Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025).
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Saint Edward the Confessor (1022-1066), King of England. Before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 11: 29-32:
29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! 32 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!’
Today’s reflection:
One Easter, when I was visiting the churches dating back to Patristic and Byzantine times in the Göreme Open Air Museum in Cappadocia, one of the churches with an unusual name was the Church of the Sandals. It is an elaborate, well-preserved cave church, similar to the Dark Church and the Apple Church. This 11th century church has elaborate frescoes and is one of the finest cave churches in Cappadocia.
Historically it was called the Church of the Holy Cross and may have housed a relic of the True Cross. But the name Church of the Sandals comes from the footprints on the floor beneath a fresco the Ascension scene. According to legend, Christ left these sacred imprints at his Ascension.
The church is part of a monastic complex built into a shallow courtyard. Blind niches and red crosses decorate the two-story façade. The best-preserved refectory in Cappadocia is directly under the church. The seven-meter table has complete rock benches. The apse at the head of the table, which was the abbot’s seat, has a red-orange fresco of the Last Supper. The church above does not have an image of the Last Supper, because that image is found in the refectory.
Sandals and signs are part of the humour throughout Monty Python’s Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, a controversial 1979 film by the Monty Python team, including Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.
Scene 18, ‘The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem’, includes this dialogue:
FOLLOWERS: … Look! Ah! Oh! Oh!
ARTHUR: He has given us a sign!
FOLLOWER: Oh!
SHOE FOLLOWER: He has given us … His shoe!
ARTHUR: The shoe is the sign. Let us follow His example.
SPIKE: What?
ARTHUR: Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise.
EDDIE: Yes.
SHOE FOLLOWER: No, no, no. The shoe is …
YOUTH: No.
SHOE FOLLOWER: … a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance.
GIRL: Cast off …
SPIKE: Aye. What?
GIRL: … the shoes! Follow the Gourd!
SHOE FOLLOWER: No! Let us gather shoes together!
FRANK: Yes.
SHOE FOLLOWER: Let me!
ELSIE: Oh, get off!
YOUTH: No, no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must think not of the things of the body, but of the face and head!
SHOE FOLLOWER: Give me your shoe!
YOUTH: Get off!
GIRL: Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!
FOLLOWER: The Gourd!
HARRY: Hold up the sandal, as He has commanded us!
ARTHUR: It is a shoe! It is a shoe!
HARRY: It's a sandal!
ARTHUR: No, it isn't!
GIRL: Cast it away!
ARTHUR: Put it on!
YOUTH: And clear off!
How often do we pray unusual signs as indications of God’s blessing, favour, approval or intervention, or even God’s judgment?
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus faces this sort of request too. with that in his own day. People wanted some spectacular sign from him to establish beyond doubt that he was who he said he was.
In today’s reading, Jesus addresses the crowds who gather around him as a wicked generation because they are asking for a sign. Today people can be very impressed by visionaries who claim to have visions that are denied to the rest of believers.
The church has traditionally been very wary of all such claims. In the Gospel reading Jesus accuses his contemporaries of failing to see what is there before them. They want signs and yet all they need already stands in front of them in the person of Jesus, someone greater than Solomon, greater than Jonah, greater than all the prophets and kings.
If the people of Nineveh responded to Jonah and if the Queen of the South responded to Solomon, how much more should Jesus’ contemporaries respond to him?
God has already given us all we need in and through the church, in Word, in Sacrament and in the community of believers. There we find the living word of God. There we find the Eucharist and the other sacraments. There we find Jesus present among us and within his followers.
In the Eucharist, Christ is present to us in the bread and the wine, saying, ‘This is my body … This is my blood’.
In coming to Christ in the Eucharist, we are coming to one who is greater than Jonah or Solomon. He is present to us in other ways also. We take his presence seriously by responding to his call and following in his way, as the people of Nineveh responded to Jonah’s call. And, in response to Christ’s presence, we are called to respond to his presence by living in as a sign of his presence in the world.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 13 October 2025):
The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 13 October 2025) invites us to pray:
Father God, thank you for the incredible ministry of Sister Gillian. Bless and protect her for your name’s sake.
The Collect:
Sovereign God,
who set your servant Edward
upon the throne of an earthly kingdom
and inspired him with zeal for the kingdom of heaven:
grant that we may so confess the faith of Christ
by word and deed,
that we may, with all your saints, inherit your eternal glory;
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 our redeemer,
who inspired Edward to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
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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