Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and yesterday was the Third Sunday after Trinity. Over the past weekend, I have been remembering the anniversaries of my ordination as priest on 24 June 2001 and as deacon on 25 June 2000.
Over these weeks after Trinity Sunday, I have been reflecting each morning in these ways:
1, Looking at relevant images or stained glass window in a church, chapel or cathedral I know;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
The Priory of the Holy Trinity (Christchurch Aldgate), London):
The Priory of the Holy Trinity, also known as Christchurch Aldgate, was founded for the Austin canons or Black Canons ca 1108 by Queen Matilda, wife of King Henry I. She was advised and helped in the foundation by Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The house was founded with clergy from Saint Botolph’s Priory, Colchester, and the first prior, Norman, was the queen’s confessor. By 1115, the liberty of East Smithfield passed to the Church of Holy Trinity within Aldgate by 1115, and the prior was ex officio an Alderman of London.
Two of Queen Matilda’s children were buried in the Priory, which had a reputation as a centre of learning.
The priory was dissolved in 1552 at the dissolution of monastic houses during the Reformation, and its buildings and lands were given or sold, to favoured courtiers and City merchants.
None of the buildings survives today, apart from some pointed arches inside an office building on the corner of Aldgate and Mitre Street. Mitre Street follows roughly the line of the nave of the priory church, while Mitre Square corresponds roughly to the former cloister.
Matthew 7: 1-5 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 7 ‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.’
Today’s Prayer:
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Freeing people from the Traps of Human Trafficking.’ This theme was introduced yesterday.
The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (26 June 2023, International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking / International Day in Support of Victims of Torture) invites us to pray:
God of justice and mercy, help us remember this day that you have created each person with dignity and worth. We pray for every life that has been touched by torture and illicit trafficking. We pray for restoration and peace.
Collect:
Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
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:
O God, whose beauty is beyond our imagining
and whose power we cannot comprehend:
show us your glory as far as we can grasp it,
and shield us from knowing more than we can bear
until we may look upon you without fear;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
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
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