Daily prayer in Lent with early English saints: 21, 5 March 2024, The Venerable Bede

An icon of the Venerable Bede written in 2010 by Brother Kenneth Hosley OPC for Saint Bede’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta, Georgia

Patrick Comerford

The Season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and this week began with the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III, 3 March 2024).

Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in Common Worship.

I have another medical appointment later today, the fourth in the past two weeks, as I continue to ponder what I think are symptoms of my pulmonary sarcoidosis and Vitamin B12 deficiency. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time 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.

An icon of Saint Bede in the Parish of Saint Bede the Venerable in Mentor, Ohio, by Christine Uveges of Eikona Studios, Cleveland, Ohio

Early English pre-Reformation saints: 21, The Venerable Bede

The Venerable Bede (735), monk at Jarrow, scholar and historian, is commemorated in the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship on 25 May.

Bede was born in Northumbria around the year 670. When he was seven years old, his family gave him to the monastery of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Wearmouth. He then moved to Jarrow, where he lived as a monk for the rest of his life.

Although it seems he never travelled further than York, his monastery – first under Abbot Benedict Biscop and then Abbot Ceolfrith – was a centre of learning, and Bede studied extensively. He used all the resources available to write the most complete history of Christian England up to the year 729, as well as commentaries on books of the Bible.

He was renowned for his monastic fidelity and his love of teaching, and was fondly remembered by his pupils, including his biographer. He died peacefully on the eve of Ascension Day in the year 735.

The Venerable Bede depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Matthew 18: 21-35 (NRSVA):

21 Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ 22 Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

23 ‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” 29 Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow-slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

Saint Bede’s Catholic Church on the High Street in Newport Pagnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 5 March 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 ‘International Women’s Day Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Beverley A Mason, Bishop of Warrington.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (5 March 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for our faithful witness. Pray for all Christian communities that we will be slow to judge and quick to welcome, to show hospitality, mercy and generosity.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
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:

Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday: Saint Wilfrid of Ripon

Tomorrow: Saint Willibrord of York

Saint Bede’s Church in Newport Pagnell was a mission hall before it was converted into a Catholic church in 1953 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

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

Sir John Betjeman is celebrated as the poet who saved St Pancras Station

The larger-than-life statue in St Pancras Station of the poet Sir John Betjeman by Martin Jennings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

As Charlotte and I were passing through St Pancras station in London last month, on our way to and from Paris on the Eurostar, two sculptures that caught my eye were ‘The Meeting Place’ or ‘The Lovers Statue’ by Paul Day, which is said to make St Pancras ‘one of the most romantic meeting places’, and the larger-than-life statue of the poet Sir John Betjeman by Martin Jennings.

The former Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984) has been honoured appropriately in this way because he led the campaign to save St Pancras Station and the Chambers from demolition in the 1960s.

Betjeman was a railway enthusiast and a keen advocate for the conservation of Victorian architecture. The 8.5 ft sculpture by Martin Jennings is designed to celebrate the man, his poetry and his campaigning.

Martin Jennings has made many representations of great writers and poets. Apart from John Betjeman at St Pancras Station, his works include Philip Larkin in Hull, Charles Dickens in Portsmouth and George Orwell outside BBC Broadcasting House in London.

He has also worked on celebrated figures from the medical profession, including John Radcliffe in Oxford, Archibald McIndoe in East Grinstead and Mary Seacole outside Saint Thomas’s Hospital in London. His sculpture of the former prime minister Stanley Baldwin stands in Bewdley, Worcestershire, and his seated figure of the actor and comedian Ronnie Barker is in Aylesbury. His sculptures are cast in bronze with accompanying text carved in stone or slate around them.

Martin Jennings lives and works near Stroud in Gloucestershire. He studied calligraphy, letter-cutting and stone-carving following an MA in English Language and Literature at Oxford. He has had numerous commissions to carve memorials and architectural inscriptions for churches and churchyards, cathedrals, colleges and public buildings.

He was commissioned to carve stone figure sculptures and to model portrait busts from life in his Oxford studio. His subjects have included the athlete Roger Bannister, former prime minister Edward Heath, and actor Edward Fox. His sculpture of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was installed in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, in 2000.

The National Portrait Gallery in London displays three of Jennings’s works, including a bronze mask of the author Philip Pullman and a portrait cast in sterling silver of the lawyer Lord Bingham of Cornhill.

The statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras railway station is a depiction in bronze was designed and cast in 2007. It was unveiled on 12 November 2007 by Betjeman’s daughter, Candida Lycett Green and the then Poet Laureate Andrew Motion at the opening of St Pancras International as the London terminus of the Eurostar high-speed rail link between London and mainland Europe.

The location memorialises the connection between St Pancras station and Betjeman, an early and lifelong advocate of Victorian architecture. Betjeman was a founding member of the Victorian Society in 1957, at a time when appreciation of Victorian architecture and its architects was at its nadir.

Critics wrote harshly about of the ‘architectural tragedy’ of the 19thc century, ridiculed ‘the uncompromising ugliness’ of the buildings and attacked the ‘sadistic hatred of beauty’ of its architects.

The Victorian Society met an early defeat in 1961 when British Railways destroyed the Euston Arch, Philip Hardwick’s Doric entrance to Euston Station. Soon after, British Railways announced plans to demolish both St Pancras Station and the attached Midland Hotel, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and King’s Cross station.

As vice-chairman of the Victorian Society, Betjeman led the campaign to save St Pancras. He enlisted the support of Sir John Summerson, noted architectural historian and curator of the Soane Museum, and this support was instrumental in gaining Grade I listed building status for the station and hotel in 1967, a designation that ensured their survival.

Scott’s legacy of churches, cathedrals, houses and public buildings includes the Albert Memorial, the Foreign Office and the former Midland Grand Hotel. He was the architect at Lichfield Cathedral from 1855 to 1878, first restoring the interior and then working on the exterior, including the West Front. But by the time of Betjeman’s campaign to save his station, his reputation was at its lowest.

St Pancras was renovated in a multi-million pound restoration that is now much admired. Critics have recently described it as the ‘greatest of High Victorian secular buildings’ and ‘Britain's most impressive station.’ At the same time, the Midland Hotel was threatened with demolition. But Betjeman and the Victorian Society campaigned to save it and the hotel too was Grade I listed. The hotel reopened in 2011 as the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel.

Martin Jennings shows the poet clad in suit, mackintosh and trilby hat, capturing his ‘shabby appearance, shoelace and scruffy collar are undone … knotted string for one shoelace.’ The poet holds his hat as he gazes up at the glass ceiling of the Barlow Shed in the station. Jennings designed Betjeman’s coat-tail to emulate the shape of the roof of the Barlow Shed.

The 2.10 metre (6.9 ft) statue stands on a plinth of Cumbrian slate with words from some of Betjeman’s poems inscribed in the base. The central text reads: ‘And in the shadowless unclouded glare, / Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where, / A misty sealine meets the wash of air. / John Betjeman, 1906-1984, poet, who saved this glorious station.’

The quotation is verse six of his poem ‘Cornish Cliffs’ – a curious choice as no train ever went southwest from St Pancras. But there are lines from other poems by Betjeman in five roundels dotted around the concourse.

The opening lines to ‘The Hon. Sec.’:

A gentle guest, a willing host,
Affection deeply planted –
It’s strange that those we miss the most
Are those we take for granted

The opening lines to ‘St Saviour’s, Aberdeen Park, Highbury, London N1’:

Beyond the throb of the engines is the throbbing heart of all.

The opening lines of ‘Undenominational’:

Revival ran along the hedge
And made my spirit whole
When steam was on the window panes
And glory in my soul

The opening lines of ‘Uffington’:

Imprisoned in a cage of sound
Even the trivial seems profound.

And the opening lines of ‘Winter Seascape’:

Here where the cliffs alone prevail
I stand exultant, neutral, free,
And from the cushion of the gale
Behold a huge consoling sea.

The statue of Sir John Betjeman by Martin Jennings shows the poet holding his hat as he gazes up at the glass ceiling of the Barlow Shed in St Pancras station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)