Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 30, Tuesday 4 March 2025, Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Tuesday)

The first and the last (see Mark 10: 31) … ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ (Revelation 1: 8) … the AΩ symbol in the centre of the altar designed by James Franklin Fuller in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are coming to the end of this period of Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the beginning of Lent. Today is Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday or Mardi Gras (‘Fat Tuesday’), and Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025).

The word shrove is a form of the English word shrive, which means to give absolution for someone’s sins by way of Confession and doing penance. Thus Shrove Tuesday was named after the custom of Christians to be ‘shriven’ before the start of Lent. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The first and the last (see Mark 10: 31) … ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last’ (Revelation 22: 13) … a detail in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 28-31 (NRSVA):

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

‘The first and the last (see Mark 10: 31) … Alpha and Omega in lettering in the reredos in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 10: 28-31) follows immediately after the story we read yesterday of the man who runs up to Jesus, kneels before him, and asks, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ The man is told to go, sell what he owns, gives it to the poor, and only then follow Jesus. He ‘was shocked and went away grieving’ (see Mark 10: 17-27).

Jesus responds to this by telling the disciples: ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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’ (verses 24-25).

Peter now tells Jesus that the disciples have left everything to follow Jesus. His implied question 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.

What do I cling onto most now that I can shed – not in terms of property and possessions, but prejudices and values – that get between me and Jesus, and between the way I live now and eternal life?

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?

But, as Jesus says, ‘many who are first will be last, and the last will be first’ (verse 31).

I was never good at sports and athletics as a schoolboy. Nevertheless, I persisted. In the track and field events one year, I bravely entered a race in which all the runners were offered a handicap. I started first, and the most athletic boy of my year started last; in all there were six entrants. I started first, and finished last; the most athletic boy who started last, needless to say, came first.

At first, as boys on days like that, I felt humiliated and embarrassed. No platitudes or clichés such as ‘God loves a trier’ or ‘playing not winning is what matters’ could console me.

It took me a long time to realise not that I had come last, but that I had come sixth. Apart from we six, where were the other boys in my year? They were on the sidelines watching; most of them had not even kitted out that day.

In my own gauche way, I continued to enter school sports, and as an adult still tried to play rugby and cricket occasionally. When I was selected, I was the player sent in to bat first, so that I could be dismissed immediately and everyone else could get on with the game.

But does it matter, being first or last?

In the Book of Revelation, almost at the beginning, we read, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Revelation 1: 8). He is the Alpha (A) and the Omega (Ω) – the A to Z, as we might say today – the beginning and end of all things, the first and the last, the Lord God Almighty who is, who was, and who is to come. And he says again, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last’ (Revelation 1: 17).

At the end of the Book of Revelation, Jesus says once again, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’ (Revelation 22: 13).

At the end of this period of Ordinary Time and as Lent is about to begin, it is good to be reminded that it matters little whether I come first or last in the race. I ran. He is our ‘Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’. He will soon return, bringing our reward:

‘Surely I am coming soon.’
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen. (Revelation 22: 20-21)

‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end’ (Revelation 22: 13) … stencilled lettering in the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church in Cahersiveen, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 4 March 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The World’s Greatest Leader: Jesus Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Right Revd Filomena Tete Estevão, Bishop of Angola.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 4 March 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, equip us all to live lives rooted in prayer. Help us to seek you daily, finding strength and direction in your presence, and cultivating hearts that are open to your guidance.

The Collect:

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

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

An amusing take on being first in and first out … an old cartoon seen in Ryder and Amies on King’s Parade, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Easter 2024:3, 2 April 2024

The women at the empty tomb … the Resurrection depicted in the Foley window in Saint Mary’s Church, Nenagh, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This has been a busy Easter, and I have been involved in readings and the choir in many services in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. Throughout this week, my morning reflections include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.

Later this afternoon, I have yet another medical appointment and tests. But, before this day 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 prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

John 20: 11-18 (NRSVA):

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14 When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16 Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”.’ 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Mary Magdalene at Easter … a sculpture by Mary Grant at the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 2 April 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 ‘Easter Day Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Dr Carlton John Turner, USPG Trustee.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (2 April 2024) invites us to pray:

Today let us pray for projects aimed at concrete change and transformation in our world.

The Collect:

Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.

Post Communion Prayer:

God of Life,
who for our redemption gave your only–begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
have delivered us from the power of our enemy:
grant us so to die daily to sin,
that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (1899), a window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Praying in Lent and Easter 2021: 17, Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown

Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During Lent and Easter this year, I am taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:

1, a photograph of a church or place of worship that has been significant in my spiritual life;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society, Partners in the Gospel).

This week I am offering photographs from seven churches I recall from my childhood. This morning’s photographs (5 March 2021) are from Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath, which I knew well during my schooldays nearby in Gormanston.

Matthew 21: 33-43, 45-46 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ 41 They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes”?

43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.’

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (5 March 2021) invites us to pray:

Let us pray that we might live by the golden rule, treating others how we would like to be treated, rooted in an attitude of love.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The AΩ symbol in the centre of the altar designed by James Franklin Fuller in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown (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

‘God keeps reaching down into the dirt of our humanity And God keeps loving us back’

The women at the empty tomb … the Resurrection depicted in the Foley window in Saint Mary’s Church, Nenagh, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter Eve, Saturday 20 April 2019:

10 p.m., The Easter Eucharist (Holy Communion 2), Castletown Church.

Readings: Isaiah 65: 17-25; the Easter Anthems (sung as Hymn 286, CD 17); I Corinthians 15: 19-26; Luke 24: 1-12.

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

‘On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared … Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them’ (Luke 24: 1, 10).

Those women who slipped silently through the back streets and alleyways of Jerusalem late that Saturday night, before it was fully bright, must have been full of fear, must have worried for their safety and their lives.

Jesus was a very public figure and a man. Look at what happened to him. How much more at risk were they as women without any public profile?

Women without public profile, scurrying through the back streets late at night, risking their safety and their lives, not because they can hope for anything, not because they can have faith in anything, not because they want to gain anything. But only because they know what love is. They have come to know love unbounded, love that is unconditional, love that is – literally – God given.

They are women without status or standing, perhaps even women with what might have been called reputations.

These risk-taking women we hear about tonight, these women at the first light of Easter, come to mind when I hear the story of Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran priest and public theologian in the US.

She has said, ‘As a woman preacher, I can’t help but love Saint Mary Magdalene. She was the first witness to the resurrection. When I first discerned my call to be a preacher, I got a tattoo of her on my forearm – it’s from a rare depiction in ancient Christian art – of her proclaiming the Resurrection to the apostles.’

You can imagine what sort of person, what sort of priest and pastor Nadia is, when you hear that the Lutheran church she founded in Denver, Colorado, and was the pastor of until last year [8 July 2018], is called the ‘House for All Sinners and Saints.’

Nadia grew up in a fundamentalist family. But she is heavily tattooed – since the age of 17 – she is a university drop-out, she has been an alcoholic and drug abuser, and she describes how she often felt like one of ‘society’s outsiders.’

After 10 years, Nadia became sober by 1996. Having worked as a stand-up comedian and in restaurants, she heard the call to ordained ministry when she was asked to speak at the funeral of a friend who had died by suicide.

She was ordained in 2008, and soon started the church she called the House for All Sinners and Saints. This a church that welcomes people with drug addiction, depression, people who have questions and doubts about faith … people like those women who set out with their spices in the quiet and eerie streets of Jerusalem before the sun rises that Sunday morning.

I first heard of her work through the radical American Christian magazine Sojourners. Her books have twice made her a New York Times bestselling author. One of those books, Accidental Saints, is sub-titled Finding God in all the wrong people.

She invites readers into surprising encounters with what she calls ‘a religious but not-so-spiritual life.’ She finds how God keeps showing up in the least likely of people – a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, a felonious bishop and a gun-toting member of the NRA.

As she lives and worships alongside these ‘accidental saints,’ Nadia is swept into first-hand encounters with grace – a gift that feels to her less like being wrapped in a warm blanket and more like being hit with a blunt instrument.

But by this grace, people are transformed in ways they could not have been transformed on their own.

In a time when many people have become disillusioned with Christianity, she shows what happens when ordinary people share bread and wine, struggle with the Bible together, and tell each other the truth about their real lives.

In another book, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, she talks of how God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of our humanity and the graves we dig for ourselves and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves.

In a sermon reposted by Sojourners some years ago [2011], she wondered what people think when they read the story of Jesus rising from the dead for the first time.

She wrote: ‘I imagine them reading and re-reading it, shocked that they can’t find a single mention of bunnies or rabbits or painted eggs or white sales at Macy’s.’

And she criticises many churches for reducing Easter to ‘church show off day’ – ‘when we spiffy up the building and pull out the lilies and hire a brass quintet and put on fabulous hats and do whatever we have do to impress visitors. It’s kind of like the church's version of putting out the guest towels.’

‘But this all has very little to do with the actual Gospel story because the Gospel story is not fancy; it’s downright messy … it’s a story about flesh and dirt and bodies and confusion, and it’s about the way God never seems to adhere to our expectations.’

And she continues: ‘Mary Magdalene stood there at the empty tomb that morning while her expectations of what was possible collided full force with the God of Abraham and Sarah. Her certainty that she knew how this whole Jesus thing was ending slammed right up against the full force of God’s suffering and redemptive love …’

She suggests the real question is not ‘Is Jesus like God?’ but ‘What if God is like Jesus?’ ‘What if the most reliable way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God’s self in Jesus?’

And that changes everything, she says. If what we see in Jesus is God’s own self, revealed, then what we are dealing with here is a God who is ridiculously indiscriminate about choosing friends. A God who would rather die than be in the sin accounting business anymore. A God who would not lift a finger to condemn those who crucified him, but went to the depths of Hell rather than be apart even from his betrayers. A God unafraid to get God’s hands dirty for the ones God loves. This is the God who rises to new life with dirt still under God’s nails.

She writes that ‘God isn’t about making you spiffy. God isn't about making you nicer. God is about making you new. And new doesn’t always look perfect, with a fabulous new dress, because like the Easter story itself, new can be messy.

In a video interview, Nadia says, ‘New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it. New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention when I’m right. New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness. And every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn’t live without and then somehow living without it anyway.

‘New is the thing we never saw coming, never even hoped for but ends up being what we needed all along.’

It is an experience she had one Easter morning:

‘It happens to all of us,’ I concluded that Easter Sunday morning, she writes. ‘God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life, over and over.’

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

Luke 24: 1-12 (NRSVA)

1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Mary Magdalene at Easter … a sculpture by Mary Grant at the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/Lichfield Gazette)

Liturgical Colour: White (or Gold).

The Greeting (from Easter Day until Pentecost):

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

Penitential Kyries:

Lord God,
you raised your Son from the dead.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus,
through you we are more than conquerors.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Holy Spirit,
you help us in our weakness.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
you have overcome death
and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
Grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Introduction to the Peace:

The risen Christ came and stood among his disciples and said, Peace be with you. Then were they glad when they saw the Lord. (John 20: 19, 20).

Preface:

Above all we praise you
for the glorious resurrection of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
the true paschal lamb who was sacrificed for us;
by dying he destroyed our death;
by rising he restored our life:

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Living God,
for our redemption you gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
you have delivered us from the power of our enemy.
Grant us so to die daily unto sin,
that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

The God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus
that great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the eternal covenant,
make you perfect in every good work to do his will,
working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight:

or:

God the Father,
by whose glory Christ was raised from the dead,
raise you up to walk with him in the newness of his risen life:

Dismissal: (from Easter Day to Pentecost):

Go in the peace of the Risen Christ. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!

The Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (1899), a window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

260, Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (CD 16)
258, Christ the Lord is risen again (CD 16)
255, Christ is Risen, alleluia (CD 16)

The Resurrection … a stained glass window in Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

‘God keeps reaching down and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves’

Patrick Comerford

Easter Eve, Saturday 20 April 2019:

8 p.m., The Easter Eucharist (Holy Communion 2), Holy Trinity, Rathkeale;

Readings: Isaiah 65: 17-25; the Easter Anthems (sung as Hymn 286, CD 17); I Corinthians 15: 19-26; Luke 24: 1-12.

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

‘On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared … Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them’ (Luke 24: 1, 10).

Those women who slipped silently through the back streets and alleyways of Jerusalem late that Saturday night, before it was fully bright, must have been full of fear, must have worried for their safety and their lives.

Jesus was a very public figure and a man. Look at what happened to him. How much more at risk were they as women without any public profile?

Women without public profile, scurrying through the back streets late at night, risking their safety and their lives, not because they can hope for anything, not because they can have faith in anything, not because they want to gain anything. But only because they know what love is. They have come to know love unbounded, love that is unconditional, love that is – literally – God given.

They are women without status or standing, perhaps even women with what might have been called reputations.

These risk-taking women we hear about tonight, these women at the first light of Easter, come to mind when I hear the story of Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran priest and public theologian in the US.

She has said, ‘As a woman preacher, I can’t help but love Saint Mary Magdalene. She was the first witness to the resurrection. When I first discerned my call to be a preacher, I got a tattoo of her on my forearm – it’s from a rare depiction in ancient Christian art – of her proclaiming the Resurrection to the apostles.’

You can imagine what sort of person, what sort of priest and pastor Nadia is, when you hear that the Lutheran church she founded in Denver, Colorado, and was the pastor of until last year [8 July 2018], is called the ‘House for All Sinners and Saints.’

Nadia grew up in a fundamentalist family. But she is heavily tattooed – since the age of 17 – she is a university drop-out, she has been an alcoholic and drug abuser, and she describes how she often felt like one of ‘society’s outsiders.’

After 10 years, Nadia became sober by 1996. Having worked as a stand-up comedian and in restaurants, she heard the call to ordained ministry when she was asked to speak at the funeral of a friend who had died by suicide.

She was ordained in 2008, and soon started the church she called the House for All Sinners and Saints. This a church that welcomes people with drug addiction, depression, people who have questions and doubts about faith … people like those women who set out with their spices in the quiet and eerie streets of Jerusalem before the sun rises that Sunday morning.

I first heard of her work through the radical American Christian magazine Sojourners. Her books have twice made her a New York Times bestselling author. One of those books, Accidental Saints, is sub-titled Finding God in all the wrong people.

She invites readers into surprising encounters with what she calls ‘a religious but not-so-spiritual life.’ She finds how God keeps showing up in the least likely of people – a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, a felonious bishop and a gun-toting member of the NRA.

As she lives and worships alongside these ‘accidental saints,’ Nadia is swept into first-hand encounters with grace – a gift that feels to her less like being wrapped in a warm blanket and more like being hit with a blunt instrument.

But by this grace, people are transformed in ways they could not have been transformed on their own.

In a time when many people have become disillusioned with Christianity, she shows what happens when ordinary people share bread and wine, struggle with the Bible together, and tell each other the truth about their real lives.

In another book, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, she talks of how God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of our humanity and the graves we dig for ourselves and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves.

In a sermon reposted by Sojourners some years ago [2011], she wondered what people think when they read the story of Jesus rising from the dead for the first time.

She wrote: ‘I imagine them reading and re-reading it, shocked that they can’t find a single mention of bunnies or rabbits or painted eggs or white sales at Macy’s.’

And she criticises many churches for reducing Easter to ‘church show off day’ – ‘when we spiffy up the building and pull out the lilies and hire a brass quintet and put on fabulous hats and do whatever we have do to impress visitors. It’s kind of like the church's version of putting out the guest towels.’

‘But this all has very little to do with the actual Gospel story because the Gospel story is not fancy; it’s downright messy … it’s a story about flesh and dirt and bodies and confusion, and it’s about the way God never seems to adhere to our expectations.’

And she continues: ‘Mary Magdalene stood there at the empty tomb that morning while her expectations of what was possible collided full force with the God of Abraham and Sarah. Her certainty that she knew how this whole Jesus thing was ending slammed right up against the full force of God’s suffering and redemptive love …’

She suggests the real question is not ‘Is Jesus like God?’ but ‘What if God is like Jesus?’ ‘What if the most reliable way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God’s self in Jesus?’

And that changes everything, she says. If what we see in Jesus is God’s own self, revealed, then what we are dealing with here is a God who is ridiculously indiscriminate about choosing friends. A God who would rather die than be in the sin accounting business anymore. A God who would not lift a finger to condemn those who crucified him, but went to the depths of Hell rather than be apart even from his betrayers. A God unafraid to get God’s hands dirty for the ones God loves. This is the God who rises to new life with dirt still under God’s nails.

She writes that ‘God isn’t about making you spiffy. God isn't about making you nicer. God is about making you new. And new doesn’t always look perfect, with a fabulous new dress, because like the Easter story itself, new can be messy.

In a video interview, Nadia says, ‘New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it. New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention when I’m right. New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness. And every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn’t live without and then somehow living without it anyway.

‘New is the thing we never saw coming, never even hoped for but ends up being what we needed all along.’

It is an experience she had one Easter morning:

‘It happens to all of us,’ I concluded that Easter Sunday morning, she writes. ‘God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life, over and over.’

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

The women at the empty tomb … the Resurrection depicted in the Foley window in Saint Mary’s Church, Nenagh, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 24: 1-12 (NRSVA)

1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Mary Magdalene at Easter … a sculpture by Mary Grant at the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/Lichfield Gazette)

Liturgical Colour: White (or Gold).

The Greeting (from Easter Day until Pentecost):

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

Penitential Kyries:

Lord God,
you raised your Son from the dead.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus,
through you we are more than conquerors.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Holy Spirit,
you help us in our weakness.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
you have overcome death
and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
Grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Introduction to the Peace:

The risen Christ came and stood among his disciples and said, Peace be with you. Then were they glad when they saw the Lord. (John 20: 19, 20).

Preface:

Above all we praise you
for the glorious resurrection of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
the true paschal lamb who was sacrificed for us;
by dying he destroyed our death;
by rising he restored our life:

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Living God,
for our redemption you gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
you have delivered us from the power of our enemy.
Grant us so to die daily unto sin,
that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

The God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus
that great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the eternal covenant,
make you perfect in every good work to do his will,
working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight:

or:

God the Father,
by whose glory Christ was raised from the dead,
raise you up to walk with him in the newness of his risen life:

Dismissal: (from Easter Day to Pentecost):

Go in the peace of the Risen Christ. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!

The Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (1899), a window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

260, Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (CD 16)
258, Christ the Lord is risen again (CD 16)
255, Christ is Risen, alleluia (CD 16)

The Resurrection … a stained glass window in Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

Winter reflections on the beach in Laytown and Bettystown

Looking across the dunes and the beach at Relish in Bettystown this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

It is almost a year since I moved to Askeaton. Since that move in January, I have got to know many beaches in West Limerick, North Kerry and in neighbouring Co Clare.

But I have missed my regular walks on the beaches close to Dublin.

Although harsh winter weather is threatening, the forecasts are for nothing like the heavy snows that are blanketing most of England these days. Instead, today was a bright winter day, and although the temperature fell to as low as 2, there was bright sunshine and clear blue skies.

I had gone for a walk by the harbour and the sea, along the East Pier in Dún Laoghaire, on Tuesday afternoon, and for a walk along the seafront in Bray, Co Wicklow, two weeks ago [14 December 2017].

So, today’s choice, during these few days off in Dublin, was between an afternoon walk on the beaches and by the harbour in Skerries, followed by coffee in Olive, or a walk along the beach in Laytown and Bettystown, on the ‘Gold Coast’ of east Co Meath, combined with lunch in Relish in Bettystown.

The ‘Gold Coast’ of Co Meath seen from the terrace at Relish in Berttystown this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Two of us headed north, decided to continue on through Gormanston and Julianstown, and eventually plumped for Laytown and Bettystown, hoping the afternoon sun and the blue skies and seas would add to the beauty of a walk along the beach.

We parked in Laytown, the tide was out, and we walked the 2 km to Bettystown before having lunch in Relish.

It is a full year since I had been here, and it was good to be back. The menu has changed in the intervening 12 months, but the food is wonderful and despite it being a packed restaurant today we were given a table by one of the windows, with enviable views out over the sand dunes, across the long sandy beach, and out to the blue waters of the Irish Sea.

It was an idyllic scene through the window as we had lunch, and had the restaurant not been so busy we might have lingered a little longer this afternoon.

We walked back along the same 2 km stretch of beach, enjoying the dimming lights of dusk, and the patterns in the sky created behind the houses and the sand dunes by the setting sun.

This has been one of my favourite stretches of beach since my schooldays nearby in Gormanston and family holidays in Bettystown in the 1960s, and it was good to return to this beach this afternoon.

Reflections in Laytown at sunset this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Unique windows are part of the heritage of Saint Mary’s, Julianstown

Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath ... stands on the site of earlier churches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I have preached before in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath, and during my schooldays nearby in Gormanston it was a church I loved to visit in my teens. But I had never before photographed the interior of the church until last Saturday. Two of us were on our way to Laytown and Bettystown for a walk on the beach and a late lunch in Relish when we noticed the church door was opened, and we received a warm welcome from parishioners who were decorating the church in advance of Sunday evening’s carol service.

Julianstown was for long the seat of the Moore family who lived in Julianstown House and who farmed the land that now contains the townland of Julianstown West.

There has been a church on this for centuries. In the Middle Ages, the church lands here were part of the Irish possessions of the Welsh abbey of Llanthony. The parish later came into the hands of the Earls of Drogheda, who retained the right of appointing the clergy until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.

The original ecclesiastical designation was Nanny, derived from the River Nanny which flows nearby and into the Irish Sea at Laytown. The church survived the Battle of Julianstown in 1641, and Cromwell's destruction of Drogheda in 1649. The church in Julianstown is described in Dopping’s Visitation Book, compiled between 1682 and 1685.

Saint Mary’s Church was built ca1770 on the site of an earlier church, and Taylor and Skinner’s 1783 Road Map of Ireland refers to the Moore family home and shows the parish church on the site of the present church.

Over the centuries, this church has been restored, rebuilt and enlarged, but the present building is largely a creation of the 1860s. The church was extended and remodelled from 1861-1863, to the designs of Welland and Gillespie, who incorporated parts of the 1770 church in the nave.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, designed by William John Welland and William Gillespie (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

William John Welland and William Gillespie were appointed joint architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in May 1860, after the death of Joseph Welland. Both men were already working for the Church Commissioners, and continued to hold their post until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland at the end of 1870. During those ten years, they developed an increasingly personal and idiosyncratic version of Gothic in the churches which they designed.

William John Welland (ca 1832-1895) was a younger son of Joseph Welland, successively architect to the Board of First Fruits and to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and his wife Sophia Margaret (Mills). He was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA, 1855, MA, 1879), and may have entered the architects’ department of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners directly from TCD. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (FRIAI) in 1863, and died in 1895.

William Gillespie (1818-1899) was a son of William Stawell Gillespie of Cork and his wife Catherine Terry Williams. By 1847, he was working as a district inspector for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (FRSAI) in 1855. But he had no formal qualifications as a professional architect, and it is said he had only served a few years to a country builder and measurer before his appointment by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1860. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (FRIAI) in 1863 and later served as a council member (1868-1870).

Gillespie spent his last days in Plympton House, near Plymouth, Devon, a private lunatic asylum belonging to a Dr Charles Aldridge, where he died of ‘senile decay’ on 20 December 1899.

The church designed by Welland and Gillespie in Julianstown is a detached church, with a four-bay side elevation to the nave, a single-bay chancel and vestry to the east, and a gable porch to the south elevation, and incorporating parts of the fabric of the earlier church dating from ca 1770.

The church retains many interesting features and materials, such as the dressed limestone, pointed-arched windows, and stone finials.

The chancel and altar in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, were designed by James Franklin Fuller (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The chancel and altar were added to the church in 1914 through the generosity of Colonel Charles Pepper family of Ballygarth Castle, to designs by James Franklin Fuller (1835-1924). The builders were McLaughlin and Harvey.

Fuller’s architectural legacy includes Kylemore Abbey, Co Galway, Ashford Castle in Cong, Co Mayo, the Great Southern Hotel, Parknasilla, Co Kerry, Saint Anne’s House, Raheny, Farmleigh House at the Phoenix Park in Dublin, the Superintendent’s Lodge in Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin, the Gallaher Building on the corner of D’Olier Street and Hawkins Street, Dublin, the former National Bank building on Arran Quay, Dublin, and the Rectory at Saint Brigid’s Church, Stillorgan.

The AΩ symbol in the centre of the altar designed by James Franklin Fuller (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Fuller’s work at Saint Mary’s in Julianstown includes the elaborate altar decorated with figures of the four evangelists on the front and the AΩ symbol in the centre.

The pointed arch windows are set in openings with ashlar limestone dressings. These windows together form a unique collection of stained glass windows by Clayton and Bell and Heaton, Butler and Bayne – two English-based partnerships that were among the leading firms of Gothic Revival stained glass manufacturers, and whose work was commissioned by the principal Victorian architects.

The three lancet windows in the chancel are by Clayton and Bell and are dated 1884. They were commissioned by Thomas St George Pepper of Ballygarth Castle, Juilanstown, and depict: Christ healing the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman and Christ healing the Centurion’s servant (left); the Raising of Lazarus, the Good Shepherd and Christ blessing the Children (centre); and Christ healing the woman with an issue of blood and Christ healing the Blind Man (right).

The Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (1899), one of the four windows by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The four windows by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Julianstown depict the Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (1899), in memory of Henry St George Osborne of Dardistown Castle; the Agony in the Garden and Christ carrying the Cross (1907), in memory of Henry Moore, his wife and their children; Angels with Scrolls (1907); and the Ascension (1907). The Ascension is depicted in four parts in three lancet windows at the West End, and this collection was donated in memory of three members of the Tunstall Moore family.

The Faithful Warrior window by Michael Healy in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The other attractive stained glass windows in the church include one designed by Michael Healy (1873-1941) of An Túr Gloine Studios, depicting the Faithful Warrior, in memory of Lieutenant-Colonel John McDonnell of Kilsharvan House, between Duleek and Bellewstown.

Colonel McDonnell was part of the 5th Battalion of the Leinsters, attached to the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, when he was killed in 1918. He was buried in the Resevoir Cemetery in Ypres, Belgium, In 1924, when the official headstone was placed on his grave, the initial grave marker from 1918 was brought to Kilsharvan graveyard and inset into the wall as a memorial to him. His son, Lieutenant Robert Edward McDonnell, was killed in Libya in 1941 during World War II and was buried in Benghazi War Cemetery.

Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, has an interesting collection of Clayton and Bell windows (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Other windows in the church by Clayton and Bell commemorate seven officers of the Royal Meath regiment who were killed in World War I.

The tower and spire proposed by Welland and Gillespie in 1863 were never erected, and the present three-stage tower and steeple were built through the generosity once again of Colonel Charles Pepper of Ballygarth Castle in 1906-1907, and again to designs by James Franklin Fuller. The builders were McLaughlin and Harvey.

The church has a pitched slate roof with ridge cresting and stone finials. There are squared limestone walls with tooled limestone quoins.

There is a pair of timber doors with wrought-iron detailing. In the church porch, a fragment of a High Cross came from Saint Columba’s Church, Colpe, Drogheda, and dates from the 10th century.

There is a single-storey modern building to the west.

The graveyard to the north and east of the church is enclosed by a rubble stone wall. Here the setting of the church is enhanced by the carved limestone grave markers. The ashlar limestone gate piers are set in rock-faced limestone walls with cast-iron railings and a pair of gates.

Outside the church is an interesting stone known locally as the Apostles’ Stone. This sculpture was originally located in the chapel of Ballylehane Castle, Co Laois, owned by the Hovenden family from 1549 to 1820. It was moved to Dardistown Castle and finally to this church in Julianstown.

The sculpture consists of three stones. Because of its depiction of 12 figures it became known as the Apostles’ Stone. The figures appear to be priests each wearing a hood and girdle; some have beards and some are clean shaven.

The cemetery is also believed to hold the grave of Anne Tandy, wife of Napper Tandy (1737-1803). He was a merchant, volunteer and radical politician who was born in Dublin, and a key figure in the 1798 Rising.

The figures of Saint Matthew and Saint Mark on the front of the altar designed by James Franklin Fuller (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Today, the Church of Ireland Parish of Julianstown and South Drogheda covers the area between the River Boyne and the River Delvin in South Louth and East Meath, including all of south Drogheda, Mornington, Bettystown, Laytown, Julianstown, Mosney and Gormanston on the coast, and inland incorporating Bellewstown, Stamullen and Duleek.

There are about 130 Church of Ireland households in the parish. In addition to business and farming families who have lived in the area for many years, there are families that recently moved there. Saint Mary’s Julianstown, is the only church in the parish, and this is the only single-church incumbency in the Diocese of Meath and Kildare. The churches at Saint Mary’s, Drogheda, and Saint Columba’s, Colpe, closed in recent years, although the churchyards are also still in use.

A new rector is expected in the parish next March.

Sunset on the River Nanny makes it difficult to think yet of a ‘bleak mid-winter’

Winter sunset on the banks of the estuary of the River Nanny near Laytown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

The bright winter days with clear blue skies and startling sunshine have returned after a few rainy days, and in this part of Ireland we are enjoying bright, lengthy sunsets in the evenings. It seems hardly appropriate to be signing about the bleak midwinter, even though we are in the second half of December and close to the shortest day in winter.

We are in the middle of a busy round of Carol services and pre-Christmas visits and dinners. But two of us abandoned the task of writing Christmas cards and wrapping presents early yesterday afternoon [Saturday 17 December 2016] and decided to take advantage of the mid-winter lights by heading north for walks on the beaches in Laytown and Bettystown on the ‘Gold Coast’ that runs the length of East Co Meath.

As we drove through the pretty village of Julianstown, we noticed that Saint Mary’s Church was open. I loved visiting this church when I was at school nearby in Gormanston in the 1960s, and I have preached there in the more recent past. But I had never photographed its interior, and so we decided to turn back.

Inside, parishioners were busy decorating the church in preparation for this evening’s candle-lit Carol Service, and we received a warm welcome as I walked around photographing the interior and the windows. There was a warm welcome too from Canon Stanley Baird, the former Rector of Swords, who is looking after the parish until a new rector arrives in March.

The winter bareness provides views of Ballygarth Castle on the banks of the River Nanny near Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Outside, in the late afternoon, the bare branches of the winter trees gave us clear views of the ruins of Ballygarth Castle on the eastern edges of Julianstown. The ruins stand on the banks of the River Nanny and the castle is first mentioned in 1372.

Ballygarth Castle was built over a number of separate building phases. The original three-storey tower house has been enlarged over the years, with a line of crenellations and Gothic details added to the windows.

The castle was part of the Netterville family estate until the 1641 Rebellion, when it was forfeited to the Crown and the Netterville family moved to Dowth. One of the earliest mentions of Julianstown is at the Battle of Julianstown in 1641, which took place near the bridge.

On the eve of Oliver Cromwell’s attack on Drogheda in 1649, his Parliamentarian army camped on the lawns of Ballygarth Castle.

With the restoration of Charles II in 1660, Ballygarth Castle and the surrounding estate became the property of the Pepper family from Ardee, Co Louth.

The Pepper family supported James II during the Williamite rebellion, and Ballygarth Castle and estate was confiscated once again after the Battle of the Boyne. But this was a temporary setback and the Pepper family managed regained ownership.

The legend of ‘the White Horse of the Peppers’ has been perpetuated in story and later in a play by Samuel Lover, which tells how the confiscated castle and lands were recovered largely through the saga of a white horse belonging to Ballygarth Castle. A white horse was always kept on the estate as a symbol of the family’s gratitude.

For generations, Julianstown was the seat of the Moore family who lived in Julianstown House. The land on which the present village sits was leased to Francis and Mary Thornburgh (née Moore) in 1763 by William Moore.

The land was further subleased to Colonel Charles Pepper of Ballygarth Castle in 1801. In 1856, the Pepper family made this lease perpetual under the legislation of the day and around 1889 the Pepper family built the cottages that can be seen in the village today.

These Swiss Cottages on Main Street form a series of six attractive cottages said to be based on a design that Major Charles Pepper saw in Switzerland. Major Pepper also built cottages in neighbouring Stamullen.

Ballygarth estate is reputed to be the last place in Ireland where oxen were used for ploughing up to 1907. An ox-collar or harness, made by Thomas Oonan of Julianstown, is preserved in the National Museum of Ireland.

Ballygarth Castle remained in the hands of the Pepper family until Colonel Charles Pepper died in 1927.

On the banks of the estuary of the River Nanny near Laytown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on image for full-screen view)

From the ruins of Ballygarth Castle we drove on towards Laytown, and stopped before the railway bridge where the banks of the River Nanny widen to form a tidal estuary before flowing into the Irish Sea immediately south of Laytown.

The River Nanny flows to Laytown from Kentstown and local folklore says Saint Patrick banished all the salmon from the river. However, the river abounds with wild trout, however, and is stocked with brown trout, which accounts for more than half of the annual catch.

The estuary stretches for about 2-3 km inland and is narrow and sheltered, with muddy sediment. At this time of the year, the estuary provides an important haven for wintering wading birds, protected under the European Union Birds Directive.

The formation itself is narrow and sheltered, providing an excellent habitat for water birds. Golden Plovers, various oyster catchers, Ringed Plovers and Sanderlings shelter here over the winter. Other resident water birds include Brent Geese, Bar-tailed Godwits, Great Black-backed Gulls, Common Gulls, curlews, dunlins and cormorants.

During the 19th century, the old village of Corballis on the banks of the Nanny developed into a thriving fishing village. By the end of the 19th century, there were 23 houses and 127 people living there. A schoolhouse was built to cater for the children of the coastguards working in the Coastguard Station nearby.

Many people were employed looking after mussel beds which were laid down in the Nanny estuary, and there was also a little cottage industry, growing willows in the Legberry stream for making potato baskets.

These industries continued until 1937, when the Laytown sewerage scheme was put in place. Earlier, the Coastguard Station was destroyed in the Civil War. With the decline in population there was no longer any need for the school and in recent times the building has been renovated and is now a private house.

Walking in the late light of the day on the beach in Laytown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on image for full-screen view)

Having walked along the south banks of the estuary, two of us then continued on to the beach at Laytown, where we walked on the sand as the dusk began to close in.

Dusk had turned to darkness by the time we arrived at Bettystown. In Relish, we were given a table for two at a bay window looking out over the sandbanks and down onto the long stretch of beach, catching glimpses of the waves as we dined.

Looking out to the Irish Sea from the beach at Laytown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

‘Grant that we may use them to your glory, for the relief of those in need’

Harvest time in Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

2 October 2016,

The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity,

Harvest Thanksgiving Eucharist,

10 a.m.: All Saints’ Church, Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Readings: Deuteronomy 26: 1-11; Psalm 100; Philippians 4: 4-9; John 6: 25-35.

In the name of + the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Living in a city separates us from rural life in oh so many ways: from the times and seasons, from rural isolation, from the problems created by the closure of village pubs and village post offices, from springtime and harvest.

And no number of successive attendances at ‘Electric Picnic’ is going to count up for one day at ‘The Ploughing.’

I spent a lot of the important growing-up times in my childhood on my grandmother’s farm in West Waterford. Perhaps that alone helps explain why I often need to get out of cities and go for walks, long walks, in the countryside.

But sometimes I worry that in idealising the countryside, we often forget that in cities and suburbs we too have the harvests of our gardens and the harvests of our hearts and of our faith.

The green and gold of the harvest fields in Comberford, Staffordshire, a few weeks ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In recent weeks, I have had long walks in the countryside, in rural Ireland and in rural England. One summer Sunday afternoon, I walked through the fields in a part of rural Staffordshire that I knew intimately.

The harvest was just beginning, and the fields were that beautiful mixture of green and gold that are so much a part of summer on these islands.

So often, clergy feel guilty about doing nothing. We have to be on the go, filling empty time with planning our next sermon, our next study group, our next vestry or committee meeting.

But on that Sunday afternoon, thinking of how Christ emptied himself, I emptied myself, and allowed my mind and my body to wander aimlessly, enjoying God’s blessing of allowing me to be in a place I like being in so much. I had a busy week ahead of me, and in those few hours of almost absent-minded bless, I enjoyed being in God’s company in God’s creation.

Like Saint Paul in our epistle reading this morning, I could call out that afternoon, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’ (Philippians 4: 4).

In the few weeks that have passed since then, the countryside has changed in its colours. The blackberries have ripened on the brambles in the lanes, most of the harvest is now complete, and the stubble gives the countryside different shades and balances of green and gold beneath the blue skies and white clouds.

A golden harvest stubble near Tolleshunt Knights in Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Just a month ago, while I was on a one-day retreat in a monastery in the countryside in Essex, I heard a story of a monk from Cyprus who was the gardener in his monastery. He was happy at his work, growing vegetables, tending the vines and orchards, bringing the flowers to bloom, and looking after the soil, in season and out of season.

He enjoyed his work, and never sought to do anything more in the monastery.

One day, the Abbot called him aside and told him he wanted this monk to be ordained a priest.

The monk was perplexed. He was from a simple farming background, he was a brother among the monks, and he had never thought about being ordained a priest.

But Father Abbot, he protested, I do not know how to serve the liturgy.

But the garden is your liturgy, the Abbot insisted. And the garden shall continue to be your liturgy.

Despite this monk’s protests, he was ordained a priest.

He continued to work in the garden. The flowers bloomed and the vegetable grew in such vast quantities that the monks had to give them away freely to the local villagers.

Often, while the other monks were praying the offices or hours in the monastery chapel, Father John was still out on his tractor, looking after the garden, the flowers, the vegetables, the vines and the orchards. They needed constant attention, Father John understood nature, and there he prayed with them.

There are three degrees in Orthodox monasticism:

When the novice becomes a monk, he is clothed in monk’s clothing and receives the tonsure.

Some years later, when the abbot feels the monk has reached an appropriate level of discipline, dedication, and humility, he moves on to the second degree known as the Little Schema.

Many monks remain at this level. But sometimes, monks whose abbots feel they have reached a high level of spiritual excellence reach the final stage, known as the Great Schema.

In his dying days, Father John received the Great Schema from his Abbot. He died a few days later, but his gardens continue to bloom and to blossom, and both he and his generosity are still remembered by the villagers many years later.

The fruit and the flowers, the vine and vegetables, may have been Father John’s liturgy. But the people he blessed with the produce of the fields and the gardens are themselves the harvest of the monastery.

Shortly after hearing this story that day, I found myself face to face with a fresco in one of the monastery chapels depicting the Resurrection scene where Mary Magdalene is in the garden and mistakes the Risen Christ for the gardener.

It seemed to me that day that there is something spiritually beautiful and appropriate about the monk-gardener becoming a priest, and that the Risen Christ might at first sight be confused with the gardener.

It was the Gospel reading at last Sunday’s ordination of priests in Christ Church Cathedral.

How do we best celebrate the harvest do we have to offer today?

There is a harvest lunch in Stillorgan later in the day [2 October 2016]. But like the people who follow Christ to the other side of the lake in our Gospel reading, are we there because we are being fed (see John 6: 26), or because of who Christ is for us?

What harvest do we have to offer as individuals, as a parish, as a diocese, as the Church of Ireland?

What did we mean when we prayed those words in this morning’s Collect that say: ‘Grant that we may use them to your glory, for the relief of those in need’?

I am just back from a meeting in London of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG at which we heard harrowing accounts of the suffering of Syrian refugees who are fleeing places like Aleppo and Damascus and fleeing to Greece, only to find themselves treated with uncivilised inhumanity in holding facilities on the islands, in Athens and on the borders.

When Saint Paul tells us this morning to ‘keep on doing the things we have learned and received and heard and seen,’ then it must be in loving God and loving our neighbour. And it must involve too remembering, as our Old Testament reading reminds us, that we must ‘celebrate … all the bounty that the Lord God given us’ (Deuteronomy 26: 11) in the harvest ‘with the aliens who reside among us.’

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

Collect:

Eternal God,
you crown the year with your goodness
and give us the fruits of the earth in their season:
Grant that we may use them to your glory,
for the relief of those in need
and for our own well-being;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord of the harvest, with joy we have offered thanksgiving for your love in creation
and have shared in the bread and wine of the kingdom.
By your grace plant within us such reverence
for all that you give us
that will make us wise stewards of the good things we enjoy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Harvest Thanksgiving Eucharist in All Saints’ Church, Blackrock, Co Dublin, on 2 October 2016.

Harvest time in Alvecote, near Tamworth (Photograph: Ken Robinson, 2016)