Patrick Comerford
We are half-way through Holy Week, the last week in Lent, as we prepare for Good Friday and Easter, and today is the Wednesday of Holy Week (16 April 2025), known in many places as ‘Spy Wednesday’. Passover also continues until next Sunday evening (20 April 2025), which is also Easter Day.
A parish retreat on the theme of ‘I will you rest’ is taking place in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this week, with three days of prayer and reflection on Monday, yesterday and today, including Readings and Morning Prayer at 8:15, the Angelus and Mid-Day Prayer at 12 noon, Confessions at 5 pm, Daily Prayers at 6 pm, a talk at 6:30, Stations of the Cross at 7 pm, and Mass at 7:30 pm.
Later this afternoon, I am catching a flight from Luton to Iraklion, planning to spend the closing days of Holy Week and Easter in Rethymnon. I hope to follow the liturgies and cycle of daily prayer in both the Cathedral and the Church of the Four Martyrs, and perhaps to visit a monastery and meet some friends. But, before today begins and before I pack my bags and catch the bus to the airport, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading 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.
Caravaggio, ‘The Taking of Christ in the Garden’ (1598), the National Gallery of Ireland … the betrayal of Christ is a major theme for the Wednesday of Holy WeekJohn 13: 21-32 (NRSVA):
21 After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, ‘Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ 22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. 23 One of his disciples – the one whom Jesus loved – was reclining next to him; 24 Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. 25 So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ 26 Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’ So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. 27 After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’ 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the festival’; or, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.
‘The Betrayal by Judas’, Giotto, ca 1304-1306Today’s Reflection:
In our Gospel reading today (John 13: 21-32), we are at the Last Supper, and Jesus has finished washing his disciples’ feet.
He now tells them that one of them is about to betray him. He then tells Judas Iscariot to go and do quickly what he is planning to do.
On this final Wednesday in Lent, I am reading once again a poem by Walter Brueggemann, ‘Marked by Ashes,’ in which he says:
This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes
This poem is included in his book Prayers for a Privileged People (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), pp 27-28. This is a poem, not only for Ash Wednesday, but for every Wednesday in Lent:
We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death
Walter Brueggemann, who born in Nebraska in 1933, is a distinguished Old Testament scholar and theologian. An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, he is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and now lives in retirement in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He is the author of over 100 books, hundreds of articles, and several Biblical commentaries, and is known for his brilliant method of combining literary and sociological modes in reading the Bible.
Throughout his academic and writing career and a life of ministry, Walter Brueggemann has combined the best of critical scholarship with his love for the local church and its service to the kingdom of God. His experience as a long-standing member of his local church gave rise to his book Prayers for a Privileged People, which includes this poem.
The Very Revd Simon Cowling, who retires soon as the Dean of Wakefield (31 July 2025), wrote in a blog posting some years ago while he was Canon Precentor of Sheffield Cathedral: ‘At first reading the prayer, with its striking and insistent use of ‘Easter’ as an imperative verb, appears to be less about Lenten penitence and fasting than about Resurrection joy and feasting. Digging more deeply, we begin to understand that the prayer is an exploration of an archetypal, perhaps the archetypal, New Testament theme: the mysterious space between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’; between Christ’s resurrection victory and his coming again at the consummation of all things.’
In Brueggemann’s prayer, it is Ash Wednesday, or just ‘Wednesday’, that stands for this space. And God’s ‘eastering’ of this space continually reminds us that, even in the midst of our Lenten disciplines, the fruits of Christ’s resurrection continue to be known in our lives and the life of the Church.
Marked by Ashes by Walter Brueggemann
Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day …
This day – a gift from you.
This day – like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.
This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes –
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises,
of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.
We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.
On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.
We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 16 April 2025, Wednesday of Holy Week, ‘Spy Wednesday’):
A ‘Holy Week Reflection’ provides 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).’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Bishop David Walker of Manchester, who is the chair of USPG trustees.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 16 April 2025, Wednesday of Holy Week, ‘Spy Wednesday’) invites us to pray:
Lord, we remember our sisters and brothers in Christ who are marking this Holy Week in lands where their faith subjects them to persecution. Surround them with your protection and give them courage and strength. May they feel your presence and know they are not alone.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
who in your tender love towards the human race
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection;
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:
Lord Jesus Christ,
you humbled yourself in taking the form of a servant,
and in obedience died on the cross for our salvation:
give us the mind to follow you
and to proclaim you as Lord and King,
to the glory of God the Father.
Additional Collect:
True and humble king,
hailed by the crowd as Messiah:
grant us the faith to know you and love you,
that we may be found beside you
on the way of the cross,
which is the path of glory.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Ashes (1894), by Edvard Munch (1863-1944)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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