Patrick Comerford
The Season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and this week began with the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III, 3 March 2024).
Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in Common Worship.
Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;
2, today’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Early English pre-Reformation saints: 22, Saint Willibrord of York
Saint Willibrord of York (739), Bishop, Apostle of Frisia, is commemorated in the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship on 7 November. He was born in Northumbria, educated at Ripon and grew up under the influence of Wilfrid, Bishop of York. Later he joined the Benedictines. Between the ages of 20 and 32, he was in the Abbey of Rath Melsigi in Co Carlow, then a centre of learning.
But the main part of his life was dedicated to his missionary work in Frisia and northern Germany. He built many churches, inaugurated bishoprics and consecrated cathedrals. The cathedral in Utrecht, with a diocesan organisation based on that of Canterbury, is his best-known foundation.
With his younger contemporary Boniface, he began a century of English Christian influence on continental Christianity. Alcuin described him as venerable, gracious and full of joy, and his ministry as based on energetic preaching informed by prayer and sacred reading.
He died on 7 November 739 and was buried at Echternach monastery in Luxembourg, which he founded. He is the patron saint of the Netherlands.
A joint ecumenical diocesan pilgrimage of about 60 people travelled from Carlow to Echternach to take part in the ‘Dancing Procession’ in June 2017, when Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg presented a Relic of Saint Willibrord to Bishop Denis Nulty. Later that month, 29 people from Echternach visited Co Carlow to take part in the Walk with Willibrord, when the relic was walked from Saint Laserian’s Church of Ireland Cathedral in Old Leighlin to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow.
Matthew 5: 17-19 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.’
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 6 March 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 ‘International Women’s Day Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Beverley A Mason, Bishop of Warrington.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (6 March 2024) invites us to pray with these words:
Pray for all women who are holding households, people, family, friends and businesses together. Where a woman has been silenced, may she find her voice; where she is abused, may she recover her dignity; where she is fighting for the vulnerable, may she find her strength; where she is tormented, may she receive healing; when she pleads for the life of another, may she catch the Lord’s gaze and know she is heard and they are loved.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
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:
Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday: The Venerable Bede
Tomorrow: Saint Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton
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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