Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 173, Thursday 31 October 2024

‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings’ (Luke 13: 34) … a painting of Grey’s Guest House on Achill Island, Co Mayo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We come to the end of Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar today. The week began with the Last Sunday after Trinity (27 October 2024). The Church Calendar in many parts of the Church today remembers Martin Luther (1483-1546), Reformer. This is also Hallowe’en or the Eve of All Saints’ Day. The Kingdom Season begins tomorrow with All Saints’ Day (1 November 2024) and continues until Advent Sunday (1 December 2024).

Before the day begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings’ (Luke 13: 34) … farmyard hens in Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 13: 31-35 (NRSVA):

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ 32 He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”.’

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I desired to gather your children together’ (Luke 13: 34) … the city of Jerusalem depicted on a tile in a restaurant in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In my private meditations and prayers, I often reflect on words from Samuel Johnson from Lichfield, who compiled the first English-language dictionary but who is also often regarded as one of the great Anglican saints of the 18th century. Thinking about the stars at night, the great tragedies in the world and the unbounded love of God, Dr Johnson once wrote:

‘The pensive man at one time walks ‘unseen’ to muse at midnight, and at another hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home he sits in a room lighted only by ‘glowing embers’; or by a lonely lamp outwatches the North Star to discover the habitation of separate souls, and varies the shades of meditation by contemplating the magnificent or pathetick scenes of tragick and epick poetry.’

Sometimes, I have found as I stood presiding at or celebrating the Holy Communion or the Eucharist that I am taken aback by intense feelings of the love of God.

On one memorable occasion, this happened to me as I was using the ‘Prayer of Humble Access’ at the fraction, when we were breaking the Bread of Communion at the invitation.

It is a prayer that has gone out of fashion in many parishes, but it is a reminder that we come to the Table or the Altar not because of our own goodness, not in spite of our own sinfulness, but because of the overflowing mercy and grace that God gives us freely and with unlimited bounty:

We do not presume to come to this your table,
merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness
but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
But you art the same Lord,
whose nature is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

I was taken aback and was conscious of the love of God unexpectedly as I came to those words: ‘We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.’

What flashed across my mind was a video clip that had gone viral at that time on YouTube and social media, of two small, frail abandoned children caught up in Syria’s bloody civil war, fending for themselves by picking up crumbs of bread from the street to eat.

These two homeless mites, who are braver than any groups fighting or waging war in Syria, told the camera crew: ‘We go to sleep hungry, we wake up hungry.’

They have been separated from their parents. At the time, the Anglican mission agency, USPG, was working with the plight of Syrian refugees in Lesvos and Athens and other parts of Greece.

In that video clip, the 10-year-old girl said she had been collecting bread crumbs off the street with her brother because their area of Damascus, al-Hajar, has been under siege for more than 15 months.

‘If we had food, you wouldn’t have seen us here,’ she said.

But their final message to the world that had abandoned them was: ‘May you be happy and blessed with what God has given you!’

Europe takes pity on children like this when we see them on YouTube or on the 9 o’clock news. But when they land on our shores in the Aegean Islands in Greece, or make their way up through central Europe and cross the Channel into England, we deem them not worthy to gather up the crumbs under our table.

I have looked at this video clip again and again since then. And I think of the image of Christ in our Gospel reading this morning:

‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Luke 13: 34)

The children of the world are the future of the world. It does not matter whose children they are. It does not matter how many of them there are: whether they are two children searching for crumbs that I am not worthy to gather up, or small enough to be gathered in by a loving parent, or are countless in numbers like the stars, they are all embraced in the love of the loving and living God. They are all heirs to God’s promises.

And how we respond to them, how I respond to them, shows them what I think, what we think, of God and how much we believe in his promises.



Today’s Prayers (Thursday 31 October 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 ‘All Saints’ Day’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by the Revd Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 31 October 2024) invites us to pray:

We give thanks for the rich diversity of the Church across the world – for all we can learn from one another and our different cultures.

The Collect:

Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
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 all grace,
your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry
with the bread of his life
and the word of his kingdom:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your true and living bread;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
teach us to be faithful in change and uncertainty,
that trusting in your word
and obeying your will
we may enter the unfailing joy of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of All Saints’ Day:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
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

Continued Tomorrow

‘We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table’ (the Prayer of Humble Access) … preparing bread for the Eucharist early on a Sunday morning (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

The former ‘Pink Mosque’ with its golden domes and gilded cupolas, is a landmark in Kuching

The Kuching Mosque (Masjid Bandaraya Kuching) has golden domes and gilded cupolas, and its walls were once rendered in pink (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The Kuching Mosque (Masjid Bandaraya Kuching) is a landmark building in Kuching. It is also affectionately known as the Masjid Lama, the ‘Old Mosque’ or ‘Old State Mosque’ and stands on a low hill overlooking the Sarawak River.

With its Mughal-style golden onion domes and its gilded cupolas, it is one of the city’s most striking landmarks. I am told it was even more striking at sunset until recent years when its walls were painted a unique rose-pink colour.

The Kuching Mosque served as the state mosque for many years until 1990, when a new and larger state mosque was built in Petra Jaya on the north side of the river.

The present mosque was built in 1968 to replace an original wooden building erected in 1852, although the first mosque on the site was erected in 1840, making it the oldest site of a mosque in Kuching, and contemporaneous with the arrival in Kuching in 1838 of the White Rajah of Sarawak, Sir James Brooke (1803-1868).

Inside the Kuching Mosque (Masjid Bandaraya Kuching), also known as the ‘Old Mosque’ or Old State Mosque (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The mosque was founded by a local leader known as the Pangeran who had been appointed by the Sultan of Brunei. Pangeran Indera Mahkota was born Pangeran Mohd Salleh, and was better known by his title Pangeran than by his name.

He was educated in Batavia in present-day Jakarta, with further studies in Holland. He was summoned back by the sultan ca 1820 as the Governor of Sarawak, and first founded Kuching on a site previously known as Lidah Tanah. Indera Mahkota was said to be an educated, sophisiticated and talented man, and an orator, poet and skillful politician, as James Brooke acknowledged in his diary.

Brooke’s private secretary, Sir Spenser St John (1825-1910), later the British Consul-General in Brunei, thought the Pangeran was ‘the most talented man I met in Borneo’.

The Pangeran knew the promise by the Sultan of Brunei to cede Sarawak to Brooke would weaken Brunei. He devised plans to get rid of Brooke, and convinced the sultan to delay handing over power. In response, Brooke attacked the royal palace at Kuching and threatened to release all his cannons and guns unless he was ratified as the Governor of Sarawak. However, his vilification by Brooke court historians continues to obscure the achievements of the Pangeran.

Inside the central dome of the mosque, which shows strong Mughal influences (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At first, the small hillside mosque founded by the Pangeran was a basic building on the edge of the town centre, near the shophouses and bazaar. As Kuching grew, the mosque became a focal point of the city, but a larger Muslim needed a bigger mosque. The Malay leader at that time, Dato Patinggi Ali, began a fundraising drive in 1847 to build a new mosque. He was a key figure in the resistance by Sarawak Malays resistance to the rule of the Sultan of Brunei in the 1830s and became one of the first supporters of the Brooke Raj.

A bigger mosque was built later with one of his family members, Dato Patinggi Haj Abdul Gapur, appointed as the first Imam.

The mosque was modified in 1880, using modern building materials that were readily available in Kuching, including bricks and cement, and the changes included a new concrete building and floor materials.

A high drum-pointed dome was added on top of the roof in 1932, with the help of the Brooke government and the local Malay leaders. The dome sits on an elevated base with clerestory windows.

By the 1950s, there were demands for a bigger mosque in Kuching. The first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, suggested building a new mosque instead of modifying the current mosque, and he laid the foundation stone for a new building in 1966. The old building was blown up using dynamite, and Malaysia’s Federal Government provided additional funding for building the new mosque.

The mosque has a main central onion-shaped dome, flanked by four smaller domes and instead of a detached minaret there are six smaller attached minarets (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The architectural design of the present mosque includes a main central onion-shaped dome, a design that shows strong Mughal influence. It is flanked by four smaller domes that sit on an open elevated place. It has no detached minaret, and instead, there are six smaller attached minarets, each surmounted by cupolas and onion-shaped domes.

There are modern-style crenelations on the parapet wall with a series of crescent-moon finials on top of the pilasters.

The main central onion-shaped dome is made out of lightweight metal in a golden yellow colour. It indicates the main prayer area below and expresses the importance or grandeur of the building in its setting.

The interior space is lit by natural lighting through glass windows and louvered blocks. The qibla or front wall is marked with a blind arch featuring the 99 names of Allah inscribed on a teak wood tile. Here too are the mihrab niche, with a timber minbar platform to its right.

A domed pavilion near the main entrance to the mosque (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A domed pavilion near the main entrance is perched on a terrazzo-clad platform, with three leading steps, up to the main prayer hall, and two more steps to the upper female prayer gallery. The cemetery and gravestones surrounding the mosque and filling the slopes of the hillside form an unusual feature.

The mosque was under renovation until recently, but it is open to visitors once again and while I was visiting last week a small group of four Mormon missionaries were being welcomed on a small guided tour.

During the recent renovations, the once rose-pink walls were rendered in white. But with its golden domes and gilded cupolas it remains an impressive site overlooking the Sarawak River and the waterfront, and ‘Old Mosque’ is still the main mosque on the south side of Kuching.

The cemetery and gravestones surrounding the mosque filling the slopes of the hillside overlooking the Sarawak River (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)