Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 120, Saturday 7 September 2024

‘While Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSVA) … cornfields near Lismore, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 8 September 2024).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The 12 loaves of shewbread or Bread of the Presence depicted in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 6: 1-5 (NRSVA):

6 One sabbath while Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’ 3 Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?’ 5 Then he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’

‘While Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSVA) … cornfields near Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire, with the tower of Saint Mary’s Church in the background (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

There are two minor details that continue to puzzle me about this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 6: 1-5).

On this Saturday morning, I am slightly puzzled about the timing or the day when this event takes place. The NRSV and NIV translations refer to ‘one sabbath’, although footnotes explain that other ancient authorities read ‘on the second first sabbath.’ The KJV and similar translations refer to ‘the second sabbath after the first’.

But the KJV is based on the Textus Receptus, and the phrase in question, ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ (en sabbáto deuteropróto) only exists in the Textus Receptus, a later text, and not in the earlier manuscripts or the critical versions. The phrase is omitted by many manuscripts, including the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus.

In any case, what day did this event occur on?

When was ‘the second first sabbath’ or ‘the second sabbath after the first’?

Is the second sabbath after the first not the third sabbath?

Because the Greek word δευτερόπρωτος (deuteróprotos) is limited to Luke 6: 1, it is not found in all the manuscripts – or in other, contemporary Greek texts – and it is difficult to define and impossible to agree on.

One suggestion is that it refers to the Sabbath following the first day of Passover or Pascha, the Festival of Unleavened Bread festival. Some of the other efforts to provide explanations include:

• the first Sabbath in the second year of a seven-year cycle comprising the period from one Sabbatical year to the other;
• the first Sabbath after the second day of Passover;
• the second Sabbath after the Passover has taken place;
• the first of the seven Sabbaths the people were to ‘count unto’ themselves from ‘the morrow after the sabbath’ until Pentecost (see Leviticus 23: 15);
• the first Sabbath in the Jewish religious calendar of the time – about the middle of March;
• the Sabbath during Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks;
• the first Sabbath in the civil year – about the middle of September;
• the Sabbath for the presentation of the second offering of the first fruits;
• or, simply, some ‘technical expression of the Jewish calendar’ – without asking or explaining what that may be.

Indeed, the term deuteroprotos is an awkward, clunky combination of the words δεύτερος (deuteros, ‘second’) and πρω̑τος (protos, ‘first’). Its use may point to unskilful work and textual emendation on the part of copyists. If so, then it is not necessary to try unravel this conundrum.

The phrase has confounded scholars from as early as the fourth century CE, when Jerome, in a letter to Nepotianus, confesses that he consulted Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, and was unable to determine what the phrase meant:

‘My teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus, when I once asked him to explain Luke’s phrase σάββατον δευτερόπρωτον, that is ‘the second-first Sabbath,’ playfully evaded my request saying: ‘I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, everyone will put you down for a fool’ (Jerome, Letter LII, 2).

I suppose I may simply accept it is not essential that we know the precise meaning of this calendar term. It is more important to get to heart of what this story is about.

The second minor detail that continue to puzzle me about this morning’s Gospel reading is why Luke’s account does not include a peculiar detail in Saint Mark’s version of this event (Mark 2: 23-30).

In Saint Mark’s account, Jesus and his disciples are criticised for ‘harvesting grain’ on the Sabbath. They are simply plucking some heads of grain to munch on as they walk through a grainfield (verse 23). When the disciples are challenged about what they are doing on the Sabbath, Jesus cites an event in I Samuel 21: 1-6, and refers to a time when ‘Abiathar was high priest’.

In that event, David and his men ate the 12 loaves of shewbread from the tabernacle in Nob. David approaches Ahimelech the priest in Nob and asks for food for his men They were on the run from King Saul, but David keeps that fact from Ahimelech. Ahimelech gives David some of the ‘bread of the Presence’ (verse 6) and then, at David’s request, gives him Goliath’s sword, which was being kept in Nob (verses 8-9).

Later, when Saul summons the priests to Gibeah to question them, Ahimelech is the priests’ spokesman (I Samuel 22: 6-14). The passage implies that Ahimelech is the chief priest during the time David fled from Saul. Abiathar fled to join David and served as his priest all through David’s years of wandering and exile. He was appointed high priest after David became king, and he shared the high priesthood with Zadok, Saul’s appointee, until David’s death.

Neither Matthew (Matthew 12: 1-8) nor Luke mention Abiathar. Did Matthew and Luke eliminate the reference to Abiathar, realising there was an error in the original source?

To explain why in Saint Mark’s account Jesus refers Abiathar as the high, several theories are put forward, although each one is equally tortuous and difficult. They include:

• Since Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech, it is possible that both men took part in high priestly duties.
• Abiathar was more closely associated with David than Ahimelech and was a long-time high priest during David’s reign.
• Abiathar, being present in Nob when David visited the tabernacle, is called the ‘high priest’ in anticipation of his future title.

Each explanation is eager to avoid accepting a literal reading of the conflicting or irreconcilable texts. To accept that there is a conflict between the passages means accepting that I Samuel are wrong, that Mark’s text is wrong, or that Jesus has made an historical error.

In addition, this event took place not in ‘the house of God’ (verse 4), for the Temple in Jerusalem had not yet been built, but in ‘the Tent of Meeting’.

It is interesting that the people who are most likely to refuse a literal exegesis of one or both passages are those most likely, in a very contradictory way to demand a very literal exegesis of their own concoction when it comes to their interpretation of passages on, for example, on sexuality. Is it any coincidence that these self-styled ‘conservative evangelicals’ are also those most likely to reject a literal exegesis of the Eucharistic passages in the New Testament.

Both Jesus and the Pharisees regard the decision to provide the show bread as righteous by both Jesus and the Pharisees.

The important points in this morning’s reading are not in the debate over the day on which the events took place, nor are they to be found in debating who knew who was once the high priest and when.

The important points in this morning’s reading are that the Sabbath is most sacred when it is about God and about people rather than about the minutiae of interpreting rules and regulations. And one of the most important emphases in Jesus’ ministry is to meet feed the hungry, the physically hungry with bread, and the spiritually hungry with him as the true Bread of Presence, the Bread of Life.

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … walking through the fields in Comberford, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 7 September 2024):

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), has been ‘To Hope and Act with Creation.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday with a reflection on Creationtide.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 7 September 2024) invites us to pray, reflecting on these words:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (Romans 8: 19).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
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.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God, the source of truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
your Son came to save us
and bore our sins on the cross:
may we trust in your mercy
and know your love,
rejoicing in the righteousness
that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XV:

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
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.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … walking through the fields along Cross in Hand Lane near Lichfield (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

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … following a public footpath through the fields in Comberford, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Abendana brothers and the early years of Jewish studies in both Cambridge and Oxford

The site of Creechurch Lane Synagogue, the first synagogue in England since the expulsion of Jews in 1290 … Jacob Abendana was the haham or rabbi in 1680-1695 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Isaac Abendana (ca 1640-1699) has been described as ‘the first notable Jew of the modern period.’ He and his older brother Jacob Abendana (1630-1695) served successively as the haham or rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London at the end of the 17th century.

Both brothers were early pioneers in the dialogue between Jewish and Christian theologians in the 17th century in England and across Europe. They were also influential figures in Jewish and Hebrew studies in both Cambridge and Oxford, and for 37 years Isaac Abendana had a virtual monopoly on Hebrew studies at the two universities.

Their stories are part of the early story of the Sephardic communities in Amsterdam and London, including the beginnings of Bevis Marks Synagogue. But they also provide direct links to the sufferings of secret Jews or Maranos in Spain in the immediate aftermath of the Inquisition.

Abendana or Abendanan (Ibn Danan, ן׳דנא, אבן – דנא) is a Sephardi Jewish surname of Arabic origin associated with a number of Spanish and Portuguese or Sephardic Jewish families in Amsterdam and London. The first person to assume the name was Francisco Nuñez Pereira or Francisco Nunes Homem, the descendant of a ‘Marano’ who had been forced to convert from Judaism to Christianity.

He was born in Funchal, Madeira, and later fled Spain and the Spanish Inquisition at the beginning of the 17th century. He settled in Amsterdam, where he married his cousin Justa Pereira (1588- ) in 1605. He returned to Judaism in Amsterdam, took the name David Abendana, and became one of the founders of the first synagogue in Amsterdam. He died on 14 February 1625.

His eldest son, Manuel Abendana, was the ḥaham or rabbi of the Amsterdam congregation and died on 15 June 1667.

The brothers Jacob and Isaac Abendana were the sons of Joseph Abendana. Although their family originally lived in Hamburg, Jacob was born in Spain or Morocco and Isaac was born in Spain. They were still young when the family moved to Hamburg and then to Amsterdam.

Jacob studied at the rabbinical academy in Rotterdam and was appointed haham or rabbi of Rotterdam in 1655. On 3 May 1655 he delivered a memorial sermon on a Marrano named Nunez and Abraham Nuñez Bernal who was burned alive in Córdoba by the Spanish Inquisition the previous year. The Irish-born scientist John Desmond Bernal believed Abraham Nuñez Bernal was his ancestor.

The women’s balcony above the entrance to the synagogue in Córdoba (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The brothers Jacob and Isaac and Abendana worked together in producing Hebrew books for the Christian market and got to know some of the eminent Christian Hebraists of the day.

They published a Bible commentary by Solomon ben Melekh in Amsterdam in 1660. This includes Jacob’s own commentaries on the Pentateuch, the Book of Joshua, and part of the Book of Judges. A second edition was published in 1685.

Jacob Abendana went to Leiden seeking subscribers for his books. There he met the German Calvinist theologian Antonius Hulsius (1615-1685) and helped in his studies. Hulsius tried to convert Abendana to Christianity, initiating a lifelong correspondence that Hulsius later published. The Abendana brothers also engaged with other Christian scholars, including Johannes Buxtorf of Basel, Johann Coccejus of Leyden, and Jacob Golius of Leyden.

Bevis Marks Synagogue in London … the successor of the Creechurch Lane synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Jacob Abendana spoke at the dedication of the new synagogue in Amsterdam in 1675. Five years later, in 1680, he moved to London as haham or rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese or Sephardi synagogue in Creechurch Lane.

The synagogue was the first synagogue founded in England since the expulsion of Jews in 1290. It was founded in 1657 by a group of ‘Marrano’ merchants who had been living in London, openly professing to be Spanish Catholics but secretly continuing to practise Judaism. They acquired a house in Creechurch Lane for use as a synagogue, and continued to worship there 1701, when the Bevis Marks Synagogue was built.

Jacob Abendana was the haham in London for 15 years. During those years, he completed a Spanish translation of the Mishnah, along with the commentaries of Maimonides and Obadiah of Bertinoro. Although his work was never published, it was frequently cited by Christian theologians. Jacob died in London on 12 September 1685 and was buried in the Portuguese cemetery at Mile End.

Trinity College Cambridge, where Isaac Abendana taught Hebrew and translated the Hebrew into Latin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, Jacob’s younger brother Isaac Abendana, who was born in Spain ca 1640, had already moved to England in 1662. He had lived at Hamburg and Leyden, where he studied medicine, and like Isaac he had an extensive correspondence with leading Christian theologians of the day, including Ralph Cudworth, a leading figure among the Cambridge Platonists and master of Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Isaac Abendana was approached by Adam Boreel who, with John Durie and Samuel Hartlib, who wanted to persuade a learned Jew to come to England to translate the Mishnah into Latin. Isaac arrived in Oxford on 3 June 1662 and soon introduced himself to Edward Pococke and other prominent Hebraists there.

John Lightfoot (1602-1675), a Christian Hebraist at Cambridge, secured an academic position for Abendana in Cambridge, and from 1663 until 1667, he was paid by Trinity College while he worked on his Latin translation of the Mishnah.

He seems to have left Trinity in less than friendly circumstances, but by 1669 he had a proper position in Cambridge, paid by the university. He taught Hebrew and rabbinical studies at Cambridge and completed his unpublished Latin translation of the Mishnah for the university in 1671. His manuscript translation of the Mishnah is in six large quarto volumes and is in the Cambridge Library.

While he was at Cambridge, Abendana also sold Hebrew books to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He spent much of the period between 1681 and 1685 in London, where his brother Jacob was the haham of the Sephardi community.

Isaac took a teaching position in Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1689, and continued to teach there until he died in 1699. In Oxford, he compiled a series of Jewish almanacs for Christians in 1695, 1696, and later, which he dedicated to the president of Hertford College. His calendars and other works were posthumously published in an elaborated edition as the Discourses on the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews (1706).

Some sources suggest that after his brother Jacob died in London in 1685, Isaac became haham of the Spanish Portuguese Synagogue in London.

Isaac Abendana died on 17 July 1699 while he was visiting his friend Arthur Charlett, master of University College, Oxford. Charlett told the antiquarian Thomas Tanner that ‘Old Abendana rising at 4 to see me, having lighted his Pipe, fell down dead’.

A merchant Jew passing through Oxford brought Abendana’s body to London for burial. His death brought to an end to his 37-year Oxbridge career, when he had a virtual monopoly on Hebrew studies at the two universities.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום

Founder’s Tower in Magdalen College, Oxford, where Isaac Abendana taught from 1689 until he died in 1699 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 119, Friday 6 September 2024

The banquet with Levi included the questions and answers – and the drinking – associated with a Greek symposium … pottery in a shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 1 September 2024). Sunday was also the first day of Autumn, when the Season of Creation began, and it continues until 4 October.

The Church of England, in the calendar in Common Worship, today remembers Allen Gardiner (1851), missionary and founder of the South American Mission Society. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

After the symposium … an end-of-term dinner with the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 5: 33-39 (NRSVA):

33 Then they said to him, ‘John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.’ 34 Jesus said to them, ‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35 The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.’ 36 He also told them a parable: ‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, “The old is good”.’

‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?’ (Luke 5: 34) … preparing for a wedding meal in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Jesus has called the tax-collector Levi, and then dines with him in his house that evening (Luke 5: 27-31). Levi celebrates not just with dinner, or even a lavish dinner, but a ‘great banquet’ in his house that is attended by a large crowd.

Banquets were not merely lavish meals but also a setting for teaching and instruction, and the word for banquet here δοχή (dochē) suggests a formal Greek banquet known as a symposium (συμπόσιον, sympósion, from συμπίνειν, sympínein, ‘to drink together’).

In classical Greece, the symposium was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, or conversation. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato’s Symposium and Xenophon’s Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems.

If we read Levi’s banquet as a symposium, then, of course, it is going to be associated, culturally, in those days with drinking, and with questions and answers.

Some people ask why Jesus eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners. Now, in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 5: 33-39), the same people ask why, unlike John’s disciples or the disciples of the Pharisees, who frequently fast and pray, the disciples of Jesus eat and drink.

Similar complaints were made about Socrates, In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades claims that Socrates, despite allegedly drinking heavily just like the others, never got drunk and that alcohol never has any effect on Socrates: ‘Observe, my friends, said Alcibiades, that this ingenious trick of mine will have no effect on Socrates, for he can drink any quantity of wine and not be at all nearer being drunk.’

Christ responds to his detractors by comparing the invitation into the Kingdom with an invitation to a wedding, and speaks of his followers as guests at a wedding banquet. The feast is in progress, so this is a time for joy, while after his death it will be a time for fasting.

He insists that the old way of being and the new way he brings are separate, even if both are to be valued. New material stretches more than old. When wine ferments, it expands. Soft new wineskins expand with the wine, but old ones do not.

And so, in a way, I find myself thinking this morning of two other banquets where the wine must have been flowing freely.

The first of these is the Wedding at Cana, the banquet before Christ’s ministry begins. There the wine runs out, and then the wine runs freely.

The second banquet is at the end of Christ’s ministry, the meal at the Last Supper. Not only must the wine have been flowing freely at that meal, it is the meal of the New Covenant, in which bread and wine are freely given, just as Christ gives himself freely, body and blood.

In this in-between time, this Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, ordinary meals offer a promise of what the heavenly banquet is like. And constantly, as in this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus uses the image of the wedding banquet to convey how sacred, how loving, how caring, how beautiful, how full of promise, is the heavenly banquet.

Just as the wedding banquet is not the wedding itself, but a celebration of the wedding and the promise of the wedding, the meals in the Gospel in the in-between times are foretastes of, promises of, the great heavenly banquet.

And, at those banquets, Christ dines with tax-collectors like tax-collectors like Levi, Pharisees like Simon, those who are rejected by polite society like Zacchaeus, just as he is going to dine at the Last Supper with those who are going to betray him like Judas, those who are going to deny him like Peter, just as he is going to insist on dining with those who fail to recognise him after the Resurrection, like the disciples at Emmaus.

No matter how wayward others may think we are, no matter how wayward we may think we have been, Christ calls us back to dine with him, to have a new and intimate relationship with, wants to dine with us, so that, as we say in the Prayer of Humble Access, so that ‘that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.’

Levi’s banquet has parallels with the symposia associated with Socrates, including the drinking and the questions … Socrates bar in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 6 September 2024):

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 ‘To Hope and Act with Creation.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection on Creationtide.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 6 September 2024) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for countries in the Global South that are disproportionally affected by the visible consequences of the climate crisis.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
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.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God, the source of truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
your Son came to save us
and bore our sins on the cross:
may we trust in your mercy
and know your love,
rejoicing in the righteousness
that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment’ … colourful new fabrics in a shop in Seville (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

Socrates is regarded as the founder of western philosophy … a street name in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A ‘Victorian Whimsy’ in the churchyard in Stoke Bruerne is a clue to curious tales

The gates at Saint Mary’s Churchyard in Stoke Bruerne with the enigmatic Vernon inscrtion from 1893 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I was back in Shutlanger and Stoke Bruerne earlier this week, exploring the links of the Parles and Comberford families with the area in the 15th and 16th centuries. I was photographing the house they once owned that is known as the Monastery.

I spent much of Tuesday walking around this part of rural Northamptonshire, traipsing through the villages and small towns of Blisworth, Shutlanger, Stoke Bruerne and Roade, enjoying the fields and trees and the pathways along the banks of the Grand Union Canal as summer colours started to autumn.

From Shutlanger, I walked onto Stoke Bruerne, but was disappointed once again that Saint Mary’s Church was not open as I hoped to see inside the church building.

Out in the churchyard, however, I was curious about the unusual Victorian gate piers at the entrance to the churchyard from Wenworth Way, with a puzzling inscription that reads:

A 1893 D
PN ── GE
WN ── DE
CK ── ME
SE ── PD
GSTQ
TOOG

At first, the inscription appears indecipherable, and it has been described as ‘a Victorian Whimsy’ by a well-known local historian, the late George Freeston of Blisworth, and by the late John Grace of Stoke Park, who wrote about it in Grass Magazine in 2018.

Grass Magazine is the newsletter for the Grand Union Benefice or parochial union of Blisworth, Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger, with Grafton Regis, Alderton, and Milton Malsor. A transcription of John Grace’s short explanation is available on the noticeboard in the church porch in Stoke Bruerne.

John Grace relies on George Freeston’s interpretation of what they describe as a ‘Victorian whimsy’ in Stoke Bruerne churchyard. Grace and Freeston recall that the owner of Stoke Park, Wentworth Vernon, walked on Sundays to church in Stoke Bruerne on Sundays from Stoke Park along a well-maintained footpath.

On his way, he entered the churchyard through the gateway that now leads from Wentworth Way. The gate is flanked by two stone pillars, one of which bears this inscription. Freeston, who described this as a ‘Victorian whimsy’, offers this interpretation of the inscription:

Anno Domini 1893
ParsoN ── GavE
(permission for)
WardeN ── DravE
(carried the materials by horse and cart)
ClerK ── MadE
SquirE ── PaiD
God Save The Queen
To Our One God

The whimsical inscription at the gates in Saint Mary’s Churchyard in Stoke Bruerne dates from 1893 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

FWT Vernon Wentworth, who was the Squire of Stoke Park in the 1870s and 1880s, gave his name to Wentworth Way. He was one of the benefactors of Stoke Bruerne and gave the Village Hall to the villagers as the Reading Room in 1878. When he died in 1885, the Stoke and Hartwell estates passed for life to his kinsman, William Frederick Vernon of Harefield Park, Middlesex.

A year later, the mansion at Stoke Park was largely destroyed by fire in 1886. At the time Stoke Park was let for the hunting season each year to Valentine Lawless (1840-1928), 4th Baron Cloncurry, an Irish peer who also had large estates in Blackrock, Co Dublin, Lyons Castle, Co Kildare, and Abington, Co Limerick.

After the fire, Vernon announced he did not intend to rebuild the house but that he would offer the estate for sale to Lord Cloncurry. In the event, however, Stoke Park was not sold and when WF Vernon died in 1889, the estate passed to Vernon’s brother, George Augustus Vernon.

Then in 1889, GA Vernon assigned his life interest in Stoke Park to his eldest surviving son, Bertie Wentworth Vernon, who later succeeded to the Harefield estate in 1896.

Bertie Wh Vernon and his wife Isabella made Stoke Park their principal home until both died in 1916. They played the role of a resident squire and his lady in a village that had previously generally lacked such figures. He appears to be the squire responsible for the gate in the churchyard with its whimsical inscription.

During the Vernons’ later years, however, the estate became increasingly encumbered with mortgages. This may explain why their generosity to the parish declined and why they sold off their Hartwell estate sold in 1912.

What remained of the estate was inherited in 1916 by BW Vernon’s nephew, Henry Albermarle Vernon. He took up residence at Stoke Park, Vernon cleared the mortgages accumulated by his uncle, and then in 1928 sold Stoke Park to Captain Edward Brabazon Meade, a younger son of an Irish aristocrat, the 4th Earl of Clanwilliam. The contents of Stoke Park were sold separately later that year.

Meade borrowed heavily in his attempts to revive the estate. During World War II, the mansion and grounds were requisitioned by the army, and Meade moved to the Bahamas before selling off the estate in 1946.

The ‘Victorian Whimsy’ in Stoke Bruerne churchyard is a reminder of the Vernon family and their role in village life.

Cornfields between Stoke Park and Stoke Bruerne, with the tower of Saint Mary’s Church in the distance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 118, Thursday 5 September 2024

The Miraculous Draught of Fish … a window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 1 September 2024). Sunday was also the first day of Autumn, when the Season of Creation began, and it continues until 4 October.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

An icon of the Church as a boat, including Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers (Icon: Deacon Matthew Garrett, www.holy-icons.com)

Luke 5: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ 5 Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ 9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch’ (Luke 5: 4) … a fisherman at work in the Venetian lagoon at Torcello (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Do you ever ask whether you are worthy of the call of Christ – the call to follow him, the call to be a disciple, the call that was first answered for you, on your behalf, at your baptism?

There are times when I have to question my worthiness to be priest. I am not a priest because I think it is my right to be one, or because I thought at one stage this would be a good career move. I am a priest because, despite my resistance to the call over many years, I believe God called me – called me many years ago, more than 50 years ago, at the age of 19.

This morning, in the Gospel reading (Luke 5: 1-11), we hear how the renewed call to some of the disciples, including Peter, James and John, come not to them because they are worthy of this call, or have inherited a call, or have a right to speak on God’s behalf.

Peter, James and John are called not only to speak on Christ’s behalf, but to do what he commands and to follow him. In his response, Simon Peter expresses his feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness, yet accepts the call to speak in Christ’s name, unconditionally and in faith.

Our Baptism has ethical implications for our discipleship: in the community of the baptised, ethnic and social barriers are shattered, for ‘Christ is all and in all.’

In our Gospel story, we hear a story of commitment to Christ, to his message and to discipleship. Christ calls Simon or Simon Peter to be a disciple, promising him he is to be a ‘fisher of men,’ and Peter, James and John leave everything and follow Christ.

This story begins by the ‘lake of Gennesaret,’ on the south-west shore of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd is pressing in to hear Christ, the Word of God, preach the ‘word of God’ or the Christian message.

Christ gets into the boat with Simon Peter. There are two boats in this episode, and James and John are also fishing in one of the boats.

They not only listen to Christ, but they do what he tells them to do, and they are amazed at the consequences. Simon Peter acknowledges Jesus as ‘Master’ or teacher, and responds by falling down before Jesus in humility, pointing to himself as a sinful man, and calling Jesus ‘Lord,’ which becomes an expression of faith.

Peter, James and John make a total commitment to Christ, leave everything, and follow him.

In Christian art, the boat is often used as an image of the Church, while the fish is an image of Christ.

In the Early Church, the fish came to symbolise Christ because the Greek word Ichthus (ΙΧΘΥΣ), meaning ‘fish’, is an acrostic for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ, ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’

Some years ago, when I was visiting Kaş, a pretty town on the south coast of Turkey, I visited the former Church of the Annunciation. Kaş had once been a Greek-majority town known as Andifli, but the Greek ethnic community was expelled in 1923 in one of the early examples of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 20th century Europe.

For 40 years, the Church of the Annunciation on the acropolis or hilltop above the town lay deserted and crumbling. But in 1963, 40 years after these people were expelled from Andifli, their former parish church was requisitioned as a mosque, and – despite its age – was renamed Yeni Cami (New Mosque). A minaret was added, along with a fountain with a quotation in Turkish, rather than Arabic, from the Quran: ‘We made from water every living thing’ (Surat al-Anbiyya, the Prophets, 21: 30).

Inside, the church was aligned facing east, a new mihrab or prayer niche facing Mecca and a minbar (pulpit) were inserted into the south wall, the frescoes were stripped away and the icon screen was removed. All obvious Christian symbols, including crosses, were picked out of the hoklakia or pebble mosaic in the courtyard. But no-one noticed the significance of the fish, symbolising the Greek word Ichthus (ΙΧΘΥΣ), so that dozens of fish symbolising Christ and the Christian faith are still scattered though this pebble mosaic.

This is, truly, the story of the ‘big fish that got away.’

Have you ever spoken of someone or some thing as a ‘good catch’? A person you had an emotional or romantic interest in? A job you wanted? A house you wanted to buy?

Can you imagine how Christ sees you as ‘a good catch’?

If the Church is the agent of Christ, do we do a good job in drawing in his ‘good catch’?

Are we trusting enough to do what he asks us to do as his disciples?

And are we trusting enough to know that he sees you, you and me, as ‘good catches’?

But there are more and more ‘good catches’ that he wants us to draw into the boat, into the Church. And the way to do this is to listen to what he says and what he asks us to do. ‘When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him’ (Luke 5: 11).

What he has been asking us to do in the readings this week – what he asked us to in his reading from the Prophet Isaiah, which we read as the Gospel reading on Monday morning (Luke 4: 16-30, 2 September 2024) are:

• to bring good news to the poor
• to proclaim release to the captives
• to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind
• to let the oppressed go free
• to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

The Ichthus symbol remains discreetly unnoticed in the pebble mosaic of the former church courtyard in Kaş (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 5 September 2024):

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 ‘To Hope and Act with Creation.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection on Creationtide.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 5 September 2024, International Day of Charity) invites us to pray:

Let us give thanks for charities across the world, for all that they do to provide help and support. We thank God for generous hearts even in the toughest of circumstances.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
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.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God, the source of truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
your Son came to save us
and bore our sins on the cross:
may we trust in your mercy
and know your love,
rejoicing in the righteousness
that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him’ (Luke 5: 11) … fishing boats on a shore at Mount Athos (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

‘He saw two boats there at the shore’ (Luke 5: 2) … two boats offering fishing trips in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Shutlanger, a village in Northamptonshire once linked to the Parles and Comberford families

The Monastery in Shutlanger ... the main house on the Parles and Comberford estate near Stoke Bruerne in the 15th and 16th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

One of my early reasons for wanting to visit Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger, neighbouring small villages in Northamptonshire, was a Comberford family connection dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. Three of visited both Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger last week, and so I decided to return again yesterday in search of those Comberford family links and to see whether there were any traces of the Parles and Comberford times there 500 yars ago.

William Comberford was entrusted with the Northamptonshire estates of Margaret Catesby, the widow of John Parles (1419-1452), when she died in 1459. Those estates included lands in Watford, Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger, and her daughter Johanna Parles became William Comberford’s ward.

Johanna Parles was an heiress and in time she married William’s son, John Comberford (1440-1508). The marriage added more land and wealth to the Comberford family estates.

Their son, Thomas Comberford, sold much of the former Parles estates, including almost 400 acres in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Wappenham, to Richard Empson of Easton Neston. But the Parles family had a lasting influence on the fortunes of the Comberford family, reflected even in the changes made to the Comberford family coat of arms over the generations.

I had already been to Watford in search of the former Parles and Comberford manor there, and to Yelvertoft, where the families had exercised their patronage of the parish or the right to nominate the rector. The Rectors of Yelvertoft appointed by the Comberford family included Canon Henry Comberford (1499-1586) of Lichfield Cathedral, who was Rector of Yelvertoft from 1546 to 1560.

However, to explore any remaining signs of the former Parles and Comberford estates in the Stoke Bruerne area, I needed to spend some additional time in the small village of Shutlanger, just a mile west of Stoke Bruerne.

Shutlanger is part of the parish of Stoke Bruerne, half-way between Northampton and Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

I caught a bus from Northampton to Blisworth yesterday (3 September 2024), and then walked through the countryside, almost parallel to the canal route, to Shutlanger. The village is part of the parish of Stoke Bruerne and half-way between Northampton and Stony Stratford.

Shutlanger first developed on either side of a south-flowing stream but it may have shrunk in the late mediaeval period. Since it was neither a parish nor a lordship in its own right, it lacked both a church and a manor house in the Middle Ages.

Two houses in the village are associated with the story of the Parles and Comberford families and the history of the manor in Shutlanger: the Monastery on Water Lane has been identified as the home in the early 15th century of the Parles family, although it was first built in the 14th century; and the Manor House on Showsley Road has been a guest house until recently.

Apart from the Monastery, the older houses in Shutlanger appear to date from the period of the Great Rebuilding and are of coursed rubble limestone, presumably originally with thatched roofs.

Autumn apples on a tree in a garden in Shutlanger last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Shutlanger was always a smaller village than Stoke Bruerne and later in time it was without the visual focus and economic stimulus provided by the canal.

William Brewer, a prominent crown servant of the reigns of Richard I and John, held lands in Stoke and Shutlanger by 1210-1212 was found to as successor to Gerard de Mauquency, but by what service was not known. The Brewer family in turn gave their name to Stoke Bruerne, and William Brewer was succeeded by his son, also William Brewer.

When the younger William Brewer died in 1232, his heirs were his five sisters and their representatives. By the early 14th century, Robert de Harrowden held an estate in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Shaw, described in 1315 as consisting of eight messuages, two mills, 17 acres of meadow, 6½ acres of pasture, 44 acres of wood, and various rents, including one for 7½ virgates of land.

Robert’s heir was his nephew, also Robert de Harrowden. The estate was sold in 1364 by Robert’s successor, John Harrowden of Chislehampton, Oxfordshire, to Ralph Parles of Watford, Northamptonshire, and his wife Katherine. It then amounted to nine messuages, two mills, 11 virgates of land, 18 acres of meadow, 10 acres of pasture, 100 acres of wood and 40s. rent in Stoke, Shutlanger, Shaw and Alderton.

Ralph Parles was living in Shutlanger in 1411 when he, his wife Alice, their son Ralph and daughter-in-law Alice were granted a licence to celebrate divine service in the chapel or oratory within his manor at Shutlanger.

Ralph and Alice Parles re-settled their estate in 1415, and when he died in 1420 his heir was his 11-year-old grandson, also Ralph Parles. As well as the manors of Watford and Byfield, Ralph had four messuages, three tofts, 200 acres of land, 30 acres of meadow, 40 acres of wood, 100 acres of pasture and a water-mill in Shutlanger; another messuage, 23 acres of land, 1 acres of meadow and a water-mill in Stoke; and two messuages, 30 acres of land and 2 acres of meadow in Alderton – an estate of 430 acres or more.

The younger Ralph Parles died a few years of his grandfather, and his brother William Parles, the next heir, was still under age when he died in 1430. The surviving heir of that generation, John Parles, who born in 1419, did not recover the estate from a lengthy wardship until 1440.

John Parles died in 1452, and was survived by his widow Margaret and a five-year-old daughter and heir, Joan or Johanna, who was to inherit the estate when her mother died death. Margaret remarried almost at once, but her second husband Robert Catesby died within a few years. Margaret died in 1459, and their son William Catesby was then aged seven.

The quartered Comberford and Parles arms were used in the 19th century by James Comerford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Manor of Watford and the Parles estates in Shutlanger and Stoke Bruene were to descend to Margaret’s daughter Joan Parles, who came of age two years later. Joan’s wardship and marriage had been granted in 1454 to William Cumberford of Comberford Hall and John Lynton. She then married William Comberford’s son John Cumberford, who witnessed a deed relating to Shutlanger in 1477.

In a complex legal arrangement in 1482, Joan and John Comberford conveyed the Manor of Byfield, with extensive premises there and in Watford, Murcott, Shutlanger, Stoke Bruerne, Shaw, Alderton and Wappenham, along with half an acre of land in Yelvertoft and the advowson of the church there, to feoffees or trustees. These trustees were to hold the estate for the use of John and Joan Comberford for their lives, and then for their heirs or the rightful heirs of Joan.

In 1504, after his wife had died, John Cumberford, his son Thomas Comberford and daughter-in-law Dorothy, sold the former Parles estate in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Wappenham to Sir Richard Empson (1450-1510) of Easton Neston. The sale included eight messuages, six tofts, one mill, 200 acres of land, 24 acres of meadow, 100 acres of pasture, 40 acres of wood and 14 shillings rent.

However, the Comberford family held onto its other interests in Northamptonshire for another 60 years, including the Comberford Manor in Watford and the advosom of Yelvertoft. When Thomas Comberford sold the Comberford Manor in Watford to Sir John Spencer in 1563, the Comberford family interest in Yelvertoft parish came to an end.

The Manor House in Shutlanger … the Parles and Comberford families held the manor in Shutlanger in the 15th and early 16th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Meanwhile, Sir Richard Empson’s purchase of the former Parles and Comberford estate from the Comberford family in 1504 was one of a number of purchases he made in Shutlanger as he built up a large estate centred on his mansion at Easton Neston.

Earlier, Empson had bought lands in Shutlanger and the surrounding area from Henry Bacon in 1476-1480, from Thomas Bosenhoe in 1484, from John Claypole in 1488-1489, from John Shefford in 1492, from John Jones in 1499, and from Edmund Grey, Lord Grey de Wilton and John Grey, Lord Grey de Wilton.

Soon after he had bought the Comberford estate in Shutlanger, Sir Richard Empson was arrested with Edmund Dudley. He was convicted of treason in Northampton in October 1509, and was executed on Tower Hill on 17 August 1510.

Empson’s estates were granted to William Compton in 1512, when Shutlanger was described as a manor. The manor was said then to be ‘late Comberford’ and included 20 acres of coppice called Parles Park.

The Monastery at Shutlanger was surrounded by extensive grounds, with fishponds and a dovecote,and one of the fields was known as Parles Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The estate passed with Easton Neston to Richard Fermor, and Sir John Fermor of Easton Neston held a court for what was described as his Manor of Shutlanger in 1554. After his death in 1571, however, the family’s estate in Shutlanger ceased to be regarded as a manor. The ‘Manor of Shutlanger’ remained for generations in the hands of the Fermor family – later the Fermor-Hesketh family and Earls of Pomfret.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, most of the Fermor estate in Shutlanger appears to have been let in four farms. By the 1830s, the 5th Earl of Pomfret owned about 530 acres in Shutlanger.

Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger each had their own common fields and common meadow in the Middle Ages. Most of these survived until 1844, when the parish was the last in south Northamptonshire to be inclosed. They appear to have shared a large area of common woodland or wood-pasture in the north of the parish, which was gradually cleared.

A chapel licensed in 1411 was on the upper floor of the two-storey entrance porch to the Monastery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The 14th century house in Shutlanger later known as the Monastery is an impressive house on Water Lane on the south-east edge of the village. It may have been built by one of the freeholders, and became known as the Monastery, through a supposed association with the Cistercian nunnery of Sewardsley in Easton Neston.

The house become the capital messuage, the principal house or equivalent of a manor house, of the Parles estate Although the original owner cannot be identified for certain, it was the home of the Parles familiy by the early 15th century. However, it is not clear whether the Parles family bought the house, built it, inherited it through marriage to a local heiress, or acquired it when they bought the Harrowden estate.

The house has an almost complete medieval roof structure and a two-storey entrance porch. This seems to have been added to the main building, which appears to date from the first half of the 14th century, although the windows in the south elevation of the main range, and also the porch, perhaps date from the late 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century. The house was modernised in the 17th century by inserting a staircase in the cross-passage and a fireplace in the service bay.

A chapel licensed in 1411 occupied the upper floor of the two-storey entrance porch to the Monastery that appears to be a later addition to the main structure.

The entrance porch to the Monastery in Shutlanger has an ecclesiastical appearance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The house was surrounded by extensive grounds, with fishponds and a dovecote, while an adjoining close formed a small park, described in the 1540s as 20 acres of coppice known as Parles Park. The family name was still recalled in the 18th and 19th centuries in the field named as Parles Park.

The Monastery later became a farmhouse on the Fermor estate. It was included in an exchange between the trustees of the 5th Earl of Pomfret and the 5th Duke of Grafton at the time of inclosure in 1844.

When the Grafton estate in Shutlanger was sold off in 1919, the Monastery was bought by the sitting tenant and remodelled as a private house. The Monastery extended to 3½ bays, including a two-bay hall, with a half-bay below the spere truss containing the cross-passage and a service bay beyond. An east solar or parlour bay was demolished.

The Monastery was first listed Grade I in 1951 and was restored in 1965. In recent years, it was the premises of Monastery Stained Glass, dealers in antique stained glass and panels of glass from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. But when I visited it this week it seems to have returned to use as a family home.

The Plough on the Main Road in Shutlanger (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The layout of Shutlanger village was altered at inclosure when the new road to Heathencote at Towcester was built and older lanes running down to the Tove were stopped up. The avenue from Easton Neston survived inclosure, although it was severed by the new road and by the 1880s trees were beginning to be felled at its east end.

The only industrial development in Shutlanger came in the early 1870s, when Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh leased the ironstone and other minerals beneath most of the estate to Samuel Lloyd, the Birmingham ironmaster. Both the Grafton and Pomfret or Fermor-Hesketh estates built a few new cottages in Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger in the 19th century.

Today there are light industrial units on the Monastery Lakes Farm.

The Village Hall in Shutlanger was built as a school and a chapel of ease in 1884-1885 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

An infants’ school was built in Shutlanger in 1884 on land given by Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh. It was designed by Matthew Holding and opened in 1885. It had a reserved chancel that allowed the building to be used as a chapel of ease, and it was licensed for divine worship. A chancel with a stained glass east window was added in 1886.

The school closed in 1916, but the building, dedicated to Saint Anne, remained in use as a chapel of ease to Saint Mary’s Church. It is now the village hall.

A Wesleyan Methodist chapel built in Shutlanger in 1844 was extended in the 1870s and enlarged in 1889, but it had closed by the 1980s.

Shutlanger once had two pubs: the Horseshoe and Plough. The Horseshoe closed in 1917 when the number of pub licences was cut back during World War I. The Plough today has a good reputation as a gastropub, although it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I had to walk on to Stoke Bruerne, where I had lunch once again at the Bavigation by the banks of the canal.

Meanwhile, services continue to be held in Saint Anne’s Chapel or the village hall at 9:30 am on the third Thursday of the month, followed by a coffee morning.

The former Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Shutlanger (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 117, Wednesday 4 September 2024

Jesus Heals Simon Peter's Mother-in-Law … a panel in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 1 September 2024). Sunday was also the first day of Autumn, when the Season of Creation began, and it continues until 4 October.

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Birinus (650), Bishop of Dorchester, Oxfordshire, and Apostle of Wessex. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Jesus heals Saint Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a stained-glass window in Saint John the Baptist Church, Blisworth, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 4: 38-44 (NRSVA):

38 After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39 Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

40 As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. 41 Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

42 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ 44 So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

James Tissot ‘The Healing of Peter’s Mother-in-law’ (La guérison de la belle-mère de Pierre), 1886-1894 (Brooklyn Museum)

Today’s Reflection:

There are four parts in this morning’s Gospel reading:

1, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (verses 38-39);

2, Jesus heals many other people, including people with diseases and people who are exorcised of demons (verses 40-41);

3, Jesus retreats to a deserted place but is followed by the crowds (verses 42-43);

4, Jesus moved on from preaching in the synagogues in Galilee to preaching in the synagogues in Judea (verse 44).

Most people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories are unnamed, so that many of the women he heals are not named too. Indeed, in the healing stories told of men, only Lazarus and Malchus are named. But the high priest’s servant Malchus is only named by John (John 18: 10), and not in the synoptic gospels. Mark refers to blind Bartimaeus, but this is a reference only to his father’s name and not the name of the blind man himself (see Mark 10: 46).

In all the Gospel stories in which Jesus heals women, the women too are anonymous. In this morning’s Gospel reading, even Simon Peter’s mother-in-law remains unnamed, and she is identified only by her relationship to Simon Peter. Indeed, there is no mention at all of her daughter, Simon Peter’s wife.

All three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell this healing story (see Matthew 8: 14-15; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-40). Matthew says Jesus ‘touched’ the woman's hand, Mark say he ‘grasped’ it, and in Luke he simply ‘rebuked the fever’. Mark says the house was the home of Peter and Andrew, who both interceded with Jesus for the woman. Luke alone says she had a high fever.

The healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is the first story of physical healing in Saint Luke’s Gospel, and it follows immediately after the first story of spiritual healing, of an unnamed man in the synagogue in Capernaum. In all three synoptic Gospels, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and the demon-possessed man trigger a wave of sick and possessed people being brought to Jesus.

Mother-in-law jokes illustrated many seaside postcards and were part of the stock-in-trade of comedians in the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Those mothers-in-law were never named, and the jokes served to emphasise the domestic role – perhaps servile role – of women in homes and families in those days.

But mothers-in-law were also mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, nieces, daughters, they had careers, hopes and ambitions, fears, illnesses, and sufferings, they had love and emotion, and they had names … none of which were acknowledged in those postcards or comic sketches.

Those attitudes were reinforced by many of the ways in which I have men in the past interpret this morning’s reading. Yet a closer reading of this story shows that it does not reinforce a woman’s place as being servile or secondary, the ‘complementarian’ view offered by some commentators who claim they are ‘conservative evangelicals.’

It is not a story about a woman taking a weekend sleep-in on her bed, and then getting up ‘to make the tea’.

The verb for serving, διακονέω (diakoneo), used in verse 39 in reference to this woman means to wait, attend upon, serve, or to be an attendant or assistant. Later, in Acts and other places in the New Testament, it means to minister to, relieve, assist, or supply with the necessaries of life, or provide the means of living, to do the work of διάκονος or deacon (see I Timothy 3: 10, 13; I Peter 4: 11), even to be in charge or to administer (see II Corinthians 3: 3, 8: 19-20; I Peter 1: 12, 4: 10).

The word describing this woman’s service also describes the angels who minister to Jesus after he is tempted in the wilderness (Mark 1: 13; Matthew 4: 11), the work of his female disciples (Luke 8: 1-3), and describes Martha of Bethany when she serves while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet and learns, before Jesus specifically affirms Mary’s choice (Luke 10: 38-42).

Most significantly, this word describes Jesus himself, when he explains to his disciples that ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (see Mark 10: 43-45).

Being healed is not just about personal relief but also about being restored to a place where one can serve and contribute to the community. The Book of Common Prayer describes God as the one ‘whose service is perfect freedom,’ and this is modelled by Peter’s mother-in-law. Her response to Jesus healing her is a model not just for women but for all Christian service. In the kingdom, serving is not women’s work, it is everybody’s work.

Christ Healing Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a fresco in Visoki Dečani Monastery, a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo and Metohija, 12 km south of Pec (© Copyright: Blago Fund, Inc)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 4 September 2024):

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 ‘To Hope and Act with Creation.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection on Creationtide.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 4 September 2024) invites us to pray:

God, thank you for the Season of Creation Network who work ecumenically to encourage prayer and action to protect our beautiful world.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
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.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God, the source of truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
your Son came to save us
and bore our sins on the cross:
may we trust in your mercy
and know your love,
rejoicing in the righteousness
that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Thank you for’ those who work ‘to encourage prayer and action to protect our beautiful world’ (USPG Prayer Diary) … summer colours on the walk to Pavlos Beach in Platanias, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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