Patrick Comerford
We are more than half-way through the Season of Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and today is the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV), also known as Laetare Sunday and Mothering Sunday or Mother’s Day (10 March 2024). This Sunday is also called Mid-Lent Sunday or Refreshment Sunday, a day of respite from fasting halfway through the penitential season of Lent.
Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship.
Later this morning, I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, 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: 26, Saint Edmund the Martyr
Saint Edmund (870), King of the East Angles, Martyr, is commemorated in Common Worship on 20 November.
Edmund was born ca 840, and was nominated as king while je was still a boy. He became king of Norfolk in 855 and of Suffolk the following year. As king, he won the hearts of his people by his care of the poor and his steady suppression of wrongdoing.
When attacked by the Danes, he refused to give over his kingdom or to renounce his faith in Christ. He was tied to a tree, shot with arrows and finally beheaded on 20 November 870. His shrine at Beodricesworth, the town that became known as Bury St Edmunds, was an important centre of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages.
Saint Edmund is the patron saint of pandemics as well as kings, and he was the patron saint of England until he was supplanted by Saint George. During the reign of Richard II (1377-1399), there was an attempt to make Saint Edmund the patron saint of Ireland.
John 3: 14-21 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 10 March 2024, Lent IV):
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 ‘Lent Reflection: JustMoney Movement.’ This theme is introduced today by Matt Ceaser, Movement Builder, JustMoney Movement:
Read Deuteronomy 15: 1, 4-5, 15
The Exodus is perhaps the defining story of the people of God in the Hebrew Bible. They understood themselves as a people who had been miraculously rescued from slavery – by the power of God alone – and brought into a new land in which they were to live distinctively.
For Christians, this story points ahead to the even greater rescue of all humanity through the saving work of Jesus. Once we were enslaved in our sin, but Christ’s death and resurrection accomplish what no human effort could achieve in liberating us to a life of freedom.
Yet for many around the world today, poverty is limiting their sense of any kind of freedom.
Poverty means having fewer choices for how to live, and bigger risks if those choices go wrong. It can also lead to exclusion from many areas of life, whether through lack of time, education, or status. Simple pleasures such as food, hobbies, and socialising become out of reach, as all money goes on essentials. The experience of poverty can feel a million miles from life to the full (John 10: 10) or the freedom for which Christ has set us free (Galatians 5: 1).
God’s vision of freedom, revealed in the Old Testament law and brought to completion in Christ, is clearly concerned that no one should feel the shackles of debt slavery and of poverty limiting their capacity to enjoy that freedom. And we, as Christians, must take up the challenge of ensuring that no one in our society is in need when there are sufficient resources to go around. This means being generous with what we have and sharing with those in need, but it also means advocating for an economy that works for everyone.
www.justmoney.org.uk
This is a sample taken from the 2024 USPG Lent Course which can be downloaded and ordered from the USPG website www.uspg.org.uk
The USPG Prayer Diary today (10 March 2024, Lent IV) invites us to pray in these words:
In a world of limited resources, Lord,
where a few have too much
and most have too little,
teach us there’s enough for all, if we can only learn to share.
(Nick Fawcett).
The Collect:
Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Collect of Mothering Sunday:
God of compassion,
whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary,
shared the life of a home in Nazareth,
and on the cross drew the whole human family to himself:
strengthen us in our daily living that in joy and in sorrow
we may know the power of your presence to bind together and to heal;
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,
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday: Saint Swithun of Winchester
Tomorrow: Alfred the Great (899), King of the West Saxons, Scholar
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
Last edited: 14 March 2024
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