Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 31, Monday 9 June 2025

The Berliner Dom in Berlin, popularly known as Berlin Cathedral … the images inside the dome illustrate the Beatitudes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 50-day season of Easter, which began on Easter Day (20 April 2025), came to an end yesterday with the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday (8 June 2025), and we return in the Church Calendar today to Ordinary Time. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Saint Columba (597), Abbot of Iona, Missionary, and Saint Ephrem of Syria 373), Deacon, Hymn Writer, and Teacher of the Faith.

Later this morning, I have an appointment in London. But before today begins, 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.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ (Matthew 5: 4) … a child’s painting in Ukrainian Space in Budapest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 5: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ (Matthew 5: 4) … ‘Divine Teardrop’ by Peter Cassidy in an exhibition in Wexford in 2016 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 5: 1-11) begins a series of weekday readings from the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with the Beatitudes. The scene opens with Christ leaving the crowds and climbing up the mountain, like Moses in the Book Exodus leaving the crowd behind him, and climbing Mount Sinai. In the Sermon on the Mount in Chapters 5 to 7, Saint Matthew presents us with a covenant renewal document.

The Beatitudes are a declaration of the happy or fortunate state of the children of God who possesses particular qualities, and who, because of them, will inherit divine blessings.

It is interesting to compare the delivery of the Beatitudes to the delivery of the Ten Commandments. Here we have the renewal of the covenant, and a restatement, a re-presentation, of who the Children of God are.

Just as we sometimes find the Ten Commandments grouped into two sets, so we might see the Beatitudes set out in two groups of four, the first four being inward looking, the second four being outward looking.

We might see the first four Beatitudes as addressing attitudes, while the second four deal with resulting actions.

Are they ethical requirements for the present?

Or are they eschatological blessings for the future?

Or are they are statements of present fact, identifying the qualities of a child of God and the consequent blessings that follow?

Few among us, I imagine, are ever going to commit murder.

But we all get ‘angry with a brother’ sooner or later.

The Sermon on the Mount exposes our own present reality in a very stark and real way, and the Beatitudes are a core text for Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship and in the writings of towering Christian figures such as Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Thomas Merton and Oscar Romero.

Father Brian D’Arcy once recalled during a radio interview how Dorothy Day once spoke of how her fellow Roman Catholics went to confession regularly and confessed to ‘breaking’ one of the Ten Commandments, but she wondered how often they confessed to ‘breaking’ one of the Eight Beatitudes.

Μακάριοι (Makárioi): Does this mean ‘blessed’? Archbishop Makarios was the President of Cyprus in 1974 when he was deposed in a coup that was followed by the Turkish invasion of the island. ‘His Beatitude’ is a term of respect for archbishops and metropolitans in the Orthodox Church.

The word ‘blessed’ is not the best translation for μακάριος (makários). ‘Fortunate,’ ‘well off,’ or ‘happy’ might fit better.

Christ is telling those who hear him that they are fortunate to be this way. They are fortunate to possess these qualities of life. Why? Because it means they inherit the blessings or fortunes of God’s promised kingdom.

The Beatitudes are culturally embedded in our society, in our literature, in our arts. They are so familiar that we all understand the irreverent humour found in a scene in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

‘Blessed are the Meek’ – which means the humble, patient, submissive and gentle – is misheard in The Life of Brian as: ‘Blessed is the Greek – apparently he’s going to inherit the earth.’ When they finally get what Jesus actually says, a woman says, ‘Oh it’s the Meek … blessed are the Meek! That’s nice, I’m glad they’re getting something, ’cause they have a hell of a time.’

The political activist and agitator Reg then says: ‘What Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate is that it’s the meek who are the problem.’ This sums up the growing annoyance of the violent with the peaceful attitude of Christ. But it also highlights that the Beatitudes are about ordinary, everyday people.

Too often we see the saints celebrated by the Church as martyrs and apostles, missionaries and hermits, bishops and theologians. How often do we see them as ordinary, meek, everyday people, the people who too often are dismissed as problems, who are living with problems, who often go without attention from politicians and activists alike?

The mother and child separated at birth in the ‘mother and baby’ home and blocked at every stage as they tried to find each other.

The middle-aged mother who hopes that life is going to get better as the years move on, but then finds instead every waking hour is devoted to an adult child with special needs, or to an elderly parent who now needs to be looked after like a child.

The couple filled with faith but afraid to come to church, marginalised because of their colour, class, language, marital status or sexuality.

The lone protester who stands outside a government office or embassy, ignored by those inside and berated outside by passing, hooting motorists, but who knows right is on her side … ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.’

If the Church is a sign of the Kingdom of God, a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy, how does our life as the Church, in the parish and in the diocese, offer solace, comfort, a foretaste, hope for the meek, the downtrodden, the lonely, the oppressed, who are praised in the Beatitudes and who are invited as part of the great multitude, the countless number from every nation, tribe, people and language, to gather before the Lamb on the throne?

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit … those who mourn … the meek … those who hunger and thirst …’

May theirs be the kingdom of heaven, may they be comforted, may they inherit the earth, may they be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful … the pure in heart … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake …’

May we be generous in showing mercy, may we see God, be called children of God, find ourselves in the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are we even when others revile us for standing up for these values … when we stand up for those values, may we rejoice and be glad.

Writing on the Financial pages of The Guardian many years ago (17 January 2011), Terry Macalister wrote: ‘From Tolstoy to Dostoevsky to Chekov, if anyone can tell a good story it’s the Russians.’ Well, in Chapter 2 of Boris Pasternak’s great Russian novel Doctor Zhivago, we meet Larissa Feodorovna Guishar, who ‘was not religious’ and ‘did not believe in ritual,’ but was startled by the Beatitudes, for she thought they were about herself.

How do we apply the Beatitudes to ourselves, to our own lives?

The reredos in the Unitarian Church, Dublin, is inscribed with the Beatitudes, one on each panel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 9 June 2025):

‘Pentecost’ is the theme this week (8-14 June) 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 yesterday with reflections by Dr Paulo Ueti - Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for the Americas and the Caribbean, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 9 June 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, we praise you for sending your Holy Spirit, connecting our hearts to you and igniting them with courage, hope, and love for a world in need.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who filled the heart of Columba
with the joy of the Holy Spirit
and with deep love for those in his care:
may your pilgrim people follow him,
strong in faith, sustained by hope,
and one in the love that binds us to you;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Columba and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’ (Matthew 5: 8) … a window in Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal, Co Cork (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

Saint Guthlac’s Church in Passenham remains an example of the survival of ‘the beauty of holiness’

Saint Guthlac’s Church in Passenham, across the Great Ouse River from Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

There was an open day with cream teas last weekend, at Saint Guthlac’s Church, the parish church in the tiny Northamptonshire hamlet of Passenham, across the Great Ouse River from Stony Stratford.

Charlotte and I walked across the river and through the fields on Bank Holiday Monday to Saint Guthlac’s Church, which is lovingly maintained by local parishioners. It’s a short walk, yet Passenham is in the Diocese of Peterborough while Stony Stratford is in the Diocese of Oxford.

After Holy Trinity Church, a new and larger church, was built in neighbouring Deanshanger in 1853, Saint Guthlac’s was left in slow decline, falling into disuse and dilapidation and facing imminent closure. But the church in Passenham was saved fortuitously by the discovery in the 1950s of the wall paintings in the chancel that date back to the 1620s and that had been covered in a layer of whitewash in the 18th century.

Saint Guthlac’s Church in Passenham has choir stalls that date from 1628, with contemporary misericords (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

These wall paintings were restored by Ann Ballantyne and E Clive Rouse, and over a ten-year programme of restoration an entire scheme of church decoration, furniture, paining and carving emerged. This was all of such exceptionally quality that the church was given a Grade I listing.

The elaborate decorations in Saint Guthlac’s Church 400 years has puzzled church historians ever sense they came to light in the middle of the last century. The panels on the east wall on each side of the High Altar depict the death, anointing and burial of Christ, with separate images of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

Other wall paintings in the chancel depict four Biblical figures – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and David – on the north wall, and the four evangelists on the south side, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – although Saint Mark was hidden at an early date by a memorial erected to Robert Banastre after he died in 1649.

The memorial erected to Robert Banastre after he died in 1649 hides Saint Mark in the the arrangement of the four evangelists on the south chancel wall in Saint Guthlac’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

As well as these elaborate paintings, Saint Guthlac’s has choir stalls that date from 1628, with contemporary misericords in the form of a mask, arms upheld by angels, an ox, a male head with ass’s ears, a goat, head, a winged cherub’s head, a lion, a cat’s head, a lamb, a female head and a griffin. Each stall has the name of one of the 12 apostles, and above them is decoration reflecting the classical style of Inigo Jones, with painted shallow niches, fluted pilasters and a strapwork frieze.

The gallery at the west end of the church is supported by a carved frieze that may once have been part a chancel screen that was moved to the other end of the church in the 18th century.

These works combine to create an example of early 17th century High Church decoration in line with the High Church principles of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (1633-1645).

The gallery at the west end ofSaint Guthlac’s Church is supported by a carved frieze that may once have been part a chancel screen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sir Robert Banastre was a city man and a rising star in the court of James I and his son Charles I. He was comptroller to James l and became Clerk Victualler to Charles l, responsible for food and drink at the royal court. He was also member of the Court of the Green Cloth and was responsible for the collection of Ship Money in the county.

He accumulated lands in Passenham from the early 17th century, and leased land in the adjacent royal forest. He bought Passenham Manor in 1624, reflecting his growing status at court. By 1640, Banastre was wealthy enough to pay for the new chancel roof of Towcester Church. In Passenham, his coat of arms appears on his tomb and also on the exterior wall of the church behind his tomb.

Since the wall paintings were restored by Ann Ballantyne and E Clive Rouse, and the church decorations were refurbished, many church historians have discussed the significance of this elaborate scheme at a time when the Puritans were about the take power in England in the years immediately before the execution of Charles I.

There is no evidence that Banastre ever went on the ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe, still less that he ever saw the work of Palladio in Italy. But there are suggestions that his interior scheme at Passenham was influenced by the refurbishment of the Chapel Royal in Greenwich by Inigo Jones in 1623-1625, at a time when Banastre was a courtier. But hints of other influences have been identified in the chapel of Lincoln College Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn Chapel in London.

The figure of Nicodemus beside the Altar Saint Guthlac’s Church is a representation of faith concealed and gives rise to suspicions that Robert Banastre was a secret recusant or had Catholic sympathies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In his study of Saint Guthlac’s, Robin Goodfellow says the Italianate characteristics of the scheme of decoration and the portrayal of Christ himself, with strong connotations of the Pieta, suggest Catholic influence.

While popular Elizabethan portrayed Joseph of Arimathea as the person who first brought Christianity to England, Goodfellow suggests the presence of Nicodemus beside the Altar is a representation of faith concealed, and it has given rise to suspicions that Banastre was a secret recusant or had Catholic sympathies. Indeed, local traditions suggests that he ‘held the faith his father loved.’

Banastre came from a traditional Catholic family, and his father, Lawrence Banastre, had been committed to the Tower of London in 1572 following the arrest and execution of his patron, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, for his part in a plot to replace Queen Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots.

Despite Lawrence Banastre’s subsequent release, his family remained under suspicion, at least until his death in 1588.

During Robert Banastre’s decoration of Saint Guthlac’s Church, 22-year-old John Hall as rector in 1632. Hall was a recent graduate of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, when William Laud was the Chancellor of Oxford University, and remained at Passenham for over 20 years.

The altar in Saint Guthlac’s Church, Passenham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Guthlac’s Church was part of Banastre’s church-building in the Diocese of Peterborough, and of a wider construction programme in Passenham that included a rectory, a large barn and a manor house.

Banastre began this work in Passenham at the time of his wedding in 1620, and he completed it after Charles I ascended the throne 400 years ago in 1625. He died in 1649, and his monument in Saint Guthlac’s usurps the place of Saint Mark among the four evangelists on the south wall of the chancel. But the wall paintings survived both the iconoclasm of the Puritans during the Cromwellian era and the Protestant reordering of the church in the 18th century, albeit under layers of whitewash that had the effect of protecting and preserving the paintings for the next 180 years.

There is no surviving evidence of Sir Robert Banastre’s personal piety or artistic sophistication; perhaps he was motivated merely by a desire to impress the king; perhaps he was inspired by both the Catholic faith of father’s family and the religious and strongly royalist sympathies of his wife Margaret Hopton.

Whatever his motivation and inspiration were, Robin Goodfellow sees the decoration of Saint Guthlac’s as an example of the survival of ‘the beauty of holiness’ in action, and in it a unique record of and monument to English Christianity before, during and after the civil wars in the mid-17th century.

Climbing the steps in the tower of Saint Guthlac’s Church in Passenham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Further Reading:

Robin Goodfellow, ‘Robert Banastre and the Beautification of Passenham Church’, Ecclesiology Today (issue 63, December 2024).

Robin Goodfellow, Robert Banastre and the Beautification of Passenham Church (privately published 2024, 24 pp).

Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 50, Sunday 8 June 2025, Day of Pentecost (Whit Sunday)

The Day of Pentecost depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day until today, the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday (8 June 2025).

Later this morning, I hope to be part of the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, 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.

‘Come Holy Spirit’ … the holy water stoup in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 14: 8-17 (25-27), NRSVA:

8 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ 9 Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Pentecost or the Descent of the Holy Spirit, by Titian in the Church of Santa Maria della Salute, Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Rabbi David Aaron opens one of his books with a story about the comedian Henny Youngman, the ‘King of One-Liners,’ who once said, ‘I tried being an atheist, but I gave it up. There are no holidays.’

There are three great holidays in the Calendar of the Church when canon law expects the Eucharist to be celebrated in every cathedral and church: Christmas Day, Easter Day and the Day of Pentecost, today.

Each of these holidays or holy days is a day that celebrates how God has come among us and how God invites us to be with him.

They are just like our own holidays.

How often do you remember a holiday as a time when someone came to visit you, or you went to visit someone special in your family?

I have fond memories of long, extended holidays spent on my grandmother’s farm near Cappoquin in West Waterford.

How many of us know Christmas would not be Christmas without visiting the homes of family members, or special people in our lives and families coming to visit us, or even stay with us?

We have had a family member visiting our small flat in Stony Stratford over the last few days. We have tried to make this a place of hospitality, where people can come and visit us, and sometimes stay with, live with us, even if only for a short time.

These principal holy days or holidays in the life of the Church – Christmas, Easter and Pentecost – are holidays to celebrate how God comes to dwell with us.

1, At Christmas, we celebrate the Incarnation: God comes as Christ to live among us, as one of us.

2, At Easter, God invites to us to come and dwell with him, to become what we are truly made to be.

3, At Pentecost, God as the Holy Spirit comes and dwells with us.

In a typical American way of telling it, David Aaron in that book, Inviting God In (Boston and London: Trumpeter, 2006), makes a distinction between a vacation and a holiday.

He argues that a vacation is a time to get away, such as time on the beach, time playing golf or going to a good concert.

A holiday, on the other hand, is a time to celebrate. ‘A holiday,’ he says, ‘is not an escape from everyday life to paradise. Rather, it is a time to infuse paradise into everyday life.’

Playing with the words celebrate and celestial, he says a holiday is a holy day in which we see the celestial within the terrestrial.

The Hebrew name for a holy day, moed (מועד), is used especially for the three great Biblical festivals of Passover, Shavout or Pentecost, which was celebrated last Sunday (1 June 2025), and Sukkot (Booths). This Biblical word describes special days set apart from non-sacred days. It actually means ‘date,’ ‘appointed time’ or ‘meeting.’ In other words, these great holidays are actually times to meet God, they truly are dates with God.

And a date, with someone special, involves getting dressed up, going somewhere special, perhaps having a special meal together, all with the hope and promise of getting to know each other better, and of enjoying each other’s company.

David Aaron points out that each of these holy days is a date with God and celebrates a critical ingredient in the recipe for a loving relationship with God and with our fellow human beings – freedom, responsibility, fallibility, accountability, forgiveness, spontaneity, integrity, wholeness, intimacy, anticipation, hope and trust.

Those great holy days are about recalling the great encounters, dates with God in the past, making them real in the present, and looking forward to the promises that they are imbued with, that they may become real in the future.

David Aaron points out that each of these holy days is a date with God. Each holiday is an opportunity to relive the dramatic events that occurred on those days – to remember and celebrate God’s timeless love for us.

In the Feast of Pentecost, we remember how God the Holy Spirit comes to dwell with us, and the Church is formed on the Day of Pentecost.

Until then, they were a small collection of followers of Jesus. Now they become one body. And the Holy Spirit is living in this body.

There is a wise old maxim that you do not really know someone until you live with them. As Sean O’Casey has Joxer say in his play Juno and the Paycock (1925), ‘if you want to know me, come an’ live with me.’

In the television series First Dates on RTÉ, when people have their first dates, they behave so nicely to one another. They put on their best clothes and finest perfume or aftershave, they are polite, they try to have the best table manners, show they know the best wine and food, and are oh so courteous, considerate and caring.

But when you live with someone, you get to know that person really. Their highs and their lows, their habits and their fads, what they really smell like, how short their fuses may be … even what they really think.

Pentecost celebrates how the Holy Spirit comes to dwell among us, how God wants to live with us and wants us to live with God.

This is the promise of Jesus to his Disciples at the Last Supper that we hear in the Gospel reading this morning (John 14: 8-17, 25-27):

He tells them first that he is alive in God the Father, and that God the Father is alive in him, and that he will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit, who ‘abides with you, and he will be in you.’

It is the promise at our Confirmation, it is the promise at my ordination. But it is God’s promise to all, at Pentecost.

Because of Pentecost, God lives with us, and we live with God. We have been formed into one body, the Body of Christ. There are no more barriers, based on social class, gender, birth, job title, language, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity … or any of the other barriers we search for to separate us one from another.

The Holy Spirit breaks down all those barriers.

It sounds crazy.

It is crazy … by the normal pushy standards we see all around us. No wonder some people who saw what happened that first Pentecost in Jerusalem sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine’ (Acts 2: 13).

But then, God loves us, and wants more than a first date. God wants to live with us, and wants us to live with God.

Like a holy date, our Pentecost Eucharist or Holy Communion later this morning includes some of the elements we might expect on a date with God. We dress up nicely, we tell stories, we ask about one another, in our prayers we share our hopes and dreams and sorrows, we eat with another.

God has come to live with us, and now invites us to share his love, and to show this love in how we care for one another, pray for another, and how we now look at the world through the love-tinted glasses of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Pentecost breaks down the doors we lock and the walls we build to separate ourselves from God and from each other … a locked old door in the streets of the old town in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Acts 2: 1-21 (NRSVA):

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ 13 But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

17 “In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
20 The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The Day of Pentecost depicted in the iconostasis in the Greek Orthodox Church in LondStony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 8 June 2025, Day of Pentecost, Whit Sunday):

The new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), covers the period from 1 July to 20 November 2025. ‘Pentecost’ is the theme in the prayer diary this week (8-14 June) and is introduced today with reflections by Dr Paulo Ueti - Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for the Americas and the Caribbean, USPG:

Read Acts 2: 1-21

The beauty of Pentecost is that the Spirit refused to privilege one language, or one voice, or one way of doing things over another. It challenged imperial and colonial hierarchies and theologies of the time that determined which voices mattered. Imagine what it must have felt like to sense God saying: ‘All voices matter. I see you. I hear you. You are welcome as you are.’ What beautiful and simple truths.

This message is not just one of comfort but a call to action – urging us to challenge injustice and stand in solidarity with voices so often silenced.

Pentecost reminds us that the Spirit groans with creation (Romans 8: 22-23). The same Spirit that hovered over the waters at creation (Genesis 1) and breathed life into humanity (Genesis 2) now empowers us to confront the exploitative economies that devastate Indigenous lands and coastal communities.

Pentecost also confronts systems of exclusion. When Peter cites Joel’s prophecy – ‘your sons and daughters will prophesy’ – it directly challenges patriarchal structures that silence women’s voices. The outpouring of the Spirit dissolves gender-based exclusion and calls us to recognise and uplift women’s leadership in our churches and societies.

Perhaps most radically, Pentecost established a community where resources were shared equitably (Acts 2: 44-45). The Spirit calls us to a way of life where generosity and mutual care replace greed and exploitation.

Which of these most resonates with you? How might you act in light of Pentecost?

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 8 June 2025, Day of Pentecost, Whit Sunday) invites us to pray reflecting on these words from today’s Gospel reading:

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14: 12-13).

The Collect:

God, who as at this time
taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
grant us by the same Spirit
to have a right judgement in all things
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Faithful God,
who fulfilled the promises of Easter
by sending us your Holy Spirit
and opening to every race and nation
the way of life eternal:
open our lips by your Spirit,
that every tongue may tell of your glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Holy Spirit, sent by the Father,
ignite in us your holy fire;
strengthen your children with the gift of faith,
revive your Church with the breath of love,
and renew the face of the earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Day of Pentecost depicted in the iconostasis in the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral 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

12.5 million blog readers … but what do 12.5 million people look like? And what do 12.5 million people need?

On the beach at Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete … Greek airports welcomed over 12.5 million passengers to Greece in the first four months last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This blog reached yet another new peak at some stage early yesterday morning (6 June 2025), totalling up 12.5 million hits since I first began blogging about 15 years ago, back in 2010.

Yet again, I find this is both a humbling statistic and a sobering figure that leaves me not with a sense of achievement but a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

After I began blogging, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. It climbed steadily to 2 million, June 2015; 3 million, October 2016; 4 million, November 2019; 5 million, March 2021; 6 million, July 2022; 7 million, 13 August 2023; 8 million, April 2024; and 9 million, October 2024.

But the rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal over the past few months, reaching 9.5 million on 4 January 2025, 10 million over a week later (12 January 2025), 10.5 million two days after that (14 January 2025), 11 million a month later (12 February 2025), 11.5 million a month after that (10 March 2025), 12 million early last month (3 May 2025), and 12.5 million about a month later, early yesterday (6 June 2025).

Indeed, January 2025 was the first month this blog ever had 1 million hits in one single month – or even within a fortnight – with 1 million hits by mid-January, in the early hours of 14 January, and a total of 1,420,383 by the end of that month (31 January 2025).

In recent months, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions. Eight of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in January 2025 alone, and the other two of those ten busiest days were in this month (June 2025):

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 64,077 (14 January 2025)

• 55,344 (25 January 2025)
• 52,831 (27 January 2025)
• 44,134 (6 June 2025)
• 42,946 (26 January 2025)
• 39,444 (5 June 2025)

This blog has already had almost 3.1 million hits this year, over 20 per cent of all hits ever.

Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.’ But I have noticed that eight of these days were in the week before and after Trump’s inauguration, and that the overwhelming number of hits are not from Ireland, the UK and Greece, as I might expect, but from the US.

The bots at work in Washington must be trawling far and wide for anyone critical of the Trump regime, but I doubt my criticisms of Trump, Vance and Musk are going to make it easy to get a visa to visit the US over the next four years, should I ever want to under the present regime.

Total spending in Lichfield for work on the failed Friarsgate redevelopment and subsequent work on the Birmingham Road site has topped £12.5 million (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

With this latest landmark figure of 12.5 million hits by yesterday, over 1.4 million hits in January alone, and half a million or more hits within the past month, I once again find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 12.5 million people look like?
• Where do we find 12.5 million people?
• What does £12.5 million, €12.5 million or $12 million mean, or what would it buy?

About 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade, between 1526 to 1867. About 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and of these, 10.7 million arrived in the Americas. The Atlantic slave trade was probably the most costly in human life of all long-distance global migrations.

There are growing concerns that 12.5 million people in the UK have not saved enough or are under-saving for their retirement. Recent research shows that 24% of UK adults, or 12.2 million people, have already missed at least one payment in the last year. More than eight million people across the UK need to get debt advice and more than 12 million more live on the edge.

Yet the Hampton by Hilton at Liverpool John Lennon Airport has been put on the market in recent days with a guide price of £12.5 million.

The Home Office says about 12.5 million people in the UK have a criminal record. The figures relate to the number of criminal records on the Police National Computer (PNC) in April 2024. This means that every year, hundreds of thousands of people face new challenges due to having a criminal record and could be excluded from getting a job, finding somewhere to live or being able to get insurance.

Countries with a population of about 12.5 million include Bolivia, Tunisia and South Sudan. The United Nations has declared South Sudan the site of the world’s largest displacement crisis, with almost 12.5 million people forced to flee their homes, including over 3.3 million refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries.

Cities with a population of about 12.5 million include Guangzhou, Los Angeles and Moscow.

The United Methodist Church, the world’s largest Methodist denomination, has about 12.5 million members.

In the first four months of 2024, Greece’s airports welcomed over 12.5 million passengers. The Greek-owned Aegean Airlines surpassed 12.5 million passengers in the first nine months of 2024, marking a 5% increase compared to the previous year. Greece has received €12.5 million in EU funding to help implement a solar power project on the island of Tilos.

The Ireland-based company behind the Six Nations rugby tournament converted its tournament success into a pretax profit of €12.5 million (£10.5 million) in its last financial year, according to a recent report in The Irish Times. Following a loss of more than £26.2 million in 2023, Six Nations Rugby Limited recorded a profit of £10,500,776 for the year ending 30 June 2024, according to filed accounts.

Aston Villa is monitoring the Nice goalkeeper Marcin Bulka, who would be available for about £12.5 million this summer. Under the guidance of Unai Emery, Villa has secured European football for the third consecutive season, but fell short of a second-straight Champions League campaign on the final day of the Premier League season.

Councillor Sue Woodward, Leader of the Labour group on Lichfield District Council, says the total for work on the failed Friarsgate redevelopment and subsequent work on the Birmingham Road site planning has topped £12.5 million. She says residents in many areas of the district could no longer stomach money continually being pumped into the city alone.

Sotheby’s sold a pair of rare 16th-century Ming Dynasty Chinese jars decorated with orange fish for $12.5 million last November.

The world has a population of 7.75 billion people, and 12.5 million people represent only 0.16% of all those people, a modest number I suppose.

One of the most warming figures personally in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows how my morning prayer diary continues to reach an average of 60 or 70 people each day in the past month. It is over three years now since I retired from active parish ministry. But I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches averaged or totalled 4200 to 500 people a week.

Today, I am very grateful to all 12.5 million readers and viewers of this blog to date, and for the small core group among them who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

The United Methodist Church has 12.5 million members … Barbara Heck from Limerick depicted in a window in the UMC Church in Orlando (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 49, Saturday 7 June 2025

‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ (John 21: 21) … Saint John with the poisoned chalice, a statue on the Great Gate of Saint John’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday tomorrow (8 June 2025).

The pop-up Greek Café at Swinfen Harris Church Hall, Το Στεκι Μας (‘Our Place’) takes every first Saturday of the month, and I pop in there later today, between 10:30 am and 5 pm for a Greek coffee, a chat and a traditional Greek dessert. But, before today begins, 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.

‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ (John 21: 21) … Saint John the Evangelist with the poisoned chalice depicted in a window in Saint John’s Church, Monkstown, Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 21: 20-25 (NRSVA):

20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about him?’ 22 Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ 23 So the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’

24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. 25 But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

The symbol of the serpent and the chalice, a carving by Eric Gill in the capstone at Saint John’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading today brings us to the last of the post-Resurrection appearances and the conclusion of Saint John’s Gospel.

This morning’s reading (John 21: 20-25) at the Eucharist challenges us to consider whether we are going to follow Jesus to the end, no matter how, when or where death may come.

In today’s reading, we have an insight into the rumours that persisted in the community that the Beloved Disciple would not die (verse 23). But death comes to us all.

Last week, I spent a day in John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, for tests, scans and consultations on my pulmonary sarcoidosis and the traces of sarcoidosis in my heart. I have another day of tests, scans and consultations in the Churchill Hospital in Oxford later next week. In between waiting the results of one set of appointments and waiting for a date for the second set of appointments meant I had to forego any ideas of being to be in Dublin today for family reasons, but has also made me realise, yet again, how we all depend on the NHS here, and how vulnerable and fragile we are. At 73, I may not quite be in rude health. But my distant ‘cousin’ Kevin Martin, who died two years ago (14 June 2023), would greet me on my birthdays with the traditional Jewish greeting of ‘ad meah v’esrim’, ‘may you live until 120!’ (עד מאה ועשרים שנה‎).

I may not live to be 120, despite everyone’s good wishes. I am certainly not going to live for ever. Are the other disciples engaging in humorous banter or hyperbole when they suggest the youngest among them is going to outlive the rest of them so that it appears as if he is going to live for ever?

Surely they realise everyone is going to die – including Lazarus who was raised from the dead after three days (John 11), including the son of the widow of Nairn (Luke 7: 11-17), the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8: 40-56), the centurion’s slave (Matthew 8: 5-13; Luke 7: 1-10), the official’s son in Capernaum (John 4: 46-54), Peter’s mother-in-law (Matthew 8: 14-15; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-39) …

Saint John too lived a life of service and suffering: he was exiled on Patmos, and although he died in old age in Ephesus, there were numerous attempts to make him a martyr.

Saint Paul names John as one of the pillars of the Church in Jerusalem (see Galatians 2: 9). Later, tradition says, he takes over the position of leadership Paul once had in the Church in Ephesus and is said to have lived there and to have been buried there.

According to a tradition mentioned by Saint Jerome, in the second general persecution, in the year 95, Saint John was arrested and sent to Rome, where he was thrown into a vat or cauldron of boiling oil but miraculously was preserved from death.

According to ancient tradition, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, Saint John was once given a cup of poisoned wine, but he blessed the cup and the poison rose out of the cup in the form of a serpent. Saint John then drank the wine with no ill effect. A chalice with a serpent signifying the powerless poison has become one of his symbols.

Domitian then banished Saint John to the isle of Patmos. It was there in the year 96 he had the heavenly visions recorded in the Book of Revelation. After the death of Domitian, it is said, he returned to Ephesus in the year 97, and there tradition says he wrote his gospel about the year 98. He is also identified with the author of the three Johannine letters.

According to Eusebius, Saint John died in peace at Ephesus, in the third year of Trajan, that is, the year 100, when he was about 94 years old. According to Saint Epiphanius, he was buried on a mountain outside the town. The Basilica of Saint John the Theologian gave the later name of Aysoluk to the hill above the town of Selçuk, beside Ephesus.

The story of the poisoned chalice may be pious myth, but it seeks to tell us that Saint John too took up the challenge to drink the cup that Christ drinks (Mark 10: 38-39).

For there is another poison that can damage the Church today – we can fail to love.

It is in sharing and serving with those who are most like Christ in his suffering that the world becomes united with the Christ we meet in Word and Sacrament, and there too we find eternal life.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

A relief sculpture of Saint John ... one of a series in Pugin’s font in Saint Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Birmingham with the symbols of the four evangelists (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 7 June 2025):

The new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), covers the period from 1 July to 20 November 2025. The theme in the prayer diary this week (1-7 June) has been ‘Volunteers’ Week’ and it was introduced last Sunday by Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Saturday 7 June 2025):

Jesus, God who walked among us, bring deliverance for those who are displaced and seeking refuge, those.

The Collect:

O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God, giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom:
confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Collect on the Eve of Pentecost (Whit Sunday):

God, who as at this time
taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
grant us by the same Spirit
to have a right judgement in all things
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The site of Saint John’s tomb near Ephesus is marked by a marble plaque and four Byzantine pillars (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

French decision to rehabilitate Dreyfus after 130 years also challenges today’s antisemitism

Captain Alfred Dreyfus with his broken sword … a statue by Tim Mitelberg in the courtyard of the Jewish Museum in Paris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The lower house of the French parliament, in a unanimous vote this week, has approved the retroactive promotion of Captain Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general,130 years after the Jewish French officer was wrongly convicted of treason in 1894 in one of the most notorious cases of antisemitism in France.

The bill sets out to promote Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general, for one of the most notorious acts of antisemitism in France. The National Assembly or lower house unanimously approved the legislation, seen also as an act of reparation and a symbolic condemnation of modern antisemitism in France today.

The draft law was proposed by a former prime minister, Gabriel Attal, the leader of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party. All 197 deputies present voted in favour in the National Assembly on Monday. To take effect, it still needs the approval by the Senate or upper house in a separate vote.

The rapporteur of the proposed law, Renaissance deputy Charles Sitzenstuhl, said the vote ‘will go down in history’ and called on senators ‘to quickly adopt the text’.

Dreyfus was condemned at a time of rampant antisemitism in the French army and wider French society in the late 19th century. The symbolic promotion comes at a time of growing alarm over hate crimes targeting Jews in France.

‘Promoting Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general would constitute an act of reparation, a recognition of his merits, and a tribute to his commitment to the Republic,’ said Gabriel Attal, who was France’s youngest prime minister but was in office for less than eight months last year.

‘Accused, humiliated and condemned because he was Jewish, Alfred Dreyfus was dismissed from the army, imprisoned and exiled to Devil’s Island,’ Attal said in advance of the vote, calling on the National Assembly to unanimously ‘repair the indignity and bring honour to the Republic.’

‘The antisemitism that hit Alfred Dreyfus is not a thing of the past,’ said Attal, whose father was Jewish. He urged France to reaffirm its ‘absolute commitment against all forms of discrimination.’

Dreyfus was a 36-year-old army captain when he was accused in October 1894 of passing secret information on new artillery equipment to a German military attaché. The accusation was based on a comparison of handwriting on a document found in the German's wastepaper basket in Paris. Dreyfus was put on trial amid a virulent antisemitic press campaign and in the aftermath of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war.

The novelist Emile Zola wrote his celebrated front-page article on the Dreyfus case under the banner headline J’accuse (‘I accuse’), accusing the government and army of ‘treason against humanity’ by playing to the public’s antisemitism.

The Dreyfus affair is seen as a stain on French history. The trial reportedly persuaded Theodor Herzl, who covered it as a journalist, to turn to Zionism.

Despite a lack of evidence, Dreyfus was convicted of treason and he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, the infamous penal colony in French Guiana, and publicly stripped of his rank.

Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, head of the intelligence services, reinvestigated the case in secret and discovered the handwriting on the incriminating message was that of another officer, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. When Picquart presented the evidence to the general staff of the French army, he was driven out of the military and jailed for a year, while Esterhazy was acquitted.

Dreyfus was brought back to France in June 1899 for a second trial. Initially he was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Later he was officially pardoned, but was not cleared of the charges.

The high court of appeal eventually overturned the original verdict in 1906, exonerating Dreyfus. He was reinstated with the rank of major, served during World War I and died in 1935 at the age of 76.

The supporters of the present bill believe that had Dreyfus been able to pursue his career under normal circumstances, he would have risen to the top in the French army.

The French parliament’s National Defence and Armed Forces Committee had voted overwhelmingly a few days earlier to promote Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general. When the committee was debating the bill, Charles Sitzenstuhl suggested Dreyfus could be reburied in the Pantheon in Paris, the mausoleum reserved for France’s greatest heroes, although that decision rests with President Macron. In 2021, he opened the world’s first museum about the Dreyfus affair in Paris.

The Mur des Names or Wall of Names in the Mémorial de la Shoah lists 76,000 French Jews deported and murdered by the Nazis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The journalist John Litchfield wrote this week that the Dreyfus case ‘changed the course of French history. It discredited the forces of extreme nationalism, antisemitism, clericalism and nostalgic royalism that might otherwise have pushed France into a kind of proto-fascism or Francoism 30 years before Hitler, Mussolini or Franco.’

But for many decades ‘the Dreyfus case’ continued to divide France. In a speech to mark the centenary of Zola’s article in 1998, President Jacques Chirac said: ‘The Dreyfus Affair … tore French society apart, divided families, split the country into two enemy camps, which attacked each other with exceptional violence ... It was a reminder, that the forces of darkness, intolerance and injustice can penetrate to the highest levels of the state.’

Of the 577 deputies, only 197 voted on Monday: 38 were from the far-right Rassemblement National, the political heirs of the Vichy regime of 1940-1944 which rehabilitated the senior officers who lied and cheated to frame Dreyfus; the bill was also approved by 41 members of the hard-Left La France Insoumise, which has been accused in recent months of antisemitism in its unconditional support for the Palestinian cause.

The centrist Modem party, the party of the prime minister, François Bayrou, refused to take part. They said that the vote, sponsored by their coalition partners, Renaissance, gave both the far-right and the far-left a cheap opportunity to whitewash their antisemitism.

France is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the US, as well as one of the largest Muslim communities in the EU.

There has been a rise in reported attacks against the of Jewish community in France since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 and the Israelis attacked the Gaza Strip.

The Holocaust memorial in Paris, three synagogues and the Chez Marianne restaurant were vandalised with paint last Friday night in what was seen as a co-ordinated antisemitic attack. Green paint covered the walls of the Agoudas Hakehilos synagogue, the Tournelles synagogue and he Belleville Synagogue, as well as the Shoah Memorial for French victims of the Holocaust. All five locations are close to each other in the Marais district, the historic Jewish centre of Paris.

‘Whatever the perpetrators and their motivations, these acts do not only target walls: they violently stigmatise French Jews, their memory and their places of worship,’ the French Jewish group CRIF said. ‘These paint sprays are a stain on our republican values.’

The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said: ‘I condemn these acts of intimidation in the strongest possible terms. Antisemitism has no place in our city or in our Republic.’

Last year, France registered 1,570 anti-Semitic acts, according to Interior Ministry figures, over three times more than the 436 recorded in 2022. Since 2012 they have fluctuated between 311 and 851 per year.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

The Synagogue Agoudas Hakehilos on rue de Pavée … one of three synagogues in the Marais daubed with paint last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 48, Friday 6 June 2025

‘Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep’ (John 21: 15-17) … sheep feeding on a small farm at Platanias in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday on Sunday next (8 June 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945.

Before today begins, 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.

‘Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep’ … John 21: 15-19 was the Gospel reading at the funeral Mass of Pope Francis on 26 April

John 21: 15-19 (NRSVA):

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ 16 A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ 17 He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

The Risen Christ by the shore of Tiberias with the disciples and their catch of fish (John 21: 1-14) … a fresco in Saint Constantine and Saint Helen Church, Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 17: 20-26) moves forward from our recent readings from Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33) and his prayer to the Father as the High Priestly Prayer (John 17: 1-26) to the post-Resurrection appearances.

This morning’s reading was also part of the Easter Gospel reading (John 21: 1-19) at the Eucharist on the Third Sunday of Easter (4 May 2025), and provides the setting by the shore of Tiberias, where the Risen Christ is with the disciples as they catch water in the lake. That reading is often divided into two parts: we read the first part (verses 1-14) on the Friday of Easter Week (25 April 2025); the second part (verses 15-19) was the Gospel reading read at the funeral Mass of Pope Francis the following day (26 April 2025).

In today’s reading, the Risen Christ has three questions that he puts to Peter after breakfast by the shore. They appear a little confused or repetitive in most English translations, but the difference is clear in the original Greek.

In his first two questions to Peter, Christ uses the verb ἀγαπάω (agapáo).

CS Lewis talks in one of his books of The Four Loves:

• The first, στοργή (storgé), is the affection of familiarity;

• the second is φιλία (philia), the strong bond between close friends;

• the third, ἔρως (eros), Lewis identifies not with eroticism but with the word we use when we say we are in love with someone;

• the fourth love is ἀγάπη (agape), the love that takes no account of my own interests, that loves no matter what happens – it is the greatest of loves, it reflects the love of God.

Perhaps, the first time, Christ asks: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than you and your friends love one another but in the way God loves you?’ (John 21: 15).

But Peter is either evasive or misses the point, and answers with a different verb: φιλέω (phileo): ‘I’m fond of you, I like you like a brother, I agree with you. I’m OK, you’re OK’ (verse 15).

‘OK,’ says Christ, ‘feed the little ones the Good Shepherd welcomes into the fold’ (verse 15).

Then a second time, we can imagine him asking more simply: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me the way God loves you?’ (verse 16).

But Peter once again misses the point, and answers with the verb φιλέω (phileo): ‘I’m fond of you, I like you like a brother, I agree with you. I’m OK, you’re OK’ (verse 16).

‘OK,’ says Christ, ‘look after those in the flock the Good Shepherd tends’ (verse 16).

But then he asks a third question: ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ (verse 17).

Many English-language translations say Peter was upset, felt hurt, when Christ asked him a third time. We might be tempted to think this is because he was asked the same question repetitively, three times, that his answer was not listened to the first or second time round.

But this third time, Christ asks a different question, using Peter’s verb φιλέω (phileo), as if to ask: ‘OK Peter, do you love me as your brother?’ (verse 17).

This time around, Peter replies using the same word Christ uses in his third question. But, more importantly, he confesses Jesus as Lord (verse 17), as Lord of everything. This confession of faith comes the third time round from the disciple who earlier denied Christ three times (see John 18). And Christ then asks him to feed the whole flock, all the sheep of the Good Shepherd, lambs, ewes, lost ones, found ones, white sheep, black sheep, fluffy sheep, bedraggled and dirt-covered sheep – the whole lot (21: 17).

The disciples do not recognise Jesus as he stands on the beach just after daybreak (verse 4). But despite their initial blindness, their initial failings, their initial denials, God continues to call them.

And so too with us. God calls us in all our unworthiness to feed his lambs, to tend his sheep, to feed his sheep, not just the little ones, not just the big ones.

Do you love him enough, as he loves you, to see this as enough fame to bask in?

Do you love him enough to feed his little ones when others want to ignore them, despise them, call them racist names, see their children as extra added burdens, want to send them back?

Do you love him enough to see this as the benchmark against which you and I, society, the Church, priests and people together, all we are involved in, mark how we relate to the myriad, the thousands and thousands, to all living life?

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

‘Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep’ (John 21: 15-17) … sheep and lambs near the River Great Ouse, between Calverton and Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 6 June 2025):

The new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), covers the period from 1 July to 20 November 2025. The theme in the prayer diary this week (1-7 June) is ‘Volunteers’ Week’ and was introduced on Sunday by Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Friday 6 June 2025):

Our great God, we ask for your mercy for people living amongst us who are marginalised because of illness or incapacity. Be their Healer; help us to show compassion.

The Collect:

O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God, giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom:
confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow</b>


Today’s Gospel reading is set by the shore after daybreak … early morning on the town beach in Rethymnon after Easter (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