really know who you are?

I was thinking then of two examples. Anthony Hope Hawkins was the son of the Vicar of Saint Bride’s in Fleet Street, the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins. He was walking home to his father’s vicarage in London one dusky evening when he came face-to-face with a man who looked like his mirror image.

He wondered what would happen if they swapped places, if this double went back to Saint Bride’s vicarage, while he headed off instead to the suburbs. Would anyone notice? It inspired him, under the penname of Anthony Hope, to write his best-selling novel, The Prisoner of Zenda.

The other example I think of is the way I often hear people put themselves down with sayings such as: ‘If they only knew what I’m really like … if they only knew what I’m truly like …’

What are you truly like?

And would you honestly want to swap your life for someone else’s?

Would you take on all their woes, and angsts and burdens, along with their way of life?

It is a recurring theme for poets, writers and philosophers over the centuries. It was the theme in John Boorman’s movie The Tiger’s Tail (2006). Brendan Gleeson plays both the main character and his protagonist. Is he his doppelgänger, a forerunner warning of doom, destruction and death? Or is he the lost twin brother who envies his achievements and lifestyle?

The doppelgänger was regarded as a harbinger of doom and death. There is a way in which Saint John the Baptist is seen as the harbinger of the death of his own cousin, Christ.

The account of Saint John’s execution anticipates the future facing Christ and some of the disciples, and Christ’s own burial (see Mark 15: 45-47). The idea that John might be raised from the dead anticipates Christ’s resurrection.

As well as attracting similar followers and having similar messages, did these two cousins, in fact, look so like one another physically?

But Herod had known John the Baptist, he knew him as a righteous and a holy man, and he protected him. Why, he even liked to listen to John.

Do you think Herod was confused about the identities of Christ and of Saint John the Baptist?

Is Herod so truly deranged that he can believe someone he has executed, whose severed head he has seen, could come back to life in such a short period?

Or is Herod’s reaction merely one of exasperation and exhaustion: ‘Oh no! Not that John, back again!’

We too are forerunners, sent out to be signs of the Kingdom of God. To be a disciple is to follow a risky calling – or at least it ought to be so.

To be a disciple is to follow a risky calling – or at least it ought to be so.

I once had a poster with a grumpy looking judge and the words, ‘If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?’

Herod’s maniacal and capricious way of making decisions makes discipleship a risk-filled commitment.

But Herod’s horrid banquet runs right into the next story in Saint Mark’s Gospel where Christ feeds the 5,000, a sacramental sign of the invitation to all to the heavenly banquet – more than we can imagine can be fed in any human undertaking.

The invitation to Herod’s banquet, for the privileged and the prejudiced, is laden with the smell of death.

The invitation to Christ’s banquet, for the marginalised and the rejected, is laden with the promise of life.

Herod feeds the prejudices of his own family and a closed group of courtiers. Christ shows that, despite the initial prejudices of the disciples, all are welcome to his banquet.

Herod is in a lavish palace in his city, but is isolated and deserted. Christ withdraws to an open but deserted place to be alone, but a great crowd follows him.

Herod fears the crowd beyond his palace gates. Christ rebukes the disciples for wanting to keep the crowds away.

Herod offers his daughter half his kingdom. Christ offers us all, as God’s children, the fullness of the kingdom of God.

Herod’s daughter asks for John’s head on a platter. On the mountainside, Christ feeds all.

Our lives are filled with choices.

Herod chooses loyalty to his inner circle and their greed. Christ tells his disciples to make a choice in favour of those who need food and shelter.

Herod’s banquet leads to destruction and death. Christ’s banquet is an invitation to building the kingdom and to new life.

Would I rather be at Herod’s Banquet for the few in the palace or with Christ as he feeds the masses in the wilderness?

Who would you invite to the banquet?

And who do you think feels excluded from the banquet?

We may never get the chance to be like Herod when it comes to lavish banqueting and decadent partying. But we have an opportunity to be party to inviting the many to the banquet that really matters.

Who feels turned away from the banquet by the Church today, abandoned and left to fend for themselves?

And, in our response to their needs, when we become signs of the Kingdom of God, we provide evidence enough to convict us when we are accused of being Christians.

An icon of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in a church in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 29 August 2025, the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist):


The theme this week (24 to 30 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘From Strangers to Neighbours’ (pp 32-33) This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Right Revd Antonio Ablon, Chaplain of Saint Catherine’s Anglican Church, Stuttgart, Germany.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 29 August 2025, the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist) invites us to pray:

Merciful Lord, make your Church a home for all people, especially the displaced. May we be instruments of your love, offering support, companionship, and advocacy for those seeking new beginnings.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who called your servant John the Baptist
to be the forerunner of your Son in birth and death:
strengthen us by your grace
that, as he suffered for the truth,
so we may boldly resist corruption and vice
and receive with him the unfading crown of glory;
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 Lord,
whose prophet John the Baptist
proclaimed your Son as the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world:
grant that we who in this sacrament
have known your forgiveness and your life–giving love
may ever tell of your mercy and your peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Father Irenaeus, a monk in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Natrun in Egypt, shows me the relics in the crypt of Saint John the Baptist below the northern wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 85, Saturday 2 August 2025

An icon of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in a church in Koutouloufari in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and tomorrow is the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VII, 3 Augus 2025). Later today, the Greek community in Stony Stratford is opening its pop-up café at Swinfen Harris Church Hall, London Road. Το Στεκι Μας, Our Place, takes place every first Saturday of the month from 10:30 to 5 pm.

Today in the Hebrew calendar 5785 is known as Shabbat Chazon, which began at sundown last night (1 August 2025) and ends at nightfall tonight (2 August 2025). It is the sabbath before Tisha BeAb or Tisha B’Av (תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב), the annual fast day that commemorates the destruction of both the First Temple and Second Temple in Jerusalem. This year Tisha B’Av begins at sundown this evening (2 August 2025) and ends at nightfall tomorrow (3 August 2025).

But, 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.

The beheading of Saint John the Baptist … a fresco in Analipsi Church or the Church of the Ascension in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 14: 1-12 (NRSVA):

14 At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2 and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3 For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7 so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9 The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10 he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

Father Irenaeus, a monk in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Natrun, shows me the relics in the crypt of Saint John the Baptist below the northern wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 14: 1-12) is in sequence with our Gospel readings throughout the past week. However, we are going to hear it once again near the end of the month, when 29 August is observed liturgically by most Christian traditions, including most Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches, as a day commemorating the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.

That liturgical commemoration is almost as old as the commemoration of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June. In some Orthodox cultures, the day is one day of strict fasting.

Saint John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod Antipas through the vengeful request of his daughter Salome. The story of his beheading is a story that places personal integrity, morality and honour in stark contrast to self-centred arrogance, vengeance, and the tyrannical abuse of power.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, Herod, who was Tetrarch of Judea, had imprisoned Saint John the Baptist after he reproved Herod for divorcing his wife and unlawfully marrying Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip.

On Herod’s birthday, Salome, the daughter of Herodias, danced before him and his guests. The drunken Herod was so pleased that he promised her anything she desired, including half his kingdom. When her mother prompted Salome to ask for the head of Saint John the Baptist on a platter, he was executed in prison. The disciples took his body and buried it, but the Gospel accounts say nothing about what happened to his head (Matthew 14: 1-12; Mark 6: 14-29; see Luke 9: 7-9).

According to some Orthodox traditions, Saint John’s disciples buried his body at Sebaste, near present-day Nablus on the West Bank, but Herodias took his head and buried it in a dung heap. Later, Saint Joanna, the wife of one of Herod’s stewards, secretly recovered the head and buried it on the Mount of Olives, where it remained hidden for centuries. In the fourth century, a monk named Innocent is said to have found the buried head, but hid it again.

Over a century later, in the year 452, when Constantine the Great was Emperor, two monks in Jerusalem on a pilgrimage claimed to have found the head once again, but it fell into the hands of an Arian monk, Eustathius. Eventually, Archimandrite Marcellus brought the head to Emesa in Phoenicia.

Yet other traditions say Herodias had the head buried in Herod’s fortress at Machaerus or in Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. It was found during the reign of Constantine and secretly taken to Emesa, where it was hidden until it was found once again in 453.

From Emesa, the head was brought to Constantinople. Although it was moved to Cappadocia in the early ninth century during the iconoclastic persecution, it was returned later to Constantinople.

According to another tradition, the body of Saint John the Baptist remained in Sebaste. However, his shrine was desecrated under Julian the Apostate ca 362. A portion of the rescued relics was brought first to Jerusalem and then to Alexandria in 395. Today, the former tomb in Nablus is at the Nabi Yahya Mosque or Saint John the Baptist Mosque.

Nowadays, several places claim to have the severed head of Saint John the Baptist, including the Church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome, Amiens Cathedral in France, Antioch in Turkey, the Romanian skete of Saint John Prodromos (Saint John the Baptist) on Mount Athos in Greece, and the former Basilica of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus. Because of the traditions relating the head to the Syrian capital, many Muslims believe that Christ’s second coming will take place in Damascus.

In Egypt, when I visited the Coptic Orthodox Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great at Wadi el-Natrun, about 100 km north-west of Cairo, in the Desert of Sceits, Father Irenaeus, a monk in the monastery, showed me the relics of Saint John the Baptist in the crypt of the main church in the monastery.

The Church of Saint Macarius was restored in recent decades at the request of the late Pope Shenouda III. We were told that during the restoration of the church, the monks unearthed the crypt of Saint John the Baptist and the crypt of the Prophet Elisha below the northern wall . The relics were then gathered into a special reliquary and placed before the sanctuary of Saint John the Baptist in the Church of Saint Macarius.

The monastery has spiritual, academic and fraternal links with several monasteries outside Egypt, including Chevetogne in Belgium, Solesmes Abbey and the Monastery of the Transfiguration in France, Deir el-Harf in Lebanon and the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God at the Convent of the Incarnation at Fairacres in Oxford.

Each day, the monastery receives large numbers of Egyptian and foreign visitors, sometimes as many as 1,000 people a day. The monks give special priority to priests, full-time lay workers and Sunday school teachers as visitors, and during the summer holidays, the monastery offers many young people opportunities to spend a few days on retreat, with spiritual direction and guidance.

The monastery is playing a significant role in the spiritual awakening of the Coptic Church. ‘We receive all our visitors, no matter what their religious conviction, with joy, warmth and graciousness, not out of a mistaken optimism, but in genuine and sincere love for each person,’ says the monastery website.

In his book, Church and State, one of the monks, Father Matta el-Meskeen, declares that politics should be entirely separated from religion. ‘Give therefore to emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Matthew 22: 21). In other writings, such as Sectarianism and Extremism, Father Matta warns against the common tendency of minorities to be wrapped up in themselves and to despise others.

The monks say they live out fully the unity of the Church in spirit and in truth, ‘in anticipation of its visible attainment ecclesiastically. Through our genuine openness of heart and spirit to all men, no matter what their confession, it has become possible for us to see ourselves, or rather Christ, in others. For us, Christian unity is to live together in Christ by love. Then divisions collapse and differences disappear, and there is only the One Christ who gathers us all into his holy person.’

And they add: ‘It is our hope that the desert of Scetis will become once more the birth place of good will, reconciliation and unity between all the peoples on earth in Christ Jesus.’

These monks are an example to us all. Meanwhile, in my prayers this morning I am thinking of those places associated with Saint John the Baptist in the Middle East, including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and Egypt, Syria and Turkey. The people there must be in our prayers this morning, including the victims of war and violence, the people starving in a famine that has created through political and military policies, the missing hostages, children and families being forced to move constantly and in terror, the maimed and the dying, whole communities that have been traumatised, the suffering minorities in the region.

I pray this morning that integrity, morality and honour may triumph over arrogance, vengeance and the tyrannical abuse of power, and pray too for an end to the killing of people at the behest of those with too much power and too many weapons.

With Father Irenaeus, a monk in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Natrun in the Western Desert in Egypt

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 2 August 2025):

The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.

The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 2 August 2025) invites us to pray:

God of justice, break the chains of poverty, corruption, and exploitation that fuel human trafficking. Lead communities towards fairness, opportunity, and safety for all.

The Collect:

Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God of our pilgrimage,
you have led us to the living water:
refresh and sustain us
as we go forward on our journey,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Creator God,
you made us all in your image:
may we discern you in all that we see,
and serve you in all that we do;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity VII:

Lord of all power and might,
the author and giver of all good things:
graft in our hearts the love of your name,
increase in us true religion,
nourish us with all goodness,
and of your great mercy keep us in the same;
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.

An icon of Saint John the Baptist in a small chapel in Georgioupoli in Crete (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

The monks of Mount Sinai have closed Saint Catherine’s Monastery to protest at a court ruling threatening their future

The monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai have closed their gates to all visitors following an Egyptian court ruling last week (Photograph: Friends of Mount Sinai)

Patrick Comerford

The monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai have closed their gates to all visitors in a symbolic act of protest following an Egyptian court ruling last week that threatens the future of the monastery.

According to Greek news reports yesterday, the monastic community of about 20 monks has resolved to remain in seclusion, mourning and praying for the monastery’s protection, and is giving no timeline for reopening.

There is a swelling tide of concern across the Orthodox world and in Greek-speaking community around the world about the future of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai following a disturbing ruling last week by a court in Egypt that appears to threaten the survival of the world’s oldest continually-inhabited Christian monastery.

Saint Catherine’s Monastery was founded in the Sinai Peninsula in the sixth century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site, known for its ancient manuscripts and icons and revered in all three major monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

It was there God spoke to Moses through the Burning Bush and gave him the Ten Commandments; it was there Elijah hid in a crag in the rock; and it was there, Muslims believe, Muhammad was a visiting trader prior to the beginnings of Islam, perhaps even visiting Saint Catherine’s Monastery. It said the monastery was granted a letter of protection from Muhammad in the seventh century and this was reaffirmed by the Ottoman Sultan Selim II in the 16th century.

In recent days, Orthodox leaders around the world have reacted with alarm and the Greek government has spoken out strongly after an Egyptian court ruling last week (28 May). The ruling threatens the monastery’s autonomy and its future and raises fears that Saint Catherine’s could be seized by the state and the monks evicted, and fears for religious freedom in Egypt.

With President Mary McAleese welcoming a group of Egyptian Christian and Muslim leaders to at Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin in 2006

I was a guest on Mount Sinai when I visited Egypt several times while I was working on a programme on Christian-Muslim dialogue about 20 years ago. During those visits, I met Christian and Muslim leaders throughout Egypt, wrote for The Irish Times on the monastery’s library. I have stayed in Cairo, where I walked by the Nile and visited the pyramids and the Sphinx; Alexandria, where the dogmatic debates helped produce the Creeds, Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai; and in monasteries in the Western Desert associated with the Desert Fathers.

Perhaps one of the most unusual experiences during those visits was to preside at the Eucharist at dawn at the top of Mount Sinai with a small group, celebrating with bread and wine taken from the dinner table the night before in Saint Catherine’s Monastery.

During those years, I arranged a visit by Irish bishops to meet Christian and Muslim leaders in Egypt, and reciprocal visits to Ireland that included visits to Aras an Uachtaráin and the Chester Beatty Library, a reception in the Egyptian Embassy, events in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the chapel in Trinity College Dublin, and the Irish Islamic Centre in Clonskeagh. In all those exchanges, my work was facilitated and encouraged by the Egyptian embassy in Dublin and the Irish, British and Vatican embassies in Cairo, Egyptian church leaders of all traditions, and the offices of the secretary general of the Arab League.

Of course, interfaith relations and religious freedoms were not perfect in Egypt in those days. But they were an example of how they could be worked on, nurtured and encourage. So, I too am disturbed by last week’s ruling and the way its reopens questions about the vulnerability of religious heritage sites in Egypt and religious freedom for both Muslims and Christians.

A court in Sinai has ruled that the state owns Mount Sinai as public property (Photograph: Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate)

A court in Sinai ruled last Wednesday in a land dispute between the monastery and the South Sinai governorate, declaring that the monastery ‘is entitled to use’ the land and the archaeological religious sites in the area, all of which ‘the state owns as public property’.

The ruling by the South Sinai Court of First Instance allows for the registration of monastery land in the name of the Egyptian government. The monastery tried to register its land independently in 2012, and submitted documents showing ownership dating back centuries, including the Ottoman decree. But the court ruled that all that evidence is insufficient. The Egyptian General Authority for Land Survey applied in 2021 to register the land as government property, and this request was upheld by the court last week.

The ruling comes in the midst of a controversial government development project is underway to boost visitor numbers to the area, which is popular with both pilgrims and adventure tourists. The area includes a town named after the monastery and a nature reserve. Observers say the project has harmed the ecosystem of the nature reserve and threatens both the monastery and the local community.

The court has effectively turned the area over to the state and the ruling leaves the monastery and the 18-20 monks who live there as tenants at will of the government of the day. The monastic community now fears it is on the brink of eviction and that the entire Sinai Brotherhood is now seen as squatters, disregarding their 15-century presence there.

In a phone conversation on Friday with Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt said Cairo is ‘fully committed to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine’s monastery, and ensuring it is not violated.’

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said rumours of confiscation were ‘completely unfounded’ and denied any change to the monastery’s legal or spiritual status, saying it ‘does not touch the monastery’s spiritual value, religious significance, or the cemeteries associated with it’. It said the ruling ‘preserves the special and sacred status of the monastery.’

But these responses fail to indicate whether the president and the government accept the monastery and its lands are owned by the monastic community of Saint Catherine’s.

The Greek Prime Minister’s office said Mr Mitsotakis emphasised the importance of ‘preserving the pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox character of the monastery and resolving the issue in an institutional manner’, based on an agreement between the two countries.

Archbishop Damianos of Sinai, Pharan, and Raitho, and Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai (Photograph: Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine)

In a telephone interview from Cairo at the weekend with the National Herald in Boston, Archbishop Damianos of Sinai, Pharan, and Raitho, and Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, spoke about the recent developments at the monastery.

Archbishop Damianos said: ‘For over ten years now, we have been in and out of court, because our right of ownership over this barren land – which we always considered ours, handed down to us by sanctified individuals – is being denied … These are holy places visited by people from around the world, from which the Egyptian government benefits; yet they do not wish to recognise them as our property.’

The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople has called on the Egyptian government and President Sisi to maintain the status quo of Saint Catherine’s Monastery. In a statement last Friday, the Ecumenical Patriarchate said it was ‘disappointed and saddened’ by the ruling and called on the Egyptian government to respect long-standing traditions agreements on Saint Catherine’s Monastery ‘where God once spoke to humankind’.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has said it is ‘deeply troubled’ and reasserted its jurisdiction over and protection of the monastery.

Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens said the court ruling is ‘scandalous’ and a ‘violent infringement of human and religious rights’ by the Egyptian judicial authorities. He has warned that the monastery’s property would now be ‘seized and confiscated’ despite ‘recent pledges to the contrary’ by Sisi to Mitsotakis. He added: ‘The property of the monastery is being seized and confiscated, and this spiritual lighthouse of Orthodoxy and Hellenism is now facing a question of real survival.’

A copy of the earliest icon from Mount Sinai in the chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Despite the rapid growth of tourism in Egypt and the development of resorts such as Sharm el-Sheikh, the Sinai Peninsula has long been a remote region. It takes six or seven hours to travel from Cairo to Saint Catherine’s at the foot of Mount Sinai, and for generations the Sinai Desert remained the wilderness it must have been when the Children of Israel trekked through here for 40 years after they fled from slavery in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea.

Saint Catherine’s Monastery, dating to the fourth century, is the principal tourist attraction in the desert. As a spiritual centre, Saint Catherine’s is a pivotal place in the development of Orthodox spirituality:

• the first Christian icons may have been produced in the fourth century, and the earliest surviving icons, found in Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, date from the sixth or seventh century;

• Saint John Klimakos, a monk of Mount Sinai who died in the year 606 CE, has been strongly influential on theology, spirituality and iconography through The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a spiritual classic in which he recommends the use of the Jesus Prayer.

• the tradition of iconography from Mount Sinai and Crete strongly influenced Western art after Michael Damaskinos and his pupil El Greco moved from Crete to Italy in the 16th century.

‘We have three types of tourists visiting us,’ the monastery’s abbot, Archbishop Damianos once told the Greek journal Odyssey. ‘There are the devout, there are art lovers who came to see our treasures, and then there are the worst kind – those who come because they consider a daytrip to Saint Catherine’s to be the cultural part of their beach holiday.’

For many visitors, the monastery is the starting point for a daunting three-hour climb to the 600-metre summit of Mount Sinai. The daily trek, led by Bedouin camel drivers, sets off before 3 a.m. so climbers on the rough, steep path are saved from the burning sun. Later in the day – until this week’s closure – the monastery has been open to tourists for only 2½ hours, from 9:30 to noon, and it has remained closed on Fridays, Sundays and all Greek Orthodox holidays.

An old print of Saint Catherine’s Monastery I once had in the Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In this remote corner of the Christendom, the monks of Saint Catherine’s continue to value the desert silence but they have also acquired some of the benefits of 21st-century technology.

The most visible legacy of the Desert Fathers at Saint Catherine’s is a unique library and collection of icons, textiles and religious artefacts. The Icon Gallery includes rare sixth-century icons that survived the ravages of the iconoclast controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries. The library includes 3,500 bound manuscripts, 2,000 scrolls and fragments, and more than 5,000 early printed books, of an age and linguistic diversity matched only by the Vatican Library.

In the monastery library, Father Justin told me how the most valued treasure was once the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the fourth century. It was ‘borrowed’ in 1865 by a visiting German scholar, Constantin Tischendorf, who promptly presented it to the Tsar; Stalin sold it for £100,00 to Britain in 1933, and the codex now rests in the British Museum. Half a century ago, 15 missing folios were found in the monastery’s north wall in 1975, leaving the monks with part of the oldest existing copy of the New Testament.

One of the copies of the ‘achitames’ with the imprint of Muhammad’s hand, guaranteeing the protection of Saint Catherine’s Monastery under Islamic rule

Father Justin also showed me one of the copies in the library of the achitames or document with the imprint of Muhammad’s hand, guaranteeing the protection of Saint Catherine’s Monastery under Islamic rule. In the year 635 CE, the monks of Mount Sinai sent a delegation asking for Muhammad’s patronage and protection. The request was granted and was honoured when the Muslims conquered the Sinai in the year 641 CE.

Later, in 1009, the mad Caliph al-Hakim built a mosque within the monastery walls, with an unusual qibla pointing towards Jerusalem rather than Mecca as the direction for prayer. The monks continue to keep open the only mosque to survive within the walls of a monastery, and Father Justin described it as one of the ‘many examples of tolerance, respect and affection’ between Christians and Muslims in Egypt.

The monks admit they would find it difficult to survive without the support and kindness of their local Muslim neighbours. The local Bedouin, from the tiny Jabiliyya tribe, claim descent from 200 Greek soldiers brought by the Emperor Justinian from Alexandria and Thrace to fortify and guard the monastery in the sixth century.

Although they are Muslims, Father Justin told me how they join in many of the monastery festivals and look to the abbot, who is also Archbishop of Sinai, as their community leader, protector, judge, and even as their ‘grandfather’.

He spoke of the support of international donors, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Courtauld Institute in London, have helped the monks to develop a programme of refurbishment and conservation in the library.

Father Justin pointed out that without this outside help, the resources of the monastery would have been overwhelmed by the task of safeguarding its treasures. The droves of tourists may disturb the morning peace of one of the most isolated monasteries in the world, but the west’s generosity has brought benefits too.

The Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai is now the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of Sinai is the smallest self-governing Christian denomination in Egypt – its few members include Archbishop Damianos, who is also the Abbot of Mount Sinai, and the 20-25 monks who come mainly from Mount Athos and other parts of Greece. In addition, there are some small dependencies nearby, and four dependencies of Mount Sinai in Greece.

Archbishop Damianos has lived at the monastery since the age of 27, and he was 91 last weekend, just days after the court ruling.

When I was in Crete for Easter in April, I visited two churches in Iraklion that have been traditional dependences of Mount Sinai: Saint Catherine’s Church, now the Museum of Christian Art; and the mediaeval Byzantine Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites. The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, where I have studied in Cambridge, is also under the patronage of Saint Catherine.

An icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was one of five or six icons I had on the wall above my desk when I was on the staff of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin.

Archbishop Damianos, who is in Cairo, plans to return to Athens within the coming days, while an official Greek delegation is expected in to visit Egypt this week. The monks plan to launch a global awareness campaign, appealing to Christian churches and other religious communities.

Meanwhile, it is important that they receive messages of support from religious leaders around the world, and that Egyptian embassies are made aware of the concerns and feelings of people everywhere.