Praying at the Stations of the Cross in Lent and Easter 2022: 17 April 2022 (Station 15)

The Resurrection … Station 15 in the Stations of the Cross in the Church of Saint Mary and Giles in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Lent and Holy Week have come to an end and today is Easter Day (17 April 2022), bringing an end to all our fears and ushering in all our hopes and joys.

I am hoping to take part in the Easter celebrations this morning in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, even before this day begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

During Lent this year, in this Prayer Diary on my blog each morning, I was reflecting on the Psalms each morning. But during the two weeks of Passiontide, Passion Week and Holy Week, I was reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections on the Stations of the Cross, illustrated by images in the Church of the Annunciation, Clonard, Wexford, and the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles in Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the lectionary adapted in the Church of Ireland;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Station 15, the Resurrection:

Of course, traditional Stations of the Cross do not included a Fifteenth Station, However, in the Stations of the Cross on the north and south walls of the nave in Stoney Stratford, donated in memory of John Dunstan (1924-1988), Station XV depicts the Resurrection.

Beside the Stations of the Cross in the church in Clonard, a processional Cross has a central panel depicting the Resurrection.

The Crucifixion and Death of Christ is not the end.

Early on Sunday morning, before dawn on the first day of the week, the women come to the tomb with spices they have prepared. But they find the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, there is no body, and two men in dazzling clothes ask them ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen’ (Luke 24: 5). There is a similar greeting in the other two Synoptic Gospels: ‘He is not here; for he has been raised’ (Matthew 28: 6); ‘He has been raised; he is not here’ (Mark 16: 6).


Christ is still wrapped in his grave clothes, his hands, feet and side still pierced with the marks of the nails and the centurion’s lance. But this is the Risen Christ. His eyes are open, and below a bowed soldier sent to guard the grave symbolises the defeat of death.

The Harrowing of Hell … the central panel in the processional cross in the Church of the Annunciation, Clonard, Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

John 20: 1-18 (NRSVA):

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

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.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘From Death to Resurrection,’ and is introduced this morning by the Revd Dr Rachel Mash, Coordinator of the Environmental Network of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. She writes:

What is the message of Easter for us when the future of Earth is under threat?

On Good Friday we feel the pain of suffering, cruelty and death – we lament the devastation of the Earth, the loss of two thirds of the world’s species in a single generation, the dying of the oceans and the destruction of the rainforests. Teeming life has turned to barren death, millions are faced with hunger from drought, floods and sea levels rise.

Where then is our Easter hope? Jesus died to save the world, the ‘cosmos’, as the Bible tells us (John 3 :16). ‘All the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe – people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross’ (Colossians 1: 19-20, The Message version).

Jesus died not only to reconcile us to God and to one another, but also to bring reconciliation between humans and the whole of Creation. Believing in the resurrection does not point us to another world, it gives us hope and inspiration to work for the redemption of this one.

The prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (17 April 2022, Easter Day) invites us to pray:

Lord of All,
you defeated death so that we could live.
Guide us as we witness the power and
glory of the Risen Christ.

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

All Saints’ Church, Calverton, a 200-year-old church built on mediaeval foundations

All Saints’ Church dates from the 12th century and was rebuilt in 1818 and 1824 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

In the afternoon sunshine that I have been enjoying in Stony Stratford this week, I walked out one day to Calverton just outside Stony Stratford, and enjoyed a short time in the Shoulder of Mutton. It is an appropriate name for an old country pub looking across the fields filled with sheep and new-born lambs, and I enjoyed the view across those fields to Calverton Manor and All Saints’ Church.

The parish of Calverton includes one village, Lower Weald, and two hamlets, Upper Weald and Middle Weald. Lower Weald is the largest of these three settlements, and includes Manor Farm, the parish church and the former parish school.

The name means the ‘farm where calves are reared,’ and in the Domesday Book in 1086 the village was recorded as Calvretone.

Thatched cottages in the village of Lower Weald in Calverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The west side of nearby Stony Stratford was once included with the ecclesiastic parish of Calverton, while the east side was in Wolverton, so that in the past the Manor of Calverton was often called ‘the Manor of Calverton with Stony Stratford.

The manor was sold in 1616 to Sir Thomas Bennet, who had been Lord Mayor of London in 1603. It was extended by his grandson, Sir Simon Bennet, in 1659. The manor is reputedly haunted by the ghost of Simon’s wife, Lady Grace Bennett, who was murdered there in 1694. The Bennet family also owned the nearby Manor of Beachampton.

The fair and market of Stony Stratford were part of the life of the Manor of Calverton until they were separated by an Act of Parliament in the 18th century.

Looking across the fields to Calverton Manor and All Saints’ Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The church in Calverton may be one of the oldest Church foundations in Buckinghamshire. Richard the clerk of Calverton witnessed a deed with Robert de Whitfield, Sheriff of Oxfordshire, in 1182-1185. This may be the earliest reference to the church in Calverton, which was dedicated to All Hallows – the mediaeval equivalent of All Saints. The old Church of All Hallows consisted of a nave, a chancel and a south aisle with an entrance porch.

However, the Christian presence in the area goes back much further, to sometime between the years 600 and 700. Birinus a missionary came to this area to work among the West Saxon people, and decided to settle among them permanently.

Birinus became the first Bishop of Dorchester, organising the parish system in the area. Perhaps the Parish of Calverton was established at this time.

The west door of All Saints’ Church, Calverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The advowson of Calverton was held in 1233 by Isabella de Bolebec, Countess of Oxford and wife of Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford. The advowson or living then descended with the manor until the manor was sold in 1806, when the living was sold by the Marquess of Salisbury to Charles George Perceval (1756-1840), 2nd Lord Arden and an elder brother of the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval (1762-1812). Spencer Perceval was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons, the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

Lord Arden presented Dr Butler as a temporary Rector of Calverton in 1814, to hold the parish until his son was ‘of a proper age.’ The patronage of the living later descended in the Perceval family to the Earls of Egmont.

Lord Arden commissioned the architect William Pilkington to rebuild All Saints’ Church between 1818 and 1824, on the foundations of All Hallows’ Church. The church was built in stone in the 12th and 14th century styles, and during this this work some of the old details were re-used. All Saints’ Church opened in October 1818, and includes a chancel, a nave of three bays, a south aisle, a west tower and a south porch.

The south porch of All Saints’ Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Lord Arden’s work was assisted in this work by Dr Butler. Arden also built a new rectory at his own expense, and the foundations of the house were laid in July 1819.

Butler was succeeded in 1821 by Lord Arden’s third son, the Revd the Hon Charles George Perceval (1796-1858), who came to live at Calverton as Rector on 26 March 1821, at the age of 24.

Perceval was a devout High Churchman and a supporter of the Tractarians. Much of the decoration in the church, the stained glass windows and other embellishments, owes its origins to Perceval.

Many of the Tractarian leaders met in the Rectory at this time, including Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), John Henry Newman and Edward Manning, and some of the Tracts for the Times were planned if not written at Calverton.

Some of the ‘Tracts for the Times’ were planned in the Rectory in Calverton … a new rectory was built in 1819 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Perceval’s eldest surviving son, Charles George Perceval (1845-1897), who was born at Calverton Rectory, eventually succeeded as 7th Earl of Egmont in 1874. Egmont was an Irish peerage, and in 1889 Lord Egmont sold off many of the family estates in north Co Cork, including Liscarroll Castle, near Buttevant. Kanturk Castle was donated to the National Trust by his widow in 1900.

More rebuilding took place in the church in Calverton in the 1850s, and further restoration and decorations were carried out in 1871-1872, when the architect was Edward Swinfen Harris. The royal arms, carved in wood and painted, probably date from that restoration. The inscriptions below the arms date from the reign of Edward VII.

The monumental cross in All Saints’ churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The chancel arch and the nave arcade are apparently 14th century work reset, and the two-centred tower arch over the modern semi-circular arch may be of the 15th century and rebuilt. All the fittings are modern, there is a ring of six bells, and the plate consists of a chalice, paten and flagon, probably dating from the 17th century, and a modern paten.

A monumental cross in the churchyard is topped by an interesting cross, and has carved representations of the four evangelists encircling the base.

Today, All Saints’ Church, Calverton, is part of the Parish of Stony Stratford and Calverton.

Calverton Manor is a Grade 2* Listed Building and featured in BBC2’s Restoration Home series in 2011.

Calverton Manor featured in BBC 2’s ‘Restoration Home’ series (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)