20 January 2024

Daily prayers during
Christmas and Epiphany:
27, 20 January 2024

Saint Jude … a statue on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today (20 January 2023), and tomorrow is the Third Sunday of Epiphany (21 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).

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today Richard Rolle of Hampole (1349), Spiritual Writer. Today is also the third day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Before today begins, I am taking some time for reflection, reading and prayer. My reflections each morning throughout the seven days of this week have included:

1, A reflection on one of the seven people who give their names to epistles in the New Testament;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Saint Jude … an icon in the chapel of Saint Columba’s House, Woking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

7, Saint Jude:

Saint Paul does not give his own name to any of his letters, but seven people give their names to a total of seven of the letters or epistles in the New Testament: Timothy (I and II Timohty), Titus, Philemon, James, Peter (I and II Peter), John (I, II and III John), and Jude.

The Epistle of Jude is the second last book in the New Testament and in the Bible. It is traditionally attributed to Jude, brother of James the Just, and so a kinsman of Jesus too.br />
This letter consists of just one chapter with 25 verses, making it one of the shortest books in the Bible. The Letter to Philemon also has 25 verses, while three books are shorter: the Book of Obadiah with 21 verses, III John with 14 verses, and II John with 13 verses.

Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles, are celebrated in the Church Calendar together on the same day, 28 October.

Many people may associate Saint Simon with the homeless and housing crisis and think of him as someone who cares for the homeless people on our streets. However, the Simon Community takes its name from Simon of Cyrene who helps Christ carry his cross on the way to Calvary and his Crucifixion. If you asked who Jude is, you might be told he is ‘Obscure’ – or that he is the Patron of Lost Causes.

These two are little known as apostles, without fame, and that obscurity is almost affirmed by the fact that they have to share one feast day and do not have their own separate, stand-alone celebrations in the Calendar of the Church.

In an age obsessed with reality television, the X-Factor, the Apprentice or celebrities who are celebrities – just because they are – Simon and Jude appear like a pair of misfits: we know little about their lives or how they lived them, they are hardly famous among the disciples, and they certainly are not celebrity apostles.

Simon and Jude are far down on the list of the Twelve Apostles, and their names are often confused or forgotten. In the New Testament lists of the Twelve (Matthew 10: 2-4; Mark 3: 16-19; Luke 6: 14-16; Acts 1: 13), they come in near the end, in tenth and eleventh places. Well, with Judas in twelfth place, they just about make it onto the ‘first eleven.’

The ninth name on the lists is James, the James who is remembered on 23 October. Judas or Jude is often referred to as ‘the brother of James,’ and this in turn leads to him being identified with the ‘brothers of the Lord.‘ So, Simon the Zealot, one of the original Twelve, and Jude or Judas of James, also one of the Twelve and author of the Letter of Jude, are celebrated together on the same day.

Simon is not mentioned by name in the New Testament except on these lists – after all, there is a better-known Simon than this Simon: there is Simon Peter. As for Jude, his name is so close to Judas – in fact, their names are the same (Ιούδας) – is it any wonder that he became known as the patron saint of lost causes? Trying to remember him might have been a lost cause.

After the Last Supper, Jude asked Christ why he chose to reveal himself only to the disciples, and received the reply: ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to them and make our home with them’ (John 14: 22-23).

In his brief letter, Jude says he planned to write a different letter, but then heard of the misleading views of some false teachers. He makes a passionate plea to his readers to preserve the purity of the Christian faith and their good reputation.

His letter includes a memorable exhortation to ‘contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints’ (Jude 3), and ends with wonderful closing words: ‘Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen’ (Jude 24-25).

But after that, surprisingly, we know very little about the later apostolic missions of Simon and Jude, where they were missionaries or whether they were martyred.

In truth, we know very little about these two saints, bundled together at the end of a list, like two hopeless causes. There was no danger of them being servants who might want to be greater than their master (John 15: 20). All we can presume is that they laboured on, perhaps anonymously, in building up the Church.

But then the Church does not celebrate celebrities who are famous and public; we honour the saints who labour and whose labours are often hidden.

In the Gospel reading on the day Simon and Jude are celebrated (John 15: 17-27), the Apostles are warned about suffering the hatred of ‘the world.’ Later, as the Gospel was spread around the Mediterranean, isolated Christians may not have realised how quickly the Church was growing. In their persecutions and martyrdom, they may have felt forlorn and that Christianity was in danger of being a lost cause.

But in that Gospel reading, Christ encourages a beleaguered Church to see its afflictions and wounds as his own.

No matter how much we suffer, no matter how others may forget us, no matter how obscure we become, no matter how many people forget our names, no matter how often our faith and discipleship may appear to others to be lost causes, no matter how small our congregations may be, not matter how often we feel our parishes are isolated or even forgotten, we can be assured that we are no longer strangers and aliens, that we are citizens with the saints.

Saint Jude and Saint Simon in a stained glass window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Mark 3: 20-21 (NRSVA):

[Then Jesus went home,] 20 and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’

Jude Walk … a street sign in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 20 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: ‘Climate Justice from Bangladesh perspective.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday by the Right Revd Shourabh Pholia, Bishop of Barishal Diocese, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (20 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Help us O Lord to always uphold the principles of love, compassion, care and justice.

The Collect:

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.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Epiphany III:

Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
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 (Saint John)

Continued tomorrow (the Wedding at Cana)

Inside Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, Oxford … the setting for scenes in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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

St Albans Synagogue
is the first and only
purpose-built synagogue
in use in Hertfordshire

St Albans Synagogue opened in 1951, but he present Jewish community in St Albans dates back to the early 1900s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

St Albans in Hertfordshire, with a population of about 60,000, is about 30 km (20 miles) north of London. Some years ago, the Sunday Times named it the best place to live in the south-east.

The cathedral city of St Albans dates back to Roman times. But it is also a modern cosmopolitan city that is known for its relaxed pace of life.

During my visits over the past weeks or so, I also wanted to learn about Jewish life in St Albans and about the city’s two synagogues – one United (or Orthodox) and the other Masorti (or Conservative).

The United or Orthodox synagogue, St Albans Synagogue, is the oldest extant Jewish congregation in Hertfordshire and the first and only purpose-built synagogue still in use in Hertfordshire.

St Albans Synagogue is the first and only purpose-built synagogue still in use in Hertfordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Perhaps it is idle speculation to ask whether there were Jews in Verulamium, the Roman town immediately south-west of St Albans. Centuries later, Aaron of Lincoln (ca 1125-1186), the greatest financier in England, lent funds to almost all the great abbeys and monasteries, including St Albans Abbey, to finance their gothic building projects in the 12th century.

Matthew Paris, the historian of St Albans Abbey, records how Aaron of Lincoln would come to ‘the house of St Alban’ (Domum Sancti Albani) and jest with the monks ‘that it was he who made the window for our Saint Alban and that from his own money he had prepared a home for the homeless saint’ (Jactitabat se feretrum Beato Albano nostro fecisse, et ipsi, dehospitato, hospitium de pecunia sua praeparasse.)

Aaron’s jest referred to the great stained-glass window in the transept of St Albans Abbey and the large shrine created by Abbot Simon (1167-1183) for the relics of Saint Alban. This elaborately ornamented domus or home for the martyr’s remains an example of the larger-scale contributions Aaron made to cathedrals and abbeys throughout England.

The stories surrounding Saint Alban tell that his first good deed involved providing hospitality and a hiding place for a fugitive priest and religious refugee who arrived at Alban’s home during the time of the Diocletian persecutions. So, as far back as ca 300 CE, when Alban gave shelter to someone fleeing religious persecutors, we could say St Albans has been a place of welcome for a people with a diversity of backgrounds and family stories, including refugees and people fleeing persecution and discrimination.

The present organised Jewish community in St Alban dates from the mid-1930s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The present Jewish community in St Albans dates back to Jewish families who were living and working in St Albans from the early 1900s. The census records in 1901 and 1911 show that many members of those first Jewish families in St Albans worked as tailors or machinists at Nicholson’s raincoat factory in Sutton Road, Fleetville, and lived in the nearby streets.

The small number of Jewish families in St Albans met for synagogue services in family homes in and around Royston Road and Hedley Road. There was an early attempt to establish a congregation ca 1910, but this continued only until about 1924.

The present organised Jewish community in St Alban dates from the mid-1930s. A small number of Jewish families move to St Albans from London at that time, and St Albans Hebrew Congregation was formally established in 1933, with services in members’ homes. Numbers were swollen by the beginning of World War II, as more families found refuge from London in the relative peace of St Albans.

For almost a decade, from 1942 to 1951, 54 Clarence Road was both a synagogue and a home for the rabbi in St Albans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The growing community raised funds to buy a large house at 54 Clarence Road in 1942. For almost a decade, this house was both a synagogue and a home for the rabbi. Well-attended High Holy Day services were also held in the Town Hall, now the St Albans Museum and Gallery.

The congregation increased in size during World War II, with the arrival of many evacuees from heavily populated areas of Central and Eastern London. After World War II, the community was affiliated to the United (Orthodox) Synagogue in 1948.

More than 300 people attended the laying of the foundation stone for a new synagogue on Oswald Road in March 1950. The building was consecrated a year later in March 1951. This is the first and only purpose-built synagogue still in use in Hertfordshire is inaugurated in Oswald Road, St Albans in 1951. The building has two rare and beautiful stained glass windows by the artist and Hebrew scholar David Hillman.

St Albans Synagogue celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2011 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In the decades that followed, the size of the community fluctuated. More Jewish families move out to St Albans from London and the provinces in the 1960s, while older members died or moved back to London.

A new wave of young married couples moved into the area in the 1980s. Regular Shabbat morning services were reintroduced in 2001 on the eve of the shul’s 50th anniversary celebrations. As part of the celebrations of that golden jubilee in 2001, the then Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan Sacks) visited the synagogue to open its biblical garden.

St Albans Hebrew Congregation became a full member of the United Synagogue in 2011. Two years later, in 2013, it elected Karen Appleby as the first woman to chair a United Synagogue community. The present chair of the council is Elissa Da Costa-Waldman.

In 2014, the synagogue appointed of a new minister after being without a minister or rabbi since 1967, almost a gap of 50 years. The arrival of Rabbi Daniel Sturgess, together with his wife, Rebbetzin Alli, ushered in a new lease of life for the shul.

At the end of 2021, despite the coronavirus pandemic, the synagogue celebrated – in person and livestreamed – the 70th anniversary of the opening of the synagogue building. The guests of honour included Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the Mayor of St Albans, Councillor Edgar Hill, and children and grandchildren of the founder members.

Well-attended High Holy Day services were held in the Town Hall, now the St Albans Museum and Gallery, in the 1940s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A recent exhibition in St Albans Museum and Gallery, ‘Arriving and Belonging – Stories from the St Albans Jewish Community’, illustrated how some Jewish people in St Albans belong to families who came to Britain as refugees.

The exhibition ran from 4 February to 15 May 2022, and attracted over 18,000 visitors during those 15 weeks. Some of the people in the Jewish community in St Albans whose stories were told include Darren Marks, is descended from Abraham Martinez, a Sephardi Jew, and one of the first wardens at Bevis Marks synagogue.

Many of the Jews settling back in England were Sephardi, originating from Spain and Portugal, and Abraham Joseph Nunes Martinez (1719-1781) was also a direct ancestor of the sisters Rosina Sarah Sipple (1881-1958), who married Harry William John Comerford (1874-1955), and Agnes Violet (Aggie) Sipple (1884-1965), who married his brother Albert (Bert) AG Comerford.

Another community member, Judy Davis, who traces her family back eight generations to Sarah Lyon (1703-1807) of Ipswich, who died at the age of 104. She was one of the earliest Jewish settlers in England in the modern period, and an engraving of her held by her descendants is based on a painting by John Constable in 1804, when she was 101. Her son, Rabbi Isaac Titterman (1731-1818), may have been the mohel who circumcised Lord George Gordon.

Ruth Goldsmith’s grandmother Cissy Miller, was present at the Battle of Cable Street in the East End in London in 1936.

Many members of the Jewish community in St Albans feel fortunate that their families were given sanctuary in Britain and hope that Britain will continue to welcome and offer safety to people fleeing violence and persecution.

The congregation is part of the 5+1 group, consisting of six small United Synagogue communities, five in Hertfordshire and one in Bedfordshire. The other five congregations are: Potters Bar & Brookmans Park United Synagogue, Shenley United Jewish Community, Watford and District Synagogue and Welwyn Garden City Synagogue in Hertfordshire; and Luton United Synagogue in Bedfordshire.

The 5+1 group has an intercommunal social programme intended to match those provided by large synagogues, while retaining the closeness of smaller communities.

Today, St Albans Synagogue is a thriving and growing community, with an array of lively services, social and educational activities and a warm and friendly community. Membership is about 300 at present, with an increasing number of young families.

St Albans also has a Masorti Synagogue and the Bedfordshire-Hertfordshire Liberal Synagogue, now Bedfordshire Progressive Synagogue, once met in St Albans, although it now meets in Luton. But, perhaps, more about these on another Friday evening.

Shabbat Shalom

The former Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan Sacks), opened the biblical garden in 2011 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)