31 March 2023

A new kosher deli opens
in Rathmines in time
for Passover in Dublin

Deli613 opened last in the former Zen Chinese restaurant on Upper Rathmines Road Upper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Pesach 5783 begins on Wednesday evening (5 April 2023), and the feast of Passover continues until the following week, on the evening of Thursday 13 April. Shabbat HaGadol (Great Shabbat, שבת הגדול), the Shabbat immediately before Passover, begins this evening.

Traditionally, the Seder dinner is held on the first and second night of Passover and includes several specific dishes and ingredients, like matzah – an unleavened, cracker-like bread – bitter herbs, wine, and charoset—a wine, fruit, and nut paste.

When I was in Dublin last week, I found how many of these dishes and ingredients can be found this year in Deli613, the latest eatery in Rathmines and the first Jewish deli in Dublin.

I walked into Deli613 last week to be told by Rifky Lent that Dublin’s newest foodie hot spot opened the weekend before. Chabad of Ireland has opened Deli613 in the former Zen Chinese restaurant at 89 Rathmines Road Upper, and is kosher-certified by Chabad.

Deli613 is on the ground floor of the new Chabad House, and offers a wide selection of dishes and has a well-stocked grocery with kosher snacks, wine, and more. I had a quick double espresso and a tasty bun as I browsed a menu that includes salt beef and smoked salmon sandwiches, potato latkes, salt-beef sandwiches on rye or bagels and pastrami, chopped herring and liver, as well as hummus, pitta falafel, and sabich.

The kosher grocery is open from Monday to Friday and is fully stocked with kosher breads, cold cuts, sausage, wine, bamba, bissli and much more.

Deli613 takes its name from the traditional 613 mitzvot or commandments in Judaism. They are based on a list in the Mishneh Torah compiled by one of the greatest mediaeval Jewish scholars, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, known in Jewish tradition by the acronym Rambam and to the wider world as Maimonides.

This new deli in Dublin aims to grow the number of Kosher food options available to the local Jewish community at an affordable price. The bread has been specially created by a local sourdough baker with lovers of rye and multi-grain loves in mind.

Anyone with a sweet tooth can, like me, indulge themselves with some cake over coffee. A brunch option includes pastries and potentially a Sunday breakfast is being offered in the coming month. Deli 631 is also promising a full dining experience on Sunday nights.

Rifky Lent also told me in our brief conversation how a full range of communal programmes and classes are also planned. She and her husband Rabbi Zalman Lent and their children have lived in Ireland since 2000, working with the Jewish community, first as youth rabbi and rebbetzin, and then as the Rabbi and rebbetzin of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation in Terenure Synagogue on Rathfarnham Road. During that time they were also the representatives in Ireland of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

They are now expanding their roles with the opening of the new Chabad centre in Rathmines, offering a friendly community space, educational classes, Shabbat dinners, a mitzva project, or even just a cup of coffee and a chat. For students and young professionals away from family and friends they promise a home away from home. Friday night dinners promise delicious food and a warm ambience, and visitors and newcomers are being invited too to holiday meals and shabbat lunch.

Reports of the planned sale of the site of Terenure Synagogue on Rathfarnham Road have been gloomy news from the Jewish community in Dublin. But visiting Deli613 in Rathmines last week I realised that that there is plenty of good news for the Jewish community in Dublin too.

חַג פֵּסַח שַׂמֵחַ Chag Pesach Sameach

Shabbat Shalom



Praying at the Stations of the Cross in
Lent 2023: 31 March 2023 (Station 6)

‘Veronica offers Jesus a towel’ … Station 6 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Dunstan and All Saints’ Church, Stepney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

These final weeks in Lent are often known as Passiontide, beginning with last Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent or Passion Sunday (26 March 2023).

We are now coming towards the end of what is often known as Passion Week. In these two weeks of Passiontide, Passion Week and Holy Week, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections on the Stations of the Cross, illustrated by images in Saint Dunstan’s and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in Stepney, in the East End of London, and the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Francis de Sales in Wolverton, which I visited for the first time last month;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Station 5, Veronica wipes the face of Jesus:

The Sixth Station in the Stations of the Cross has a traditional description such as ‘Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.’ Veronica is not a Biblical or historical figure, but her name reminds us of every woman who takes a stand for truth, even when great personal costs and risks are involved.

I was staying at Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick, when I heard the news that the journalist Veronica Guerin had been murdered on 26 June 1996. She first wrote for the Sunday Business Post and the Sunday Tribune, and began writing about crime for the Sunday Independent on 1994. She was shot dead while she was stopped at traffic lights near Newlands Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin. She was due to speak two days later at a conference in London on ‘journalists at risk.’

Her murder caused national outrage in Ireland, and the Taoiseach John Bruton called it ‘an attack on democracy.’

Her name and those of 38 other international journalists who died in the line of duty in 1996 were added to the Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, in 1997. In 2000, she was named as one of the International Press Institute's 50 World Press Freedom Heroes of the past 50 years. The Veronica Guerin Memorial Scholarship at Dublin City University offers a bursary for a student following the MA in Journalism who wishes to specialise in investigative journalism.

Her husband Graham Turley has said: ‘Veronica stood for freedom to write. She stood as light, and wrote of life in Ireland today, and told the truth. Veronica was not a judge, nor was she a juror, but she paid the ultimate price with the sacrifice of her life.’

In the Sixth Station in Stepney, Veronica falls to her knees in front of Jesus as she reaches up to wipe his face, while a second woman stands weeping. Behind them, a soldier reaches his hand out to Christ’s shoulder, while Simon of Cyrene balances the weight of the Cross and a young apprentice carries a tool box, perhaps carrying the implements of the Crucifixion.

The words beneath the scene read: ‘Veronica offers Jesus a towel.’

This scene is depicted in a simpler presentation in Station 6 in Wolverton, where Veronica holds out the cloth and Jesus leans forward for it with one hand. Behind him, a soldier is carrying the spear that will pierce his side.

The words beneath read: ‘Jesus and Veronica.’

‘Jesus and Veronica’ … Station 6 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Francis de Sales Church, Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

John 10: 31-42 (NRSVA):

31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus replied, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?’ 33 The Jews answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.’ 34 Jesus answered, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? 35 If those to whom the word of God came were called “gods”—and the scripture cannot be annulled— 36 can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, “I am God’s Son”? 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.’ 39 Then they tried to arrest him again, but he escaped from their hands.

40 He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. 41 Many came to him, and they were saying, ‘John performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.’ 42 And many believed in him there.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Good Neighbours: A View from Sri Lanka.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday morning with an adaptation from Father Rasika Abeysinghe’s contribution to USPG’s Lent Course ‘Who is our neighbour,’ which I have edited for USPG. Father Rasika Abeysinghe is a priest in the Diocese of Kurunagala in the Church of Ceylon.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 31 March 2023) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the Diocese of Kurunagala. May its work amongst struggling farmers and labourers, and those of different faiths, aid those most affected by Sri Lanka’s economic crisis.

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.

Post Communion:

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.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Stations of the Cross in Stepney, Wolverton and Stony Stratford (Photographs: 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

30 March 2023

A charming Tudor-style
house on Beacon Street,
Lichfield, is for sale again

Ardmore Cottage (left) and Nether Beacon House (right) on Beacon Street … Ardmore Cottage is on the market again (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Lichfield, I regularly enjoy the stroll along Beacon Street between the Hedgehog and Lichfield Cathedral and the heart of the city. In the light of early morning and in the late evening, with the birdsong in the trees and the lights of the winter sun, there is a semi-rural feeling in the air, enhanced by the rustic look of many of the houses along Beacon Street.

Beacon Street is a truly charming area, with some timber-framed houses and cottages dating back to the 18th century or earlier. Later houses, influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, and Tudor-style pubs like the Feathers and the Fountain, add to the character of the area and give it an ambience that is a mixture of both rural setting and late Victorian suburb.

Some years ago, during December snows, when a Facebook friend posted photographs from this area, I told him if I was to live in any street in Lichfield, I would probably want to live on Beacon Street.

One of these charming, timber-framed, Tudor-style houses, Ardmore Cottage, a four-bedroom house, is back on the market through Newton Fallowell of Bore Street, Lichfield, who are selling the house through online bidding, inviting a starting bid of £380,000.

When it was on the market two years ago through Knight Frank of Birmingham, they were inviting offers in excess of £495,000.

Ardmore Cottage, Nether Beacon House and Ardmore House once formed one house, but they were later divided into three separate houses, and they have Grade II listing.

Ardmore Cottage in the sale brochure

Ardmore Cottage is a pretty, black and white cottage dating from the late 17th century or early 18th century, with a late 18th century addition and later alterations. It is timber-framed with brick infill and brick, tile roofs and brick stacks, and has an abundance of character and charm.

Ardmore Cottage and Nether Beacon House are a pair, built on a double-depth plan with a later range to the rear. Outside, from the Beacon Street frontage, there are two storeys, a symmetrical three-window range, and a 19th century single-storey wing at the end of each house.

There is a hipped roof with three gables, and the timber-frame was applied in the late 19th century to the partly plastered stone plinth.

The entrances to the two houses at the centre have porches recessed behind Tudor arches and Art Nouveau iron gates. The half-glazed doors have leaded glazing and side lights. Inside, the houses retain their beams, fireplaces and original features.

The three-light projecting windows have cornices, but the two central first-floor windows are narrow windows, and the windows on wings date from the 20th century. The left return has and an exposed square framing, three flat-roofed dormers and a tall stack.

Behind, this pair of houses has a three-storey, four-window range, with coped gables, end stacks, and a modillioned brick cornice. The windows have sills, and there are rubbed brick flat arches over the 12-pane sashes, with nine-pane sashes on the second floor.

The right return at Nether Beacon has 20th additions and entrance on the ground floor. The left return has a small, two-storey rear wing with an end stack and return, a 4:12:4-pane, tripartite sash window and is taller than the adjoining front range due to slope of ground.

Ardmore Cottage is entered through a timber-framed storm porch, and the hallway leads to the principal reception rooms, with a staircase rising to the first-floor landing.

The drawing room has a feature fireplace and a large bay window, and an intriguing trap door that leads down to the cellar. The dining room has quarry tiled floor and wooden beams and the kitchen also has feature brick and beams on the walls. There is an ornamental, courtyard-style terrace garden a parking area.

The principal bedroom is en suite, and there are two further double bedrooms and a family bathroom on the first floor. The fourth bedroom is at the top of the house on the second floor.

Did the stairs in Ardmore Cottage originally come from Fisherwick Hall? (Photograph: sale brochure)

In the past, I have wondered how Ardmore House and Ardmore Cottage in Lichfield came to have such distinctively Irish names. Some years ago, in her blog Lichfield Lore, the Lichfield historian Kate Gomez recalled the story that a staircase from Fisherwick Hall, the former home of the Marquesses of Donegall, was taken to a house on Beacon Street known as Ardmore.

I wonder whether these are the stairs in Ardmore Cottage, or whether they are stairs in Ardmore House on Nether Beacon, on the market some years ago through Downes and Daughters of Lichfield, with an asking price of £675,000.

The paired Nether Beacon House was once a house for boarders from the Friary School in the 1920s, and it has a curious sign at the front door: ‘Beware of the Cats.’ Each time I see it, it reminds me of how Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield-born lexicographer, and his cat, Hodge, who is remembered in a whimsical passage in James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson (1799).

Boswell recalls that when he observed that Hodge was a fine cat, Johnson said, ‘Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this.’ And then, as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, added, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’

Johnson, who was the focus of my morning reflections during much of this season of Lent, was known to go out of his way to buy oysters to feed Hodge, even to the point of annoying his servants by pampering his pets. After Hodge’s death, the poet Percival Stockdale wrote ‘An Elegy on the Death of Dr Johnson’s Favourite Cat’:

Who, by his master when caressed
Warmly his gratitude expressed;
And never failed his thanks to purr
Whene’er he stroked his sable fur.


A bronze statue to Hodge by the sculptor Jon Bickley stands facing Dr Johnson’s house in Gough Square, off Fleet Street, London. It was unveiled in 1997 and shows Hodge sitting on top of Johnson’s Dictionary, alongside some empty oyster shells. The monument is inscribed with the words ‘a very fine cat indeed.’

Ardmore Cottage is on sale through Newton Fallowell of Bore Street, Lichfield.

Ardmore Cottage (left) and Nether Beacon House (right) on Beacon Street … how did Ardmore Cottage get its Irish-sounding name? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying at the Stations of the Cross in
Lent 2023: 30 March 2023 (Station 5)

‘Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus’ … Station 5 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Dunstan and All Saints’ Church, Stepney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

These final weeks in Lent are often known as Passiontide, beginning with last Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent or Passion Sunday (26 March 2023).

We are now in the middle of what is often known as Passion Week. In these two weeks of Passiontide, Passion Week and Holy Week, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections on the Stations of the Cross, illustrated by images in Saint Dunstan’s and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in Stepney, in the East End of London, and the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Francis de Sales in Wolverton, which I visited for the first time last month;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Station 5, Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus:

The Fifth Station in the Stations of the Cross has a traditional description such as ‘Simon of Cyrene helps carry the Cross.’ Simon of Cyrene is mentioned in three of the four Gospels as the man forced by the Roman soldiers to help Jesus carry his cross. He was from Cyrene in north Africa. But was he a black African, or was he like so many others there who were of Greek, Roman or Jewish descent?

Simon’s name is Jewish. But whether he was a Jew or a Gentile is perhaps irrelevant. His action reminds me of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations,’ an honour used to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.

The term originates with the concept of righteous gentiles, a term used in rabbinic literature to describe non-Jews (ger toshav) who abide by the Seven Laws of Noah.

The Righteous are defined as non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Only a Jewish party can make a nomination. Helping a family member or a Jew convert to Christianity is not a criterion for recognition. Assistance has to be repeated and substantial, and it has to be given without any expected financial gain.

The largest number of Righteous is from Poland (6,706). Mary Elizabeth Elmes (1908-2002) from Cork was the first Irish person to be honoured among the Righteous by Yad Vashem. She saved at least 200 Jewish children under the age of 12 by smuggling them over the border between France and Spain in the boot of her car. There is also an application for another Irish person, Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who rescued 6,500 Prisoners of War and Jews in Rome.

The Righteous are honoured with a feast day in the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in the US (16 July), and a Righteous from Italy, Edward Focherini, was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church in 2013.

In the Fifth Station in Stepney, one soldier at the front helps to balance the bar of the Cross on Christ’s shoulders, while the other behind helps the balance the shaft of the Cross with both hands as he instructs Simon how to take hold of the end of the Cross. Simon has a purse slung over his shoulder and a sickle tucked into his belt, indicating a working man. Two small children, a girl and a boy, have their hands clasped in prayer, while a bearded onlooker seems to be bowing his head in reverence.

The words beneath the scene read: ‘Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus.’

This scene is depicted in a simpler presentation in Station 5 in Wolverton, where Simon seems to take the whole burden and full weight of the Cross. There are no soldiers watching on, but there is a bearded man with a reverential gaze, and a child is carrying a spade, perhaps to dig the place in the ground where the Cross is going to be placed.

The words beneath read: ‘Helped by Simon.’

‘Helped by Simon’ … Station 5 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Francis de Sales Church, Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

John 8: 51-59 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 51 ‘Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.’ 52 The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?’ 54 Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, 55 though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. 56 Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ 57 Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ 58 Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.’

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Good Neighbours: A View from Sri Lanka.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday morning with an adaptation from Father Rasika Abeysinghe’s contribution to USPG’s Lent Course ‘Who is our neighbour,’ which I have edited for USPG. Father Rasika Abeysinghe is a priest in the Diocese of Kurunagala in the Church of Ceylon.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 30 March 2023) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for all who live in poverty and distress. May they experience the bonds of community and be carried by care and compassion.

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.

Post Communion:

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.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Stations of the Cross in Stepney, Wolverton and Stony Stratford (Photographs: 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

29 March 2023

Revd Cyril Howard Stenson,
a curate in Stony Stratford
and a Benedictine monk

No 12 Market Square, Stony Stratford … the Revd Cyril Howard Stenson lived here while he was a curate at Saint Giles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Two graduates of Keble College, Oxford, were interesting and controversial priests in the two Church of England parishes in Stony Stratford over a century ago. One arrived in Stony Stratford as the other left, and both are remembered for their role in liturgical controversies that drove them into the Roman Catholic Church.

The Revd Cyril Howard Stenson (1885-1943) arrived in Stony Stratford in 1909 as the Revd Henry Long’s curate at Saint Giles. That same year, the Revd Oliver Partridge Henly (1861-1934) was forced out of office as the Vicar of Wolverton Saint Mary the Virgin, on London Road, after 12 years of controversial ministry in the parish. Stenson too would leave Stony Stratford within a few short years, and both Henly and Stenson ended their days as Roman Catholics.

Parish and church life were healthy and thriving in Wolverton, Stony Stratford and Calverton at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. The arrival of the railway and the building of a new tram line brought prosperity to this part of north Buckinghamshire, and the foundations had been laid for a vibrant church life among the growing populations, with new churches and new schools, new rectories and the refurbishment and rebuilding of the older churches.

But when the appointment by the Radcliffe Trustees of the Revd Oliver Partridge Henly as the Vicar of Saint Mary Wolverton in 1897 opened a decade of church controversy in Stony Stratford.

Henly’s Anglo-Catholic liturgical practices eventually landed him, not once but twice, in the ecclesiastical courts, and he was eventually removed from office by the Bishop of Oxford, Francis Paget (1851-1911), in 1909.

When Bishop Paget came to Stony Stratford to take the Sunday services in Wolverton Saint Mary’s, Henly took his followers down the High Street in Stony Stratford to Saint Giles’ Church, where the new curate was the Revd Cyril Howard Stenson.

Henly eventually joined the Roman Catholic Church, and was followed some years many years later by Stenson, who joined the Benedictines at Prinknash Abbey and became Dom Columba OSB. I wrote about Henly yesterday. But who was Stenson?

Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, in Passion-tide array this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The Revd Cyril Howard Stenson (1885-1943) was born in what was then the Orange Free State in South Africa on 9 December 1885, into a strongly clerical family, and was the sixth or seventh generation in the Stenson family to be ordained an Anglican priest.

The Stenson family had deep roots for many generations in Co Limerick, Co Clare and Co Kerry, and I was particularly interested to find that Cyril Stenson’s great-grandfather, the Revd John Ormsby Stenson (1810-1870), was one of my predecessors Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (1866-1867), where I was the priest-in-charge until I retired on 31 March 2022.

Cyril Stenson’s grandfather, the Revd Edmund William Stenson (1831-1900), was born in Limerick on 24 July 1833, and educated at Trinity College Dublin. He moved to South Africa in the 1850s, and married Adelaide Manley (1833-1888) in King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape in 1854. He was ordained priest in 1873, and became the first Rector of Saint Mary’s, Barkly West. He later moved to England and died in Stewkley, near Winslow in Buckinghamshire, on 3 November 1908.

Leslie and Crook, in their succession lists of clergy in the Diocese of Limerick, are mistaken when they suggest the Revd Edmund William Stenson and the Revd John William Stenson were one and the same person.

Cyril Stenson’s great-grandfather, the Revd John Ormsby Stenson (1810-1870), was brought up in Rathkeale, Co Limerick, and was admitted to Trinity College Dublin in his mid-30s in 1844, but was in his mid-40s when he graduated BA in 1855. He was a curate in Kilpeacon (1856), Athea (1860), Clonelty (1861-1870) and Askeaton (1866-1867).

Cyril Stenson’s father, the Revd John William Stenson (1855-1908), was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Bloemfontein in 1879 and priest in 1882. He was a missionary with the Anglican mission agency SPG (now USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel) in Southern Africa, working in the dioceses of Bloemfontein and Kimberley. He returned to England about the same time as his mother Adelaide died in 1888. He was living in Becon in 1888 and in Saint Giles, Oxford, in 1901, and was the SPG Deputy Secretary in 1888-1890 and 1902-1905. He died in Sussex in January 1908.

Dom Columba Stenson (centre back row), behind the Prior of Prinknash Abbey, Father Sharpe, and group of visitors (Photograph courtesy Peckhams of Stroud)

John William Stenson’s son, Cyril Howard Stenson, was educated Keble College, Oxford, which was built in 1870 as a memorial to the Revd John Keble, one of the founding figures in the Oxford Movement. Students at Keble College often came from church families and many of them were High Church students.

Stenson graduated BA in 1908, and was ordained by Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford, in 1909, when he was appointed the Revd Henry Last’s curate at Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

At Stony Stratford, Stenson lived at 12 Market Square, across the square from Saint Giles Church. His sister, Sister Mary Adelaide Sarah (Maisie) Stenson (1888-1944) was an Anglican nun with the Sisters of Mercy in Oxford.

But four years after his colleague, the Revd Oliver Henly, left Stony Stratford and became a Roman Catholic, Stenson too joined the Roman Catholic Church and became then a Benedictine monk first at Caldey Abbey and then at Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire.

Dom Columba Stenson died at Prinknash Abbey on 1 January 1943. When Saint Mary Magdalene Roman Catholic Church was built in Stony Stratford, the original altar and the Crucifix above it were given as a memorial to Father Oliver Henly and Dom Columba Stenson, two former Anglican priests in Stony Stratford.

The original altar and the Crucifix in Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Stony Stratford, were given memorials to Father Oliver Henly and Dom Columba Stenson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying at the Stations of the Cross in
Lent 2023: 29 March 2023 (Station 4)

‘Jesus meets his Mother’ … Station 4 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Dunstan and All Saints’ Church, Stepney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

These final weeks in Lent are often known as Passiontide, beginning with last Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent (26 March 2023), which is sometimes known as Passion Sunday.

I have a dental appointment later today. But, 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 have been reflecting on words from Samuel Johnson, the Lichfield-born lexicographer and compiler of the first standard Dictionary of the English language. But, in these two weeks of Passiontide, Passion Week and Holy Week, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections on the Stations of the Cross, illustrated by images in Saint Dunstan’s and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in Stepney, in the East End of London, and the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Francis de Sales in Wolverton, which I visited for the first time last month;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Station 4, Jesus meets his Mother:

The Fourth Station in the Stations of the Cross has a traditional description such as ‘Jesus meets his Mother Mary.’

In the Fourth Station in Stepney, Christ meets his mother Mary and the Beloved Disciple. She reaches out with both hands cautiously and tenderly, her finger tips barely touching the fingers of his left hand, while Saint John clasps his hand to his heart, a sign of his broken-heartedness. They are to remain with Christ throughout his Passion and Death. It is a silent moment of love and pathos.

Behind them, a Roman solider and two other men stop for this moment, the soldier staring at the encounter, the other two almost averting their gaze, although one man also seems to be reaching out to Christ.

The words beneath the scene read: ‘Jesus meets his Mother.’

Saint John is also in the scene in Station 4 in Wolverton, watching on as Christ faces back to see his Mother, Mother and Son gazing into each other’s eyes, as her hands reach out to touch his shoulder and his arms while seem to say nothing. A soldier, instead of looking on, looks ahead – the journey to Calvary continues.

The words beneath the scene read: ‘Mother and Son.’

‘Mother and Son’ … Station 4 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Francis de Sales Church, Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

John 8: 31-42 (NRSVA):

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ 33 They answered him, ‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free”?’

34 Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there for ever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. 38 I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.’

39 They answered him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, 40 but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are indeed doing what your father does.’ They said to him, ‘We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself.’ 42 Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me.’

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Good Neighbours: A View from Sri Lanka.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday morning with an adaptation from Father Rasika Abeysinghe’s contribution to USPG’s Lent Course ‘Who is our neighbour,’ which I have edited for USPG. Father Rasika Abeysinghe is a priest in the Diocese of Kurunagala in the Church of Ceylon.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 29 March 2023) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for a greater understanding between faiths. May we learn to listen to one another with open hearts and find ways to work together for the common good.

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.

Post Communion:

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.

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

28 March 2023

The Revd Oliver Henly, Vicar
of Wolverton Saint Mary, and
a church crisis in Stony Stratford

The former Wolverton Saint Mary Church in Stony Stratford … scene of a church crisis in the 1900s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Two graduates of Keble College, Oxford, were interesting and controversial priests in the two Church of England parishes in Stony Stratford over a century ago. One left Stony Stratford as the other arrived, and both are remembered for their role in liturgical controversies that drove them into the Roman Catholic Church.

The Revd Oliver Partridge Henly (1861-1934) was the Vicar of Wolverton Saint Mary the Virgin, on London Road, but left Stony Stratford in 1909 after 12 years of controversial ministry in the parish. The Revd Cyril Howard Stenson (1885-1943) arrived in Stony Stratford that same year as the Revd Henry Long’s curate at Saint Giles, but he too would leave within a few short years, and both Henly and Stenson ended their days as Roman Catholics.

Parish and church life were healthy and thriving in Wolverton, Stony Stratford and Calverton at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. The arrival of the railway and the building of a new tram line brought prosperity to this part of north Buckinghamshire, and the foundations had been laid for a vibrant church life among the growing populations, with new churches and new schools, new rectories and the refurbishment and rebuilding of the older churches.

The Revd William Pitt Trevelyan (1812-1905) oversaw the division of Wolverton parish In the late 19th century and the creation of the creation of Wolverton Saint Mary as a new parish serving the east and south parts of Stony Stratford. The new Church of Saint Mary the Virgin was built on London Road in Stony Stratford, along with a new parish hall and a new vicarage.

Trevelyan and many of the other clergy in the area were strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement, the Tractarians and the later Anglo-Catholics. Wolverton was in the gift of the Trustees of the Radcliffe Trust, and the trustees appointed the Revd Oliver Partridge Henly as the Vicar of Saint Mary Wolverton in 1897.

Henly was the grandson of Abraham Henly, a prosperous wine merchant and Mayor of Calne in Wiltshire, and his was a strong clerical family, being a younger son and younger brother of priests in the Church of England. He was born in Coates Heath, Staffordshire, in June 1861, a younger son of the Revd John Henly (1822-1907), later Vicar of Ruscombe, Berkshire, and his wife Mary Jane (Millner), who were married in Saint Pancras Old Church, London, in 1856.

Oliver Henly’s brother, the Revd William Henly (1858-1928), was educated at Keble College, Oxford, and spent many years (1882-1914) as a missionary in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), with the Anglican mission agency SPG (now USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel), including time as Principal of the Diocesan Training College. He returned to England in 1916 and became Vicar of Ruscombe in 1917. He resigned in 1924, and died on 10 April 1928 at Tonbridge, Kent, aged 70.

Oliver Henly was educated at Keble College, Oxford, which was built in 1870 as a memorial to John Keble (1792-1866), a founding figure in the Oxford Movement, and attracted High Church students, often from church families. Henly graduated BA in 1882, and then trained for ordination at Ely Theological College (1882-1884), which was founded in 1876 and attracted advanced Anglo-Catholic ordinands.

He was ordained deacon in 1884 and priest in 1885, and first served as a curate in Saint Saviour’s, Upper Chelsea (1884-1886), and Saint Matthew’s, Westminster (1886-1897). His time at Saint Matthew’s overlapped with one of the foremost leaders of the Anglo-Catholic movement, Bishop Frank Weston, who was also curate there in 1896-1898.

Weston and Henly were active members of the Society of the Holy Cross, and Henly was the assistant secretary in 1897. The society was founded in 1855 and its priests were noted for their ritualism, including devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, frequent celebrations of the Mass with intentions, the practice of sacramental confession, wearing eucharistic vestments, and using incense, liturgical hand bells and wafer bread.

The Radcliffe Trustees appointed Henly to Wolverton Saint Mary in 1897, and he remained in Stony Stratford for more than a decade until he was forced to leave the parish in 1909.

From the beginning, Henly was a challenging vicar. The school on the corner of Wolverton Road and London Road was built in 1867 by the Revd William Pitt Trevelyan, and was designed by the local architect Edgar Swinfen Harris. The original deeds made the Vicar of Holy Trinity, Old Wolverton, and his churchwardens trustees of the school. In practice, the school had been managed by the Vicar of Wolverton Saint Mary and members of the parish, but recent legislation required that the foundation managers be formally appointed.

The Rector of Wolverton, the Revd Arundell Glastonbury St John Mildmay (1859-1924), claimed he and his churchwardens remained the foundation managers of the school. However, Henly acted unilaterally and on 1 October 1902, teachers and pupils arrived to find the school doors locked and the windows secured. Mildmay appealed to the Buckinghamshire Education Committee for help to reopen the school the following day. To enforce this, men had to scale ladders and gain access through the windows.

One tragic event in this unfortunate affair was the suicide of Edwin Hayne. For many years he was the verger at the church and had become depressed, fearing he would be evicted.

The controversy over Henly’s liturgical practices came to a head three years later, in 1905, when the Bishop of Oxford, Francis Paget (1851-1911), reprimanded him and instructed him to change his ways.

Ironically, Paget was a follower of the great Tractarians of the time, including Edward Bouverie Pusey, Henry Parry Liddon, and Dean Richard William Church, whose eldest daughter he married. Paget had been examining chaplain to James Russell Woodford, Bishop of Ely, who had founded Ely Theological College, and had contributed an essay on ‘The Sacraments’ to Lux Mundi, the collection edited by Charles Gore.

While Henly was conducting a funeral, the Bishop of Reading, Leslie Randall, saw Henly and the choir genuflecting before the reserved sacrament, and saw a lamp hanging near the altar. Randall, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Oxford, reported this to Paget, although he admitted he had not seen a tabernacle or ambry where the Eucharist may have been reserved.

Henly was accused of the ‘reservation of the Blessed Sacrament.’ The rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer stated that If any of the sacramental bread and wine remains, it is to be consumed reverently. In practice, many priests reserved the sacrament for hospital and home visits. But others applied a strict interpretation to Article XXV, which states that ‘The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them.’

Paget wrote to Henly asking him to confirm or deny Randall’s account of events. When Henly confirmed Randall’s report, Paget asked him to abandon the practice immediately. Henly replied, saying the bishop had no right to make such a demand and that he had never disobeyed the rubrics, which did not prohibit reserving the sacrament for the sick.

The correspondence provided the basis for the prosecution. It was clear Henly disagreed with the bishop, but had he reserved the sacrament after his bishop’s ruling? Had he directly disobeyed his bishop or merely disagreed with his theology?

No witnesses were called, the only evidence was the exchange of the letters, and Henly was found not guilty in 1906.

However, Henly found himself before the Court of Arches once again in 1909 for reserving the Blessed Sacrament, holding a Benediction service, and disobeying a monition of the court in 1906 on the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament.

Henly hardly helped his own defence not only by not being present during the trail but also threatening to ‘black’ the eye of William Henry Partridge, clerk to the registrar of the diocese, when he tried to serve Henly with the bishop’s monition. On this occasion, the Court of Arches agreed with the Bishop of Oxford and Henly was deprived of his church offices in the Province of Canterbury.

When Paget decided to replace him with the Revd Archibald James Moxon, Henly protested, writing to bishop from Brighton on 14 January 1910, claiming ‘the living has not been declared vacant by any Ecclesiastical Court, since the Court of Arches has ceased from being such, and therefore I am canonical vicar of the parish.’

Paget replied on 17 January 1910, saying he only resorted to legal proceedings after Henly had ‘persistently disregarded’ his requests and directions. He rejected Henly’s ‘view of the Court of Arches,’ and confirmed that as bishop he was going ahead with licensing Moxon.

Henly, however, continued on as though the reprimands and rulings did not apply to him. Paget eventually lost his patience and went to the Court of Arches to deprive Henly of his living. The court agreed and the bishop sent along two priests to clear Saint Mary’s on 19 August 1910 and to change the locks of the church doors.

Henly was in London at the time. On his return, he was met by a large crowd. and a crowd gathered too outside the church while the locks were changed. Some parishioners were already inside the church in private prayer. Some refused to leave and stayed until 10 pm. Police were called to guard the church.

Bishop Paget came to Stony Stratford the following Sunday to take the services in Wolverton Saint Mary’s. When the bishop arrived, Henly took his followers down the High Street in Stony Stratford to Saint Giles’ Church. In the weeks that followed, Henly and his supporters tried to reclaim the church. Eventually all the locks were changed and the police were called to keep Henly and his supporters out of the church.

The Society of the Holy Cross passed a very warm vote of sympathy with Henly in the attack made on him, thanking him for the firm stand he had taken.

When Henly left Stony Stratford, he found sympathetic colleagues at Saint Bartholomew’s Church in Brighton and assisted with services there, albeit without the approval of the Bishop of Chichester, and lived at the Clergy House, Brighton. Later that year, it was announced that Henly had been received into the Roman Catholic Church on 1 October 1910 in the Church of Our Lady of Seven Dolors, Bognor Regis, by the Very Revd Alphonsus Coventry, OSM, prior. At the same time his colleague the Revd Arthur Reginald Carew Cocks resigned as Vicar of Saint Bartholomew’s and also joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Henly and Cocks were among a group of high profile figures who moved to the Roman Catholic Church at this time, including the Revd Henry Fitzrichard Hinde, Vicar of the Church of the Annunciation, Brighton, Hinde’s curate, the Revd HR Prince, and the Revd Ronald Knox, a former curate in Southwark Cathedral and Saint Barnabas’ Church, Southfields, and a descendant of the Scottish Calvinist reformer John Knox.

Bishop Paget died within a year, on 2 August 1911. Henly died at Saint Mary’s Home, Worthing, on 9 July 1938. Saint Mary’s Church, the church in Stony Stratford where he had been vicar, is now the Greek Orthodox parish church, while the school he tried to lock closed is now the Old School House, a public house on the corner of Wolverton Road and London Road.

Meanwhile, Henly was followed into Roman Catholic Church many years earlier by the Revd Cyril Howard Stenson, the new curate who had arrived at Saint Giles, Stony Stratford, at the height of the crisis at Wolverton Saint Mary on London Road.

But the story of Cyril Howard Stenson, who joined the Benedictines at Prinknash Priory in Gloucestershire and became Dom Columba OSB, is another story for tomorrow evening.

The Old School House on the corner of Wolverton Road and London Road in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying at the Stations of the Cross in
Lent 2023: 28 March 2023 (Station 3)

‘Jesus Falls the First Time’ … Station 3 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Dunstan and All Saints’ Church, Stepney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Passiontide began on Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent (26 March 2023), and in the past that Sunday was known as Passion Sunday.

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 have been reflecting on words from Samuel Johnson, the Lichfield-born lexicographer and compiler of the first standard Dictionary of the English language. But, in these two weeks of Passiontide, Passion Week and Holy Week, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections on the Stations of the Cross, illustrated by images in Saint Dunstan’s and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in Stepney, in the East End of London, and the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Francis de Sales in Wolverton, which I visited for the first time last month;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Station 3, Jesus Falls the First Time:

The Third Station in the Stations of the Cross has a traditional description such as ‘Jesus falls for the first time.’ Having received the Cross, Christ has turned around is on his journey to Calvary. Christ’s three falls depicted traditionally in the Stations of the Cross (Stations III, VII and IX) are not recorded in any of the Four Gospel accounts of the Passion.

As the piety around this traditional station developed, perhaps people recalled Christ’s words: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matthew 11: 28-30).

Now his yoke is not easy and his burden is heavy. In the third station in Stepney, Christ remains gentle and humble in heart as he falls to one knee beneath the weight of his Cross, a Roman soldier watches on, spear in hand, as he stands in the way before Christ, while four men seem to fumble as they try to lift the Cross of Christ’s back.

The words below read: ‘Jesus Falls the First Time’.

In Station 3 in Wolverton, the barefoot Christ stumbles on the rocks along the way, as if he were about to kneel in prayer. A soldier raises his whip to beat the weary Christ, but a second man tries to lift the shaft of the Cross from behind with both hands, taking the weight of the Cross from Christ’s shoulders.

Below all three figures, the words read: ‘Falls the First Time.’

Christ is going to fall twice again.

‘Falls the First Time’ … Station 3 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Francis de Sales Church, Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

John 8: 21-30 (NRSVA):

21 Again he said to them, ‘I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 22 Then the Jews said, ‘Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, “Where I am going, you cannot come”?’ 23 He said to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.’ 25 They said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Why do I speak to you at all? 26 I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.’ 27 They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. 29 And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.’ 30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Good Neighbours: A View from Sri Lanka.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday morning with an adaptation from Father Rasika Abeysinghe’s contribution to USPG’s Lent Course ‘Who is our neighbour,’ which I have edited for USPG. Father Rasika Abeysinghe is a priest in the Diocese of Kurunagala in the Church of Ceylon.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 28 March 2023) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the healing of class divisions wherever they exist. May we see each other through the eyes of Christ, recognise our common humanity and work for justice.

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.

Post Communion:

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.

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

27 March 2023

Is the Gospel Hall in
New Bradwell the least
welcoming church
in Milton Keynes?

The Gospel Hall on Caledonian Road, New Bradwell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Tucked away in small cul-de-sac near the War Memorial in New Bradwell, the Gospel Hall on Caledonian Road is a like a surviving relic from a time long ago.

The Gospel Hall is a tin hut of the type that would be familiar to many people in Northern Ireland. Its style is typical of the many ‘tin hut’ churches, chapels and mission halls that were raised hurriedly as railway times expanded rapidly in Victorian England.

A plain sign behind the grim railings gives no other name than ‘The Gospel Hall’ and the regular events: ‘Sunday 10.30 am Breaking of Bread 12.15 pm Sunday School 6.30 pm Gospel Meeting Wednesdays 8.00 pm Bible Study Other meetings as arranged.’

Simple posters with scripture passages on each side of the door partly block the windows. There are no contact details, no words of welcome, and no signs of outreach to the neighbouring or wider communities. The letter box on the front door is overflowing with leaflets and post that has not been collected.

The closed-up appearance and the disconsonant place it occupies, squeezed in between the red-brick Victorian terraced houses in this quiet street makes the Gospel Hall look like an isolated anachronism and a cold and forbidding place for anyone needing to hear the God News of the Gospel.

This claims to be ‘the only Gospel Hall within the city of Milton Keynes.’ But could this be the least welcoming church in Milton Keynes?

As well as the Gospel Hall offering no contact details, it is difficult to find any online presence that would indicate a presence in New Bradwell or an eagerness to reach out in mission.

When, eventually, I found an obscure blog posting that proclaims five points firmly:

‘We are not ecumenical.

‘We hold to the Authorized Version of the Bible.

‘We reject all forms of Reformed Theology.

‘We are an independent church.

‘We are not associated with the Brethren movement.’

The hall also complains that ‘the fire escape route … is being persistently and wilfully obstructed with the knowledge of the trustees.’ I wondered whether this indicates a problem with neighbour or a dispute with former members.

The possibility of disputes with former members is hinted at in the declaration that ‘a member of the Gideons, and an alleged trustee, has left us now and we are therefore no longer associated with the MK Ecumenical Mission. No trustee is a member of this assembly.’

In the past, New Bradwell Gospel Hall was linked with the Brethren and was involved with the Evangelical Chapel in Stony Stratford, part the orphanage run by JWC Fegan, in the formation in 1917 of Emmanuel Chapel in Wolverton, now Wolverton Evangelical Church.

But in recent years, the hall has isolated itself from the Brethren, other evangelical and fundamentalist groups. I never expected them to be ecumenical. But I wondered who they maintained contact with when I realised they dissociate themselves from the Brethren, the Gideons, and ‘Reformed Theology.’

They have cast their net so wide in finding groups to isolate themselves from that one posting even condemns Rathmines Gospel Hall in Dublin, which I passed by twice last week. Despite the origins of the Gospel Hall in New Bradwell, they now declare: ‘The Brethren gospel does not relate to the Gospel of the New Testament in any case.’

If you are thinking of visiting New Bradwell Gospel Hall some Sunday and expecting a warm welcome, they let you know: ‘A letter of commendation may be of little value. If we neither know you nor the church from which you come then a letter is meaningless. We need to establish that we walk by the same rule. We cannot walk together if we are not agreed.’

And they continue: ‘So come in time to introduce yourself. If you are in the area and you are likeminded with us, you are welcome to have fellowship with us. That is, you have had a conversion you can speak of. You have experienced believer’s baptism. You have not been divorced and remarried. You follow the apostle’s doctrine.’

If you are thinking of visiting New Bradwell Gospel Hall some Sunday morning and actually receive a warm welcome, I’m sure you are not going to find it difficult to find a choice of seats all for yourself.

The Gospel Hall on Caledonian Road, New Bradwell … hardly a welcoming sign (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying at the Stations of the Cross in
Lent 2023: 27 March 2023 (Station 2)

‘Jesus is loaded with the Cross’ … Station 2 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Dunstan and All Saints’ Church, Stepney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Passiontide began yesterday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent (26 March 2023), and in the past that Sunday was known as Passion Sunday.

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 have been reflecting on words from Samuel Johnson, the Lichfield-born lexicographer and compiler of the first standard Dictionary of the English language. But, in these two weeks of Passiontide, Passion Week and Holy Week, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections on the Stations of the Cross, illustrated by images in Saint Dunstan’s and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in Stepney, in the East End of London, and the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Francis de Sales in Wolverton, which I visited for the first time last month;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Station 2, Jesus is condemned to death:

The Second Station in the Stations of the Cross is an awkward moment as Christ receives the Cross.

In the Second Station in Stepney, Christ takes the Cross with both hands as it is placed on his right shoulder by two soldiers behind him and a third man in front of him who is not in uniform. Two well-dressed and older, bearded are closely watching what is happening.

The words below are phrased awkwardly, reflecting the awkward moment, and read: ‘Jesus is loaded with the Cross’.

In the Second Station in Wolverton, Christ retains his composure and his regal dignity as he raised his hands in prayer to the Father while two soldiers are in the process of lifting up the Cross, preparing to place it on his shoulder before he turns to face towards his Passion. Having received the Cross, Christ is going to turn around for his journey to Calvary. In Lent, he invites us too to turn around too and to join him on this journey.

Below all three figures, the words read: ‘Takes the Cross.’

‘Takes the Cross’ … Station 2 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Francis de Sales Church, Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

John 8: 1-11 (NRSVA):

8 1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11 She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery (Guercino, 1621, Dulwich Picture Gallery)

‘Good Neighbours: A View from Sri Lanka’

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Good Neighbours: A View from Sri Lanka.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday morning with an adaptation from Father Rasika Abeysinghe’s contribution to USPG’s Lent Course ‘Who is our neighbour,’ which I have edited for USPG. Father Rasika Abeysinghe is a priest in the Diocese of Kurunagala in the Church of Ceylon.

Today’s Prayer:

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 27 March 2023) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the Church of Ceylon in Sri Lanka. May its people know the bond of fellowship through prayer and action.

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.

Post Communion:

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.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Who is Our Neighbour?’, a six-week study course for Lent 2023 produced by the Anglican mission agency USPG

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

26 March 2023

On a quiet street where
old ghosts and poets meet
along the enchanted way

‘On Grafton Street … we tripped lightly along the ledge’ … two pints on the ledge in McDaid’s in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Two of us spent two days in Dublin last week while I was researching a chapter for a book due for publication later this year.

We stayed in Rathmines while I spent my two days of research working in the Church of Ireland library (the RCB Library) in Rathgar, just a 30-minute walk away, and the public library in Rathmines.

Although it was a very short, quick return visit, I had breakfast with an old friend in Churchtown, lunch in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute where I was on the academic staff for 15 years, strolled by banks of the River Dodder in Rathgar, and visited my older brother in Rathmines and the house on Beechwood Avenue in Ranelagh where my grandfather and great-grandfather had lived.

One evening, after dinner in Forno 500 in Dame Street, two of us strolled through Dublin in the night air, through Temple Bar, by the Ha’penny Bridge and the River Liffey, into Trinity College, where I was an adjunct assistant professor until 2017, and then along Grafton Street, before stopping off in McDaid’s for a late-night drink beneath the portraits of an array of Irish writers, including James Joyce, Brendan Behan, Sean O’Casey and Patrick Kavanagh.

We caught a bus from Redmond’s Hill back to Rathmines, discussing why we preferred one or other recording the poem ‘On Raglan Road’ by Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) – Charlotte’s choice is Luke Kelly, mine is Ronnie Drew. But our other nominees included Sinead O’Connor and Van Morrison.

‘On Grafton Street … where old ghosts meet’ … portraits of Irish writers on the wall in McDaid’s on Harry Street, including Patrick Kavanagh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

In the past, when I occasionally celebrated the Eucharist in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, I would take a quiet break in the stillness of the morning, and stroll through the neighbouring streets in Ballsbridge, including Herbert Park, Waterloo Road, Wellington Road, Pembroke Road, Elgin Road, Clyde Road and Raglan Road, the street that inspired the poem by Patrick Kavanagh:

On Raglan Road on an Autumn day, I saw her first and knew
that her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue …


At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Victorian and Edwardian houses on Raglan Road and the surrounding streets in the Pembroke township and Pembroke estate became the new residential homes of people who had lived previously in the Georgian squares of Dublin, such as Fitzwilliam Square and Merrion Square.

In more recent years, Raglan Road has become one of Dublin’s most exclusive residential streets, with some of the most expensive houses on sale in Ireland. Recent residents of Raglan Road have included the billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien, and the road is also home to several ambassadors, including the Turkish and Belgian ambassadors, as well as the Mexican Embassy.

The Mexican Embassy at No 19 Raglan Road was the home of Patrick Kavanagh in 1940-1943. It was Mrs Kenny’s boarding house, and he paid 10 shillings a week in rent. Before that, he had lived nearby on 62 Pembroke Road, but his poetic genius is irreversibly linked with Raglan Road, and his best-known poem, ‘On Raglan Road.’

During those early Sunday morning strolls, as I walked along ‘the enchanted way’ that is wide, tree-lined Raglan Road, it was easy to imagine Kavanagh’s ‘Quiet street where old ghosts meet’:

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew.
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw danger, yet I walked along enchanted way.
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at dawning of day.


The poem was first published under the title ‘Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away’ in The Irish Press almost 80 years ago on 3 October 1946. But everyone at the time knew that Kavanagh’s poem was about Dr Hilda Moriarty from Dingle, Co Kerry.

Patrick Kavanagh met the beautiful, dark-haired Hilda Moriarty in 1944. She was a medical student at University College Dublin and was only in Dublin a few months, but she became one of most celebrated beauties of her time. She already knew Kavanagh’s poetry and writings; she was 22 and he was 40.

The penniless poet loved her, but there was an 18-year gap. She was flattered, but she did not reciprocate. When Hilda went home to Dingle for Christmas 1944, Kavanagh followed her but was not welcome in the Moriarty home. She was the young and beautiful daughter of the local doctor; he was a middle-aged, out-of-work journalist and the son of a small farmer. Kavanagh stayed at Kruger Kavanagh’s guesthouse in Dunquin and paid for his stay by writing an article on ‘My Christmas in Kerry’ in The Irish Press.

Back in Dublin, they met on-and-off throughout 1945. But eventually Hilda rejected him and in August 1947 she would marry Donogh O’Malley (1921-1968), later the Fianna Fail Minister for Education.

In the meantime, ‘Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away’ was published in The Irish Press on 3 October 1946. Patrick’s brother, Peter Kavanagh, said that ‘it was written about Patrick’s girlfriend Hilda, but to avoid embarrassment he used the name of my girlfriend in the title.’ A meaningless line in this edition, Synthetic sighs and fish-dim eyes and all death’s loud display, was later replaced with The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay.

Kavanagh celebrated this unrequited love with a poem he dreamed of setting to the Irish traditional air, The Dawning of the Day (Fáinne Geal an Lae).

In the poem, the writer recalls a love affair that he had with a young woman while walking on a ‘quiet street.’ Although the speaker knew that he would risk being hurt if he initiated a relationship, he did so anyway:

I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.


Twenty years after Patrick Kavanagh wrote his poem, the Dubliners were playing one evening in 1966 in the Bailey in Duke Street, off Grafton Street, the other Dublin street named in this poem. On that evening, Patrick Kavanagh asked Luke Kelly of the Dubliners if he could adapt ‘On Raglan Road.’ Naturally, Luke Kelly chose the air of Fáinne Geal an Lae … and so was born a much-loved Irish song.

A year after his poem became part of the Dubliners’ repertoire, Patrick Kavanagh married his long-term companion Katherine Barry Moloney in April 1967 and they lived on Waterloo Road. He died a few months later, on 30 November 1967, in a Dublin nursing home. Hilda’s husband, Donogh O’Malley, died some weeks later on 10 March 1968.

In an interview with RTÉ in 1974, the writer Benedict Kiely recalled Kavanagh trying out the paired verse and tune for him soon after writing it.

Dr Hilda O’Malley was interviewed by RTÉ in 1987 for a documentary about Kavanagh, Gentle Tiger. In the interview, she said one of the main reasons for the failure of their relationship was that there was a wide age gap between them.

She recalled how ‘On Raglan Road’ was written by Kavanagh. He had described himself as the peasant poet but she was not impressed and teased him for writing about mundane things such as vegetables. She said he should write about something else so he agreed to do so. According to Dr Moriarty, he then went away and wrote ‘On Raglan Road.’

Dr Hilda O’Malley died in 1991 in Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin.

Before leaving Dublin at the end of last week’s short visit, we returned to Grafton Street, and had coffee beneath the Harry Clarke windows in Bewley’s. As we headed back to the airport that evening, we were still discussing Patrick Kavanagh’s unrequited love and the competing merits of the different recordings of ‘On Raglan Road.’

‘Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge’ … the Ha’penny Bridge at night in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

On Raglan Road, by Patrick Kavanagh

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay –
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that’s known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May.

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay –
When the angel woos the clay he’d lose his wings at the dawn of day.

The Mexican Embassy on Raglan Road, where Patrick Kavanagh once lived (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)