Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent just over a week away (18 February 2026) and the week began yesterday with the Second Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026).
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, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 6: 53-56 (NRSVA):
53 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54 When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, 55 and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
Today’s Reflection:
Between now and Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026), we are in what the Church Calendar calls ‘Ordinary Time.’
Two striking emphases in Saint Mark’s Gospel are the stories of Christ healing about healing those on the margins and assuring those on the margins that they too are called into the Kingdom of God.
Those people on the margins include people who are seen as sinners, foreigners and unclean, especially women and children. The ways they are belittled is symbolised in our Gospel readings all last week:
• The healing of the ‘possessed’ man who lives among the tombs (Mark 5: 1-20, 2 February 2026, if the Presentation or Candlemas had been transferred to the day before);
• a dying girl who is only 12 years old and a woman unable to find help from doctors for 12 years (Mark 5: 21-43, 3 February 2026);
• Christ lays his hands on and curing sick people (Mark 6: 1-6, 4 February 2026);
• the disciples are sent out in all their vulnerability and poverty (Mark 6: 7-13, 5 February 2026);
• Herod’s fears and wicked response when he hears of these healings and miracles (Mark 6: 14-29, 8 February 2026);
• And then Jesus has compassion for the people who are neglected by their leaders and rulers (Mark 6: 30-34, 7 February 2026).
In today’s reading, Jesus seems to be trying to get away from all the demands and all the expectations that are being laid on his shoulders. The apostles have come back after being sent out two-by-two, and are telling him all they have done and all that has happened.
Now they need a break, and Jesus takes them on a boat and they head off to a quiet place. But there is no escaping the crowd, the people and their demands.
And they ‘bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was’. This happens wherever he goes – in villages and cities, farms and market places (Mark 6: 55-56). It is just enough for them to touch the fringe of his cloak and those who touch it are healed (verse 56).
What did they think they were doing by touching the ‘fringe of his cloak’?
This is not just an act of hope, hoping for healing, but an act of faith, claiming a place in the community of faith, reaching out for love.
Wearing a prayer shawl reminds the wearer and those who see this of all the 613 commandments in Jewish tradition, of the covenant with God.
In touching Christ’s cloak, the sick people are claiming their place at the heart of the community of faith. They are making Jesus ritually unclean, but those who touch him are healed. In touching Christ, they are ‘touched’ by God’s power, and Christ draws them into the Kingdom of God.
These people follow Jesus around everywhere. He has compassion on them because they are ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’ They need healing, not just in mind and body, but in their families and in their society, in political and religious society, in the economy and in the villages, cities, farms and marketplaces where they seek the healing that Christ offers.
Faith and healing come together.
These connections are made in a prayer or poem in the Service of the Heart, a prayer book I use regularly for my personal prayers and reflections. This poem or prayer ‘Lord God of test tube and blueprint’ is by Norman Corwin (1910-2011):
Lord God of test tube and blueprint,
Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors and give instruction to their schemes:
Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer from his father’s colour or the credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who profit by postponing it pretend:
Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of the little peoples through expected straits,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.
Norman Lewis Corwin once declared: ‘I believe in promise, just promise … any species that can weigh the very earth he’s standing on, that can receive and analyse light coming from a galaxy a billion light years distant from us, any species that can produce a Beethoven and a Mozart and a Shakespeare, and the extraordinary accomplishments of our species, scientifically and in medicine and in the humanities, there’s illimitable opportunity for promises to be delivered and met.’
I fell on the street in London around this time last year and ended up in the A&E unit in University College London Hospital with a bruised and swollen face, eye and lips. There I was acutely aware of how hospital staff, medical researchers, scientists, doctors, nurses, porters, and cheerful receptions are all working with the ‘Lord God of test tube and blueprint’ and offering hope and healing to people of faith and of none.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 9 February 2026):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Safe Routes’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 9 February 2026) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray for Bradon, his family, and all volunteers serving refugees. Strengthen each heart and mind with courage and compassion, guide every action with wisdom, and protect from harm and exhaustion while offering care to the most vulnerable.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in 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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