Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are less than four weeks away (5 March 2025) and tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday before Lent.
My fall on Oxford Street yesterday, with brusing, cuts and swelling on my face, eye, nose, lips and limbs, left me in University College London Hospital for some time. But, thanks to the people who picked me up on the street, to the NHS and to Charlotte, I got home safely early last night. Now I am looking forward to viewing wall-to-wall Six Nations rugby fixtures this week, and I still hope to find appropriate places to see this afternoon’s matches between Italy and Wales (14:15) and England and France (16:30) and tomorrow’s game between Scotland and Ireland (15:00).
Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read 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.
Mark 6: 30-34 (NRSVA):
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
Today’s Reflection:
In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Mark 6: 30-34), we read what might be described as the ‘curtain-raiser’ to the feeding of the 5,000.
The feeding of the multitude is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels (see Matthew 14: 13-21; Mark 6: 30-44; Luke 9: 12-17; John 6: 1-15), with only minor variations on the place and the circumstances.
In the verses immediately before, in yesterday’s reading, Saint Mark tells of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, who was executed after he denounced Herod Antipas for marrying his brother Philip’s wife, while Philip was still alive (see Mark 6: 14-29).
The disciples of Saint John the Baptist took his body and buried it – a foreshadowing of how his disciples are going to desert Christ at his own death and burial – and they then go to Christ to tell him the news (verses 29-30).
When Jesus hears this, he takes a boat and withdraws to a deserted place. But the crowds follow him on foot around the shore and find him, and when he comes ashore there is a great crowd waiting for him. He has ‘compassion for them, and because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things’ (verse 34).
I cannot help but think this morning of the immediate relevance of the sequence of events where the cruel actions of a despotic leader are followed immediately by Jesus showing compassion for the wandering and oppressed people ‘because they were like sheep without a shepherd’ and he teaches them and then feeds them.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, in her sermon at the National Cathedral prayer service in Washington last month (21 January 2025), urged Donald Trump to show mercy and compassion toward scared individuals, including ‘gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families’, as well as immigrants and those fleeing war and persecution.
But Trump’s response was to attack Bishop Budde online, and in a lengthy, bullying social media post the next day, labelling her a ‘Radical Left hard line Trump hater’ who had ‘brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way’ and claiming her tone was ‘nasty’.
Bishop Mariann opened her sermon by praying: ‘O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on Earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’
And she concluded her sermon: ‘Have mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. Help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.
‘May God grant us all the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, speak the truth in love, and walk humbly with one another and our God, for the good of all the people of this nation and the world.’
As Sarah Jones, senior writer for Intelligencer, has written, ‘For MAGA, the Line Between God and Trump Has Blurred.’ She writes, ‘MAGA has chosen its god-king … The god-king is human, fallible, and frail, and his worship distorts the world.’ For some, the choice between Herod and Jesus may have been difficult at the time, with severe consequences. But for many the choice was stark, and the moral options were clear, no matter what the cost was going to be.
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 8 February 2025):
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), has been ‘Common Humanity and Love for Religious “Other”.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Reflection by the Revd Dr Salli Effungani, Programme Officer for the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA) and Adjunct Lecturer on Interfaith Relations at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 8 February 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord God, we need your justice, which rolls like a river (Amos 5: 24), and your peace, which passes all human understanding (Philippians 4: 7).
The Collect:
Almighty God,
by whose grace alone we are accepted
and called to your service:
strengthen us by your Holy Spirit
and make us worthy of our calling;
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:
God of truth,
we have seen with our eyes and touched with our hands the bread of life:
strengthen our faith
that we may grow in love for you and for each other;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God of our salvation,
help us to turn away from those habits which harm our bodies
and poison our minds
and to choose again your gift of life,
revealed to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of the Fourth Sunday before Lent:
O God,
you know us to be set
in the midst of so many and great dangers,
that by reason of the frailty of our nature
we cannot always stand upright:
grant to us such strength and protection
as may support us in all dangers
and carry us through all temptations;
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
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
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