Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 117, Thursday 4 September 2025

The Miraculous Draught of Fish … a fresco in the Church of Saint Konstantinos and Saint Eleni in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 31 August 2025). The Season of Creation began on Monday (1 September 2025), and it continues until 4 October.

Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Birinus (650), Bishop of Dorchester (Diocese of Oxford), and Apostle of Wessex.

Later this morning, I hope to attend a Baptism in Calverton and the mid-week Eucharist in All Saints’ Church, Calverton. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, 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.

The Miraculous Draught of Fish … a window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 5: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ 5 Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ 9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

An icon of the Church as a boat, including Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers (Icon: Deacon Matthew Garrett, www.holy-icons.com)

Today’s Reflection:

As I prepare to attend today’s baptism in Calverton, I find myself asking whether we ever ask whether we are worthy of the call of Christ – the call to follow him, the call to be a disciple, the call that was first answered for us, on our behalf, at our own baptism?

There are times when I have to question my worthiness to be priest. I am not a priest because I think it is my right to be one, or because I thought at one stage this would be a good career move. I am a priest because, despite my resistance to the call over many years, I believe God called me – called me many years ago, more than 50 years ago, at the age of 19.

This morning, in the Gospel reading (Luke 5: 1-11), we hear how the renewed call to some of the disciples, including Peter, James and John, come not to them because they are worthy of this call, or have inherited a call, or have a right to speak on God’s behalf.

Peter, James and John are called not only to speak on Christ’s behalf, but to do what he commands and to follow him. In his response, Simon Peter expresses his feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness, yet accepts the call to speak in Christ’s name, unconditionally and in faith.

Our Baptism has ethical implications for our discipleship: in the community of the baptised, ethnic and social barriers are shattered, for ‘Christ is all and in all.’

In our Gospel story, we hear a story of commitment to Christ, to his message and to discipleship. Christ calls Simon or Simon Peter to be a disciple, promising him he is to be a ‘fisher of men,’ and Peter, James and John leave everything and follow Christ.

This story begins by the ‘lake of Gennesaret,’ on the south-west shore of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd is pressing in to hear Christ, the Word of God, preach the ‘word of God’ or the Christian message.

Christ gets into the boat with Simon Peter. There are two boats in this episode, and James and John are also fishing in one of the boats.

They not only listen to Christ, but they do what he tells them to do, and they are amazed at the consequences. Simon Peter acknowledges Jesus as ‘Master’ or teacher, and responds by falling down before Jesus in humility, pointing to himself as a sinful man, and calling Jesus ‘Lord,’ which becomes an expression of faith.

Peter, James and John make a total commitment to Christ, leave everything, and follow him.

In Christian art, the boat is often used as an image of the Church, while the fish is an image of Christ.

In the Early Church, the fish came to symbolise Christ because the Greek word Ichthus (ΙΧΘΥΣ), meaning ‘fish’, is an acrostic for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ, ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’

Some years ago, when I was visiting Kaş, a pretty town on the south coast of Turkey, I visited the former Church of the Annunciation. Kaş had once been a Greek-majority town known as Andifli, but the Greek ethnic community was expelled in 1923 in one of the early examples of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 20th century Europe.

For 40 years, the Church of the Annunciation on the acropolis or hilltop above the town lay deserted and crumbling. But in 1963, 40 years after these people were expelled from Andifli, their former parish church was requisitioned as a mosque, and – despite its age – was renamed Yeni Cami (New Mosque). A minaret was added, along with a fountain with a quotation in Turkish, rather than Arabic, from the Quran: ‘We made from water every living thing’ (Surat al-Anbiyya, the Prophets, 21: 30).

Inside, the church was aligned facing east, a new mihrab or prayer niche facing Mecca and a minbar (pulpit) were inserted into the south wall, the frescoes were stripped away and the icon screen was removed. All obvious Christian symbols, including crosses, were picked out of the hoklakia or pebble mosaic in the courtyard. But no-one noticed the significance of the fish, symbolising the Greek word Ichthus (ΙΧΘΥΣ), so that dozens of fish symbolising Christ and the Christian faith are still scattered though this pebble mosaic.

This is, truly, the story of the ‘big fish that got away.’

Have you ever spoken of someone or some thing as a ‘good catch’? A person you had an emotional or romantic interest in? A job you wanted? A house you wanted to buy?

Can you imagine how Christ sees you as ‘a good catch’?

If the Church is the agent of Christ, do we do a good job in drawing in his ‘good catch’?

Are we trusting enough to do what he asks us to do as his disciples?

And are we trusting enough to know that he sees you, you and me, as ‘good catches’?

But there are more and more ‘good catches’ that he wants us to draw into the boat, into the Church. And the way to do this is to listen to what he says and what he asks us to do. ‘When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him’ (Luke 5: 11).

What he has been asking us to do in the readings this week – what he asked us to in his reading from the Prophet Isaiah, which we read as the Gospel reading on Monday morning (Luke 4: 16-30, 1 September 2025) are:

• to bring good news to the poor
• to proclaim release to the captives
• to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind
• to let the oppressed go free
• to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

The Ichthus symbol remains discreetly unnoticed in the pebble mosaic of the former church courtyard in Kaş (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 4 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 4 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we pray your blessing on the previous cohort of the Emerging Leaders Academy who continue to serve you around the world – from Japan to Papua New Guinea.

The Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; 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 of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him’ (Luke 5: 11) … fishing boats on a shore at Mount Athos (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

A stained glass depiction in Saint Birinus Church, Dorchester, of Saint Birinus baptising King Cynegils at a font

The future of sculptures by Epstein and Meadows seems unclear as the TUC sells off Congress House

Congress House on Great Russell Street, London, built in 1958, is being dold by the TUC (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The future of two famous and favourite sculptures in Bloomsbury seems uncertain as the TUC (Trades Union Congress) moved to the final stages of selling off Congress House on Great Russell Street, close to the British Museum.

The TUC agreed last year to sell off Congress House after reports showed major work was needed if the building it was to keep up with environmental standards. The TUC is looking for a new modern home for the trade union movement.

The TUC appointed Newmark (formerly Gerard Eve) to manage the sale and a competitive tender process. Congress House was viewed 100 times and 10 bids from prospective buyers were narrowed down to three bids before he TUC has agreed on 28 June to prepare heads of agreement for a sale.

Already the basement and other storage spaces have been cleared, significant documents have been transferred to the TUC archives at Warwick, and a project is in hand to preserve the history of Congress House.

The sale of Congress House, a Grade II listed building with ca 138,000 sq ft across six floors, has also meant the closure of Congress Centre, a well-known London venue, on 4 July and redundancy negotiations with many staff members.

‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Congress House has been the TUC headquarters since 1958, and Congress Centre appeared in popular television shows such as Killing Eve and Netflix’s The Crown.

David du Roi Aberdeen won an architectural competition to design the new TUC headquarters in Great Russell Street in 1948. Staff began to move into the offices in 1956. Congress House was officially opened on 27 March 1958 along with the unveiling of a giant pietà-style statue of a woman cradling her dead son. Carved in situ in the internal courtyard by Sir Jacob Epstein, it was commissioned as a memorial to trade unionists who had died in the two world wars.

Epstein had previously cast a bronze portrait of the TUC General Secretary Ernest Bevin, commissioned in 1943. Although he was invited by the TUC General Secretary to enter the competition he refused. But he agreed to take on a paid commission, and argued that he should be paid for his labour.

The Pietà sculpture by Jacob Epstein at Congress House (Photograph: Matt Brown / Wikipedia / CCL 2.0)

The scale of the installation means the final piece looks very different from the original model. It was described in a contemporary TUC internal document as ‘a memorial for the dead and an act of faith for the living’.

The front of the building is dominated by ‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’, a bronze sculpture by Bernard Meadows representing the spirit of trade unionism with the strong helping the weak. It was cast section by section by skilled craftsmen. It shows two semi-clad male figures, one standing over the other; one figure is sitting helpless on the ground while the other is stretching out to help him.

Bernard Meadows (1915-2005) was associated at an different stages in his career with Henry Moore, and was also part of the Geometry of Fear school, a loose-knit group of sculptors whose prominence was established at the 1952 Venice Biennale.

Meadows was born in Norwich in 1915, and educated at the City of Norwich School. After training as an accountant, he attended Norwich School of Art and in 1936 became Henry Moore's first assistant at his studio in Kent, and took part in the first Surrealist exhibition in London that year. He moved to Chalk Farm on 1937, assisting Moore in his studio at Hampstead, and he studied at the Royal College of Art and at the Courtauld Institute.

At the outbreak of World War II, Meadows registered as a conscientious objector. But when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he withdrew his objection and was called up to the Royal Air Force.

After World War II, he returned to Moore’s studio and helped him with his marble sculpture ‘Three Standing Figures’ (1947) and his bronze ‘Family Group’ (1949). He found acclaims with an elm figure exhibited in the open air sculpture exhibition at Battersea Park in 1951, alongside the Festival of Britain, which went to the Tate Gallery.

Meadows exhibited in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale a year later, with Anthony Caro, Lynn Chadwick and Eduardo Paolozzi. Their angular styles, contrasted with the rounded work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth gave them the name of the ‘Geometry of Fear.’ His edgy pieces often based on animals and seemingly carved from shrapnel could imply Cold War menace.

His first solo exhibition was at Gimpel Fils in 1957, with four more in the decade to 1967, and he also exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1964.

Meadows was a Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art for 20 years, from 1960 to 1980. He returned to assist Henry Moore again at Perry Green, Hertfordshire, from 1977, after Moore’s health started to fail. After Moore died in 1986, he became an acting director of the Henry Moore Foundation. He died in London in 2005.

‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House represents the spirit of trade unionism with the strong helping the weak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Congress House was one of the earliest post-war buildings in Britain to be listed at Grade II*, in 1988. The design by the London-born architect David Du Roi Aberdeen was chosen because it was explicitly modern. He employed real craftsmen who had a great passion for their work and used eclectic materials. All the labourers and craftsmen on site had to be a member of a trade union to work there.

Congress House is a significant post-war building in Bloomsbury and one of the great physical testaments of the British labour movement. It was designed to be light and airy and very different from the pre-war 1930s architecture found in many public buildings.

The building was 14 years in the making, its existence mandated by a resolution passed in 1944 calling for a new centre of the organised workforce, a proud space that could not only honour the ‘supreme sacrifice’ trade unionists had made ‘in the successful prosecution of the war to overthrow the yoke of Nazi domination and the annihilation of the Nazi creed’, but also to encourage cultural development, training and participation among working people.

Its curved glass, lightness and open space resembles many of Le Corbusier’s unrealised design sketches. The wood was donated by fraternal unions from across the globe, while the street facings were shaped from Cornwall granite slabs as a gesture of solidarity with Cornish communities confronting souring economic prospects.

Much of the wood for the panelling was donated from trade unions and labour movements around the world, while the Cornish granite was sourced from a variety of quarries in order to help relieve unemployment in those areas.

All the construction work was completed and overseen by union members: even the Royal Horse Guards who were invited to perform a fanfare at the formal opening were made members of the Musicians’ Union for the occasion.

The end of Congress House is seen by many as a symbolic moment of selling off the family silver at a time where many unions are struggling to maintain relevance and the leading structures of the trade union movement seem to be losing their sense of direction.

The existence of the building was purely determined by union workers democratically mandating it, physically constructing it, aesthetically shaping it, and appealing to union workers from across the world for assistance in its realisation. Now it may soon fall into the hands of private developers, and no-one seems to be expressing concern for the future of the works by Epstein and Meadows.

What is the future for ‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 116, Wednesday 3 September 2025

Jesus Heals Simon Peter's Mother-in-Law … a panel in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 31 August 2025). Sunday was also the first day of Autumn, when the Season of Creation began, and it continues until 4 October.

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Gregory the Great (604). Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, 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.

Jesus heals Saint Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a stained-glass window in Saint John the Baptist Church, Blisworth, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 4: 38-44 (NRSVA):

38 After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39 Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

40 As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. 41 Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

42 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ 44 So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

James Tissot ‘The Healing of Peter’s Mother-in-law’ (La guérison de la belle-mère de Pierre), 1886-1894 (Brooklyn Museum)

Today’s Reflection:

There are four parts in this morning’s Gospel reading:

1, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (verses 38-39);

2, Jesus heals many other people, including people with diseases and people who are exorcised of demons (verses 40-41);

3, Jesus retreats to a deserted place but is followed by the crowds (verses 42-43);

4, Jesus moved on from preaching in the synagogues in Galilee to preaching in the synagogues in Judea (verse 44).

Most people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories are unnamed, so that many of the women he heals are not named too. Indeed, in the healing stories told of men, only Lazarus and Malchus are named. But the high priest’s servant Malchus is only named by John (John 18: 10), and not in the synoptic gospels. Mark refers to blind Bartimaeus, but this is a reference only to his father’s name and not the name of the blind man himself (see Mark 10: 46).

In all the Gospel stories in which Jesus heals women, the women too are anonymous. In this morning’s Gospel reading, even Simon Peter’s mother-in-law remains unnamed, and she is identified only by her relationship to Simon Peter. Indeed, there is no mention at all of her daughter, Simon Peter’s wife.

All three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell this healing story (see Matthew 8: 14-15; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-40). Matthew says Jesus ‘touched’ the woman's hand, Mark say he ‘grasped’ it, and in Luke he simply ‘rebuked the fever’. Mark says the house was the home of Peter and Andrew, who both interceded with Jesus for the woman. Luke alone says she had a high fever.

The healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is the first story of physical healing in Saint Luke’s Gospel, and it follows immediately after the first story of spiritual healing, of an unnamed man in the synagogue in Capernaum. In all three synoptic Gospels, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and the demon-possessed man trigger a wave of sick and possessed people being brought to Jesus.

Mother-in-law jokes illustrated many seaside postcards and were part of the stock-in-trade of comedians in the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Those mothers-in-law were never named, and the jokes served to emphasise the domestic role – perhaps servile role – of women in homes and families in those days.

But mothers-in-law were also mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, nieces, daughters, they had careers, hopes and ambitions, fears, illnesses, and sufferings, they had love and emotion, and they had names … none of which were acknowledged in those postcards or comic sketches.

Those attitudes were reinforced by many of the ways in which I have heard men in the past interpret this morning’s reading. Yet a closer reading of this story shows that it does not reinforce a woman’s place as being servile or secondary, the ‘complementarian’ view offered by some commentators who claim they are ‘conservative evangelicals.’

It is not a story about a woman taking a weekend sleep-in on her bed, and then getting up ‘to make the tea’.

The verb for serving, διακονέω (diakoneo), used in verse 39 in reference to this woman means to wait, attend upon, serve, or to be an attendant or assistant. Later, in Acts and other places in the New Testament, it means to minister to, relieve, assist, or supply with the necessaries of life, or provide the means of living, to do the work of διάκονος (diakonos or deacon (see I Timothy 3: 10, 13; I Peter 4: 11), even to be in charge or to administer (see II Corinthians 3: 3, 8: 19-20; I Peter 1: 12, 4: 10).

The word describing this woman’s service also describes the angels who minister to Jesus after he is tempted in the wilderness (Mark 1: 13; Matthew 4: 11), the work of his female disciples (Luke 8: 1-3), and describes Martha of Bethany when she serves while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet and learns, before Jesus specifically affirms Mary’s choice (Luke 10: 38-42).

Most significantly, this word describes Jesus himself, when he explains to his disciples that ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (see Mark 10: 43-45).

Being healed is not just about personal relief but also about being restored to a place where one can serve and contribute to the community. The Book of Common Prayer describes God as the one ‘whose service is perfect freedom,’ and this is modelled by Peter’s mother-in-law. Her response to Jesus healing her is a model not just for women but for all Christian service. In the kingdom, serving is not women’s work, it is everybody’s work.

Christ Healing Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a fresco in Visoki Dečani Monastery, a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo and Metohija, 12 km south of Pec (© Copyright: Blago Fund, Inc)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 3 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 3 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, for those suffering from division, whether in heart or in community, bring your healing touch. Guide us to live in unity, showing love and respect to all.

The Collect:

Merciful Father,
who chose your bishop Gregory
to be a servant of the servants of God:
grant that, like him, we may ever long to serve you
by proclaiming your gospel to the nations,
and may ever rejoice to sing your praises;
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,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Gregory to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Saint Gregory in a stained-glass window in Saint Giles Church, Cambridge … the Church Calendar in ‘Common Worship’ today remembers Saint Gregory the Great on 3 September (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

A walk though Soho to ask why there is no Greek restaurant or church on Greek Street

The Pillars of Hercules on Greek Street, Soho, celebrates the feats of Hercules in Greek mythology (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

One of the silly conundrums I pose when I find myself in Soho is: why is there no Greek restaurant on Greek Street?

Greek Street, which runs from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue, takes its name from the small Greek church that stood on Hog Lane, now buried under Charing Cross Road, roughly where the Montague Pyke pub now stands.

An early map by Fairthorn and Newcourt in 1658 shows the location as a rectangular field that may have been owned by the Crown. A parcel of land known as Soho Fields was steadily sold off to developers.

Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, acquired the ownership of the area in the 1660s, and then leased out the land to Joseph Girle. He received permission to develop the area and then, in turn, passed on the lease for development to a builder, Richard Frith, who gives his name to Frith Street, where Mozart stayed at No 20 in 1764-1765.

Work on developing Greek Street began in 1680. William Morgan’s map in 1682 shows Greek Street with 17 plots on its east side and 12 on the west side, and the street was bisected by Queen’s Street, now Bateman Street.

The Pillars of Hercules, a half-timber pub dating from the early 18th century, on Greek Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The origins of the first Greek Orthodox Church in London dates back to the late 17th century. The first church was founded to meet the needs of a growing Greek community in London.

The main driving force behind the new church was Metropolitan Joseph Georgerinis of Samos. A Greek priest, Father Daniel Voulgaris, and number of Greeks living in London signed a petition in 1674 seeking permission ‘to build a church in any part of the city of London, where they may freely exercise their religion according to the Greek Church’.

Permission was granted in 1675 and work began in 1677 on building a small church. The church was completed in 1681, and was dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.

The church stood at what was then the edge of the city in Soho in Hog Lane, off Charing Cross Road, and Hog Lane eventually became known as Greek Street. Most Greeks in London at the time were refugees from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks, but lived and worked in the City and around the ports of London. The church was too far from those Greek residents and they found they were unable to attend the Divine Liturgy regularly or support its function.

The church ended up being sold in 1682 and the building was taken over by another group of refugees, French Protestant Huguenots who had fled to England. There were more than 30 Huguenot churches and chapels in London by the early 18th century.

Although the church changed hands, the name Greek Street stuck with the street, which was laid out in the 1670s and 1680s, with taverns, coffee houses and tradesmen’s workshops.

William Hogarth’s painting and print, ‘Noon’ (1736-1738) shows a scene outside the former Greek church on Greek Street

William Hogarth produced a set of four paintings and prints in 1736-1738, including one called ‘Noon’ that shows a scene outside the Greek church, which by then had become the French Church. The spire in the background is either Saint Anne’s Church, Soho, or Saint Giles-in-the-Fields.

The early residents of Greek Street included Arthur Annesley (1678-1737), 5th Earl of Anglesey and 6th Viscount Valentia, who was MP for Cambridge and for New Ross, Co Wexford, in the English and Irish Houses of Commons at the same time. He owned large estates near Camolin, Wexford, and his offices in Ireland included Vice-Treasurer and Paymaster General and Governor of Co Wexford.

Casanova stayed on Greek Street when he was visiting London in 1764. No 1 was once the home of Sir William Beckford (1709-1770), twice Lord Mayor of London (1762, 1769). Other residents included Josiah Wedgwood in 1774-1797.

The writer Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), author of Confessions of an Opium-Eater (1821), also stayed on Greek Street for a time. Sir Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891) began designing London’s sewer system in the offices of the Westminster Commissioners Sewers at No 1 Greek Street. No 1 later became the House of Saint Barnabas.

The passageway through the arch seen from Manette Street, with the name of the Pillars of Hercules seen above (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

With no Greek restaurants, and the long disappearance of the Greek church, the only hint of a Greek presence, past or present, on Greek Street is through the name Greek mythology has given to the Pillars of Hercules, a half-timbered pub at No 7, at the north end of Greek Street.

The name celebrates the feats of Hercules, who was renowned for his strength and courage, and two landmarks, the Rock of Gibraltar on the north side and Mount Hacho on the south side that mark the entrance to the Mediterranean. Greek mythology says Hercules set up the pillars after cleaving a path through the land to create the Straits of Gibraltar during his tenth laboir. The northern pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar, while the southern pillar is either Jebel Musa in Morocco or Monte Hacho in Ceuta.

Most of what exists of the Pillars of Hercules today was built around 1910. But a pub has been on the site since before 1700, and it was first recorded in 1709.

The passageway through the arch at the side of the pub through leads into Manette Street, named after Dr Manette, one of the characters in A Tale of Two Cities, who is described by Charles Dickens as living near Soho Square.

Greek mythology says Hercules created the Straits of Gibraltar when he pushed two pillars apart, separating Europe from Africa (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A sign at the pub says the Pillars of Hercules was also frequented in the 19th century by the poet, cricket lover and Catholic mystic Francis Thompson (1859-1906), author of the poem The Hound of Heaven.

Those literary associations were revived in the 1970s when the Pillars of Hercules was known as a literary pub and the meeting place of writers such as Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Clive James and Ian Hamilton. Clive James named his second book of literary criticism At the Pillars of Hercules, apparently because most of the pieces were commissioned, delivered or written there.

The pub closed on 24 February 2018, but reopened later that year as Bar Hercules under new owners Be At One. In 2022, the cocktail bar chain Simmons took over the pub, and the pub continues to serve under the name of the Pillars of Hercules above the arch and the sign of Hercules above the Greek Street façade.

Other premises on Greek Street today include the Coach and Horses (No 29), the Gay Hussar restaurant (No 2) and Maison Bertaux (No 28), the oldest French pâtisserie in London. Three of the mirrors in the shop contain the inscriptions Liberté, égalité, fraternité, and each year, the shop creates a tableau vivant on 14 July to celebrate Bastille Day – so, even if you can’t get a good Greek meal on Greek Street, there is always a good French patisserie.

As for the former Greek church on Greek Street, it was demolished in 1934. However, the inscription commemorating the foundation of the first Greek Orthodox Church in London has survived and can still be seen in the left part of the narthex of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Bayswater.

Sunlight on the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar between the Pillars of Hercules and the coasts of Spain and Morocco (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 115, Tuesday 2 September 2025

‘For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!’ (Luke 4: 36) … a gargoyle at Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Creationtide began yesterday (1 September) and continues until 4 October. Meanwhile, we are continuing in Ordinary Time and the week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 31 August 2025).

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the Martyrs of Papua New Guinea (1901 and 1942). Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, 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.

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.

‘A man who had the spirit of an unclean demon … cried out with a loud voice’ (Luke 4: 33) … an image at La Lonja de la Seda in Valencia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 4: 31-37 (NRSVA):

31 He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. 32 They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. 33 In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 ‘Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. 36 They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, ‘What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!’ 37 And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.

‘And a report about him began to reach every place in the region’ (Luke 4: 37) … newspapers on sale at a kiosk in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

We began reading a series of readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel yesterday, and they bring us to the end of the Church year.

In yesterday’s Gospel reading, Jesus began his public ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth, the small towns where he had grown up.

As he finished the reading, people began wondering why he was not doing in Nazareth what he had been doing in Capernaum and other places. His remarks so angered the people of Nazareth that they thought of killing him and drove him out of that synagogue and out of town.

But, as our readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel continue, we see how Jesus continues to bring good news to the poor, he releases this poor captive, he can now see things as they are and as they ought to be, the oppressed may go free, and all are amazed.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, the good news for the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed, continues to be put into action by Jesus, not just in words, but in deeds, as he returns to Capernaum, which seems to have been his home town after Nazareth.

Capernaum, was a prosperous town on the Sea of Galilee, and once again Jesus visits the synagogue on the sabbath, where they were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority’ (verse 32).

Jesus speaks directly, confident of his authority and of his very essence. The Greek word here, ἐξουσία (exousía), has the same roots as the word in the Nicene Creed that is translated as ‘being’ or ‘substance’: ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί (‘of one substance with the Father’).

The man with ‘the spirit of an unclean demon’ (verse 33) was, we might say, possessed, or under the influence of evil forces. In the understanding of the time, he was under Satan’s direction, separated from God.

The demon, speaking through this man (see verse 34), asks what Christ is doing meddling in the domain of evil: ‘Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’

He recognises who Christ is and that his coming spells the end of the power of the devil. He understands the significance of the coming Kingdom. Wonder-workers of the day healed using ritual or magic, but Christ exorcises simply through verbal command (verse 35), so clearly he is divine.

Are we comfortable with identifying or naming evil forces that are entrapping people in society today?

Do these malign forces manage to get a hearing in our places of worship today?

How would you name and identify them?

Would you include racism? Homophobia? Sexism? Class discrimination? Recent far-right rioters and protesters, the people who egg them on and who flags or paint over roundabouts as signs of provocatioon? Support for war and violence?

What inner demons in myself have I failed to cast out? My prejudices, my misjudging of people, my failings in relationships and friendships that continue to cause hurt? My self-indulgence and personal vanity? My failure so often to speak out on behalf of the hurt, the marginalised, the oppressed, the victim?

It is interesting that in his response, Christ leaves the man unharmed (verse 35). What harm could he have to at the hands of Jesus? Is this saying that the innate integrity of the man is respected and remains intact?

We are not told what happened to this man afterwards. All we know that he is still there, standing among the people of faith, in the community of faith, that Saturday morning. The evil in him has been cast out, but he has not been cast out of the community of faith himself. I too can be forgiven and restored.

But how happy are we with the idea that compassion for the victims of hatred and violence and appropriate responses to the people trapped in a world of hatred and violence both find expression in Christ’s ministry, message and mission?

‘Be silent …’ (Luke 4: 35) … a message in the porch of the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 2 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 2 September 2025) invites us to pray:

God of compassion, comfort those who feel torn apart by judgment or exclusion. May they find strength in your embrace and peace in their identity as children of God.

The Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; 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 of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘God of compassion, comfort those who feel torn apart by judgment or exclusion’ (USPG prayer for today) … a mini ‘tent city’ on Euston Road in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

A whirlwind tour on Saint Giles Day of half a dozen churches dedicated to Saint Giles

A statue of Saint Giles above the west door of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford … today is feast of Saint Giles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The church calendar today remembers Saint Giles (1 September). I visited Saint Giles-in-the-Fields Church in London a few days ago, and hope to describe the church in the days to come. But, on his feast day, I thought I should look at some of the churches I know that are dedicated to Saint Giles.

Saint Giles is said to have been born in Athens ca 645-650, the son of King Theodore and Queen Elizabeth. He is the patron of beggars and people with disabilities because, although he was disabled, he devoted his life and his personal wealth to helping people in their sufferings and afflictions.

Saint Giles died ca 710. The monastery he founded at Saint-Gilles in Provence became an important place on the pilgrimage routes both to Compostela and to the Holy Land. Most mediaeval churches dedicated to Saint Giles stand by roadsides, offering weary travellers a sign of rest and peace.

1, Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford:

The Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, the parish church of Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, the parish church of Stony Stratford, is part of the rich tapestry of a pretty market town on the banks of the River Ouse that marks the boundary between Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

Stony Stratford first developed along the Roman Watling Street, on the boundary between the ancient manors of Calverton and Wolverton. The de Veres, Earls of Oxford, held Calverton from 1244 until 1526, while on the Wolverton side the title was inherited by the de Wolvertons who held the land until the 14th century. Both manors provided chapels of ease from the 13th century, and so Stony Stratford became the first town in Buckinghamshire to have two churches. The church in the Calverton part of the town was dedicated to Saint Giles, while the other within the Manor of Wolverton was dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, and fairs were held in the town on the festivals of both saints.

The chancel or east end of Saint Giles was so ruinous in 1757 that it was taken down, and Saint Giles was rebuilt in 1776-1777 to designs by the Warwick-based architect Francis Hiorne (1744-1789). He was the architect of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, and may have used his church in Stony Stratford as a prototype for his much larger church.

At the same time, Arthur Chichester (1739-1799), 5th Earl of Donegall, commissioned Hiorne to design Saint Anne’s Church on Donegall Street, Belfast (1776), later replaced by Saint Anne’s Cathedral. Hiorne was also consulted on the design of Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast (1783). Donegall was a large landowner in Belfast, Co Donegal, Co Wexford, and Staffordshire, his properties once included Comberford Hall, and he gave his name to Donegal House in Lichfield.

When he was rebuilding Saint Giles, Hiorne retained the 15th century tower, and this is the only part of the original structure still standing. The 80 ft tower with embattlements is in the perpendicular style and has a clock and a peal of six bells.

Inside Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford, looking east … the church was rebuilt by Francis Hiorne in 1776-1777 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hiorne redesigned the church in ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic,’ a style marking the beginnings of the Gothic Revival in architecture. The church is a lofty building, with a nave, two side aisles, a chancel, and galleries on either side.

A Lady Chapel was created in the south-east corner of the nave in the late 19th century, stained-glass windows were installed, a Gothic chancel screen was installed, and the side galleries were added and decorated. A series of stained glass tableaux by NHJ Westlake was installed beneath the galleries in 1889-1897. Above the galleries, stained-glass lozenges depict saints and martyrs and scenes from Scripture.

When the old vestry in the basement of the west tower was inadequate by 1892, two new vestries for the clergy and choir were built beside the north side of the chancel. They were designed in the 13th century English Gothic style by the local architect, Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924).

Changes continued in the 20th century. The statue of Saint Giles and the hind above the west doors and a stained-glass window by Kempe & Co date from 1903. The apsidal sanctuary was replaced by a squared-off sanctuary in 1928. The Lychgate and Calvary in the south-east corner of the churchyard were built in 1931.

A fire caused considerable damage to the interior of Saint Giles in 1964. The Diocese of Oxford questioned the need for two churches and parish priests in Stony Stratford. At first it was thought the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin should be extended and become the parish church. It was decided, however, to close Saint Mary the Virgin and to retain Saint Giles and to reorder the church. Saint Mary the Virgin was closed, the two parishes were combined and Saint Giles Church was reconsecrated as the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, on Palm Sunday 7 April 1968.

2, Saint Giles, Oxford:

Saint Giles Church at the north end of the wide thoroughfare of Saint Giles in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Church in Oxford is at the north end of the wide thoroughfare of Saint Giles, best known for the Martyrs’ Memorial to the south. The 900-year-old church stands at the point where Saint Giles forks and divides to become Woodstock Road to the left or west and Banbury Road to the right or east, and it faces both Little Clarendon Street and Keble Road.

Oxford’s main war memorial adjoins the south end of Saint Giles churchyard, and other nearby landmarks on the west side include the former Radcliffe Infirmary and Observatory, Somerville College, Saint Aloysius Oratory Church, the Eagle and Child, which sadly has been closed too long, Saint Cross College, Pusey House and Blackfriars; to the east, the nearby landmarks include Saint John’s College and the Lamb and Flag.

Inside Saint Giles Church, Oxford, facing the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles is a pretty church first built in the 12th and 13th centuries. But the first record of a church on the site dates from the Domesday Book in 1086, when a landowner named Edwin declared that he wanted to build a church adjoining his land, outside the north wall of the city.

When the church was first built it stood in open fields, 500 metres north of the city walls, with no other building between it and the city’s north gate, where the Church of Saint Michael at the North Gate stands. About 1,000 people lived within the walls of Oxford at the time.

Soon, however, before the area outside the city walls began to be settled, and Saint Giles had a parish of its own that had become widely spread and thinly settled. Oxford has expanded over the centuries, and Saint Giles is now a city centre church.

The incumbents of Saint Giles have included two notable associates of Archbishop William Laud: William Juxon (1609-1615), who later became President of Saint John’s College, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury; and Thomas Turner (1624-1629), later Dean of Canterbury

3, Saint Giles, Cambridge:

Saint Giles Church is at the corner of Castle Street and Chesterton Road in Cambridge, beside Cambridge Castle and to the north of Magdalene College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Church at the junction of Castle Street and Chesterton Road, Cambridge, dates from 1092, but the original Norman building underwent various transformations until 1875, when a new church was built on the site and the old church was demolished.

The church added ‘with Saint Peter’ to its name when neighbouring Saint Peter’s Church became redundant. It is home to both a Church of England parish and the Romanian Orthodox Parish of Saint John the Evangelist.

Saint Giles Church is also a venue for concerts, musical events, conferences, celebrations, commemorations, charity sales, an annual parish Summer Fair and a Christmas Tree Festival.

Saint Giles Church is a Grade II* listed church at the corner of Castle Street and Chesterton Road, beside Cambridge Castle and to the north Magdalene College.

From the outside, the church is simple and austere in style, without a spire. But inside it is richly furnished in the style favoured by the Oxford Movement and the Tractarians.

Some parts of the older building were incorporated into the new, Victorian church, including the 11th century former chancel arch, which is now the entrance to the Lady Chapel, and a 12th century doorway.

Inside Saint Giles Church, Cambridge, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Church was founded in 1092 by an endowment from Hugolina de Gernon, the wife of Picot of Cambridge, baron of Bourn and county sheriff, who lived at Cambridge Castle. According to Alfred of Beverley, writing in the 12th century, Hugolina was suffering from a long illness and the king’s physician and other doctors were unable to treat her. She had prayed to Saint Giles on her deathbed, promising to build a church in his honour if she were to recover. She recovered and she built the church.

The Victorian church was designed by the architects TH and F Healey of Bradford, and was built a little north of the church it replaced. The church is built of brick with Doulton stone dressings and a Westmorland slate roof, and retains a collection of mediaeval and 18th details. It also has 19th century fittings by many leading church decorators.

The 18 stained glass windows on the south and south sides of the nave are by Robert Turnhill of Heaton, Butler and Bayne, and were installed in 1888. They depict saints arranged in chronological sequence, beginning with Saint Clement of Rome and ending with Bishop Samuel Seabury.

4, Saint Giles, Cheadle:

Saint Giles’s Church and its 200 ft spire dominate the Staffordshire market town of Chealde (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner once described Staffordshire as ‘Pugin-land’ after visiting Cheadle, the market town dominated by Saint Giles’s Church and its 200 ft spire. He wrote: ‘Nowhere can one study and understand Pugin better than in Staffordshire – not only his forms and features but his mind, and not only his churches but his secular architecture as well.’

John Talbot (1791-1852), 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers and commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, including Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle.

Pugin’s interior, including his rood screen, remain largely intact in Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lord Shrewsbury, once ‘the most prominent British Catholic of day,’ extended his family’s Irish connections when he married Maria Theresa Talbot, daughter of Thomas William Talbot of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford – an Irish branch of the Talbot family that were patrons of Pugin too.

Pugin died when he was only 40 on14 September 1852; Lord Shrewsbury died two months later, on 9 November 1852. But church architecture and church decoration would never be the same again – in England or in Ireland.

5, Saint Giles on the Hill, Norwich:

Saint Giles on the Hill, also known as the Wisteria Church, has the tallest church tower in Norwich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Although we stayed overnight in Norwich last year in Saint Giles House Hotel on Saint Giles Street, I never managed to get inside the church that gives its name to the street. Saint Giles on the Hill sits is also known as the Wisteria Church. Saint Giles has the tallest church tower in Norwich at a height of 120 ft. The wisteria was planted by a former priest at the church in celebration of his daughter’s wedding over 100 years ago and it still flourishes each year.

Saint Giles is the patron of lepers and nursing mothers, and a hospital for lepers was formerly close by beside the gate in the city walls, called Saint Giles Gate. The church was originally founded by a priest called Elwyn and given by him to the Benedictine monks of Norwich Cathedral. Later, the dean and chapter who appointed a chaplain.

Saint Giles (centre) above the south porch in Norwich, with statues above by David Holgate of Saint Margaret and Saint Benedict (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The church is noted in the Domesday Book (1086), but the present church dates from 1386. The tower was almost finished by 1424, and the building was complete by 1430. The porch was added about a century after the main church was built, and which has a noble carved stone façade, a fine fan vaulted roof and a small room above, called a parvise.

The main church consists of a nave with two side aisles, separated by an arcade of five bays. The church was restored by Richard Phipson in 1866-1867.

6, Saint Giles, Git, Sarawak:

Saint Giles Chapel in Git stands on a hilltop location above the village,and is reached by a steep climb of steps (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

During our extended visit to Kuching last October and November, the Revd Dr Jeffry Renos Nawie took us on a number of whirlwind tours of the seven churches and chapels in his parishes and seven other churches and chapels in the Diocese of Kuching. His parish and mission area in the Diocese of Kuching covers vast rural areas south of Kuching.

Father Jeffry is a former principal of Saint Thomas’s, the Anglican diocesan boys’ school in Kuching, and has a doctorate in education. After he retired, he worked as the diocesan secretary in the diocesan office close to Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and at weekends he served in Saint George’s Church, Punau, on the fringes of Padawan.

Today, Father Jeffry is the parish priest of Saint Augustine’s Church, Mambong, which was designated a mission district last year (26 May 2024) by Bishop Danald Jute of Kuching.

Saint Giles Chapel in Kampung Git marked its 60th anniversary last year (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Chapel in Kampung Git, near Siburan, south of Kuching, marked its sixtieth anniversary last year. Kampung Git is a small Bidayuh village about 30 km south-west of Kuching. The chapel stands on a hilltop location above the village, and is reached by a steep climb of steps.

Saint Giles Chapel has an interesting belltower, with an old graveyard behind the chapel, and a school below the chapel.

The arms of the Talbot family, Earls of Shrewsbury, represented on the doors of Saint Giles’s Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 114, Monday 1 September 2025

Reading from the scrolls in the synagogue … ‘Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur,’ Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879), Vienna, 1878 (Tel Aviv Museum of Art)

Patrick Comerford

We have arrived at the beginning of a new month, the beginning of September. We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and yesterday was the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 31 August 2025). We are celebrating the 1700th anniversary this year of the Council of Nicaea in the year 325 CE. One of the decisions at Nicaea was that the New Church Year begins on 1 September, a tradition still observed by the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Rite Catholics.

Today is also the first day of Autumn, Creationtide begins today, the beginning of the Church year in the Orthodox calendar, and continues until 4 October, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Giles of Provence, Hermit, who died ca 710. Saint Giles is the co-patron of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. There is an organ rectital by Jacob Collins in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church at 12:45 today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, 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.

‘He stood up to read and … he unrolled the scroll’ (Luke 4: 18-19) … a scroll in the Jewish Museum in the Ghetto in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 4: 16-30 (NRSVA):

16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23 He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum”.’ 24 And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

‘He went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom’ (Luke 4: 16) … inside the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning we begin a series of readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel that bring us to the end of the Church year.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we find ourselves at the beginning of Jesus’ public life. After his baptism by Saint John the Baptist (see Luke 3), he returns to Galilee and his home towns of Capernaum and Nazareth, the small towns where he has spent his early years.

In this reading, Jesus not only returns to his home region, but he also lays out the agenda or reads the manifesto for his ministry for the coming years, yet sets the scene for his rejection by his own people.

The reading opens with Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as is his custom. He is called up to read the Scripture and comments on it. The synagogue was controlled by a board of elders and by the chazzan or attendant. On Saturdays, the sabbath service began with the shema, ‘Hear O Israel …’, a simple declaration of faith (see Deuteronomy 6: 4-9), and included prayers, fixed readings from the Torah or the first five books of the Bible, a reading from the Prophets, a sermon, and a blessing.

The two readings were in Hebrew, with a running translation into the vernacular, that was normally Aramaic but might have been Greek in some places. It would have been normal for literate adult male Jews to be called in turn to read the Scriptures in the synagogue: first those who were of priestly descent, the Cohanim, then the Levites, and then the other Israelites. So, on this particular Saturday, Jesus may have been the third person called on to read, or he may even have been further down the list.

The scroll of Isaiah is given to him by the chazzan or attendant, who combines the functions that we might associate with a sexton, verger, churchwarden and Sunday school teacher. And it is to him that Christ returns the scroll when he is finished reading from it (verse 20).

The portion Christ reads from (verse 18-19) is actually three verses, and they do not come in sequence: Isaiah 61: 1, part only of verse 2, and a portion of Isaiah 58: 6. So, even if Christ had been handed a pre-selected portion of Scripture to read, he makes a deliberate choice to roll back the scroll and to insert a portion of an extra verse, Isaiah 58: 6.

Having read while standing, Christ then sits down, the normal posture at the time for someone who is about to teach. When he sits down, all eyes are on him (verse 20), so it is he and he alone who is expected to preach and teach that morning. The reading may need explaining and interpretation before the people who hear it realise they have just heard good news.

Christ tells the people in the synagogue that the Scripture is fulfilled in their hearing. Scripture has not been read that morning just to comply with part of the ritual; it actually has immediate meaning, significance and relevance that day. Christ is not merely reading the words, he is promising to see them put into action, to transform hope into reality.

His reading from Isaiah amounts to his manifesto or mission statement:

• to bring good news to the poor
• to proclaim release to the captives
• recovery of sight to the blind
• to set free those who are oppressed
• to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

The ‘year of the Lord’s favour’ is the Messianic age when salvation would be proclaimed. Isaiah, in the original text, is describing the Year of Jubilee, when every 50 years slaves were set free, debts were cancelled and ancestral lands were returned to the original family.

As he finished the reading, Jesus put down the scroll and said: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (verse 21).

At first, those who hear him are overawed by his words and his wisdom. But there is an unexpected turn of events as the people wondering why he is not doing in Nazareth what he has been doing in Capernaum and other places.

Jesus reminds them that prophets are seldom accepted in their own place, and gives two provocative examples: Elijah, who was sent to a poor widow in Zarephath, near Sidon, a Phoenician city beyond Tyre; and Elisha, who healed Naaman, a gentile general from Syria.

His remarks so anger the people of Nazareth that they think of killing Jesus.

Driven out of that synagogue and out of town, I think of Christ having three options:

1, To allow himself to be silenced.

2, To keep on preaching in other synagogues, but to never put into practice what he says, so that those who are worried have their fears allayed and realise he is no threat.

3, To preach and to put his teachings into practice, to show that he means what he says, that his faith is reflected in his priorities, to point to what the Kingdom of God is truly like.

Christ takes the third option, as we see as the readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel continue. He brings good news to the poor, he releases this poor captive, he can now see things as they are and as they ought to be, the oppressed may go free, and all are amazed.

This morning’s Gospel reading is good news, and not just to the poor and oppressed in Nazareth in the past. Who are the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed among us today?

How do we respond to them and their needs?

Do we remain others take to the streets of our town and cities, outside hotels and in our public spaces, to further oppress them, even using the law and misusing the symbolism of the cross to further their violent actions?

And what do we do so that the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed among us know that we believe compassion for them is at the heart of Christ’s ministry, message and mission?

‘He stood up to read and … he unrolled the scroll’ (Luke 4: 18-19) … a scroll in the Klausen Synagogue in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 1 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced yesterday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 1 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, heal the wounds of division and bring reconciliation to those experiencing pain and separation. May your love unite us all, regardless of our differences.

In my prayers this morning, I am also including the members of the PCC of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, who are meeting the Bishop of Buckingham and the Archdeacon of Buckingham this afternoon.

The Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; 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 of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

The icon of Saint Giles by Brother Leon Lidderment of Walsingham in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

‘Adoration of the Torah’ by Artur Markiowicz (1872-1934) in the Jewish Museum in the Old Synagogue, Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)