Catching glimpses of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like

Evening lights at Stowe Pool and Lichfield Cathedral ... ‘a little snatch of heaven’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Saint Mary’s Rectory,
Askeatron, Co Limerick

30 July 2017

The Seventh Sunday after Trinity

11 a.m.: The United Parish Eucharist

Readings: Genesis 29: 15-28; Psalm 105: 1-11, 45b or Psalm 128; Romans 8: 26-39; Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Have you ever found yourself lost for words when it comes to describing a beautiful place you have visited?

If you have ever been to the Bay of Naples or Sorrento, how would you describe what you have seen to someone who has never travelled beyond Limerick and Kerry?

You might try comparing the first glimpse of Vesuvius with looking at the Galtymore Mountain or even Carrauntoohil … but even Carrauntoohil is not as high as Vesuvius, and it would hardly describe the experience of climbing the rocky path, looking into the caldera, or the overpowering whiffs of that sulphuric smell.

For someone who has been as far as Dublin, and been on the DART, you might want to compare the Bay of Naples with the vista in Dalkey or Killiney … but that hardly catches the majestic scope of the view.

You might want to compare the church domes with the great copper dome in Rathmines … but that goes nowhere near describing the intricate artwork on those Italian domes.

You might compare the inside of the duomo in Amalfi with the inside of your favourite parish church … but you know you are getting nowhere near what you want to say.

And as for Capri … you are hardly going to write a romantic song about Tarbert or Aughunish Island, or even the stacks off Kilkee.

Comparisons never match the beauty of any place that offers us a snatch or a glimpse of heaven.

And yet, we know that the photographs on our phones, no matter how good they seem to be when we are taking them, never do justice to the places we have been once we get home.

We risk becoming bores either by trying to use inadequate words or inadequate images to describe experiences that we can never truly share with people unless they go there, unless they have been there too.

I suppose that helps to a degree to understand why Jesus keeps on trying to grasp at images that might help the Disciples and help us to understand what the Kingdom of God is like.

He tries to offer us a taste of the kingdom with a number of parables in this morning’s Gospel reading:

● The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed … (verse 31).

● The kingdom of heaven is like yeast … (verse 33).

● The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field … (verse 44).

● The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls … (verse 45).

● The kingdom of heaven is like a net in the sea … (verse 47).

‘Do they understand?’ They answer, ‘Yes.’ But how can they really understand, fully understand?

Some years ago, after a late Sunday lunch at the café in Mount Usher in Co Wicklow, I posted some photographs of the gardens on my website. An American reader I have never met commented: ‘A little piece of heaven.’

We have a romantic imagination that confuses gardens with Paradise, and Paradise with the Kingdom of Heaven. But perhaps that is a good starting point, because I have a number of places where I find myself saying constantly: ‘This is a little snatch of heaven.’ They include:

● The road from Cappoquin out to my grandmother’s farm in West Waterford.

● The journey along the banks of the River Slaney between Ferns and Wexford.

● The view from the east end of Stowe Pool across to Lichfield Cathedral at sunset on a Spring evening.

● The Backs in Cambridge.

● Sunset behind at the Fortezza in Rethymnon on the Greek island of Crete.

● The sights and sounds on some of the many beaches I like to walk on regularly … here, I have introduced myself to Ballybunion, Beal and Kilkee, and there are the beaches along the east coast that I still return to, beaches in Achill, Crete … I could go on.

Sunset on the beach in Rethymnon earlier this month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Already this year, I have managed to get back to many of these places.

At times, I imagine the Kingdom of Heaven must be so like so many of these places where I find myself constantly praising God and thanking God for creation and for re-creation.

But … but it’s not just that. And I start thinking that Christ does more than just paint a scene when he describes the kingdom of heaven. Looking at this morning’s Gospel reading again, I realise he is doing more than offering holiday snapshots or painting the scenery.

He tries to describe the Kingdom of Heaven in terms of doing, and not just in terms of being:

● Sowing a seed (verse 31);

● Giving a nest to the birds of the air (verse 32);

● Mixing yeast (verse 33);

● Turning small amounts of flour into generous portions of bread (verse 34);

● Finding hidden treasure (verse 44);

● Rushing out in joy (verse 44);

● Selling all that I have because something I have found is worth more – much, much more, again and again (verse 44, 46);

● Searching for pearls (verse 45);

● Finding just one pearl (verse 46);

● Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);

● Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);

● Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);

● Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).

So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.

Are our images of the kingdom passive or active? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

One of my favourite T-shirts, one I saw in the Plaka in Athens some years ago, says: ‘To do is to be, Socrates. To be is to do, Plato. Do-be-do-be-do, Sinatra.’

The kingdom is more about doing than being.

At the annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG the week before last I heard about a number of activities that, for me, offer snatches of what the kingdom is like:

1, Bishop David Hamid spoke about the work of Saint Paul’s Church, the Anglican Church in Athens, in partnership with USPG, working with refugees and asylum seekers who continue to arrive in desperate and heart-breaking circumstances on the Greek islands.

2, Bishop Margaret Vertue, from the Diocese of False Bay in the Western Cape, who spoke in her Bible studies each morning of how the Bible relates to the work of the Anglican Church in South Africa with victims of gender-based violence and people trafficking.

3, Rachel Parry, a USPG staff member, who spoke of Bishop Carlo Morales, Bishop of Ozamis in the Philippines who was arrested at gunpoint in May and is still languishing in jail, simply because of his commitment to working with the peace process in his own country.

4, Jo Musker-Sherwood, Director of Hope for the Future, who shared how her experience in mission with USPG has led her to work at lobbying politicians and empowering churches in the whole area of climate change.

5, Carlton Turner, who has moved from the Bahamas and the West Indies to Bloxwich in the Diocese of Lichfield as a vicar, and who talked about how God creates out of chaos, how God’s pattern for growing the Church is about entering chaos and bringing about something creative, something new.

Throughout that week, we were offered fresh and engaging signs of the ministry of Christ as he invites us to the banquet, as he invites us into the Kingdom – works that are little glimpses or snatches of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

This morning’s Eucharist, and the barbecue we are sharing afterwards, should, in their own ways, be glimpses of, snatches, of the heavenly banquet.

And this afternoon, this evening, whenever you go home after the barbecue, I challenge you to think of three places, three gifts in God’s creation, that offer you glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven, and to think of three actions that for you symbolise Christ’s invitation into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Give thanks for these pearls beyond price, and share them with someone you love and cherish.

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

On the Backs in Cambridge at Sidney Sussex College Boathouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect:

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

Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord God,
whose Son is the true vine and the source of life,
ever giving himself that the world may live:
May we so receive within ourselves
the power of his death and passion
that, in his saving cup,
we may share his glory and be made perfect in his love;
for he is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
now and for ever.

Christ ‘is the true vine and the source of life, ever giving himself that the world may live’ … an icon of Christ the True Vine in the parish church in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Priest-in-Charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes in the Diocese of Limerick, Killaloe and Ardfert. This sermon was prepared for the United Parish Eucharist in Askeaton on Sunday 30 July 2017.

No 96 O’Connell Street, Georgian house not to be passed by in Limerick

No 96 O’Connell Street, a fine example of Limerick’s early 19th century architecture (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

I am sure many people walk by No 96 O’Connell Street every day without noticing this architecturally beautiful building, and without ever gaining a hint of the splendid plaster work, fireplaces and interior fittings.

This is the offices of Limerick Chamber of Commerce, one of the five oldest Chambers of Commerce in Ireland and Britain. It was established as a Chamber of Commerce in 1805, but its roots go back to the Society of Merchants of the Staple, whose origins can be traced to the Guild of Merchants in the early 17th Century.

The Chamber of Commerce had its first headquarters at the former Commercial Buildings on Patrick Street, built in 1805. It was formally constituted by Royal Charter from King George III on 2 June 1815, and it moved to No 96 O’Connell Street in 1829 or 1833.

During the first half of the 19th century, the chamber played a key role in the development of Limerick Harbour and also assumed control over pilotage in the River Shannon and made payments to individuals who salvaged vessels and marked hazards in the estuary.

No 96 O’Connell Street was built about a decade earlier, ca 1815-1820 on what was then George’s Street. The house remains a fine building, with much of its early 19th-century interior still intact, in sharp contrast to the later 19th-century stucco façade.

Because the building still has many of its original fine architectural and decorative details, which are all well-maintained, when I visited No 96 on Thursday afternoon I was able to appreciate the fine Georgian interiors and details that add to the restrained effect intended by the architect who designed this townhouse.

This terraced, three-bay, four-storey over basement former townhouse was built ca 1815-1820 as part of the development of Newtown Pery. It was refaced in stucco ca 1880 and it is distinguished by the channel rusticated ground floor elevation, foliate frieze to the parapet entablature and the cast-iron balconette that emphasises the entablature enriched window openings of the piano nobile.

The cast-iron balconette brings emphasis to the windows on the piano nobile (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The roof is concealed behind the parapet wall to the front and rear, with a red-brick chimney-stack to the party wall.

The tooled limestone ashlar basement elevation ends at the ground floor level with a smooth limestone ashlar course.

The building has a stucco rendered façade, with a channel rusticated ground floor that ends with a running mould sill cornice at the first-floor level, and above this the façade is plainly rendered.

A sill course delineates the second-floor level and the façade terminates with a dentil enriched parapet entablature.

The segmental-arched window openings at ground floor level have painted profiled sills and painted stucco architraves with vermiculated keystone and foliate brackets that add emphasis to the frame. There are one-over-one timber sash windows with segmental horns.

The square-headed window openings of the piano nobile have a continuous painted stucco sill course, a lugged architrave and outer pilaster uprights with an entablature that has guilloche mouldings to the frieze, supported by a parapet entablature. The continental-style casement windows have fixed horizontal over-lights and date from ca 1880.

There are square-headed window openings on the second and third floor, with a continuous sill course at the second-floor level, and a profiled sill course at the third-floor level with consoles beneath.

The architrave surround at that second-floor level has an entablature and is enriched by a Greek key frieze that terminates with rosettes. There is a lugged and kneed architrave at the second and third floor level. There are two-over-two timber sash windows at the second-floor level and replacement uPVC windows at the third-floor level.

The front door … evidence of the brick arch of the original door opening to the right (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The segmental-arched door opening has a surround treatment that echoes the window openings at ground level. The inset timber doorframe has a profiled timber lintel separating the plain glass over-light from the flat-panelled timber door. The remains of part of the brick arch of the original door opening can be traced on the neighbouring late Georgian façade to the right.

At the front, the basement area is enclosed by a limestone ashlar plinth wall that ends with limestone piers with stop-chamferred corners and pyramidal capping stones. There is canted coping to plinth wall supporting distinctive arched cresting.

The flight of limestone steps leads up to the limestone flagged front door area, where there is still an original cast-iron boot-scraper.

Inside, No 96 retains much of the spatial arrangement and architectural detailing dating from ca 1815-1820.

The entrance hall has a glazed inner porch screen that dates from the late 19th or early 20th century in origins.

The door separating the entrance hall and the stair hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Separating the stair hall is an arched opening with an inner door-case comprising slender composite columns and responding quarter pilasters joined by an entablature with an enriched frieze that has a webbed fanlight above. There are plain sidelights and a replacement panelled timber door leaf.

The door opening to the ground floor front room has a fine architrave of flanking pilasters with rosettes that link with the lintel architrave.

The ceiling stucco work survives from the early 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The ceiling in the entrance hall has low relief compartments with wheat husk swags tied with ribbon flanking an acanthus ceiling boss with scrollwork enriched by floral motifs. There is a low-relief modillion cornice running along the flat ceiling.

A round-arch window on a half-landing on the stairs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The original primary staircase rises to the second-floor level. This has two half landings and a slender turned timber balustrade with an elaborate ground floor level curtail step. This staircase is open string with scrolled tread ends, which are either carved timber or composite.

At the second-floor level, an arched opening with a running mould archivolt springs from pilaster uprights and gives access to the private accommodation corridor.

The stair hall ceiling is enriched by low relief decorative plasterwork, typical of its period, forming an acanthus ceiling boss and outer floral and foliate oval tied by ribbon. A low relief frieze that runs along the ceiling is made up of a foliate frieze and an egg-and-dart course.

The half landings receive natural light from round-arched window openings with shutter box architraves comprising slender pilasters and archivolt, and having a panelled window back, flat-panelled shutters with applied bead mouldings, and a flat-panelled arch soffit. There are original six-over-six timber sash windows with segmental horns and a fanlight to the upper sash.

Because of meetings in the building, I did not get into the rooms upstairs this week. But I understand the three-bay piano nobile room has an arched inter-communicating opening to the rear room, with door leaves sliding into cavities in the dividing wall.

I am told this room has a flush chimney-breast with marble chimney-piece that has carved figurative panels, an Adam-inspired fire grate and a Victorian cast-iron fender. The window openings retain their original shutter boxes and flat-panelled timber shutters with applied bead mouldings. The ceiling is decorated with a sprayed feather boss with an elaborate low relief surround of scrolled foliations and an outer grape vine garland.

The first-floor rear room is similarly decorated with further enrichments to the ceiling. The chimney-piece is equally fine with a centrally-placed plaque depicting a Roman gladiator. There is a brass Regency fender with lion’s head masks that enrich the chimney-piece.

I did not get to the back of the building, but I understand the rear site still has the original coach house with a triangular pediment and an unusual triangular-shaped red-brick dovecote with oval windows set in brick surrounds.

No 96 O’Connell Street … how many people pass by each day without imagining its architectural riches? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)