Robert Spence (1871-1964), ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield,’ depicts George Fox, bare-footed and ragged, denouncing the city of Lichfield in the Market Square in 1651 (Lichfield Heritage Centre) … George Fox died on 13 January 1691
Patrick Comerford
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the life of George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers.
I illustrated my prayer diary this morning with the 1897 painting ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield’ by Robert Spence (1871-1964). This painting, now in the Hub at Saint Mary’s in the Market Square, Lichfield, shows George Fox trudging barefoot through the snow in the Market Square as he cries out, ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield’.
The story of this painting, its theft, and how it was recovered and returned to Lichfield is a story involving Quaker pacifism, a benefactor’s generosity, wily thieves and the quick thinking and honesty of an antique dealer in Great Yarmouth.
George Fox was born at Fenny Drayton in Leicestershire, within 20 miles of Lichfield and about 12 or 13 miles east of Tamworth. He was the son of a weaver, and was at an early age was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He became something of a wayfarer from 1643 for about three years, loosening all ties with his family and friends.
The ‘Inner Light of the Living Christ’ became his watchword in 1646, and he began to preach that the truth could only be found through the Inner Voice speaking directly to each soul. His society, originally known as ‘The Friends of Truth’, was soon formed, clearly a protest against the authoritarianism of the then dominant Presbyterian system in England.
George Fox was arrested in 1650 and jailed in Derby for blasphemy. At his trial, he claimed the word of the Lord caused him to tremble and the judge Gervase Bennet, humiliated him by calling Fox and his followers ‘Quakers’. It was meant as a term of abuse and derision, but it quickly became a name they used for themselves adopted.
Fox was offered release from prison in return for taking up arms for the Cromwellians against the Crown, but stated clearly his opposition to all ‘wars and strifes.’ He was threatened with being banished to Ireland, and remained in jail until he was released at the beginning of winter in 1651.
George Fox spent several spells in gaol due to his determination to preach where he would and what he willed. He had a charismatic personality combined with excellent organisational abilities.
Within two years of Fox’s visit to Lichfield, Francis Comberford of Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth, and his family became Quakers in 1653. Francis Comberford’s daughter, Mary Comberford (1641-1700), wrote to George Fox from Stafford on 19 April 1690, addressing him as ‘My dear friend,’ ‘Dear Friend’ and ‘My dear love in the everlasting truth …’ and sending ‘dear love to thy wife & children.’ George Fox died nine months later on 13 January 1691.
Robert Spence’s painting ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield’, completed in 1897, shows George Fox trudging barefoot through the snow in the Market Square in Lichfield as he cries out, ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield’. The painting in oil on canvas measures 300 cm x 170 cm, was completed in 1897 and is now in the Lichfield Heritage Centre.
Robert Spence, an artist, painter and printmaker, was born into a Quaker family in Tynemouth, Northumberland, in 1871. His father Charles Spence (1848-1905) was also an artist too.
Robert Spence studied in Newcastle, at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, and in Paris. He was a Quaker and a pacifist, and soon after the outbreak of World War I he joined an ambulance unit in France. For his bravery in rescuing soldiers under fire, he was awarded the Croix-de-Guerre in 1915.
After the war, Spence produced several etchings from his memories and from sketches he made at the time. He lived in London and exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Fine Art Society and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. His style was strongly influenced by Rembrandt and he owned several original etchings by the Dutch master.
While he painted in oils, he is best known for his dry-point etchings. Many of his etchings were based on events recalled in The Journal of George Fox. His large painting of George Fox in the Hub at Saint Mary’s is part of the Lichfield District Council Museum collection. I first saw this painting in my teens in the old Lichfield Museum and Library on Bird Street, now the Lichfield Registry Office beside Beacon Park.
A plaque on the north wall of Saint Mary’s recalls George Fox’s visit to Lichfield in 1651 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Spence’s painting recalls a well-known incident in the life of George Fox. After his release from prison in Derby, Fox and his friends headed south and arrived in Lichfield. Fox claimed he did not recognise the city and asked his friends where it was. On being told Lichfield, he had a vision in which he was told to remove his shoes. It was mid-winter and bitterly cold, but Fox removed his shoes and handed them to some bemused local shepherds.
As he approached the centre of Lichfield, he felt compelled to cry out ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield’ as he walked barefoot through the streets, to the amazement and amusement of local people.
Plaques on the north wall of Saint Mary’s Church recall Thomas Hayward, John Goreway and Joyce Lewis, who were burned at the stake on the Square during the reign of Queen Mary in the 1550s; Edward Wightman who was burnt at the stake there in 1612, the last person to be executed in England in this way; and Edmund Gennings, who was born in Lichfield in 1567 and who was disembowelled alive and executed in London in 1591 for his Catholic beliefs.
Standing in the Market Square in the snow in 1651, Fox had a vision of the square and the streets of Lichfield awash with a river of blood. He thought this may have been because of the executions that had taken place in the square, or because of the legend of a massacre of 999 Christian martyrs, including three kings. There is no historical evidence for their martyrdom during the reign of Diocletian in the third century but the legend was linked to a misinterpretation that the name Lichfield meant ‘Field of the Dead.’
In Spence’s painting, George Fox is seen striding away from Lichfield Cathedral in the background, with its central spire severely damaged. The cathedral had taken a severe pounding at the height of the English Civil War in 1646, and the central spire had collapsed. When Fox visited Lichfield in 1651, the central spire was still shattered and it was not restored and replaced until the 1660s after the Restoration of the monarchy.
Spence produced a number of prints of the painting in the early 20th century and produced another etching of the visit in which Fox is seen outside an inn with puzzled people staring at him while sipping on their drinks.
Spence’s original painting was bought in 1904 by the local benefactor, Sir Richard Cooper of Shenstone Court, who donated it to Lichfield City Council. The painting had been on exhibition at the Royal Academy the previous year and Cooper wanted to bring it to Lichfield.
Cooper was a major benefactor to Lichfield. Almost 20 years later, he donated the old Friary building in Lichfield to Staffordshire County Council, to become the new Friary School. He paid for the construction of the Friary Road in 1928 and that same year he paid to relocate the Clock Tower from the corner of Bore Street to its present location on the Bowling Green roundabout.
Spence’s painting was put on display in the museum rooms at the Old Free Library and Museum on Bird Street. The museum was on the upper floor and the library was on the lower floor, now Lichfield Registry Office.
Jonathan Oates, a former museum administrator with Lichfield District Council and a local historian and writer, recalled some years ago how the painting remained there until March 1987, when it was stolen in a brazen robbery. The museum was unattended when the thieves walked in, cut the large painting from its frame and left unnoticed, late that Friday evening or early that Saturday morning.
All hope of recovering the painting was fading when it turned up in an antique shop in Great Yarmouth. Jono observes, ‘clearly the thieves had tried to take it as far away from Lichfield as possible!’ At the time, the painting was valued at £5,000, the antique dealer realised what it was worth and notified the police.
When the painting was returned to Lichfield, it was restored and placed back in its frame before being moved to a new location at the Lichfield Heritage Museum, now the Hub at Saint Mary’s. Jono points out that this is one of the few items in the Lichfield District Council collection that is still on public display, and the main bulk of the collection is in long-term storage.
I had a good look at the painting again last month in its place above the spiral staircase in the Hub at Saint Mary’s. There George Fox now stands high on the west wall, above the viewing platform. You have to look up to see him in the gallery, where he appears to continue to berate the ‘Bloody City of Lichfield’.
Robert Spence’s original painting of George Fox in the Hub at Saint Mary’s in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
13 January 2024
Daily prayers during
Christmas and Epiphany:
20, 13 January 2024
The hot water from Hierapolis became polluted and cooled as it flowed down through the calcified terraces of Pamukkale on the slopes above Laodicea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today (13 January 2023), and tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Epiphany (14 January 2024). Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).
Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Hilary (367), Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher of the Faith; Kentigern or Mungo (603), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde and Cumbria; and George Fox (1691), founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Before this days begins, however, I am taking some time this morning for prayer, reading and reflection. My reflections each morning during the seven days of this week have included:
1, A reflection on one of the seven churches named in Revelation 2-3 as one of the recipients of letters from Saint John on Patmos;
2, the Gospel reading of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
‘The Light of the World’ by Holman Hunt, inspired by words in the Letter to Laodicea: ‘Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me’ (Revelation 3: 20)
The Churches of the Book of Revelation: 7, Laodicea:
Laodicea is seventh among the seven churches in Asia Minor to receive a letter from Saint John as he describes his revelation on Patmos: Ephesus (Revelation 2: 1-7), Smyrna (Revelation 2: 8-11), Pergamum (Revelation 2: 12-17), Thyatira (Revelation 2: 18-29), Sardis (Revelation 3: 1-6), Philadelphia (Revelation 3: 7-13) and Laodicea (Revelation 3: 14-22).
The seventh letter in these two chapters is addressed to the Church in Laodicea (Revelation 3: 14-22), which is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and is called on to be earnest and repent (3: 19).
In the letter from Patmos, the Church in Laodicea is reprimanded: ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth’ (Revelation 3: 15-16).
This seventh and last letter is addressed to the Church in Laodicea, a proud and wealthy city near Colossae. Laodicea on the Lycus (Λαοδίκεια πρός τοῦ Λύκου), once known as Diospolis (the City of Zeus) and as Rhoas, is about 160 km east of Ephesus.
This ancient metropolis of Phrygia Pacatiana was built on the River Lycus, 10 km south of Hierapolis, near the present village of Eskihisar in Asia Minor, by Antiochus II Theos ca 261-253 BCE in honour of his wife Laodice.
As I walked barefooted from Hierapolis, with its hot water pools, down through the white calcified terraces of Pamukkale with their pools of bright blue water, the water became noticeably cooler underfoot during the descent. Finally, when I reached the bottom of the terraces, there was a café named Laodicea that innocently proclaimed: ‘Hot and Cold Foods Served Here.’
During that walk through the white terraces of Pamukkale back in 2005, I also thought of George Fox, who is remembered in the Church Calendar today (13 January), and he trudged bare-footed and ragged through the snow-covered Market Square in Lichfield in 1651, denouncing the city as he cried out, ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield.’
At first, Laodicea had little importance, and in 188 BCE it passed to the Kingdom of Pergamum. Under Roman rule, Laodicea prospered because of its advantageous position on a trade route and became an important and flourishing commercial city that minted its own coins and with its prosperity built on banking, money transactions and an extensive trade in black wool.
It was also known as a centre for the arts, science and literature, and had a famed medical school. It was also a centre for the worship of Zeus, Aesculapius, Apollo and the imperial cult.
Antiochus the Great transported 2,000 Jewish families to Phrygia from Babylon, and so at the time the Book of Revelation was written Laodicea had a large Jewish community, which sent large donations each year to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Perhaps because of this large Jewish community, Laodicea became an early seat of Christianity with its own bishop. Laodicea is mentioned in passing in the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, and the Church in Laodicea may have been founded by the Epaphras of Colossae, who shared the care of it with Nymphas, in whose house the Church assembled.
Paul asks the Colossians to communicate to the Church of Laodicea the letter he sends them, and to read publicly a letter that should come to them from Laodicea – perhaps one he had written himself or was about to write, to the Laodiceans. In addition, some Greek manuscripts end I Timothy with the phrase: ‘Written at Laodicea, Metropolis of Phrygia Pacatiana.’
The first three named bishops associated with Laodicea are identified with people named in the New Testament: Archippus (Colossians 4: 17); Nymphas, identified with a man named Nymphas or, according to the best manuscripts, a woman named Nympha (see Colossians 4: 15); and Diotrephes (III John 9).
The Church in Laodicea survived its rebukes in this letter, and a famous Church council met there in the year 363.
The surviving archaeological ruins in Laodicea attest to its former greatness. They include the city’s stadium, gymnasium, and theatres, along with the remains of an aqueduct.
Inside the fourth century Church of Laodicea (Photograph: Blcksprt / Wikipedia)
Verse 14: The ‘Amen’ is Christ himself.
Verses 15-16: No other Church is rebuked as sternly and as harshly as the Church in Laodicea. The church is as unpalatable as the local water which has come from the hot springs in Hierapolis (Pamukkale), and has been cooled and polluted as it drips down through the encrusted, calcified terraces on the hillsides above Laodicea. This lukewarm water is now so polluted and so poisoned, it is better to spit it out.
Verse 17: Although this is a rich, proud, boastful city, the people spiritually are quite the opposite.
Verse 18: Those who have grown rich through banking and money-changing do not know the true value of real, refined, golden faith. They need to replace their black wool garments which are a sign of their prosperous trading with the white robes of baptism and true worship.
These people are also spiritually blind, and need fresh spiritual insight. Laodicea was famous at the time for the eye medicine produced locally from powdered Phrygian stone. There is a touch of irony here as the city that is famous for its eye medicine is home to Christians who are blind to their own condition.
Verse 20: Christ stands at the door, knocking. This image has inspired Holman Hunt’s painting, ‘The Light of the World.’ If we open door to Christ, then we can sit with him at the banquet, at the Eucharist.
Verse 21: Although no other church among the seven is rebuked as harshly as the Church in Laodicea, nevertheless Christ says that those who are victorious will sit with him on the Throne of God.
As with all seven churches, the church in Laodicea is called on to hear the message: ‘Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches’ (Revelation 3: 22).
Excavations at the Church in Laodicea, dating from the fourth century (Photograph: Torsten62 / Wikipedia)
Mark 2: 13-17 (NRSVA):
13 Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. 14 As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
15 And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples – for there were many who followed him. 16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick’ (Mark 2: 17) … ‘Gift of Life’, a corner of the reception area in Milton Keynes University Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 13 January 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: ‘Whom Shall I Send’ – Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Davidson Solanki, USPG Regional Manager, Asia and the Middle East.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (13 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
Let us reflect today that all human life belongs to God. We have been created in the image of God, crowned with dignity and honour.
The Collect:
Everlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed your Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
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 of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Hilary to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Epiphany 2:
Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
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 (Philadelphia)
Continued tomorrow (Saint Timothy)
Robert Spence (1871-1964), ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield,’ depicts George Fox, bare-footed and ragged, denouncing the city of Lichfield in the Market Square in 1651 (Lichfield Heritage Centre) … ‘Common Worship’ today remembers George Fox
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
Patrick Comerford
The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today (13 January 2023), and tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Epiphany (14 January 2024). Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).
Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Hilary (367), Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher of the Faith; Kentigern or Mungo (603), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde and Cumbria; and George Fox (1691), founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Before this days begins, however, I am taking some time this morning for prayer, reading and reflection. My reflections each morning during the seven days of this week have included:
1, A reflection on one of the seven churches named in Revelation 2-3 as one of the recipients of letters from Saint John on Patmos;
2, the Gospel reading of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
‘The Light of the World’ by Holman Hunt, inspired by words in the Letter to Laodicea: ‘Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me’ (Revelation 3: 20)
The Churches of the Book of Revelation: 7, Laodicea:
Laodicea is seventh among the seven churches in Asia Minor to receive a letter from Saint John as he describes his revelation on Patmos: Ephesus (Revelation 2: 1-7), Smyrna (Revelation 2: 8-11), Pergamum (Revelation 2: 12-17), Thyatira (Revelation 2: 18-29), Sardis (Revelation 3: 1-6), Philadelphia (Revelation 3: 7-13) and Laodicea (Revelation 3: 14-22).
The seventh letter in these two chapters is addressed to the Church in Laodicea (Revelation 3: 14-22), which is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and is called on to be earnest and repent (3: 19).
In the letter from Patmos, the Church in Laodicea is reprimanded: ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth’ (Revelation 3: 15-16).
This seventh and last letter is addressed to the Church in Laodicea, a proud and wealthy city near Colossae. Laodicea on the Lycus (Λαοδίκεια πρός τοῦ Λύκου), once known as Diospolis (the City of Zeus) and as Rhoas, is about 160 km east of Ephesus.
This ancient metropolis of Phrygia Pacatiana was built on the River Lycus, 10 km south of Hierapolis, near the present village of Eskihisar in Asia Minor, by Antiochus II Theos ca 261-253 BCE in honour of his wife Laodice.
As I walked barefooted from Hierapolis, with its hot water pools, down through the white calcified terraces of Pamukkale with their pools of bright blue water, the water became noticeably cooler underfoot during the descent. Finally, when I reached the bottom of the terraces, there was a café named Laodicea that innocently proclaimed: ‘Hot and Cold Foods Served Here.’
During that walk through the white terraces of Pamukkale back in 2005, I also thought of George Fox, who is remembered in the Church Calendar today (13 January), and he trudged bare-footed and ragged through the snow-covered Market Square in Lichfield in 1651, denouncing the city as he cried out, ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield.’
At first, Laodicea had little importance, and in 188 BCE it passed to the Kingdom of Pergamum. Under Roman rule, Laodicea prospered because of its advantageous position on a trade route and became an important and flourishing commercial city that minted its own coins and with its prosperity built on banking, money transactions and an extensive trade in black wool.
It was also known as a centre for the arts, science and literature, and had a famed medical school. It was also a centre for the worship of Zeus, Aesculapius, Apollo and the imperial cult.
Antiochus the Great transported 2,000 Jewish families to Phrygia from Babylon, and so at the time the Book of Revelation was written Laodicea had a large Jewish community, which sent large donations each year to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Perhaps because of this large Jewish community, Laodicea became an early seat of Christianity with its own bishop. Laodicea is mentioned in passing in the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, and the Church in Laodicea may have been founded by the Epaphras of Colossae, who shared the care of it with Nymphas, in whose house the Church assembled.
Paul asks the Colossians to communicate to the Church of Laodicea the letter he sends them, and to read publicly a letter that should come to them from Laodicea – perhaps one he had written himself or was about to write, to the Laodiceans. In addition, some Greek manuscripts end I Timothy with the phrase: ‘Written at Laodicea, Metropolis of Phrygia Pacatiana.’
The first three named bishops associated with Laodicea are identified with people named in the New Testament: Archippus (Colossians 4: 17); Nymphas, identified with a man named Nymphas or, according to the best manuscripts, a woman named Nympha (see Colossians 4: 15); and Diotrephes (III John 9).
The Church in Laodicea survived its rebukes in this letter, and a famous Church council met there in the year 363.
The surviving archaeological ruins in Laodicea attest to its former greatness. They include the city’s stadium, gymnasium, and theatres, along with the remains of an aqueduct.
Inside the fourth century Church of Laodicea (Photograph: Blcksprt / Wikipedia)
Verse 14: The ‘Amen’ is Christ himself.
Verses 15-16: No other Church is rebuked as sternly and as harshly as the Church in Laodicea. The church is as unpalatable as the local water which has come from the hot springs in Hierapolis (Pamukkale), and has been cooled and polluted as it drips down through the encrusted, calcified terraces on the hillsides above Laodicea. This lukewarm water is now so polluted and so poisoned, it is better to spit it out.
Verse 17: Although this is a rich, proud, boastful city, the people spiritually are quite the opposite.
Verse 18: Those who have grown rich through banking and money-changing do not know the true value of real, refined, golden faith. They need to replace their black wool garments which are a sign of their prosperous trading with the white robes of baptism and true worship.
These people are also spiritually blind, and need fresh spiritual insight. Laodicea was famous at the time for the eye medicine produced locally from powdered Phrygian stone. There is a touch of irony here as the city that is famous for its eye medicine is home to Christians who are blind to their own condition.
Verse 20: Christ stands at the door, knocking. This image has inspired Holman Hunt’s painting, ‘The Light of the World.’ If we open door to Christ, then we can sit with him at the banquet, at the Eucharist.
Verse 21: Although no other church among the seven is rebuked as harshly as the Church in Laodicea, nevertheless Christ says that those who are victorious will sit with him on the Throne of God.
As with all seven churches, the church in Laodicea is called on to hear the message: ‘Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches’ (Revelation 3: 22).
Excavations at the Church in Laodicea, dating from the fourth century (Photograph: Torsten62 / Wikipedia)
Mark 2: 13-17 (NRSVA):
13 Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. 14 As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
15 And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples – for there were many who followed him. 16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick’ (Mark 2: 17) … ‘Gift of Life’, a corner of the reception area in Milton Keynes University Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 13 January 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: ‘Whom Shall I Send’ – Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Davidson Solanki, USPG Regional Manager, Asia and the Middle East.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (13 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
Let us reflect today that all human life belongs to God. We have been created in the image of God, crowned with dignity and honour.
The Collect:
Everlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed your Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
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 of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Hilary to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Epiphany 2:
Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
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 (Philadelphia)
Continued tomorrow (Saint Timothy)
Robert Spence (1871-1964), ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield,’ depicts George Fox, bare-footed and ragged, denouncing the city of Lichfield in the Market Square in 1651 (Lichfield Heritage Centre) … ‘Common Worship’ today remembers George Fox
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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