Daily prayer in Lent with early English saints: 2, 15 February 2024,Saint Petroc of Cornwall

A Cornish Cross in a churchyard in Cornwall … Saint Petroc is often known as ‘the captain of Cornish saints’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Season of Lent begins yesterday with Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and I sang with the Parish Choir at the Ash Wednesday liturgy in the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles in Stony Stratford last night.

Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Sigfrid (1045), Bishop, Apostle of Sweden, and Thomas Bray (1730), priest, and founder of both SPCK and SPG (now USPG). USPG is marking Founder’s Day today (15 February 2024) in Saint Alban the Martyr Church, London, at 11 am.

In previous years, my Lenten reflections have journeyed with the saints, looked at Lent in Art, discussed poems in Lent, reflected on the music of Vaughan Williams, selected sayings from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield lexicographer, and similar themes.

This year, I am taking time each morning in Lent to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated by the Church of England in the Calendar of Common Worship. I began this series yesterday with a reflection on Saint Alban, England’s first martyr and saint.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time early 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.

A Celtic Cross in a churchyard in Cornwall … Saint Petroc is often known as ‘the captain of Cornish saints’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Early English pre-Reformation saints: 2, Saint Petroc, Abbot of Padstow (6th century)

Saint Petroc, the sixth century Abbot of Padstow, is often known as ‘the captain of Cornish saints.’ Saint Petroc seems to have been the son of a Welsh chieftain. When he arrived in Cornwall, he founded a monastery at Lanwethinoc, now called Padstow (‘Petroc’s Stow’). He later founded another monastery at Bodmin.

It seems that for most of his life Saint Petroc lived as a hermit, although he travelled regularly to visit monasteries.

He died at Treravel and was buried at Padstow. Many churches in Devon and Cornwall are dedicated to his memory. He is commemorated in Common Worship on 4 June.

Padstow is a fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, on the west bank of the River Camel estuary, 16 km north-west of Bodmin and 16 km north-east of Newquay. It has a population of about 3,000.

‘… let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me’ (Luke 8: 23) … a ‘Miner’s Loaf’ with a Cornish Cross on a market stall in Cornwall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 8: 22-25 (NRSVA):

22 [Jesus said], ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’

23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. 25 What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?

‘… let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me’ (Luke 8: 23) … the rood beam in a church in Cornwall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 15 February 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 ‘Ash Wednesday Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Jessie Anand, Chaplain, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (15 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for all who seek to educate and inform. May our places of learning be open to all, offering new pathways and new vision.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
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:

Almighty God,
you have given your only Son to be for us
both a sacrifice for sin
and also an example of godly life:
give us grace
that we may always most thankfully receive
these his inestimable gifts,
and also daily endeavour
to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
our lives are laid open before you:
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday: Saint Alban (ca 250)

Tomorrow: Saint Augustine (605), first Archbishop of Canterbury

Saints in the reredos in Truro Cathedral, the cathedral of Cornwall (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

A taste of literary life in Paris at a table at Les Deux Magots in Place Saint-Germain

Les Deux Magots, the celebrated literary café and restaurant at Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

One night last week, after strolling around the Left Bank and the Latin Quarter in Paris for an hour or two after dinner, we ended up sipping drinks at Les Deux Magots, the celebrated literary café and restaurant at 6 Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the 6th arrondissement.

We sat for a while at a table facing onto the Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Boulevard Saint-Germain, across from the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the sixth century church that is one of the oldest in Paris and that gives its name to this quarter.

The cafés in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter include Les Deux Magots, Café de Flore, the Brasserie Lipp and le Procope, which we had visited earlier that day. There are many bookshops and publishing houses in the area, and – as the street sign near our table reminded us – in the 1940s and 1950s, this was the centre of the existentialist movement associated with Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1902-1986).

A street sign is a reminder of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

If Le Procope claims to be the oldest café in Paris, then Les Deux Magots earned its reputation as the rendezvous of the city’s literary and intellectual elite. It is now a popular tourist destination, but its reputation comes from the patronage of writers, artists, intellectuals like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, and writers such as James Joyce, George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway.

Other patrons included Albert Camus, Pablo Picasso, Bertolt Brecht, Julia Child and the American writers James Baldwin, Chester Himes and Richard Wright.

When James Joyce was interviewed by Djuna Barnes for Vanity Fair in Les Deux Magots in 1922, he ordered a glass of white wine. In 1948, George Orwell thought he remembered seeing James Joyce in Les Deux Magots 20 years earlier in 1928, ‘but I’ve never quite been able to swear to that because J. was not of very distinctive appearance.’

James Joyce refers to the café in Finnegans Wake (1939), it is referred to by Vladimir Nabokov in (1955), by Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast (1964), and it features in several films and television dramas.

Since the beginning, Café Deux Magots has been the favourite haunt of artists and writers such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Louis Aragon, André Gide, Jean Giraudoux, Fernand Léger, Jacques Prévert and Ernest Hemingway.

It was there that many literary and artistic movements were conceived and nurtured, such as the surrealism of André Breton and the ideas of existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

‘Les Deux Magots de la Chine’ who give the café its name (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The word magot is said to mean ‘stocky figurine from the Far East.’ The name originally belonged to a silk and novelty shop nearby at 23 rue de Buci. The shop was there from 1812, and took its name from a popular play of the 19th century, Les Deux Magots de la Chine. Two statues representing Chinese ‘mandarins’, or ‘magicians’, or alchemists, gazed down over the room.

The shop was moved to place Saint-Germain-des-Prés on the Boulevard Saint Germain, opposite the church, in 1873, so that the business could expand. It gave way in 1884 to a café and bar under the name brought from rue de Buci. Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé and other writers then became regular habitués, meeting there in the midst of absinth vapours and cigar smoke.

The business was on the brink of bankruptcy when Auguste Boulay bought it in 1914 for 400,000 francs. He made it more brightly lit and welcoming, attracting Guillaume Apollinaire and his friends. But the statues of the two magots have remained the same ever since the café opened.

The café enhanced its role in Parisian cultural and literary life with the creation of the Prix des Deux Magots in 1933. Raymond Queneau was the first recipient and the literary prize has been awarded to a French novel each year since.

In the 1950s, you could have listented to Boris Vian play his trumpet, while Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir sat at a table where she worked on her novel Les Mandarins, which received the Goncourt Prize in 1954, or as Ernest Hemingway was smoking a cigar at the end of the room.

The shop has been located across the square from the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés since 1873 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The café became a favourite location and background for films in the 1970s, including the comedy The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob and the cult film La Maman et la Putain.

When the Mathivat family became involved in the café in 1985, they developed the restaurant. Catherine Mathivat, a great-great-granddaughter of Auguste Boulay, started to work in the café in 1993. When her father died in 2012, she became the fourth-generation owner and was determined to breathe new life into the café.

When a study showed that 60% of the clientele were international tourists, Catherine Mathivat and her cousin Jacques Vergnaud began working to redesign the café and to reclaim its Parisian clientele.

There are cafés with the name and brand of Les Deux Magots in Riyadh, Tokyo and São Paulo, and there are plans to bring this unique French brand and a taste of Parisian life to Cape Town, Prague, London and Guangzhou. But the café in Paris is the flagship and a recent report shows the café in Saint-Germain alone has an annual revenue of €15 million.

Les Deux Magots remains an exciting creative and cultural crossroads in French life, drawing celebrities from the arts, and the literary, fashion and political worlds, as well as tourists who come to savour an authentic slice of Paris.

It was still a week time before Lent, and it was not yet Saint Valentine’s Day. But it was a delayed honeymoon of sorts. So we lingered a little longer, savouring the literay legacy and imagined the wroters and philosophers who had been here before us. I enjoyed a glass of red wine rather than joining James Joyce in that glass of white wine over a century ago. We stepped inside to see the original figures who give their name to Les Deux Magots, still perched on the wall overseeing the evening conversations, before strolling back to our hotel.

‘Santé!’ … sharing a glass with James Joyce, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and so many more (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)