Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 1, Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day

The Nativity … a Christmas icon by the icon writer Alexandra Kaouki in Rethymnon in Crete

Patrick Comerford

Christmas has arrived, and this is Christmas Day. Later this morning, I hope to join the choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, at the Christmas Eucharist (9:30 am) and then settle in to a quiet family Christmas day.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Christmas crib in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 2: 1-20 (NRSVA):

2 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

A Christmas icon in the Coptic tradition

Today’s Reflections:

It is interesting that each Gospel begins to tell its story each in its own unique, different way:

Saint John begins at the beginning, at the very beginning: ‘In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1: 1).

Saint Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, generation after generation, with long lists of sometimes unpronounceable names (Matthew 1: 1-17), before he summarises the story of the first Christmas in seven crisp verses … and even then he seems to concentrate more on how Saint Joseph’s fears and suspicions were allayed than on the Christmas story (see Matthew 1: 18-25).

Saint Mark has no Nativity narrative, and has no story of the first Christmas. Instead, he begins his Gospel at the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan, an event that comes a little later on in the other three Gospels.

Saint Luke begins with a personal explanation to Theophilus of why he is beginning to write the Gospel (Luke 1: 1-4), before moving on to the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1: 5 ff). It takes him a full chapter before he gets to tell the story of the first Christmas (Luke 2: 1-20).

There is a telling, short sentence at the end of this Gospel reading: ‘Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart’ (verse 19).

At the heart of this Gospel narrative is the understanding that things are not always going to work out the way we would like them to. But at the heart of the Gospel story of Christmas is the truth that God is always with us, and that God’s expectations for us, God’s awe and wonder at being in our presence, should be as much a source of mystery as our awe and wonder at being in the presence of God.

When we wrap our presents and gifts in festive colours, and decorate our homes and workplaces with lights and tinsel, it is easy to think we have bundled our fears and despair away – at least for the next week or two. Our popular celebrations of Christmas become comfortable and comforting as we sing carols and try to convince ourselves that ‘all is calm, all is bright.’

Yet all is not calm in our world, in the US, in Russia and Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Europe, in our land or in our economy. Nor is all bright for those who are homeless this Christmas, who live in dark fear of poverty or who dread what the future may hold.

All those well-wrapped, warm and homely celebrations are in danger of forgetting that the first Christmas was one filled with fear and dread. Immediately after the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem, the scene in Saint Luke’s account moves to a hillside where shepherds are working at night, in the dark and in the cold, easy prey to wolves, thieves and the cold weather, less valuable than the animals they tend. And the Gospel writers tell us that those poor shepherds are terrified when they see the angelic host.

The initial task of the angels is to calm those fears. Their first words to those frightened shepherds are not ones of call or command, but words to calm them: ‘Fear Not’ … ‘Do not be afraid’ (verse 10).

This Christmas time, when the world is a cold, frightening and uninviting place for many, the first task of the Church must be to bring hope where there is fear, love where there is hatred and no peace, to give rather than receive. The angels’ call to the shepherds to ‘fear not’ is not a platitude or an invitation to piety, but one that is linked with the promise of Good News, the promise that God’s plans for humanity and for creation are brighter than the darkness of their night: ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people’ (Luke 2: 10).

But where is there good news for the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly, the parents of vulnerable children?

Where is the hope of great joy for people around the world denied democracy and human rights, for those who live in poverty and under oppression?

In a thought-provoking column in the New Statesman some years ago [19 December 2017], the Revd Lucy Winkett, the Rector of Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, wrote:

‘This festive season, I find myself musing on the often-repeated thought that “it’s for the children”, and hoping that the estimated 70,000 London primary pupils who go to school hungry children each day, and the estimated 300,000 unaccompanied child refugees in camps across the world, get some of our attention. Especially at the Feast of the Incarnation, when Christians celebrate God becoming real to us in the vulnerability of a baby, but with the light and power and warmth of the sun.’

On a visit to Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, earlier this year, I noticed a slogan: ‘Christ did not come so that we could have church and that more often. He came so we could have life and that more abundantly.’ For many people this Christmas, their principal fear is about life, the apprehension that they do not have the abundances to face the future without fear.

In his poem Christmas, John Betjeman dismisses the commercialisation of Christmas and challenges us to return to the truth of the Christmas message:

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all …
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

When, in John Betjeman’s words, the ‘Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’,’ we are called not only to hear the story of Christ’s birth, the story of a child born to a couple for whom ‘there was no place’ in Bethlehem, but we are called too to ensure the words ‘Happy Christmas’ are not hollow and meaningless.

A Christmas crib in a front window on the High Street in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day):

The theme this week (21 to 27 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love Brings Life in Tanzania’ (pp 12-13). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day) invites us to pray:

Lord Jesus, born among us, fill our hearts with joy and hope. Let your love shine brightly in the world, bringing peace to every family and strength to the weary.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have given us your only-begotten Son
to take our nature upon him
and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
grant that we, who have been born again
and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
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 Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
may the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord Jesus Christ,
your birth at Bethlehem
draws us to kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth:
accept our heartfelt praise
as we worship you,
our Saviour and our eternal God.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A Christmas scene in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 21, Friday 21 November 2025

‘The Cleansing of the Temple’, Giotto, the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent, and this week began with the Second Sunday before Advent.

But, before the day begins, before I have breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early 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.

‘Christ driving the Traders from the Temple,’ by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, 1541-1614), ca 1600, The National Gallery, London

Luke 19: 45-48 (NRSVA):

45 Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; 46 and he said, ‘It is written,

“My house shall be a house of prayer”;
but you have made it a den of robbers.’

47 Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.

Preparing for the Eucharist in the Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral … what distracts you from prayer in God’s House? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Do you have problems with prayer, with praying?

It can be difficult, and difficult for priests too.

When we are ordained as priests, we are told in the Ordinal that we are to lead God’s people in prayer, but we are also charged by the bishop to be diligent in prayer, in the reading of Scripture and in study.

But being told to do something, and actually doing it, are two very different things.

There are times when prayer is not easy, prayer can is often difficult for every one of us, and it is easy to be distracted.

Because the Church knew at an early stage that prayer could be difficult for all of us some of the time, and for some of us all of the time, early and mediaeval churches were decorated to take account of our distractions, to catch us unaware of our distractions, and to bring us back to the reasons we find ourselves in church.

We can be distracted on a Sunday morning by the presence of other people, by thoughts that bring us back to the problems of the past week, by worries and anxieties about the coming week, by the weather outside, by traffic and noises outside the church, even by noises and people inside the church.

When we are distracted in prayer, we stop listening to God. But, frankly, one of the big distractions in prayer can be the feeling that God is not listening to us.

And the same thing can happen when we try to pray at home, in the privacy of our own homes or rooms.

In the past, many churches were decorated with frescoes and icons. Many Reformers objected to this as idolatry, and they wanted to remove some, sometimes even all images from churches.

But the inspiration for those early church decorators was to call people back to prayer and the Bible, and to lift up their hearts and minds to God.

The bottom, ground level of the frescoes in a church were of earthly scenes. As our eyes moved up, we moved through the stories of saints, prophets and martyrs, through New Testament scenes, to events in the life of Christ, and finally, in the dome to Christ enthroned in splendour, as the Pantocrator or ruler of all, surrounded by the heavenly host of angels and the four evangelists.

Once, as I was a preparing for a seminar with students, I asked my sons when they were still children to close their eyes, to think of a church they knew, and to say what was the first thing they would see when they walked in.

One said, ‘The backs of people.’ It said a lot about how children can find some churches cold and unwelcoming.

The other said ‘Jesus.’

I thought he was pulling my leg and that he knew the reason for my little exercise.

But, no, he reminded me of how he held my hand as a small child as we walked into a dark church in a small village on a Greek island. He recalled how in the darkness his eyes were drawn up to the light streaming through the small windows in the dome, and he was startled by the image of Christ, lit up by the rays of sunshine and looking down lovingly on the two of us, father and son.

Would that everyone who came into our churches could say that the first thing they see is Jesus, rather than the backs of people.

Historically, Anglicans tried to undo the iconoclasm of over-zealous, small-minded reformers by providing a visual focus when our minds wander during prayer. This could be in stained glass windows or in a large painting behind or above the altar.

One traditional Anglican way of catching the eyes of the distracted was to place a number of boards in the chancel area, two decorated with the Ten Commandments and one on each side of these, with the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed.

These boards recognised that we can be bored by sermons and distracted in prayer. But they allowed people to learn the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed, and so to learn to pray and to grow in faith and discipleship. And they allowed us to bring our focus back to why we were in church and to return to prayer.

Many of these boards survive in the Wren churches throughout London and in many churches of Buckinghamshire, including Hanslope and Castlethorpe, and I know of at least three in Ireland: Kenure Church in Rush, north Co Dublin; Saint Carthage’s Cathedral, Lismore, Co Waterford; and Saint Nicholas Church, Adare, Co Limerick.

The frescoes, icons and Stations of the Cross in other churches serve the same purpose. They are positive distractions when our minds and our eyes are tempted to wander in prayer and in worship.

But there are negative distractions too.

Do not get me wrong, please. I never find children a distraction in church. Children should be as comfortable in church on a Sunday morning as they ought to be in their grannies’ on a Sunday afternoon.

But there are negative distractions that take our eyes and our minds away from where they should be on Sunday morning: what’s happening around us; the sounds outside. The first hit for the Saw Doctors was a song with a crude description of how a young man is distracted by a young woman at Sunday Mass. But it was ever so.

I cannot imagine that the only conversation that Mary and Joseph had when they brought the Child Jesus to the Temple was holy talk with Simeon and Anna.

In the Temple in Jerusalem, when they came together on high holy days and holidays, of course they stopped and joked and chatted, and consoled, cajoled and congratulated one another as they caught up on the latest news.

It was building up community, the family of God. In churches today, our social chit-chat, before and after, is not just mere gossip or a distraction, but builds up the Body of Christ. This is positive distraction.

But in the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 19: 45-48), Christ is dealing with negative distractions, a whole package, a whole collection of negative distractions.

The Ten Commandments are the summary of our relationships with God and with one another. They summarise the purpose and direction of worship and prayer, and they summarise and express the core values of community relations. Christ’s action in the Gospel reading is a reaction to how those values have been abused and set aside for personal gain in a place that is supposed to be at the heart of these relationships.

In the outer court of the Temple, he finds a thriving market, where visitors can buy the animals needed for sacrifice and change coins with images of Caesar as a god for coins that are acceptable as Temple tax.

He must have known that Mary and Joseph had to change coins and to buy their turtle doves when they brought him in their arms to the Temple.

The Prophet Jeremiah had said that impurity would destroy the value of the Temple in God’s eyes, and it would ‘become a den of robbers’ in his sight (Jeremiah 7: 11).

All classes of people, indeed all the nations of the earth, should be able to worship God, the prophets had declared, so that ‘there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord’ (see Zechariah 14: 21; Isaiah 56: 7; Tobit 14: 5-7).

Christ’s action in this reading is not a petulant outburst of temper, but the energy of righteousness being used to confront people whose business and sharp practice have become distractions from prayer and worship.

It is not those who are praying, or those who are distracted from prayer, that he wants to hear what he has to say, but those who have no time for prayer at all and instead are there to make quick profits out of money changing and large profits out of selling animals who distract or even deter those who should feel welcome to worship of God, and to meet one another. For the love of God and the love of others is the summary of the law of Moses.

The disciples are reminded, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’ (see Psalm 69: 9).

But his rebuke is heard and interpreted only in material ways. Those around him are so distracted from their prayers that they cannot grasp that the true, lasting Temple is the body of Christ which, as the disciples would see after the Resurrection, would be raised up in three days.

Hopefully, we shall continue to see this as we journey towards welcoming him as Christ the King on Sunday (23 November 2025) and during Advent as we prepare to welcome him at his incarnation and at his Second Coming.

Christ the Pantocrator depicted in church domes in Rethymnon, Panormos and Iraklion in Crete (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 21 November 2025):

The theme this week (16 to 22 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘In the Shadow of the Carneddau’ (pp 56-57). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Bishop Andrew John, who stepped down as Archbishop of Wales and Bishop of Bangor on 27 June.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray:

Pray for countries and people groups most likely to be impacted by climate change.

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed
to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament
you give substance to our hope:
bring us at the last
to that fullness of life for which we long;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Additional Collect:

Heavenly Lord,
you long for the world’s salvation:
stir us from apathy,
restrain us from excess
and revive in us new hope
that all creation will one day be healed
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Can we imagine the conversations that Mary and Joseph had as they brought the Child Jesus to the Temple was only holy talk? … a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (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

A Christmas carol about the Crown of Thorns, and a holy thorn in Shenley with links with Glastonbury

The Glastonbury Thorn in Shenley Church End is said to flower every Christmas Eve (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are preparing and rehearsing for the Advent and Christmas services in the choir at Saint Mary and Giles in Stony Stratford. One of the carols we have been rehearsing on Wednesday evenings is ‘The Crown of Roses’, with words by the radical Russian poet Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheev (1825-1893), translated by Geoffrey Dearmer, to a setting by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893):

When Jesus Christ was yet a child
He had a garden small and wild,
Where he cherished roses fair,
And wove them into garlands there.

Now once, as summertime drew nigh,
There came a troop of children by,
And seeing roses on the tree,
With shouts they plucked them merrily.

‘Do you bind roses in your hair?’,
They cried, in scorn, to Jesus there.
The boy said humbly, ‘take, I pray,
All but the naked thorns away’.

Then of the thorns they made a crown,
And with rough fingers pressed it down,
Till on his forehead fair and young
Red drops of blood like roses sprung.

Holy Thorn Lane off Shenley Road, a few hundred metres south of Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Pleshcheev was a radical poet and part of the Petrashevsky Circle, and he was once arrested alongside Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Many of his poems have been set to music by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.

The carol’s translator, the poet and BBC editor Geoffrey Dearmer (1893-1996), was the son of the Anglican liturgist and hymn-writer ologist Percy Dearmer and the artist and writer Mabel Dearmer. Many of Dearmer’s war poems dealt with the overall brutality of war and violence.

The carol is a moving story of Jesus as a young boy quietly cultivating a peaceful beauty only to have this stripped bare by humanity, leaving only

… thorns they made a crown,
And with rough fingers pressed it down,
Till on his forehead fair and young
Red drops of blood like roses sprung.

The Glastonbury Thorn explained in a plaque by the bush in Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Crowns of thorns are usually associated with Holy Week and the Passion narrative leading up to Easter, and not with Advent and the period leading up to Christmas. But earlier this week I was at a meeting of local Milton Keynes clergy in Saint Mary’s Church in Shenley Church End, and there I came across a story of flowering thorns or a flowering thorn bush that also has associations with Christmas rather than Holy Week and Easter, all close to a children’s play area.

Shenley Church End in Buckinghamshire is a village south of Stony Stratford and that has become part of Milton Keynes. There, a few hundred metres south of Saint Mary’s Church and the Old Rectory and off Shenley Road I found Holy Thorn Lane. Hidden away, in an almost-hidden and fenced-off dip of land off the lane, between a children’s play area and the half dozen or so houses on Sheepcoat Close, is a Holy Thorn bush or Glastonbury Thorn.

The thorn is a straggly bush rather than a tree, and appears to have about four rather slender trunks. This probably indicates that it is, indeed, ‘ancient’, the original trunk having split and rotted away, leaving younger trunks still growing. Looking at the spacing of the trunks, this disintegration of older trunks may have happened several times over the centuries.

The Glastonbury Thorn has been in Shenley Church End for so long that local lore says it was grown from a staff planted by the Pilgrim Fathers more than 400 years ago, before they sailed on the Mayflower in 1620.

An explanatory plaque inside the railed-off area seeks to tell its story:

‘Glastonbury Holy Thorn

‘This ancient thorn bush is believed to
have been grown from a cutting from the
famous hawthorn bush at Glastonbury.
The Glastonbury thorn bush is said to have
miraculously grown when Joseph of
Arimathea planted his staff in the ground.
According to Avalon Legend, following
the Crucifixion, Joseph came to England
bearing the Holy Grail. This bush, just like
the original Glastonbury Thorn, is said to
flower around Christmas Eve and crowds
have gathered each year to witness this.’

A Christmas image in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Everywhere the Pilgrim Father stopped on their way from Glastonbury, the legend says, they planted one of these thorns. Someone once took a cutting from the bush and planted it at Shenley. But the cutting had many siblings dotted across England, including Quainton, Eaton Bishop, Woodham Ferrers, and Kingsthorne and Orcup in Herefordshire.

In days gone by, access to the Glastonbury Thorn in Shenley involved a trudge across fields. A 19th century writer noted, ‘This “Holy Thorn” stands in a field by itself, and is partially railed round by old palisading. Each Christmastime it is said to burst out into bud. … in this neighbourhood no one disputes the fact that it does so. In the good old coaching days people used to, so I am told, make a point of visiting this particular “Holy Thorn” at Shenley, the field where it is being but a few hundred yards from the old Watling Street.’

In those days, people camped by huge bonfires waiting for the bushes to flower. More recently, developers wanted to root up the bush and build houses. But they were challenged by local people, a preservation order was in 1978, and it is now surrounded by a metal fence, and the nearby primary school is called Glastonbury Thorn School.

The Shenley Church End thorn tree appears to receive little care or attention. It is said to have an internal diameter of 2.15 metres and an external circumference of 8 metres, but its age has never been estimated.

The trunks of the Shenley tree continue to produce flowers or flower buds in winter. When I visited the bush earlier this week, it had no buds – but there are still 40 days to Christmas.

Daily prayer in Lent with early English saints: 39, 23 March 2024, Saint Hugh of Lincoln

Saint Hugh of Lincoln depicted in a statue at Saint Mary Magdalen Church, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are approaching the last week of Lent, and tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the Sixth Sunday in Lent (24 March 2024). In the Jewish calendar, the festival of Purim begins this evening (23 March) and continues until tomorrow evening (24 March).

Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in Common Worship.

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

1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Saint Hugh of Lincoln (left) and Saint Frideswide of Oxford depicted in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Early English pre-Reformation saints: 39, Saint Hugh of Lincoln

Saint Hugh of Lincoln is remembered in Common Worship on 17 November.

Hugh was born at Avalon in Burgundy in 1140 and at first made his profession with the Augustinian canons but, when he was 25, he became a monk at the Carthusian Grande Chartreuse. In about 1175, he was invited by the King Henry II, to become prior of his Charterhouse foundation at Witham in Somerset, badly in need of reform even though it had been only recently founded.

In 1186, Hugh was persuaded to accept the See of Lincoln, then the largest diocese in England. He brought huge energy to the diocese and, together with discerning appointments to key posts, he revived the schools in Lincoln, repaired and enlarged the cathedral, visited the See extensively, drew together the clergy to meet in synod and generally brought an efficiency and stability to the Church.

Hugh also showed great compassion for the poor and the oppressed, ensuring that sufferers of leprosy were cared for and that Jews were not persecuted. He both supported his monarch yet also held out against any royal measures he felt to be extreme, while managing not to make an enemy of the king. He died in London on 17 November 1200.

Saint Hugh of Lincoln (right) and King Edward the Confessor in the Cooper Window in Saint Peter’s Church, Berkhamsted (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

John 11: 45-57 (NRSVA):

45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’ 49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! 50 You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. 53 So from that day on they planned to put him to death.

54 Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.

55 Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. 56 They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?’ 57 Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

The pet swan of Saint Hugh of Lincoln is an amusing detail in the Cooper Window in Saint Peter’s Church, Berkhamsted (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 23 March 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), has been ‘Lent Reflection: True repentance is the key to Christian Freedom.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Dr Simon Ro, Dean of Graduate School of Theology at Sungkonghoe (Anglican) University, Seoul, Korea.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (23 March 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray Lord for the work and mission of the Anglican Church of Korea. We pray too for the Graduate School of Theology at Sungkonghoe – may they continue to nurture and teach theology for all those seeking to learn.

The Collect:

Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us
that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters
we do also for you:
give us the will to be the servant of others
as you were the servant of all,
and gave up your life and died for us,
but are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
you gave up your Son
out of love for the world:
lead us to ponder the mysteries of his passion,
that we may know eternal peace
through the shedding of our Saviour’s blood,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Palm Sunday:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who in your tender love towards the human race
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday: Saint Gilbert of Sempringham

Tomorrow: Saint Edmund Rich of Abingdon

The Christ the King or Cooper Window in Saint Peter’s Church, Berkhamsted, with Saint Hugh of Lincoln in the bottom left corner (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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

A search for some old timber-framed and thatched houses in Shenley Church End

Dower House in Shenley Church End was originally built as two cottages in the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During my afternoon visit to Shenley Church End last week, I visited both Saint Mary’s Church and the houses that once formed the early 17th century Stafford Hospital almshouse.

The village is about 3 km south-west of Central Milton Keynes and about 3 km north-west of Bletchley, and is now part and parcel of Milton Keynes. But it still retains many of the characteristics of a pretty village, with its churchyard, village pond, reading garden and thatched, timber-framed cottages and former farmhouses.

Shenley Church End village is attractively dispersed in irregular collections of houses built mainly in a warm, orange‐brown brick but of different ages, appearance and uses along Shenley Road, which runs from north to south. Many of these houses stand on the historic line of Shenley Road with its shallow hollow and trees.

The dense stands of trees in places along Shenley Road provide an important green backdrop, maintaining a sense of the village’s historic rural setting and at the same time shielding views of the surrounding late 20th century housing that might otherwise dispel this impression.

The Homestead at No 3 Shenley Road dates back to the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Almost opposite Dudley Hill, leading to Saint Mary’s Church, The Homestead at No 3 Shenley Road is an eye-catching, black-and-white painted timber-framed and thatched smallholder’s cottage that dates back to the 17th century.

The Grade II listed house and the site it stands on are partly shielded from view by trees and shrubbery. But they remain an unaffected corner of rural character in Shenley Church End, despite the great changes that have taken place around it.

The architectural features of this interesting house include a colour-washed brick infill, a brick chimney and a projecting stack. A lower wing dating from the early 19th century has a with false timber framed effect and a slate roof with a brick chimney at the gable end.

Manor Farmhouse may stand on the site the main manor farm of the Maunsell Family, dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

From there, a row of mid or late 19th century cottages and the former church school lead on to Manor Farmhouse, an 18th century grade II listed house that has quirky proportions.

The two-storey house has a taller south end gable and a distinctive run of buildings that follow the line and fall of Shenley Road. Although the present farmhouse and outbuildings date from the mid-18th century, architectural historians suggest the site may be much older, and that it was possibly the main manor farm of the Maunsell Family who held land in the area in the 12th and 13th centuries.

A closer look at the brickwork of Manor Farmhouse shows how headers or the square end of bricks that were burnt black in the kiln are placed among stretchers creating a ‘Flemish Bond’ arrangement. This comes close to making a chequer board or diaper pattern across the frontage of the building.

The brown brick gable end of Manor Farmhouse is punctuated by a first floor casement window and a weather vane topping the apex of the barn roof. Other architectural and historic features of interest include an old tile roof with brick gable parapets at the steeper porch over the right-hand bay, a brick chimney at the left-hand end, toothed brick eaves, and a semi-circular arched window on the first floor on the right-hand side of the central bay.

Within the grounds of Manor Farm stands a grade II listed weatherboard and timber-frame barn with brick panel infills. It indicates the historic appearance of a traditional vernacular timber-frame barn or granary.

Walking further south along Shenley Road, the road is edged by houses and garden greenery bounded by hedges, fences and walls. This gives a pleasing sense of enclosed linearity with limited views out from the midst of attractive 18th and 19th century cottages and the former farm barns.

At a T junction with Oakhill Road, the timber-framed Dower House is a 17th century L-plan house, originally built as two cottages. It is distinguished by a stone built ground floor topped by a timber frame upper part that has colour‐washed brick infills and a clay tile roof.

The black and white squares of the timber frame of Dower House can be picked out along Shenley Road and create an attractive perspective.

A sculpture in the Reading Gardens, the site of the former Reading Room (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

One of the lost buildings of Shenley Church End is a building once known as the Reading Room and that stood on the site of the pretty and quaint Reading Gardens. the Reading Room was used by the village from the early 1900s, and it was given to trustees by Ada Selby-Lowndes in 1944.

The site was transferred to the parish council in 2003, and the orchard garden was created by the parish council in 2011 for all to enjoy, to sit and read. The mosaic at the garden was commissioned as part of a project for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.

Before I left Shenley End, I went in search of the Glastonbury Thorn hidden away off the wonderfully-named Holy Thorn Lane. It was said to have been planted as a cutting from the Glastonbury Thorn, that legend says was grown from a thorn from Christ’s crown of thorns brought to Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea.

I walked the length of Holy Thorn Lane, but failed to find the thorn bush itself or the site of the former Glastonbury Cottages. I shall have to return to Shenley Church End before Holy Week and Good Friday to search for this link with the story of Christ’s Passion and Death and, supposedly, with the Pilgrim Fathers.

The village pond in Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Stafford Hospital, a Jacobean charity, continues its work in Shenley Church End

The Stafford Hospital or almshouse in Shenley Church End dates from the early 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I was back in Shenley Church End last week for a lunchtime meeting, and took some time later in the afternoon to explore the architectural legacy and history of the village, about 3 km south-west of Central Milton Keynes, and about 3 km north-west of Bletchley.

In the past, I have written about Saint Mary’s Church in Shenley Church End, including the striking monument in the north aisle to Sir Thomas Stafford (1607) of Tattenhoe. This monument includes a recumbent effigy on a base with a central figure of his wife flanked by their four sons and three daughters, all carved in relief, and it dramatically recalls that only one son and two daughters were still alive when he died.

But last week, I wanted to see the former Stafford hospital or almshouse, founded by the Stafford family in Shenley Church End in the early 17th century.

The weather-beaten inscription and datestone in the gable over the central pair of doors in the former Stafford almshouses in Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A minor branch of the Stafford family of Stafford and Buckingham acquired Tattenhoe and became involved in Shenley Church End in the mid-16th century, and following some legal challenges the estates eventually passed to a ‘bastard’ son in the family and his heirs. But Shenley dates back centuries before that to pre-conquest days.

Shenley Church End, along with the neighbouring districts of Shenley Brook End, Shenley Wood and Shenley Lodge, are collectively known as ‘The Shenleys.’ The name Shenley is an Old English word meaning ‘bright clearing.’ In the Domesday Book (1086), the area was collectively known as Senelai and controlled by Hugh d’Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester.

The distinction between Shenley Brook End and Shenley Church End dates from the 12th century, when a new manor house was built in Shenley Brook End by the Mansell family. However, the two manors were owned by the same person by 1426 and by then the distinction between the two places was in name only.

Today, the core of the historic village is at the heart of the new district with its name. One of the earliest places of interest in Shenley Church End is the Shenley Toot, a motte and bailey, although only the motte remains. Last week, though, I wanted to see the former Stafford Hospital or Almshouses in Shenley Church End, which date from 1615.

Sir Thomas Stafford, who died in 1607, depicted on his monument in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

When Sir Thomas Stafford died in 1607, he left instructions in his will to build almshouses house four unmarried, impoverished men and two women. They had to regularly attend Shenley church, and were required to refrain from any ‘riotous living.’

A daily payment of 3 pence was to be made to each of the men, and 2 pence to each of the women. Under the provisions of Stafford’s will, the trustees were to buy 70 acres of land at Great Linford. This land was rented to William Hopkins for £30 a year, and the rental income was to be spent on ‘the Poor People of Stafford’s Hospital in Shenley.’

The income was expected to provide the finances needed to maintain the building and to pay the pensions. However, over time the rental income lost its value. The Charity Commissioners agreed in 1882 that three of the tenements could be let, with the income applied to the benefit of the three remaining residents. Since then, the almshouses have been converted into four private houses.

The grade II terraced, nine-bay former almshouses are built of coursed limestone, and are of one-storey with attics. Although they have been altered, the architectural details include an old tile roof with four brick chimneys, six gabled dormers with two-light casements, and three pairs of doors.

The gable over the central pair of doors has a weather-beaten inscription and datestone. The plaque is greatly weathered and was difficult – almost impossible – to make out last week, but it reads: ‘This almshouse was caused to be erected by Thomas Stafford Esq, Deceased, and was built by Thomas Stafford his son, Anno Domini 1614.’

Two of Sir Thomas Stafford’s sons depicted on his monument in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The charity in its present form was set up after the sale of the almshouses. The proceeds from the sale were invested in 1984 and the interest from this investment provides the trust with its income, distributed within the criteria set out in the trust document and within charity commission guidelines.

The trustees are the Vicar and Churchwardens of Saint Mary’s Church, four trustees nominated by Shenley Brook End and Shenley Church End Parish Councils, and two trustees co-opted by the trustees.

In recent years, the trust has helped with children’s school trips, bought an oven for a family, and provided Christmas gifts for senior residents of Shenley. The area it covers now includes Crownhill, Grange Farm, Hazeley, Shenley Church End, Medbourne, Shenley Brooke End, Westcroft, Kingsmead, Furzton, Emerson Valley, Tattenhoe and Tattenhoe Park.

Sir Thomas Stafford’s monument remains an impressive monument in Saint Mary’s Church. It was originally on the east wall of the family mausoleum, now the Lady Chapel, but was moved to its present position in front of the old North Door during restorations of the church in 1909.

The former Stafford Hospital or almshouses, now private houses in Shenley Church End … but the charity continues its work (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (144) 19 October 2023, Week of Prayer for World Peace (5)

‘I have to deal with … my anger, with care, with love, with tenderness, with non-violence’ (Thich Nhat Hanh) … street art in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and the week began with the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX, 15 October 2023). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the life and work of Henry Martyn (1812), Translator of the Scriptures, Missionary in India and Persia. Today is also the Feast of Saint Frideswide, Abbess and Patron of Oxford, a woman of vision and courage.

I plan to stay up late tonight, watching the by-election results in the constituencies of Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire. But, before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.

The Week of Prayer for World Peace began on Sunday, and so my reflections each morning this week are gathered around this theme in these ways:

1, A reflection on the Week of Prayer for World Peace ;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Week of Prayer for World Peace began with ‘A Call to Prayer for World Peace’ signed by faith leaders in 1974

A Week of Prayer for World Peace, Day 5:

The International Prayer For Peace:

Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth
Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust
Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace
Let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe

Day 5, Reconciliation: For strength to reconcile rather than seek revenge:

If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape one hundred days of sorrow.
– Chinese Proverb

I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight … I have to deal with it, with my anger, with care, with love, with tenderness, with non-violence.
– Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk

‘I wonder how humanity managed to survive.’

Captain Kirk: ‘We overcame our instinct for violence.’
– Star Trek

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself … War has its roots in human nature.
– Francis Meehan

But I tell you who hear Me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
– Christian

One Race – the Human Race

Religions are different; the diversity of religious practice quite extraordinary. This leads to two common reactions: that only one religion is true, or that all are really the same. Here the Guru offers another view, starting not from religion but from the One God in whom we find our commonality.

One man by shaving his head hopes to become a holy monk.

Another sets up as a yogi or some other kind of ascetic.

Some call themselves Hindus: others call themselves Muslims. Among these there are the Shiah, there are the Sunnis also.

Yet human beings are of one race in all the world; God as Creator and God as Good, God in His Bounty and God in His Mercy, is all one God. Even in our errors, we should not separate God from God!

Worship the One God, for all people the One Divine Teacher.

All people have the same form, all people have the same soul.
– Guru Gobind Singh (Sikh)

Jains believe that violence in thought and speech is as bad as physical violence, so they try to control things like anger, greed, pride and jealousy.
– Jain

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.
– Christianity

‘If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape one hundred days of sorrow’ (Chinese Proverb) … street art in Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 47-54 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 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.

Today is the Feast of Saint Frideswide, Abbess and Patron of the Diocese of Oxford … a stained-glass window in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers: USPG Prayer Diary:

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 ‘Helpline to women in need.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (19 October 2023) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for The Church in North India – for their congregations, their mission, and their church leaders.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who by your Holy Spirit gave Henry Martyn
a longing to tell the good news of Christ
and skill to translate the Scriptures:
by the same Spirit give us grace to offer you our gifts,
wherever you may lead, at whatever the cost;
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 with Henry Martyn and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The Week of Prayer for World Peace began on Sunday 15 October 2023

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 prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (103) 8 September 2023

Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End … part of the Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII, 3 September 2023). The calendar of the Church of England today (8 September 2023) celebrates the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Before today begins, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection.

This week, I have been reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at a church on the route of the annual Ride + Stride, organised by Buckinghamshire Historic Churches Trust and taking place tomorrow, 9 September 2023;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End:

The annual Ride + Stride organised by Buckinghamshire Historic Churches Trust takes place tomorrow, 9 September 2023. Participants may be cyclists, walkers, horse-riders or drivers of mobility scooters. They can be of any age, but under-13s must be accompanied by an adult. All denominations are welcome.

Participants may visit as many churches as they like, planning their own route, and are asked to seek sponsorship from friends, relations and colleagues: so much per church visited or a lump sum. https://ridestride.org/

Ride + Stride offers opportunities find out what lies behind the churchyard gates of Buckinghamshire’s many churches and chapels.

Ride + Stride is open to walkers as well as horse-riders and cyclists. It always takes place on the second Saturday of September, between 10 am and 6 pm, and aims to raise money for the repair and restoration of churches and chapels of any Christian denomination in Buckinghamshire.

Half the money raised goes to the church or chapel of the participant’s choice, and the other half is added to a general fund administered by the Buckinghamshire Historic Churches Trust.

Churches are encouraged to make applications to the trust for grants to help with church repairs and restoration. Last year’s Ride + Stride event raised more than £26,610. Last year, the trust awarded grants totalling £28,000 to 11 churches that applied for funding to assist with both major and minor works.

My photographs this week are from some of the churches taking part in this year’s Ride + Stride tomorrow. Today is the feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and my photographs this morning of a participating church are of Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End.

The parish belongs to the Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership, including Shenley Church End, Loughton, Tattenhoe, Two Mile Ash and Furzton. The church is Grade I listed.

The Revd Sharon Grenham-Thompson was the Lead Minister at Saint Mary’s until recently. The Revd Ruth Harley is the curate. Sunday Services are: 10 am Holy Communion, first and third Sundays; Morning Worship, second Sundays; All-Age service, fourth Sundays.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, facing west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 1: 1-16, 18-23 (NRSVA):

1 An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, 4 and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’

The chancel and nave in Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayer:

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 ‘Harvest.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday. To find out more, visit www.uspg.org.uk

The USPG Prayer Diary today (8 September 2023) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for the work, ministry and people of the Diocese of Kurunagala in Sri Lanka.

The Lady Chapel was arranged in its present form in 1909 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who stooped to raise fallen humanity
through the child–bearing of blessed Mary:
grant that we, who have seen your glory
revealed in our human nature
and your love made perfect in our weakness,
may daily be renewed in your image
and conformed to the pattern of 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:

God most high,
whose handmaid bore the Word made flesh:
we thank you that in this sacrament of our redemption
you visit us with your Holy Spirit
and overshadow us by your power;
strengthen us to walk with Mary the joyful path of obedience
and so to bring forth the fruits of holiness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The 15th century East Window includes re-glazed stained glass (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

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

The south porch in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)