Patrick Comerford
The day is thine, and the night is thine :
thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth :
thou hast made summer and winter. (Psalm 74: 17-18)
I was back in Lichfield earlier this week (26 February 2024) for one of my own self-guided mini-retreats. We are mid-way through Lent, and I followed the daily liturgical cycle in Lichfield Cathedral, but also had lunch in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn, one of my favourite restaurants and bijou hotels.
There were long walks along Beacon Street and Strafford Street and in the countryside along Cross in Hand Lane, heading out towards Farewell, and shorter walks during the day around the Cathedral Close, Stowe Pool and Minister Pool, and in the Herb Garden at Erasmus Darwin House and in Beacon Park.
There were visits to visits to the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Saint Michael’s Church on Greenhill and Saint Mary’s Church (now the Hub) in Market Square, and a little time to browse in some bookshops.
I attended the mid-day Eucharist at the High Altar in the cathedral, and returned at the end of the day Evening Prayer in the Lady Chapel, with some quiet time for prayer and reflection.
I am working at the moment on proposals for two, paired guided historical walking tours, along Tamworth Street in Lichfield, and along Lichfield Street in Tamworth. So, I took time to photograph some of the older buildings on Tamworth Street, including the Methodist Church, the former Regal Cinema, and some of the locations associated with the poet Philip Larkin, who had many family connections with Lichfield.
These regular visits to Lichfield are an important part of my spiritual life and health. Lichfield – in particular, the Cathedral and the chapel in Saint John’s – helped to shape and grow my spiritual life and Anglican values when I was a teenager. For most of my life, they have been like a spiritual home for me, and, for more than 50 years, I have continued to return constantly, a few times each year, to pray, to reflect, to give thanks, for pilgrimage, and to be still.
The train journey between Milton Keynes and Lichfield Trent Valley rakes only an hour, making it much easier to plan these return visits.
On the final part of the train journey, between Tamworth and Lichfield, the train passes by Comberford Hall and Comberford village as it crosses the River Tame, and a smile comes across my face. The place has given me joy ever since my teens, when I decided to follow in the footsteps of my great-grandfather in search of the family history.
But there are reminders throughout Lichfield of Comberford family links: a hassock with the family name in the north aisle of the Cathedral; or an antique map in the window of the Studio in the Old Garage, Bird Street, beside the Garden of Remembrance.
There was no choir in the Cathedral on Monday evening, but Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer was led by the Canon Chancellor, Canon Gregory Platten.
At the end of the day, there was comfort in the words of Psalm 74, the Psalm for Evening Prayer that day:
The day is thine, and the night is thine :
thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth :
thou hast made summer and winter. (Psalm 74: 17-18)
Another verse in that evening psalm recalls how ‘all the earth is full of darkness’ (verse 21). Before catching a late train back to Milton Keynes, I went for another walk around Stowe Pool in that interesting light we get after sunset before darkness settles in, when the sky is deep blue, there are still hints of the sun in the distant west, the cathedral and the trees are still reflected in the waters, and it is possible to imagine and pray for a world that is at peace.
Mid-Lent, by Christina Rossetti
Is any grieved or tired? Yea, by God’s Will:
Surely God’s Will alone is good and best:
O weary man, in weariness take rest,
O hungry man, by hunger feast thy fill.
Discern thy good beneath a mask of ill,
Or build of loneliness thy secret nest:
At noon take heart, being mindful of the west,
At night wake hope, for dawn advances still.
At night wake hope. Poor soul, in such sore need
Of wakening and of girding up anew,
Hast thou that hope which fainting doth pursue?
No saint but hath pursued and hath been faint;
Bid love wake hope, for both thy steps shall speed,
Still faint yet still pursuing, O thou saint.
