Newman University Church, Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin … celebrating John Henry Newman today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Newman University Church or Catholic University Church in Dublin is celebrating the Feast of Saint John Henry Newman at 11 am and 6:15 today (6 October 2024), with Archbishop Dermot Farrell, the University Church Singers and the Vocare Ensemble.
The church is tucked away behind a terrace of buildings on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green, beside Newman House and between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice.
This beautiful church, formally known as the Church of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, has been a distinctive landmark in Dublin city centre for almost 170 years and I visited it once again last week during yet another fleeting visit to Dublin.
University Church has been a distinctive landmark in Dublin city centre for almost 170 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was the most prominent member of the Oxford Movement, reconnecting Anglicanism with its Catholic roots and heritage. Newman was received into the Roman Catholic Church on 9 October 1845 and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 30 May 1847.
Newman was the founding Rector of the newly-formed Catholic University of Ireland in Spring 1854, and work on building Newman University Church in the gardens of 87 Saint Stephens Green began in May 1855.
The church opened a year later on Ascension Day, 1 May 1856. The interior decoration was completed some months later. Although the church building project was placed under the protection of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the church was formally placed under the patronage of Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom.
John Henry Newman was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, choosing as his motto Cor ad Cor Loquitor, ‘Heart Speaks to Heart’.
Inside University Church … designed in a Byzantine Revival style by John Hungerford Pollen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The church is distinctive in its architectural style and exceptional in its decoration. The English architect John Hungerford Pollen (1820-1902) designed the church in a Byzantine Revival style, in response to Newman’s dislike of Gothic architecture.
Pollen was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1845. He became a Roman Catholic in 1852, and resigned his fellowship at Merton College, Oxford, where he had worked on the hall ceiling.
Pollen’s other works, mainly in collaboration, include the University Museum in Oxford, the Arthurian murals at the Oxford Union, in a group that include Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and Brompton Oratory. Pollen was Professor of Fine Arts at the Catholic University of Ireland from 1855 to 1857. He later settled in Hampstead, worked for The Tablet and became assistant keeper of the South Kensington Museum.
Figures representing the four evangelists at the church porch (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Artistically and architecturally, the church in the style of a continental basilica and embraces both the Eastern and Western traditions of Christianity. The cost of building the church came to £5,600, almost double its original estimate, and a substantial donation from Newman helped to defray most of the costs.
The church is entered through a porch built with polychromatic brick with four short columns whose capitals bear the symbols of the four evangelists along with the figures of six angels. A suspended belfry was later built above the porch. Inside the porch, six steps lead down to the atrium, and beyond the atrium is the church.
The sanctuary and apse are inspired by San Clemente in Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Inside, the richly decorated church is oriented on a south-north axis rather than the traditional east-west liturgical orientation. It is rectangular in shape, following the dimensions and orientation of the garden on which it was built. The floor of the church is paved with unglazed Staffordshire black and red tiles.
The flat red-timbered roof is painted with acorns, oak leaves and branches. It is supported by red painted beams and joists. Just below the roof at irregular intervals are windows with knots of glass made at a bottle factory in Ringsend, Dublin.
The sanctuary, inspired by the sanctuary in San Clemente in Rome, is raised above the level of the nave and is approached by a flight of five steps. A short alabaster communion rail divides the sanctuary and the nave.
The semi-dome above the sanctuary features Our Lady enthroned as Sedes Sapientiae – the ‘Seat of Wisdom’. A great vine – the Tree of Life – fills the semi-dome, its coiled branches bearing the images of martyrs holding palm fronds, symbolic of their victory in Christ. They are surrounded by various animals of creation.
The semi-dome above the sanctuary features Our Lady enthroned as ‘Sedes Sapientiae’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
There is a richly decorated elaborate gilded baldacchino over the altar, and a marble reredos. The original alabaster altar frontal has 12 discs of Derbyshire fluorspar crystal set in two groups of six. Six tall Byzantine-shaped gilded candlesticks stand on the altar along with a cross made of brass.
At the Gospel side of the sanctuary, a choir gallery is supported on eight marble pillars. The choir gallery is over nine meters in length but only some 1.8 meters wide.
Opposite the choir gallery, outside the sanctuary area, the pulpit stands on four pillars of polished marble, each pillar bearing the symbol and name of one of the four evangelists. Perhaps because of his evangelical Anglican background, Newman placed great emphasis on the importance of preaching. He hoped to make Dublin a Catholic centre of religion and learning, as he had experienced as an Anglican in Oxford.
The pulpit stands on four pillars of polished marble, each pillar bearing the symbol and name of one of the four evangelists (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The walls of the church are decorated to a height of 4.5 meters with marble of diverse colours originating from counties in the four provinces: black from Kilkenny, green from Galway, red from Cork, and brown and grey from Armagh and Offaly.
The upper tiers of the side walls display a series of large paintings. The original work by French copy artists and chosen by John Henry Newman, were copies of tapestries designed by Raphael in the Sistine Chapel and images of the Apostles in the Church of Tre Fontaine.
All 22 paintings darkened over the years and were no longer legible. Several professional attempts at cleaning them were to no avail and the originals were replaced at the time of the 150th anniversary of the church in 2016 with paintings by the American-Turkish artist Levent Tuncer.
Saint Patrick depicted in one of the lunettes or arched panels in the sanctuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Eleven arched panels on the side walls feature saints related to Ireland or to Christian education. The lunettes in the sanctuary depict Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid, patrons of Ireland, and Saint Laurence O’Toole, patron of Dublin. Those in the nave depict Saint Dominic, Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Philip Neri, Blessed John de Britto, Saint Benedict, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Fiachra and Saint Ignatius Loyola.
Shortly after Newman returned to England, an organ was built for the gallery.
The Lady Chapel was added to the church in 1875. Three square stained-glass windows depict the Nativity, the Adoration of the Wise Men and Christ with the Doctors in the Temple – an appropriate image for a church linked initimately with life of a university. The Lady Chapel) also has small marble altar with a niche and painted statues.
The bust of Newman is by the Dublin sculptor Thomas Farrell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The posthumous bust of Newman in the church is by the Dublin sculptor Thomas Farrell and dates from 1892.
There is an interesting memorial in the church to Thomas Arnold (1823-1900), Professor of English at the Catholic University until 1862 and later Professor of English Literature at UCD from 1882 to 1900. He was a son of Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School, and a brother of the poet Matthew Arnold. One of his last students in UCD was James Joyce. Arnold was the grandfather of both Julian Huxley and Aldous Huxley.
There is a memorial in the atrium to Eugene O’Curry (1794-1862), the first Professor of Irish History and Archaeology at the Catholic University of Ireland from 1854.
The church can accommodate a congregation of 600, including 100 people in the organ gallery.
The memorial to Thomas Arnold … James Joyce was one of his last students (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Initially, the church was attached to the neighbouring Catholic University and later to Saint Kevin’s Parish, Harrington Street. It became a separate parish church in 1974.
I was in the University Church for two funerals in the same year: for over half a century, my third cousin Sean Comerford (1938-2011) was the long-serving Sacristan of the Catholic University Church; and later in 2011 was there for the funeral of Caroline Walsh, the Literary Editor of The Irish Times.
The church has been in the care of the University of Notre Dame since 2016, and the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason, founded in 2017 at the invitation of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
The church says it ‘welcomes every person as a beloved child of God’ and fosters ‘faith development through respectful dialogue between Church and culture and the meaningful integration of faith and reason’.
Inside University Church facing towardfs the north (liturgical west) end from the High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The parish team includes the Revd Gary S Chamberland CSC, Director, Dominique Cunningham, Associate Director of Liturgy and Music, and Katherine Dunn, Director of Information Technology and Communication.
Sunday Masses are at 11 am and 6:15 pm, and weekday Masses (Monday to Friday) at 1:05 pm. There is Taizé-style worship on Tuesdays at 6 pm. There is no public Mass on Bank Holidays or Saturdays.
The church has been in the care of the University of Notre Dame since 2016 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
06 October 2024
Newman University Church
has been a landmark on
Saint Stephen’s Green
in Dublin for 170 years
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UCD
Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024:
148, Sunday 6 October 2024
A summer wedding in a monastery in Crete … but today’s Gospel reading may bring us to ask whether a marriage should last longer than love (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX). Later this morning, I hope to to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, reading one of the lessons and singing with the choir.
But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Enjoying a summer wedding (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 10: 2-16 (NRSVA):
2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ 3 He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ 4 They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ 5 But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” 7 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’
10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
23 Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’
Wedding flowers strewn on the lawn at Lisnavagh House, Co Carlow, in the late evening … what happens when love fades in a marriage? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflection:
If our health is ruined, our family life and domestic situation become desperate, our income dries up, our family breaks up, we find ourselves down in the dumps and marginalised, do we blame God? How is God with us in our woes?
These are questions that arise in the first reading in the continuous readings in the lectionary this morning (Job 1: 1, 2: 1-10).
Do we see material success, prosperity, family life and children as rewards from God?
Is faith, like love, not without seeking reward?
Or do we only love – and believe – because there are rewards?
Many priests and preachers, on first reading this morning’s Gospel passage (Mark 10: 2-16), may decide to preach on one of the other readings. But if they do this, they will leave us in danger of thinking that Christ is too harsh on those who go through a divorce.
I know only too well that people who go through a marriage breakdown and divorce, and still cling on to going to church, perhaps just by their fingernails, may well ask, ‘Where is the Good News this morning?’
So, what is happening? Herod Antipas was the Governor of Galilee. He had divorced his wife Aretus to marry Herodias, the wife of his brother, Herod Philip. This caused such a scandal that when Saint John the Baptist confronted Herod about it – he was beheaded (see Mark 6: 18-19).
If Christ says it is unlawful for a man to divorce his wife, does he end up like John the Baptist?
If he says it is acceptable, does he contradict the teaching of the Torah and leave himself open to the charge of blasphemy?
The Pharisees were divided on the legality of divorce and the grounds for divorce. So, the question is a trap in another way. They say: ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her’ (Mark 10: 4). The Law of Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife, if he finds ‘something objectionable about her’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1).
Mind you, it never said a woman could divorce her husband.
A man could simply ‘write a certificate of dismissal’ (verse 4), without going through any formal legal proceedings. ‘Something objectionable’ could cover a multitude, from adultery to an eccentric hair-do on a bad hair day. Indeed, by the time of Christ, divorce was allowed for the most trivial of reasons, and was so common that many women suffered.
However, instead of falling into the trap being set for him, Christ asks the Pharisees: ‘What did Moses command you?’ (Mark 10: 3). In other words, what does the law say? He tells them Moses allowed this ‘because of your hardness of heart’ (Mark 10: 5), perhaps hinting at how hard-hearted men were now making women suffer even more.
There are other places in the New Testament where Christ, and Saint Paul and Saint Peter, accept that a man may divorce an unfaithful wife.
Saint Mark alone mentions the possibility of women also divorcing. This may have been normal in non-Jewish contexts, but cases of Jewish women initiating divorce are rare.
In this reading, Christ reminds those around him of God’s original intention. Marriage is a covenant relationship in which the two people become one and live in mutual love and affection.
Christ devotes much of his teaching time interpreting scripture in a way that gives priority to human wellbeing. For example, the Sabbath is made for us rather than we being made for the Sabbath. Similarly, we could say he is saying here that the order of marriage is made for us, not that we are made for the ordering of marriage, or worrying about the minutiae in the details religious people construct around marriage.
The way Christ interprets scriptural law ought to provide a clue to how we interpret his teaching.
Today, many of us may appear to be on the side of the Pharisees on the question of divorce. Divorce is common today and most of us accept it as a reality. Our laws and our customs, like those of the Pharisees in this Gospel story, assume divorce happens.
On a first reading of this Gospel passage this morning, Christ may appear to be harsh and uncompromising. But many marriages get stale or toxic, relationships can dry up or lose focus, self-destruct, or break down. Things go wrong for far too many reasons.
It is easy to think that the Adam and Eve story is about men and women since those are the characters in the story. But is that story not truly, really, about individuals and families, about life together, that it is better to live life together than to live life alone, and not that men are superior to women?
Marriage is a relationship that works on the principle of self-giving when all our instincts are self-serving – so, is it counter-intuitive, or is it part of the natural order?
The truth is that in many marriages life together becomes a gift that is more than we can handle. Marriages can get stale or toxic, angry or depressed. Relationships can dry up or lose focus, self-destruct, or break down under pressure. Things go wrong for far too many reasons.
A divorce may be a burial for a dead marriage. Divorces do not kill marriages any more than funerals kill people … although one of the great tragedies today is that far too many couples are burying their relationship when it is only sick or injured.
Is it not possible that the promise to be together until death can refer to the death of the relationship as well as the death of the person?
Is it not possible to recall that the original intent of our loving and caring God who gave us the gift of marriage was to make our lives better?
Does that desire of God evaporate when we are no longer in a marriage?
From the opening of this story, it is clear the Pharisees are not seeking Christ’s wisdom or compassion. Instead, they are trying to trap him. But marriage is not a trap and not a matter of expediency in which the wife is the property of the husband.
Of course, the covenant of marriage is still just as valid today. Ideally, when two people marry, they commit themselves to an exclusive relationship of love and devotion in a new entity.
But that is easier to say than it is to face up to reality, which includes the complexities of child-rearing, careers and competing religious, social and economic claims and responsibilities.
Ideally, we are not to live alone, but in loving and committed relationships. In an ideal world, there would be no such thing as divorce. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a fallen and broken world in which human nature always falls short of the glory of God. Whether we like it or not, divorce is a reality and we have to live with that.
I know only too well from my own personal experience that when people go through a divorce, the church is often the last place they can turn to for help and understanding.
But divorce is like a death. It is the death of a relationship, and so people grieve, and they need sympathy and to be consoled. Would you dare chastise someone who was grieving after the death of a family member?
I was reminded once by a divorced priest in the Church of Ireland that when God says: ‘I hate divorce ... I hate divorce’ (Malachi 2: 16), that of course God hates divorce because he has gone through the sufferings and grieving of divorce through our faithlessness and wandering.
God hates divorces because God has suffered divorce.
What a profound insight.
Too often, in debates, passages of Scripture taken out of context, or one-sided interpretations of the tradition of the Church can be used to set a trap so that people are forced to accept only one standard or practice for marriage in the world today. But in this Gospel reading, Christ responds to those who seek to trap him by refusing to accept to be trapped into accepting their interpretation of Scripture or Tradition.
Instead, he challenges those around them to think for themselves and to think with compassion.
Let us not use this reading to trap Jesus through hardness of heart. And let us not use this reading to trap vulnerable, suffering and grieving people who remain open to loving and being loved.
We must face questions about marriage and divorce, about who can be married and who can be divorced, as challenges that ask us to think outside the box, without trying to trap Jesus or to trap those who are faced with honest questions about marriage and about divorce.
From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’ (Mark 10: 6) … ‘The Arnolfini Wedding’ by Jan van Eyck (1390-1440)
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 6 October 2024, Trinity XIX):
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 the ‘Humanitarian Corridors project in Leuven, Belgium.’ This theme is introduced today with a programme update by Rebecca Breekveldt, Second Secretary, Central Committee of the Anglican Church in Belgium:
The Humanitarian Corridors provide safe routes for refugees to be received and integrated into European countries (through the innovative Humanitarian Corridors model developed by the Community of Sant’Egidio). 2024 marks the first year that USPG has supported the programme.
Through the project, the team in Leuven has welcomed two families into a warm and supportive community within the last year. Each family received their Flemish refugee approval status in record time, one within 3 months and one within 1.5 months. Both families are enrolled with OCMW, the Flemish social service, and receive ongoing wraparound support to continue their resettlement process. They are at different stages of learning Dutch, transferring credentials, returning to studies, having their children attend school and starting work.
Multiple faith communities have come together in Leuven to make the Humanitarian Corridors project possible. The families continue to express their appreciation for the support they receive from our church community. It is a massive puzzle to navigate Belgian bureaucracy, but it is made easier by the care of a friend.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 6 October 2024, Trinity XIX) invites us to pray, reflecting on these words:
‘O Lord, You have searched for me and known me
You know when I sit down and when I rise up’
May we listen to God and follow the path
He leads us along for he has a plan for us.
The Collect:
O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
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:
Holy and blessed God,
you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son
and filled us with your Holy Spirit:
may we honour you,
not only with our lips
but in lives dedicated to the service
of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Faithful Lord,
whose steadfast love never ceases
and whose mercies never come to an end:
grant us the grace to trust you
and to receive the gifts of your love,
new every morning,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
‘Holy and blessed God, you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son’ … the Post-Communion Prayer (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
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX). Later this morning, I hope to to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, reading one of the lessons and singing with the choir.
But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Enjoying a summer wedding (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 10: 2-16 (NRSVA):
2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ 3 He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ 4 They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ 5 But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” 7 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’
10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
23 Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’
Wedding flowers strewn on the lawn at Lisnavagh House, Co Carlow, in the late evening … what happens when love fades in a marriage? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflection:
If our health is ruined, our family life and domestic situation become desperate, our income dries up, our family breaks up, we find ourselves down in the dumps and marginalised, do we blame God? How is God with us in our woes?
These are questions that arise in the first reading in the continuous readings in the lectionary this morning (Job 1: 1, 2: 1-10).
Do we see material success, prosperity, family life and children as rewards from God?
Is faith, like love, not without seeking reward?
Or do we only love – and believe – because there are rewards?
Many priests and preachers, on first reading this morning’s Gospel passage (Mark 10: 2-16), may decide to preach on one of the other readings. But if they do this, they will leave us in danger of thinking that Christ is too harsh on those who go through a divorce.
I know only too well that people who go through a marriage breakdown and divorce, and still cling on to going to church, perhaps just by their fingernails, may well ask, ‘Where is the Good News this morning?’
So, what is happening? Herod Antipas was the Governor of Galilee. He had divorced his wife Aretus to marry Herodias, the wife of his brother, Herod Philip. This caused such a scandal that when Saint John the Baptist confronted Herod about it – he was beheaded (see Mark 6: 18-19).
If Christ says it is unlawful for a man to divorce his wife, does he end up like John the Baptist?
If he says it is acceptable, does he contradict the teaching of the Torah and leave himself open to the charge of blasphemy?
The Pharisees were divided on the legality of divorce and the grounds for divorce. So, the question is a trap in another way. They say: ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her’ (Mark 10: 4). The Law of Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife, if he finds ‘something objectionable about her’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1).
Mind you, it never said a woman could divorce her husband.
A man could simply ‘write a certificate of dismissal’ (verse 4), without going through any formal legal proceedings. ‘Something objectionable’ could cover a multitude, from adultery to an eccentric hair-do on a bad hair day. Indeed, by the time of Christ, divorce was allowed for the most trivial of reasons, and was so common that many women suffered.
However, instead of falling into the trap being set for him, Christ asks the Pharisees: ‘What did Moses command you?’ (Mark 10: 3). In other words, what does the law say? He tells them Moses allowed this ‘because of your hardness of heart’ (Mark 10: 5), perhaps hinting at how hard-hearted men were now making women suffer even more.
There are other places in the New Testament where Christ, and Saint Paul and Saint Peter, accept that a man may divorce an unfaithful wife.
Saint Mark alone mentions the possibility of women also divorcing. This may have been normal in non-Jewish contexts, but cases of Jewish women initiating divorce are rare.
In this reading, Christ reminds those around him of God’s original intention. Marriage is a covenant relationship in which the two people become one and live in mutual love and affection.
Christ devotes much of his teaching time interpreting scripture in a way that gives priority to human wellbeing. For example, the Sabbath is made for us rather than we being made for the Sabbath. Similarly, we could say he is saying here that the order of marriage is made for us, not that we are made for the ordering of marriage, or worrying about the minutiae in the details religious people construct around marriage.
The way Christ interprets scriptural law ought to provide a clue to how we interpret his teaching.
Today, many of us may appear to be on the side of the Pharisees on the question of divorce. Divorce is common today and most of us accept it as a reality. Our laws and our customs, like those of the Pharisees in this Gospel story, assume divorce happens.
On a first reading of this Gospel passage this morning, Christ may appear to be harsh and uncompromising. But many marriages get stale or toxic, relationships can dry up or lose focus, self-destruct, or break down. Things go wrong for far too many reasons.
It is easy to think that the Adam and Eve story is about men and women since those are the characters in the story. But is that story not truly, really, about individuals and families, about life together, that it is better to live life together than to live life alone, and not that men are superior to women?
Marriage is a relationship that works on the principle of self-giving when all our instincts are self-serving – so, is it counter-intuitive, or is it part of the natural order?
The truth is that in many marriages life together becomes a gift that is more than we can handle. Marriages can get stale or toxic, angry or depressed. Relationships can dry up or lose focus, self-destruct, or break down under pressure. Things go wrong for far too many reasons.
A divorce may be a burial for a dead marriage. Divorces do not kill marriages any more than funerals kill people … although one of the great tragedies today is that far too many couples are burying their relationship when it is only sick or injured.
Is it not possible that the promise to be together until death can refer to the death of the relationship as well as the death of the person?
Is it not possible to recall that the original intent of our loving and caring God who gave us the gift of marriage was to make our lives better?
Does that desire of God evaporate when we are no longer in a marriage?
From the opening of this story, it is clear the Pharisees are not seeking Christ’s wisdom or compassion. Instead, they are trying to trap him. But marriage is not a trap and not a matter of expediency in which the wife is the property of the husband.
Of course, the covenant of marriage is still just as valid today. Ideally, when two people marry, they commit themselves to an exclusive relationship of love and devotion in a new entity.
But that is easier to say than it is to face up to reality, which includes the complexities of child-rearing, careers and competing religious, social and economic claims and responsibilities.
Ideally, we are not to live alone, but in loving and committed relationships. In an ideal world, there would be no such thing as divorce. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a fallen and broken world in which human nature always falls short of the glory of God. Whether we like it or not, divorce is a reality and we have to live with that.
I know only too well from my own personal experience that when people go through a divorce, the church is often the last place they can turn to for help and understanding.
But divorce is like a death. It is the death of a relationship, and so people grieve, and they need sympathy and to be consoled. Would you dare chastise someone who was grieving after the death of a family member?
I was reminded once by a divorced priest in the Church of Ireland that when God says: ‘I hate divorce ... I hate divorce’ (Malachi 2: 16), that of course God hates divorce because he has gone through the sufferings and grieving of divorce through our faithlessness and wandering.
God hates divorces because God has suffered divorce.
What a profound insight.
Too often, in debates, passages of Scripture taken out of context, or one-sided interpretations of the tradition of the Church can be used to set a trap so that people are forced to accept only one standard or practice for marriage in the world today. But in this Gospel reading, Christ responds to those who seek to trap him by refusing to accept to be trapped into accepting their interpretation of Scripture or Tradition.
Instead, he challenges those around them to think for themselves and to think with compassion.
Let us not use this reading to trap Jesus through hardness of heart. And let us not use this reading to trap vulnerable, suffering and grieving people who remain open to loving and being loved.
We must face questions about marriage and divorce, about who can be married and who can be divorced, as challenges that ask us to think outside the box, without trying to trap Jesus or to trap those who are faced with honest questions about marriage and about divorce.
From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’ (Mark 10: 6) … ‘The Arnolfini Wedding’ by Jan van Eyck (1390-1440)
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 6 October 2024, Trinity XIX):
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 the ‘Humanitarian Corridors project in Leuven, Belgium.’ This theme is introduced today with a programme update by Rebecca Breekveldt, Second Secretary, Central Committee of the Anglican Church in Belgium:
The Humanitarian Corridors provide safe routes for refugees to be received and integrated into European countries (through the innovative Humanitarian Corridors model developed by the Community of Sant’Egidio). 2024 marks the first year that USPG has supported the programme.
Through the project, the team in Leuven has welcomed two families into a warm and supportive community within the last year. Each family received their Flemish refugee approval status in record time, one within 3 months and one within 1.5 months. Both families are enrolled with OCMW, the Flemish social service, and receive ongoing wraparound support to continue their resettlement process. They are at different stages of learning Dutch, transferring credentials, returning to studies, having their children attend school and starting work.
Multiple faith communities have come together in Leuven to make the Humanitarian Corridors project possible. The families continue to express their appreciation for the support they receive from our church community. It is a massive puzzle to navigate Belgian bureaucracy, but it is made easier by the care of a friend.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 6 October 2024, Trinity XIX) invites us to pray, reflecting on these words:
‘O Lord, You have searched for me and known me
You know when I sit down and when I rise up’
May we listen to God and follow the path
He leads us along for he has a plan for us.
The Collect:
O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
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:
Holy and blessed God,
you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son
and filled us with your Holy Spirit:
may we honour you,
not only with our lips
but in lives dedicated to the service
of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Faithful Lord,
whose steadfast love never ceases
and whose mercies never come to an end:
grant us the grace to trust you
and to receive the gifts of your love,
new every morning,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
‘Holy and blessed God, you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son’ … the Post-Communion Prayer (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
Heath Street Baptist Church
in Hampstead, built after
a widowed father’s prayer
for his son’s recovery
Heath Street Baptist Church was founded in Hampstead in 1861. It stands halfway between Hampstead High Street and Hampstead Heath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Throughout this week, I have been blogging about a number of churches and chapels in Hampstead I have visited recently. They include Saint John-at-Hampstead, the ancient parish church on Church Row; Saint John’s Downshire Hill, the last remaining proprietary chapel within the Diocese of London; and Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel in Hampstead; as well as three former churches that have been closed and found new uses: Saint Stephen’s Church, considered the architectural masterpiece of SS Teulon; the former Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church with its unusual hexagonal shape and now one of the world’s largest recording rooms; and the former Trinity Presbyterian Church.
Heath Street Baptist Church was founded in Hampstead in 1861. It stands halfway between Hampstead High Street and Hampstead Heath, and is a minute’s walk from Hampstead Station. The church sees itself as a place of beauty, tranquillity and reality in the heart of busy London.
The first Baptist meetings in Hampstead are said to have started on Holly Bush Hill in 1811, when a room in George Hart’s house was registered for worship in 1816. The Revd James Castleden was invited to be the minister in 1817, and he remained until he died in 1854.
Castleden was a well-known preacher and a friend of both the Revd Thomas Ainger, the Church of England Vicar of Hampstead, and the Abbé Morel, the local Roman Catholic priest. Castleden erected a large building on Holly Bush Hill, later No 17 Holly Mount, with a residence on ground floor and Bethel Baptist chapel above.
Bethel Baptist Chapel opened in 1818 and membership quickly rose to 80. Bethel Baptist Chapel was a Strict Baptist chapel until 1825, when Castleden opened the communion service to all. This caused a number of members to leave, and seceders founded Ebenezer Strict Baptist Chapel at New End.
Bethel Chapel was described as solid and commodious, with galleries, but rather comfortless. In 1851 it seated 450 people and attendances were was 110 in the morning, 40 in the afternoon, and 150 in the evening.
Eight years after Castleden died in 1854, Bethel Baptist Chapel was dissolved in 1862 after Heath Street Church opened. Some members joined the Baptist churches in New End or on Heath Street, while others met at Montagu Grove (No 103-109 Frognal), the residence of Richard Burdon Sanderson who acted as minister until 1864. After that, 32 members then joined New End chapel.
Ebenezer Strict Baptist Chapel at Christchurch Passage, New End, originated when eight members and several adherents seceded from the Bethel Chapel in 1825. They were offered meeting rooms in the homes at New End of George Jackson (1825) and James Rice Seymour (1826).
Their numbers grew quickly and the Ebenezer Chapel opened in 1827 in a former schoolroom. By 1851, the chapel seated 170 people, and attendances was 30 in the morning and 36 in the evening.
The chapel was compulsorily purchased for the Carnegie House flats in 1938, and the congregation then moved to Temple Fortune, Hendon.
Heath Street Baptist Church opened its doors in Hampstead in 1861 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Meanwhile, Heath Street Baptist Church was founded by the Victorian timber tycoon James Harvey, in gratitude for his son’s recovery from sickness. Harvey was a deacon at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church and recently widowed. His Alfred James Harvey was so ill the doctors said there was only one hope. The family would have to leave Bloomsbury Square to live somewhere that offered a slim chance that ‘the delicate health of the child’ might recover in fresher, cleaner air.
James Harvey chose Hampstead, and from the first week he arrived he would go each Sunday to the house around the corner where the local Baptist community met for worship and prayer. The prayers for Alfred were heard, the boy recovered, and his father felt the time had come to show his gratitude.
Harvey obtained a site on a former nursery 1861, and he provided a large part of the cost of building the chapel, as local Baptists where poor.
Inside Heath Street Baptist Church, founded in Hampstead (Photograph: Heath Street Baptist Church)
The church is built of brick with a prominent ashlar west front in the Decorated style with twin spires. It was designed by CG Searle in 1861, with seating for 700 people. The first minister was the Revd William Brook jr, and the church was formed with 34 members in 1862, many from the earlier Baptist church on Holly Bush Hill.
Open-air services were held on Sunday evenings on Hampstead Heath and in New End, and during the week in the back streets of Hampstead. Membership rose to 226 in 1871, 320 in 1881, 424 in 1904, and reached a peak of 527 in 1913. Attendance in 1886 was 457 in the morning and 351 in the evening; by 1903, those figure were 253 and 291.
Those numbers fell with World War I, although 33 new members joined after the closure of Regent’s Park Church in 1922. The number of members was put at 184 in 1952. The church joined the London Baptist Association when it was formed in 1865. A city missionary was supported by members to work among summer visitors to Hampstead Heath.
Winter services were also held at Child’s Hill in Hendon, where a mission hall seating 150 people opened in 1867. A chapel opened there in 1870 with seating for 450. It became an independent church in 1877.
James Hey also gave adjoining land in 1881 where a lecture hall was built with classrooms below. A gymnasium with a reading and recreation rooms was built on a plot in Cornick’s Yard bought by a church member in 1896. Rickett Hall was built for a men’s institute in 1908.
Drummond Street Mission, which was built in Kentish Town in 1865, was taken over by Heath Street Baptist Church when Regent’s Park church closed. It became separate as Regent’s Park Free Church in 1958. Heath Street Baptist Church has also many foreign mission workers, including Sir Clement Chesterman (1894-1963), who overhauled the health system in what is now the Congo and helped set up the Congolese National Health Service.
Ebenezer Strict Baptist Chapel at Kilburn Vale (later Hermit Place), Belsize Road, was built 1870 in memory of Thomas Creswick by his sister. He had preached nearby in open air and worked among sick people in 1859-1868. The site was said to be near where he preached his last sermon.
Brondesbury Baptist Chapel on the corner of Kilburn High and Iverson Road, was built on a site given by James Harvey in 1878. It was an ornate building with a tower and spire designed by WA Dixon and seating 780 people. The church closed in 1980 and was demolished, with plans for a smaller church and sheltered flats.
Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead, expresses its mission as the ‘the desire ... to see strangers transformed into a community, and neighbours working together to transform the world. Our community is founded on our common desire to love God, serve our neighbourhood, and follow Jesus Christ.’
• The Revd Ewan King is the minister of Heath Street Baptist Church. Sundays services at 11 am follow a traditional pattern of prayers, Bible readings, hymns and sermon. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated on the first Sunday of each month and all ‘who love the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to be his disciples are welcome to join us around his table’. The church also runs the Contact Club for homeless people in Hampstead on Sunday evenings, hosts a baby and toddler music group and is a venue for concerts.
Heath Street Baptist Church hosts Sunday services, a Sunday evening club for homeless people, a baby and toddler music group and concerts (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Throughout this week, I have been blogging about a number of churches and chapels in Hampstead I have visited recently. They include Saint John-at-Hampstead, the ancient parish church on Church Row; Saint John’s Downshire Hill, the last remaining proprietary chapel within the Diocese of London; and Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel in Hampstead; as well as three former churches that have been closed and found new uses: Saint Stephen’s Church, considered the architectural masterpiece of SS Teulon; the former Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church with its unusual hexagonal shape and now one of the world’s largest recording rooms; and the former Trinity Presbyterian Church.
Heath Street Baptist Church was founded in Hampstead in 1861. It stands halfway between Hampstead High Street and Hampstead Heath, and is a minute’s walk from Hampstead Station. The church sees itself as a place of beauty, tranquillity and reality in the heart of busy London.
The first Baptist meetings in Hampstead are said to have started on Holly Bush Hill in 1811, when a room in George Hart’s house was registered for worship in 1816. The Revd James Castleden was invited to be the minister in 1817, and he remained until he died in 1854.
Castleden was a well-known preacher and a friend of both the Revd Thomas Ainger, the Church of England Vicar of Hampstead, and the Abbé Morel, the local Roman Catholic priest. Castleden erected a large building on Holly Bush Hill, later No 17 Holly Mount, with a residence on ground floor and Bethel Baptist chapel above.
Bethel Baptist Chapel opened in 1818 and membership quickly rose to 80. Bethel Baptist Chapel was a Strict Baptist chapel until 1825, when Castleden opened the communion service to all. This caused a number of members to leave, and seceders founded Ebenezer Strict Baptist Chapel at New End.
Bethel Chapel was described as solid and commodious, with galleries, but rather comfortless. In 1851 it seated 450 people and attendances were was 110 in the morning, 40 in the afternoon, and 150 in the evening.
Eight years after Castleden died in 1854, Bethel Baptist Chapel was dissolved in 1862 after Heath Street Church opened. Some members joined the Baptist churches in New End or on Heath Street, while others met at Montagu Grove (No 103-109 Frognal), the residence of Richard Burdon Sanderson who acted as minister until 1864. After that, 32 members then joined New End chapel.
Ebenezer Strict Baptist Chapel at Christchurch Passage, New End, originated when eight members and several adherents seceded from the Bethel Chapel in 1825. They were offered meeting rooms in the homes at New End of George Jackson (1825) and James Rice Seymour (1826).
Their numbers grew quickly and the Ebenezer Chapel opened in 1827 in a former schoolroom. By 1851, the chapel seated 170 people, and attendances was 30 in the morning and 36 in the evening.
The chapel was compulsorily purchased for the Carnegie House flats in 1938, and the congregation then moved to Temple Fortune, Hendon.
Heath Street Baptist Church opened its doors in Hampstead in 1861 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Meanwhile, Heath Street Baptist Church was founded by the Victorian timber tycoon James Harvey, in gratitude for his son’s recovery from sickness. Harvey was a deacon at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church and recently widowed. His Alfred James Harvey was so ill the doctors said there was only one hope. The family would have to leave Bloomsbury Square to live somewhere that offered a slim chance that ‘the delicate health of the child’ might recover in fresher, cleaner air.
James Harvey chose Hampstead, and from the first week he arrived he would go each Sunday to the house around the corner where the local Baptist community met for worship and prayer. The prayers for Alfred were heard, the boy recovered, and his father felt the time had come to show his gratitude.
Harvey obtained a site on a former nursery 1861, and he provided a large part of the cost of building the chapel, as local Baptists where poor.
Inside Heath Street Baptist Church, founded in Hampstead (Photograph: Heath Street Baptist Church)
The church is built of brick with a prominent ashlar west front in the Decorated style with twin spires. It was designed by CG Searle in 1861, with seating for 700 people. The first minister was the Revd William Brook jr, and the church was formed with 34 members in 1862, many from the earlier Baptist church on Holly Bush Hill.
Open-air services were held on Sunday evenings on Hampstead Heath and in New End, and during the week in the back streets of Hampstead. Membership rose to 226 in 1871, 320 in 1881, 424 in 1904, and reached a peak of 527 in 1913. Attendance in 1886 was 457 in the morning and 351 in the evening; by 1903, those figure were 253 and 291.
Those numbers fell with World War I, although 33 new members joined after the closure of Regent’s Park Church in 1922. The number of members was put at 184 in 1952. The church joined the London Baptist Association when it was formed in 1865. A city missionary was supported by members to work among summer visitors to Hampstead Heath.
Winter services were also held at Child’s Hill in Hendon, where a mission hall seating 150 people opened in 1867. A chapel opened there in 1870 with seating for 450. It became an independent church in 1877.
James Hey also gave adjoining land in 1881 where a lecture hall was built with classrooms below. A gymnasium with a reading and recreation rooms was built on a plot in Cornick’s Yard bought by a church member in 1896. Rickett Hall was built for a men’s institute in 1908.
Drummond Street Mission, which was built in Kentish Town in 1865, was taken over by Heath Street Baptist Church when Regent’s Park church closed. It became separate as Regent’s Park Free Church in 1958. Heath Street Baptist Church has also many foreign mission workers, including Sir Clement Chesterman (1894-1963), who overhauled the health system in what is now the Congo and helped set up the Congolese National Health Service.
Ebenezer Strict Baptist Chapel at Kilburn Vale (later Hermit Place), Belsize Road, was built 1870 in memory of Thomas Creswick by his sister. He had preached nearby in open air and worked among sick people in 1859-1868. The site was said to be near where he preached his last sermon.
Brondesbury Baptist Chapel on the corner of Kilburn High and Iverson Road, was built on a site given by James Harvey in 1878. It was an ornate building with a tower and spire designed by WA Dixon and seating 780 people. The church closed in 1980 and was demolished, with plans for a smaller church and sheltered flats.
Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead, expresses its mission as the ‘the desire ... to see strangers transformed into a community, and neighbours working together to transform the world. Our community is founded on our common desire to love God, serve our neighbourhood, and follow Jesus Christ.’
• The Revd Ewan King is the minister of Heath Street Baptist Church. Sundays services at 11 am follow a traditional pattern of prayers, Bible readings, hymns and sermon. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated on the first Sunday of each month and all ‘who love the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to be his disciples are welcome to join us around his table’. The church also runs the Contact Club for homeless people in Hampstead on Sunday evenings, hosts a baby and toddler music group and is a venue for concerts.
Heath Street Baptist Church hosts Sunday services, a Sunday evening club for homeless people, a baby and toddler music group and concerts (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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