‘Let these holy mysteries open the eyes of our understanding’ (Post-Communion Prayer) … an icon of the Mystical Supper or the Last Supper in a shop window in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XX).
I am on a long odyssey since Sunday afternoon, having left Birmingham on a delayed flight yesterday to Schiphol in Amsterdam. We ought to be arriving in Singapore later today, but instead we are in Schiphol, hoping to board a flight that is going to get us to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. There, in turn, we hope to get a rebooked flight that gets us to Singapore some time tomorrow (Tuesday). But, as we wait for our flight in Amsterdam this morning, I am taking some quiet time to give thanks, and 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 people of Nineveh … repented at the proclamation of Jonah’ (Luke 11: 32) … a whale depicted in the Saint Brendan window in Saint Michael’s Church, Sneem, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 11: 29-32:
29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! 32 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!’
‘The people of Nineveh … repented at the proclamation of Jonah’ (Luke 11: 32) … a reconstruction of the gates of an Assyrian palace in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s reflection:
Signs are part of the humour throughout Monty Python’s Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, a controversial 1979 film by the Monty Python team, including Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.
Scene 18, ‘The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem’, includes this dialogue:
FOLLOWERS: … Look! Ah! Oh! Oh!
ARTHUR: He has given us a sign!
FOLLOWER: Oh!
SHOE FOLLOWER: He has given us … His shoe!
ARTHUR: The shoe is the sign. Let us follow His example.
SPIKE: What?
ARTHUR: Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise.
EDDIE: Yes.
SHOE FOLLOWER: No, no, no. The shoe is …
YOUTH: No.
SHOE FOLLOWER: … a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance.
GIRL: Cast off …
SPIKE: Aye. What?
GIRL: … the shoes! Follow the Gourd!
SHOE FOLLOWER: No! Let us gather shoes together!
FRANK: Yes.
SHOE FOLLOWER: Let me!
ELSIE: Oh, get off!
YOUTH: No, no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must think not of the things of the body, but of the face and head!
SHOE FOLLOWER: Give me your shoe!
YOUTH: Get off!
GIRL: Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!
FOLLOWER: The Gourd!
HARRY: Hold up the sandal, as He has commanded us!
ARTHUR: It is a shoe! It is a shoe!
HARRY: It's a sandal!
ARTHUR: No, it isn't!
GIRL: Cast it away!
ARTHUR: Put it on!
YOUTH: And clear off!
How often do we pray unusual signs as indications of God’s blessing, favour, approval or intervention, or even God’s judgment?
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus faces this sort of request too. with that in his own day. People wanted some spectacular sign from him to establish beyond doubt that he was who he said he was.
In today’s reading, Jesus addresses the crowds who gather around him as a wicked generation because they are asking for a sign. Today people can be very impressed by visionaries who claim to have visions that are denied to the rest of believers.
The church has traditionally been very wary of all such claims. In the Gospel reading Jesus accuses his contemporaries of failing to see what is there before them. They want signs and yet all they need already stands in front of them in the person of Jesus, someone greater than Solomon, greater than Jonah, greater than all the prophets and kings.
If the people of Nineveh responded to Jonah and if the Queen of the South responded to Solomon, how much more should Jesus’ contemporaries respond to him?
God has already given us all we need in and through the church, in Word, in Sacrament and in the community of believers. There we find the living word of God. There we find the Eucharist and the other sacraments. There we find Jesus present among us and within his followers.
In the Eucharist, Christ is present to us in the bread and the wine, saying, ‘This is my body … This is my blood’.
In coming to Christ in the Eucharist, we are coming to one who is greater than Jonah or Solomon. He is present to us in other ways also. We take his presence seriously by responding to his call and following in his way, as the people of Nineveh responded to Jonah’s call. And, in response to Christ’s presence, we are called to respond to his presence by living in as a sign of his presence in the world.
‘Hold up the sandal, as he has commanded us!’ (Monty Python, ‘The Life of Brian’) … sandals outside a shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Monday 14 October 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 the ‘Mission hospitals in Malawi’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update by Tamara Khisimisi, Project Co-ordinator, Anglican Council in Malawi.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 14 October 2024) invites us to pray:
Almighty God, thank you for the service of the doctors, nurses and everyone involved in the mission hospitals.
The Collect:
God, the giver of life,
whose Holy Spirit wells up within your Church:
by the Spirit’s gifts equip us to live the gospel of Christ
and make us eager to do your will,
that we may share with the whole creation
the joys of eternal life;
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:
God our Father,
whose Son, the light unfailing,
has come from heaven to deliver the world
from the darkness of ignorance:
let these holy mysteries open the eyes of our understanding
that we may know the way of life,
and walk in it without stumbling;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God, our light and our salvation:
illuminate our lives,
that we may see your goodness in the land of the living,
and looking on your beauty
may be changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
‘The shoe is … a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance’ (Monty Python, ‘The Life of Brian’) … collecting shoes in Carlow for Syrian refugee children (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
14 October 2024
Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024:
156, Monday 14 October 2024
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