Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 157, Thursday 16 October 2025

‘Therefore also the Wisdom of God said …’ (Luke 11: 48) … Holy Wisdom as the mother of Faith, Hope and Love, seen in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Today the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, Reformation Martyrs, 1555.

Later today I have a GP’s appointment for my regular injections for my Vitamin B12 deficiency. Later in the evening, I am involved with an amateur dramatic and play reading group in Stony Stratford. In the meantime, 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 short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Therefore also the Wisdom of God said …’ (Luke 11: 48) … limited visiting hours at the Cave of the Wisdom of God near the village of Topoli in western Crete … but where do we find wisdom? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 47-54 (NRSVA):

47[Jesus said to the lawyer,] 47 ‘Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48 So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute”, 50 so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’

53 When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile towards him and to cross-examine him about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

‘Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed’ (Luke 11: 47) … Lycian rock tombs hewn into the hillsides near Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist, Jesus continues his debate with the lawyers and the Pharisees, using hyperbole as he challenges one of the lawyers that their attitudes are the sort of attitudes that led to the murder of the prophets in the past, and telling them they have ‘taken away the key of knowledge.’

Where do we find the Wisdom of God and ‘the key of knowledge’?

The multi-layered descriptions of Christ in the ‘O Antiphons’ sung during Advent include the ‘Key of David’, and there it is said it is he ‘who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open’ (c.f. Isaiah 22: 22; 42: 7; Jeremiah 51: 19; Revelation 3: 7).

Isaiah prophesied: ‘I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open’ (Isaiah 22: 22). ‘His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore’ (Isaiah 9: 7).

He is ‘to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house’ (Isaiah 42: 7).

As for Wisdom, the Psalmist reminds us that God ‘provides food for those who fear him,’ and that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (see Psalm 111: 5, 10). But the purpose of wisdom, which Solomon asks for alone, is so that good and evil can be distinguished, especially when it comes to the needs of the people.

Solomon asks not for a long life or riches, or the lives of his enemies, but for the gift of wisdom or an ‘understanding mind.’ God grants this request, and then adds on riches and honours, and also promises long life if Solomon follows God’s ways.

In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom is presented personified as Lady Wisdom, who invites the unwise or ‘simple’ to her banquet (see Proverbs 9: 1-6).

In popular Greek iconography, Wisdom is often depicted as the mother of Faith, Hope and Love.

Some years ago, I stayed in Saint Matthew’s Vicarage in Westminster, where Bishop Frank Weston (1871-1924) is said to have written a key, influential speech. He held together in a creative combination his incarnational and sacramental theology with his radical social concerns, and these formed the keynote of his address to the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923. He believed that the sacramental focus gave a reality to Christ’s presence and power that nothing else could. ‘The one thing England needs to learn is that Christ is in and amid matter, God in flesh, God in sacrament.’

And so 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, when you come out from before your tabernacles, 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.’

He declared: ‘Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash their feet.’

Excerpts from his address are pinned to the west door of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford.

Something similar was said in a letter in The Tablet some years ago [4 August 2018] by Derek P Reeve, a retired parish priest in Portsmouth: ‘The … Lord whom we receive at the Eucharist is the one whom we go out to serve, and, dare I say it, to adore in our neighbour …’

So sacramental life, and accepting Christ as the ‘Bread of Life’ are wonderful concepts in my faith and in my Christian discipleship. But they are meaningless unless I live this out in the way I try to care for those who are hungry, suffering and marginalised.

And that, for me is a very concise understanding of the wisdom of God and its impact on my life.

‘For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering’ (Luke 11: 52) … an old key in Dr Milley’s Hospital on Beacon Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 16 October 2025):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 16 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, we give thanks for the long-standing partnership between USPG, the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital and the Church of Bangladesh. Please strengthen and bless it for your glory.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
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, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering’ (Luke 11: 52) … the sign of the Old Cross Keys on Stony Stratford High Street (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: 109, Wednesday 27 August 2025

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the rock face in the cliffs above Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X) and then the Summer bank holiday on Monday. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Monica (387), the mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who is commemorated tomorrow (28 August).

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.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the ‘King’s Tomb’ has become a symbol of Kaş in southern Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 27-32 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 27 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors.’

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … a damaged sarcophagus by the harbour in Kaş, without any sign or marking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Beatitudes at the beginning of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says eight groups of people are blessed: ‘the poor in spirit … those who mourn … the meek … those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … the merciful … the pure in heart … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness …’ (Matthew 5: 3-10).

Now, as we come close to the end of this Gospel, we have seven groups of people who are condemned as hypocrites and against whom Jesus pronounces seven woes.

In the Gospel reading on Monday (Matthew 23: 13-22), we heard the first three of these seven woes: woe to you who ‘lock people out of the kingdom of heaven’ (13) … who ‘make the new convert twice as much a child of hell’ (15) … and ‘blind guides’ who swear by the ‘gold of the sanctuary’ (16-22).

We then heard two further woes yesterday (Matthew 23: 23-26): for those who tithe mint, dill, and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith; and these who care about the details of domestic purity but neglect the cleanliness of their hearts and inner thoughts.

Now, we hear the final of the seven woes today (Matthew 23: 27-32): a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

A ‘woe’ is an exclamation of grief, similar to what is expressed by the word alas. In pronouncing woes, Jesus is prophesying judgment on the religious leaders of the day for their hypocrisy. He calls them hypocrites, blind guides, snakes and a ‘brood of vipers’.

Before Jesus condemns the hypocrisy of religious leaders, they have been following him to test him and try to trick him with questions about divorce (Matthew 19: 3), his authority (Matthew 21: 23), paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22: 17), the resurrection (Matthew 22: 23), and the greatest commandment of the law (Matthew 22: 36).

Jesus prefaces his seven woes by explaining to the disciples that they should obey the teachings of the religious leaders – as they teach the law of God – but not to emulate their behaviour because they do not practice what they preach (Matthew 23: 3).

In the third grouping of these woes, which we read today, we hear the final of the seven woes: a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23: 27-32).

In the sixth woe, Jesus compares the religious leader of the day to ‘whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth’ (verse 27).

The rotting corpse inside a tomb is like the hypocrisy and lawlessness in the hearts of these particular scribes and Pharisees. They appear righteous on the outside, but they are just beautified tombs, for inwardly they are spiritually dead.

The phrase ‘whited sepulchres’ (‘whitewashed tombs’ in the NRSV translations) is one of those phrases that have found their way into everyday English through the King James Version. The tombs in Jesus’ time were very different. The caves used for tombs were regularly painted or washed white with lime to look clean on the outside, but the inside was very plain, undecorated, just holding the body of the dead person. Behind the attractive exteriors were rotting corpses, as unclean as anything a faithful Jew could imagine.

The setting for this reading is Passover week. It was customary in the preceding month of Adar to renew the whitewashing on tombs in order to mark them clearly so that pious people who were on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover would not accidentally defile themselves by touching a place where dead bodies were buried. Someone who unwittingly stepped on a grave became ritually unclean. Whitewashing made the tombs more visible, especially in the dark.

In other words, whitewashing was not a mark of beauty; it was a warning of uncleanness – of being dead to humanity and dead before God.

This mention of tombs leads Jesus in the seventh woe to comment on the pride the religious leader of the day take in the tombs built in memory of the prophets and other holy people.

Jesus accuses them of hypocrisy in erecting these monuments and decorate the tombs of the prophets of old. He says the slain prophets had been killed by the ancestors of the religious leaders, Pharisees, who imagined themselves much better than their fathers. He puts words into their mouths, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets’ (verse 30). But in saying things like that, they acknowledge their own background. Jesus says they have inherited their ancestors’ wickedness and are following in their steps.

Is Jesus implying here is that while these religious leaders pretended to revere the prophets of old, they are persecuting the prophetic people of their own day?

We have whole groups of such people who are active in the Church today, offering ‘alternative’ leadership. They claim to know Anglicanism better than the Archbishop of Canterbury and deplore the ‘heresies’ of Anglicans who engaged with the Living in Love and Faith process, forming their own, self-selecting elitist groups and afraid of being contaminated not only by the world, but even by other Anglicans, demanding their own, parallel church structures and ministries.

The seven woes in Matthew 23 are dire warnings to the religious leaders of the day. But they also serve to warn us against religious hypocrisy today. We are called to true godliness, sincere love, and enduring faith. Pretension, affectation, and hypocrisy only lead to woe.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … a graveyard in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 27 August 2025):

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), is 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 (Wednesday 27 August 2025) invites us to pray:

God of justice, open our hearts and minds to welcome the stranger with love. Inspire leaders to create fair policies that respect the dignity and rights of migrants and refugees.

The Collect:

Faithful God,
who strengthened Monica, the mother of Augustine, with wisdom,
and through her patient endurance encouraged him
to seek after you:
give us the will to persist in prayer
that those who stray from you may be brought to faith
in your Son Jesus Christ 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:

Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servant Monica revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like her know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the Lycian rock tombs in the cliff faces above Fethiye in Turkey (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

Saint Monica in a painting once in Orlagh, the former Augustinian retreat house in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin … Saint Monica is commemorated on 27 August (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 101, Tuesday 19 August 2025

‘Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (Matthew 19: 24) … a camel at the Goreme Open Air Museum in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

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

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Squeezing through the Eye of a Needle? … a narrow, low gate in the streets of Tangier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 19: 23-30 (NRSVA):

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’

27 Then Peter said in reply, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ 28 Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’

‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor’ (Matthew 19: 21) … a town centre hotel for sale in Ballybunion, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

A rich young man has come to Jesus seeking advice. He has many possessions, but he knows this is not enough. He wants to possess eternal life, and comes to Jesus for advice. When Jesus suggests he should go, sell his possessions, and give the money to the poor and then return and follow him, the young man ‘went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’

Then Jesus tells the disciples ‘it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven … it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’

During her sermon preparation some years ago, a priest colleague asked on Facebook: ‘If a fire broke out in your house, what three possessions would you grab?’

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

What would you take with you?

What do we cling to?

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

They were in circulation at times when inflation became rampant in those countries and at times of crisis in Europe. Had they been spent at the time they were issued they might have bought something of value; had they been given away in their day, they might have helped the poor and the hungry. But circumstances saw to it that those who became attached to their wealth on paper would lose all they had.

The Gospel reading this morning challenges us to think again what we cling to and what are our true values.

Does the faith of the man who falls down before Christ in the Gospel reading depend on his own wealth and money? When our prosperity and wealth disappear, like the fast-fading value of those banknotes, are we in danger of feeling abandoned by God?

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

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

Christ’s response is cautious. Is he challenging the man to see whether he really knows the Ten Commandments? Or is he testing the man to see how he has acquired his riches and wealth?

The man slinks away because he has much property.

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

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

What about his relationship with God?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Christ does not say the rich and the wealthy cannot find salvation. He says money and riches can hold us back and make it difficult to be true disciples, to enter the kingdom of God. It can be so difficult that, ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (verse 24). The Talmud suggests though it would be even more difficult, perhaps even impossible, where it speaks of ‘an elephant passing through a needle’s eye’ (b. Ber. 55b; b. B. Metz. 38b).

We cannot save ourselves, but God can save us. However, Peter’s implied question (verse 27) points out again how easy it is to think that being a disciple or follower of Christ should be linked with the hope of rewards in the here and now.

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

Then will I be happy to get down on my knees, like a camel, and squeeze into the City of God through the smallest and most narrow of the city gates, and find in the most humbling of ways how to squeeze into the Kingdom of God?

The Talmud speaks of the difficulty of ‘an elephant passing through a needle’s eye’ … an elephant in Lichfield Cathedral as part of the March of the Elephants in support of Saint Giles Hospice last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 19 August 2025):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 19 August 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we lift up Caribbean church members in the UK, remembering the pain caused by the 2007 abolition anniversary. Heal their hurt, strengthen their voices, and guide us towards true justice and equality for all.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Tourists on camels near Levissi (Kayaköy) near Fethiye in Turkey (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: 44, Sunday 22 June 2025, First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I)

‘For a long time … he did not live in a house but in the tombs’ (Luke 8: 27) … the Lycian rock tombs in the cliff faces above Fethiye in Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I, 22 June 2025). Later this morning, I am reading one of the lessons at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

Before today begins, however, 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.

‘Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding’ (Luke 8: 32) … sculptures of pigs throughout Tamworth celebrate the political achievements of Sir Robert Peel, including ‘bread for the millions’ and ‘religious tolerance’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 8: 26-39 (NRSVA):

26 Then they [Jesus and the Disciples] arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’ – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

‘So he got into the boat and returned’ (Luke 8: 37) … a boat by the banks of the River Great Ouse in Old Stratford, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

Our Gospel story (Luke 8: 26-39) is set by the Sea of Galilee. After Jesus calms a storm on the lake (Luke 8: 22-25), he and the disciples arrive on the other side and travel deep into Gentile territory, perhaps 30 or 50 km on the other side of the lake. The area is known as the Decapolis, dominated by ten Greek-speaking cities.

Imagine you are among the first group of people in the Early Church who begin to read this story. You would expect the story to unfold with Jesus and Disciples seeking out distant family members, staying with nice, upright people, perhaps visiting the local synagogue maintained by a tiny Jewish minority presence in one of the towns.

But from the very moment they get off the boat, they are in a place and among a people they would have regarded as unclean: these Gentile people are ritually ‘unclean,’ the man has an ‘unclean’ spirit, he is naked or a person of visible and public shame, he lives among the tombs, which are ritually unclean … and the pigs are unclean too.

This episode plays a key role in the theory of the ‘Scapegoat’ put forward by the French literary critic René Girard (1923-2015). The opposition of the entire city to the one man possessed by demons is the typical template for a scapegoat. Girard notes that, in the demoniac’s self-mutilation, he seems to imitate the way the villagers might have tried to stone him and to cast him out of their society.

For their part, the villagers in their reaction to Christ show they are not really concerned with the good of the possessed man. He acts as a scapegoat, and they can project anything they dislike about themselves onto him. Why kill him when he has such a useful function in their enclosed society?

Now, I do not in any way want to diminish or dismiss the real power of evil and the hold that it can have over people.

But in René Girard’s take on this story, the uneasy truce that the Gadarenes and the demoniac have worked out means he serves a ritual purpose for them so long as he is alive and perceived as being possessed.

But when Jesus steps off the boat, he brings with him a stronger spiritual power: love and healing, forgiveness and acceptance, are stronger than stoning, chaining, or scapegoating. And the pigs rushing headlong over the cliffside tell a story that is not so much about cruelty to animals but saying we need to put behind us all that we regard as unclean or sinful in others and need to start accepting ourselves.

After this episode, the man not only sits ‘at the feet of Jesus,’ as disciples did, but he becomes a missionary to other Gentiles. This is a story of dramatic transformation.

Look at the changes in this man’s life: he moves from outside the city to inside it; he moves from living in tombs and being driven into the desert to being alive in a house; he moves from nakedness to being clothed, from being demented to being of sound mind.

He moves from destructive isolation to being part of a nurturing, human community. He moves from being expelled from the religious community to being part of the Church and proclaiming the good news. This is real mission, the sort of mission I hope to hear about this week with USPG.

‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you’ (Luke 8: 39).

Saint Luke here uses the word οἶκος (oikos), which means a house, an inhabited house, even a palace or the house of God, as opposed to δόμος (domos), the word used for a house as a domestic home. Those who live there now form one family or household, and this comes to mean the family of God or the Church (for examples, see I Timothy 3: 15; I Peter 4: 17, and Hebrews 3: 2, 5).

The outsider, the person seen as unclean and defiled, the scapegoat, is restored to a full place in the Church, in God’s household, in God’s family.

Who do we see as Scapegoats today, as outsiders to be pushed to the margins, so that we can maintain the purity of our family, church or society?

Who do we expose and shame so that we can maintain the appearance of our own purity?

Are these the very people who might bring the good news to people on the margins, inviting them into the household of God?

‘For a long time … he did not live in a house but in the tombs’ (Luke 8: 27) … in the graveyard between Koutouloufari and Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 22 June 2025, Trinity I):

‘Windrush Day’ is the theme this week (22-28 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme is introduced today with reflections by Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG:

‘Windrush Day marks the anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush in Tilbury on the south coast of the UK. On board were hundreds of Caribbean people who had left the West Indies owing to the call from Britain – the ‘mother country’ – to help rebuild a war-ravaged country.

‘Although they were responding to a call for help, the reality for many of the Windrush generation was a new life subject to hostility, rejection and racism. Shamefully this took place on streets, in neighbourhoods and even at the doors of parish churches – a place where they should have felt welcomed and at home, able to worship God alongside other Christians. It is painfully ironic that it was also the Church of England that had once taken the Anglican faith to the Caribbean – often preaching in the very plantations where enslaved people were held in bondage. A double act of rejection.

‘It is in this reality that the Gospel speaks a powerful and compelling truth. We are all sisters and brothers in Christ, and we all have a responsibility to ensure that our churches are safe places and spaces of belonging for people of every nation and every language who come to church to worship and serve God. It is not just about parish church congregations; the Church of England needs to continue to make the necessary institutional and systemic changes to ensure a more diverse church at every level and recognise that honesty and openness is also key to its flourishing in society.’

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 22 June 2025, Trinity I, Windrush Day) invites us to pray:

Loving Lord, we thank you for the amazing contribution of the Windrush generation to our communities and workplaces, and to your Church in our land.

The Collect:

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
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:

Eternal Father,
we thank you for nourishing us
with these heavenly gifts:
may our communion strengthen us in faith,
build us up in hope,
and make us grow in love;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of truth,
help us to keep your law of love
and to walk in ways of wisdom,
that we may find true life
in Jesus Christ your Son.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding’ (Luke 8: 32) … The Pig, a pub sign on Tamworth Street in Lichfield, now the Beacon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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 2025: 41, Friday 30 May 2025

‘Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn’ (John 16: 20) … the burial monument in Kerameikos in Athens for Hegeso, daughter of Proxenios (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day, which we celebrated yesterday (29 May 2025), until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday on Sunday week (8 June 2025).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Josephine Butler (1906), Social Reformer; Joan of Arc (1431), Visionary; and Apolo Kivebulaya (1933), Priest, Evangelist in Central Africa.

I am about to catch a bus to Oxford, where it looks like I am going to spend much of the day in the John Radcliffe Hospital for a Myocardial Perfusion Imaging Test in the Nuclear Cardiology Test. These tests check the level of blood supply to the heart muscle, and have been recommended after recent tests showed some traces or signs of sarcoidosis may spread from my lungs to my heart.

All this means that for today, I have two long bus journeys, I have been off coffee and chocolate since early yesterday for a 24-hour period, and I may not be back in Stony Stratford until late this evening.

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.

‘Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice’ (John 16: 20) … the Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the rock face in the cliffs above Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 16: 20-23 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 20 ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. 21 When a woman is in labour, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. 22 So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.’

‘When her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world’ (John 16: 21) … seen in Saint Munchin’s College, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

‘On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you’ (καὶ ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἐρωτήσετε οὐδέν. ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἄν τι αἰτήσητε τὸν πατέρα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου δώσει ὑμῖν) (John 16: 23).

In the Gospel reading in the Lectionary at the Eucharist today (John 16: 20-23), we return to the readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper in Saint John’s Gospel.

The Greek words for question used in this passage (see verse 23) can mean to ask in both its senses – to ask question and to make a request or ask for something. Which meaning is implied can only be understood by taking account of the context.

In the first part of verse 23, the Greek word used is ἐρωτάω (erōtaō), to ask, interrogate, inquire of (see Matthew 21: 24; Luke 20: 3), to ask, request, beg, beseech (see Matthew 15: 23; Luke 4: 38; John 14: 16).

In the second part of verse 23, the Greek word used is αἰτέω (aiteō), to ask, request, demand or desire (Acts 7: 46).

Christ does not leave us without questions.

In prayer, we often include petitions or requests, listing off all those things we feel a need to ask for: health for ourselves, family members and friends; wisdom and comfort to face the challenges and troubles we face in life; health, wealth and prosperity; or at least the capacity to muddle through life and to simply ‘get on’ or ‘get through’.

But it is also appropriate in prayer to express our doubts and to bring our questions before God, to ask while, quite often, not expecting answers.

So often I found myself assuring students that there are no stupid or inappropriate questions, there are only stupid or inappropriate answers.

Love is open to all questions.

Faith is not about having no questions. It is about having those questions, asking them, but continuing to invite God to abide in us and continuing to accept the invitation to abide in God.

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

Love is open to all questions

Today’s Prayers (Friday 30 May 2025):

The Feast of the Ascension was yesterday (29 May 2025) and is providing the theme for this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 30 May 2025) invites us to pray:

Risen Christ, fill us with hope and courage to face today’s environmental challenges. Help us embody your gospel of justice and care for creation and our neighbours.

The Collect:

Grant, we pray, almighty God
that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ
to have ascended into the heavens,
so we in heart and mind may also ascend
and with him continually dwell;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God our Father,
you have raised our humanity in Christ
and have fed us with the bread of heaven:
mercifully grant that, nourished with such spiritual blessings,
we may set our hearts in the heavenly places;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of The Visitation:

Mighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour on your lowly servants
that, with Mary, we may magnify your holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
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

A blessing in the Chapel of the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford (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: 1, Monday 3 February 2025

‘Immediately a man out of the tombs … He lived among the tombs’ (Mark 5: 2-3) … the Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the rock face in the cliffs above Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas concluded yesterday with the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Sunday 2 February 2025) or Candlemas. Today we return to Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, the liturgical colour returns from white to green, and it is little more than a month before Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025) and the beginning of Lent.

Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Anskar (865), Archbishop of Hamburg and missionary in Denmark and Sweden. Later this morning, I have a GP appointment in Stony Stratford and some blood tests. The meeting of trustees of a local charity that mistakenly turned up last week actually takes place this evening. 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, 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.

‘Immediately a man out of the tombs … He lived among the tombs’ (Mark 5: 2-3) … the ‘King’s Tomb’ is a symbol of Kaş in southern Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 5: 1-20 (NRSVA):

1 They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ 8 For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ 9 Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.

14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. 17 Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

‘They came to the other side of the lake … [and he] stepped out of the boat (Mark 5: 1) … a boat at the shore at Cape Clear (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

We are returning to Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar today, but in the Lectionary provisions for the Gospel readings at the daily celebrations of the Eucharist we are continuing our readings from Saint Mark’s Gospel.

In today’s reading (Mark 5: 1-20), after calming the waters during a difficult boat journey, Jesus stills the mind and heart of a ‘possessed’ man who cannot be restrained. There are shorter versions of this story in the two other synoptic gospels (Matthew 8: 28-32; Luke 8: 36-33), but Mark’s is the most dramatic.

This man is regarded as ‘unclean’ for many reasons: the disturbing and embarrassing state of his psychiatric health; living among tombs and graves; and his foul and blasphemous language; his undressed and bloody wounds; and his violent behaviour. The totality of his unacceptable presence is expressed in saying he was as unclean as 2,000 pigs, although the name Legion hints at 3,000 to 6,000 demons.

The image of a dishevelled man, half-fed and verbally embarrassing living among the tombs at first seems over dramatic. But priests and churchgoers in parishes up and down this land are familiar with the homeless and marginalised men who often seek shelter in the lychgates at the entrances to our churchyards.

I cannot provide them with the professional help they need, but I can sit and talk with them, occasionally share a sandwich with them, and listen to their distressing stories. And sometimes, when I get to know them by name, they begin to accept me too, to the point of asking me to pray not only for them but for their families too, and occasionally one or two of them asks for a blessing or absolution.

One of the greatest intellectual minds of the 20th century, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, regularly called on his friend Dr Maurice O’Connor (‘Con’) Drury (1907-1976) for psychiatric help, and might have been homeless but for the care and help of this Irish psychiatrist.

Con Drury was an Anglican ordinand at Westcott House in Cambridge for just a year, but became a friend of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, while he was at Cambridge. One day in 1931, Wittgenstein visited Drury at Westcott House, and they sat in silence in the chapel. When suddenly someone in the gallery started playing the piano, Wittgenstein jumped up and exclaimed: ‘Blasphemy! A piano and the cross. Only an organ should be allowed in a church.’

Drury left Westcott to work in Tyneside with a club for the unemployed run by Archdeacon Leslie Hunter, who was later involved in the Jarrow March. He then worked with an unemployment scheme in Merthyr Tydfil until Wittgenstein, the economist John Maynard Keynes and their friend Gilbert Pattison arranged to finance Drury’s medical education in Ireland.

Drury became the Resident Psychiatrist in Saint Patrick’s Hospital (‘Swift’s Hospital’) in Dublin under Professor Norman Moore. He was instrumental in arranging Wittgenstein’s many visits to Ireland, and was a pioneer in psychiatric medicine in Ireland as the Resident Psychiatrist in Saint Patrick’s Hospital and its nursing home at Saint Edmundsbury’s in Lucan.

The Cambridge philosopher and Dublin psychiatrist met almost daily, strolling in the Phoenix Park and the Zoo, or visiting the Botanic Gardens in the 1940s. When Drury visited the dying Wittgenstein in Cambridge in April 1951 Wittgenstein accompanied him to railway station, and his last words to Drury were: ‘Whatever becomes of you, don’t stop thinking.’

Two of the great minds of the 20th century, the philosopher and the psychiatrist, had helped each other throughout their lives. I never know who I am sitting beside in the lychgate. They may not be among the greatest of philosophers; I am certainly not among the exemplary priests or counsellors. But sitting there with them, I look forward to the day when each one known to me by name may be ‘clothed and in his right mind’.

Hopefully, some of them get more than the prayers they need and that they get to the point where someone is able to say: ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’

‘The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country’ (Mark 5: 14) … a boot scraper in the shape of a pig at Westcott House, Cambridge, a pun on the surname of the former principal, Bertram Cunningham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 3 February 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Common Humanity and Love for Religious “Other”.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a Reflection by the Revd Dr Salli Effungani, a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC), Programme Officer for the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA), and Adjunct Lecturer on Interfaith Relations at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya.

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

We thank you for creating us in your image, each unique and precious in your sight. Help us to celebrate our shared humanity and extend love to those of diverse faiths and backgrounds.

The Collect:

God of grace and might,
who sent your servant Anskar
to spread the gospel to the Nordic peoples:
raise up, we pray, in our generation
messengers of your good news
and heralds of your kingdom
that the world may come to know
the immeasurable riches of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you’ (Mark 5: 19) … an icon in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton (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

‘Immediately a man out of the tombs … He lived among the tombs’ (Mark 5: 2-3) … the lychgate at the entrance to the churchyard beside Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 159, Thursday 17 October 2024

‘Therefore also the Wisdom of God said …’ (Luke 11: 48) … Holy Wisdom as the mother of Faith, Hope and Love, seen in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XX). Today the Church Calendar remembers Saint Ignatius (ca 107), Bishop of Antioch, Martyr.

Now that we have found our feet in Kuching, 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 short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Therefore also the Wisdom of God said …’ (Luke 11: 48) … limited visiting hours at the Cave of the Wisdom of God near the village of Topoli in western Crete … but where do we find wisdom? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 47-54 (NRSVA):

47[Jesus said to the lawyer,] 47 ‘Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48 So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute”, 50 so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’

53 When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile towards him and to cross-examine him about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

‘Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed’ (Luke 11: 47) … Lycian rock tombs hewn into the hillsides near Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist, Jesus continues his debate with the lawyers and the Pharisees, using hyperbole as he challenges one of the lawyers that their attitudes are the sort of attitudes that led to the murder of the prophets in the past, and telling them they have ‘taken away the key of knowledge.’

Where do we find the Wisdom of God and ‘the key of knowledge’?

The multi-layered descriptions of Christ in the ‘O Antiphons’ sung during Advent include the ‘Key of David’, and there it is said it is he ‘who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open’ (c.f. Isaiah 22: 22; 42: 7; Jeremiah 51: 19; Revelation 3: 7).

Isaiah prophesied: ‘I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open’ (Isaiah 22: 22). ‘His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore’ (Isaiah 9: 7).

He is ‘to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house’ (Isaiah 42: 7).

As for Wisdom, the Psalmist reminds us that God ‘provides food for those who fear him,’ and that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (see Psalm 111: 5, 10). But the purpose of wisdom, which Solomon asks for alone, is so that good and evil can be distinguished, especially when it comes to the needs of the people.

Solomon asks not for a long life or riches, or the lives of his enemies, but for the gift of wisdom or an ‘understanding mind.’ God grants this request, and then adds on riches and honours, and also promises long life if Solomon follows God’s ways.

In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom is presented personified as Lady Wisdom, who invites the unwise or ‘simple’ to her banquet (see Proverbs 9: 1-6).

In popular Greek iconography, Wisdom is often depicted as the mother of Faith, Hope and Love.

Some years ago, I stayed in Saint Matthew’s Vicarage in Westminster, where Bishop Frank Weston (1871-1924) is said to have written a key, influential speech. He held together in a creative combination his incarnational and sacramental theology with his radical social concerns, and these formed the keynote of his address to the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923. He believed that the sacramental focus gave a reality to Christ’s presence and power that nothing else could. ‘The one thing England needs to learn is that Christ is in and amid matter, God in flesh, God in sacrament.’

And so 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, when you come out from before your tabernacles, 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.’

He declared: ‘Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash their feet.’

Excerpts from this address are pinned to the west door of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford.

Something similar was said in a letter in The Tablet some years ago [4 August 2018] by Derek P Reeve, a retired parish priest in Portsmouth: ‘The … Lord whom we receive at the Eucharist is the one whom we go out to serve, and, dare I say it, to adore in our neighbour …’

So sacramental life, and accepting Christ as the ‘Bread of Life’ are wonderful concepts in my faith and in my Christian discipleship. But they are meaningless unless I live this out in the way I try to care for those who are hungry, suffering and marginalised.

And that, for me is a very concise understanding of the wisdom of God and its impact on my life.

‘For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering’ (Luke 11: 52) … an old key in Dr Milley’s Hospital on Beacon Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 17 October 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is the ‘Mission hospitals in Malawi’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Tamara Khisimisi, Project Co-ordinator, Anglican Council in Malawi.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 17 October 2024, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty) invites us to pray:

Lord, we cry out to you for the needs of people suffering around the world due to the injustices of poverty. We pray for an end to poverty in all its forms.

The Collect:

God, the giver of life,
whose Holy Spirit wells up within your Church:
by the Spirit’s gifts equip us to live the gospel of Christ
and make us eager to do your will,
that we may share with the whole creation
the joys of eternal life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God our Father,
whose Son, the light unfailing,
has come from heaven to deliver the world
from the darkness of ignorance:
let these holy mysteries open the eyes of our understanding
that we may know the way of life,
and walk in it without stumbling;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Luke:

Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
by the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
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 reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering’ (Luke 11: 52) … the sign of the Old Cross Keys on Stony Stratford High Street (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