Praying in Lent and Easter 2021: 18, Saint Peter’s Church, Drogheda

Saint Peter’s Church, Drogheda, Co Louth, served as the Pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Armagh for centuries (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 (6 March 2021) are from Saint Peter’s Church, Drogheda, Co Louth, which I knew well during my schooldays nearby in Gormanston.

Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32 (NRSVA):

1 Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

3 So he told them this parable:

11 … ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands’.” 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” 22 But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

25 ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 31 Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found”.’

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (6 March 2021) invites us to pray:

Let us pray give thanks for those who work in ministry spreading the mission of the church across the world.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Inside the Saint Peter’s, Drogheda … the large mediaeval church had six chapels (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

When we need a change of heart and some ritual spiritual house-cleaning

Patrick Comerford

There is a major traffic hub in Dublin known as the ‘Red Cow.’ It offers connections between major provincial buses, the Luas light rail, and a convenient hotel that has had new significance at a time when people travelling between Dublin and the provinces for funerals or hospital appointments need heart-felt assurances of almost ritual-like cleanliness.

I am not aware of the origins of the name ‘Red Cow.’ But there is a Biblical story about a red cow or heifer that has its own significance when it comes to heart-felt needs for ritual-like cleanliness.

Passover or Pesah, which begins this year at sunset on Saturday 27 March, marks a half-way point in the Jewish calendar. Although it comes in Nissan, the first month in the Jewish year, it is actually six months since Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

In the month before Passover, each Shabbat is marked with special preparations for this important holiday. For example, last weekend was Shabbat Zakhor, while this weekend is Shabbat Parah (שבת פרה).

On this day, an additional Torah portion (Numbers 19: 1-22) is read about the unusual ritual of the red heifer, the cow that the High Priest sacrificed and whose ashes were then used to purify those who were made ritually impure through contact with a corpse.

It is an obscure ritual that may seem arcane in today’s world. But at one time the Red Heifer atonement ritual was seen as a contrast to or an antidote to the sin of the Golden Calf.

In this contrast of the red cow and the golden cow, one symbolises the return to life and God’s laws while being purified from contact with death, while the other symbolises the seduction of idolatry, the turning to hedonism and anarchy, which takes away any meaning from life and leads to a deadening of one’s soul.

Perhaps this additional portion was chosen because it reminds people that the whole cleaning process before Pesah is a way of getting rid of those stale, useless things that ‘deaden’ people’s lives.

Both the Red Heifer ritual and the aftermath of the Golden Calf involve making a kind of cleansing solution with water, the symbol of life, and other cleansers to wash away the accumulated dirt of surroundings in preparation for Pesah and the coming spring season.

Rabbi Shefa Gold, in her commentary on Parashat Hukat, speaks of the deeper spiritual meaning of the ingredients used in the Red Heifer potion, mentioned in Numbers 19: 6: the tall cedar represents pride, the low-growing hyssop is for humility, and the crimson is for passion.

She suggests, ‘I will need both pride and humility in order to accomplish my journey of purification. Pride allows me to stand tall enough to see the path ahead, and humility connects me to the earth beneath my feet … Crimson, my passion, … adds my own holy fire to these fires of purification.’

When mixed together with living water, which she calls ‘the compassionate flow of life,’ they create ‘the perfect alchemical formula for our renewal.’

This additional portion read on this day offers the hope of returning to a state of spiritual perfection if we give up the ‘golden calves’ in our lives and return to God’s ways.

The haftarah – Ezekiel 36: 16-36 in the Sephardic tradition and Ezekiel 36: 16-38 among Ashkenazim – also deals with issues of being cleansed from contamination: ‘I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh’ (Ezekiel 36: 25, 26).

As the extra reading from the Book of Numbers on this shabbat presents an ancient rite of detoxification for those who have come in contact with the dead, so too the reading from Ezekiel brings the promise of being purified by God and of being brought back to life with a new heart and a new spirit.

There are times when we need a change of heart and to do our own spiritual house-cleaning. Even when we do not manage to clean out every single crumb in our lives, we need to search for the ones we surely can pick up and discard, and even – at times – to become light-hearted instead of heavy-hearted in the presence of God.

Shabbat Shalom!