Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 15, Wednesday 4 March 2026

‘Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ (Matthew 20: 22) … the altar in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026), and this week began with the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II, 1 March 2026). The Chinese New Year celebrations here in Kuching came to a dramatic finale yesterday with Chap Goh Mei. I am due to leave here tomorrow with flights first to Kuala Lumpur and from there through Muscat to Lonndon tomorrow. But as the situation in the Gulf changes by the hour I have no idea what is going to happen to my travel plans in the days to come.

Meanwhile, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time in Kuching 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.

‘While Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves’ (Matthew 20: 17) … an icon of the Communion of the Apostles

Matthew 20: 17-28 (NRSVA):

17 While Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, 18 ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; 19 then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised.’

20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favour of him. 21 And he said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.’ 22 But Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ They said to him, ‘We are able.’ 23 He said to them, ‘You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.’

24 When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’

The calling of James and John … a window in Saint George’s Church, Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Did James and John think initially that opting to follow Jesus, becoming disciples, was a good career move? Whenever I read today’s Gospel story (Matthew 20: 17-28), I think back to my childhood days. I remember all those preparations for football matches or beach cricket, as we lined up to pick sides. And how we all wanted to be among the first to be picked for a team.

Everyone wanted to be picked first, everyone wanted to line up there beside one of the two captains, no-one wanted to be picked last, even when there were enough places for everyone to get a game.

I can still see them: nine- or ten-year-old boys, jumping up and down on the grass, waving our hands or pointing at our chests, and pleading: ‘Me, me, please pick me, I’m your friend.’

Me, me, please pick me. And then when we were picked how we wanted the glory. Slow at passing the ball, in case I might not score the goal. Better to lose that ball in a tackle than to pass it to someone else and risk someone else scoring the winning goal. Or wanting to bat first, to in stay and refusing to accept that we had run out or caught.

And that’s who James and John remind me of: wanting to be picked first, wanting to be the first to line up beside the team captain, being glory seekers rather than team players.

No wonder the other ten were upset when they heard this. But they were upset, not because they wanted to take on the servant model of priesthood and ministry. They were upset not because James and John hadn’t yet grasped the point of it all. They were upset because they might have been counted out, because they might have missed out being on the first team, on the first XI.

And their upset actually turns to anger. Not the sort of candidates you’d like to meet at a selection conference.

And what did James and John want in reality? They wanted that one would sit on Christ’s right hand and the other on his left.

Now, even that might not have been too bad an ambition. The man who stood at the right hand of the Emperor in the Byzantine court was the Emperor’s voice. What he said was the emperor’s word. And so, in the creed, when we declare our belief that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, we mean not that there is some heavenly couch on which all three are seated, comfy and cosy, as if waiting to watch their favourite television sit-com.

When we say that Christ ‘is seated at the right hand of the Father,’ we mean that Christ is the Word of God. In some way, I suppose, this is what Andrei Rublev was trying to convey in his icon of the Visitation of Abraham, his icon of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament.

In that icon, the Father and the Spirit are seated to the right and left of the Son. Indeed, in that icon, Christ is wearing not the elaborate high-priestly stole of a bishop, but the simple stole of a deacon at the table.

For James and John to want to be seated at the right and left of Christ in his glory – not when they were sitting down to a snack, or travelling on the bus, or even at the Last Supper, but in the kingdom (verse 21) – they were was expressing an ambition to take the place of, to replace God.

But to be like God means to take on Christ’s humility. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and then God asks us, invites us to return to that image and likeness when Christ comes in our image and likeness – not as a Byzantine emperor or Roman tyrant, but just as one of us.

Are we willing to be like him in our discipleship? Christ asks us that this morning. Are we willing to drink the cup that he drinks (see verses 22-23)?

Of course James and John were. See how this hot-headed pair, the sons of Zebedee, went on to serve the community that shared in the one bread and the one cup, the community that is the Church, the community that in the shared meal is the Body of Christ.

James – not James the Brother of the Lord, but James the Great – was executed by the sword and became one of the first Christian martyrs (see Acts 12: 1-12). John too lived a life of service to the Church: he was exiled on Patmos, and although he died in old age in Ephesus, there were numerous attempts to make him a martyr. And, of course, he gave his name to in the Johannine writings in the New Testament.

Martyrdom comes in many forms. In essence the word means witness. But the first step in martyrdom is dying to self, to self-ambition, to self-seeking, to self-serving. Your life must be a life that is testimony to your most cherished beliefs, testimony to Christ himself.

We love our titles as Anglicans – canon, archdeacon, prebendary, dean – and stand firmly on our dignity, and even on our dignitaries if they get in our way. But ministry is not about career with good prospects. There is nothing wrong with anyone wanting to be a bishop. There is something wrong if that becomes a career goal.

For ‘the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20: 28).

In Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity, the Christ-figure is wearing a simple deacon’s stole, and is seated with the Father and the Holy Spirit to his left and to his right

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 4 March 2026):

The theme this week (1-7 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Saint David’s Day’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Sarah Rosser, Team Vicar in the Netherwent Ministry Area, Diocese of Monmouth, Church in Wales.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 4 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We pray for the world: for peace where there is war, hope where there is poverty, healing where there is illness. Guide leaders with wisdom and reconcile divisions within our own communities.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
you see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:
keep us both outwardly in our bodies,
and inwardly in our souls;
that we may be defended from all adversities
which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
by the prayer and discipline of Lent
may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings,
and by following in his Way
come to share in his glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20: 28) … a crucifixion icon by Hanna-Leena Ward in her exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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

The Sarawak Club, once linked to the Brooke Rajahs of Sarawak, dates back 150 years to 1876

The Sarawak Club is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We have been guests in the Sarawak Club on a number of occasions over these two weeks, having meals and drinks with family friends, academic and church contacts and many other people who have become part of our life in Kuching and who have welcomed us to Sarawak.

The Sarawak Club sits atop one of the highest points in the heart of Kuching, along Jalan Taman Budaya, formerly known as Golf Links Road. It is next to the Reservoir Park and the Museum Garden, public parks that are part of the green lung of the city. The site on the edges of old city has been the home of the Sarawak Club for almost a century, since 1927, and the Sarawak Club is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

The club officially launched its 150th anniversary programme last month (30 January 2026) with the unveiling of commemorative signage and a refreshed logo, kicking off a year of celebrations.

The Sarawak Club was first established in 1876 and is said to be one of the oldest private membership clubs in all of Malaysia. But the story of the club goes back a year earlier to 1870, when the Rajah’s Arms was established as the first ever hotel in Kuching. When the Rajah’s Arms was put up for sale in 1875 for $3,000, the Second Rajah of Sarawak, Charles Brooke (1829-1917), bought the building to use as the Sarawak Club.

The Sarawak Club is celebrating Chinese New Year and its foundation 150 years ago in 1876 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Charles Brooke had succeeded his uncle Sir James Brooke as the second Rajah of Sarawak in 1868. The club was set up to cater for the entertainment and recreational needs of the officers of the white Rajahs or Brooke administration that ruled the autonomous state of Sarawak from 1841 to 1941.

The Rajah directed that all his government officers be accepted as members. The first committee members consisted of WG Brodie, manager of Sarawak Steamship Company, WM Crocker, Governor of British North Borneo, James Ines, Treasurer of Sarawak, and Dr EP Houghton, Sarawak’s Chief Medical Officer; the honorary secretary was CS Pearse.

The club was originally a men-only club for officers, and was first located on Carpenter Street at what is now the Hainan Building. The European women of the time formed a separate ladies’ club in 1896 at the corner of Khoo Huu Yeang Street and Barrack Road, and this club eventually became known as the Ranee’s Club, named after the rajah’s wife. The Kuching Social Club was formed ten years later in 1906 to cater for Europeans who were not the rajah’s officers.

From the beginning, the Sarawak Club always had extensive facilities for its members, and they included a billiard’s table and bowling alley from 1876. The club moved in 1911 to a house called ‘KMARK’, at what was then known as Rock Road (now Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg). The new club building was formally opened by Rajah Charles Brooke. Charles Vyner Brooke (1874-1963) had succeeded as the third and last white Rajah of Sarawak in 1917, and his coronation is said to have taken place in the Sarawak Club.

The Main Hall, the site of the coronation of Rajah Charles Vyner Brooke, is a heritage site restored almost entirely with the same belian timber (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In the decade that followed, the club opened the first-ever golf course in East Malaysia, established in the 1920s. The club moved to its present location on the former Golf Links Road in 1927, and the Ranee Club and the Kuching Social Club were amalgamated into a newly-constituted Sarawak Club.

The Sarawak Club was officially opened at its present site by the Tuan Muda or ‘crown prince’, Captain Bertram Willes Dayrell Brooke (1876-1965). The former club premises on Rock Road later became incorporated in the police buildings in central Kuching.

During the Japanese occupation of Sarawak, senior Japanese officers used the club, with a restaurant, billiards, and archery range and a rice storage area.

After the end of World War II, Vyner Brooke returned to Sarawak on 15 April 1946 and temporarily resumed office as Rajah until 1 July 1946, when he ceded Sarawak to the British government as a crown colony. The Sarawak Club became an exclusive domain for colonial officials and administrators in the 1950s. Ong Kee Hui became the first local person to be admitted as a member of the Sarawak Club.

Charles Vyner Brooke, the last Rajah of Sarawak, died in London on 9 May 1963, four months before Sarawak, Malaya, North Borneo and Singapore joined to form the Federation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963. Malaysia remained part of the Commonwealth, and Queen Elizabeth II visited the Sarawak Club during her visit to Kuching in March 1972.

Twenty years ago, in a fire early on 27 July 2006, almost all the Sarawak Club building was razed to the ground in fire that also destroyed most of the club’s historical records, artefacts, memorabilia and trophies. The club was fully rebuilt within a year.

The centrepiece of the Sarawak Club today is the Main Hall, the site of the coronation of Rajah Charles Vyner Brooke and part of the original clubhouse built on the site. The Main Hall is a heritage site and was restored almost entirely with the same material, including Sarawak’s belian timber in the roofing trusses, shingles and flooring. Red brick was also used in building the walls of the Main Hall.

The modern amenities and facilities at the Sarawak Club include the swimming pool (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today, the Sarawak Club is a membership club with more than 3,000 members who come from a cross-section of Kuching City’s business, professional and civil service community. It is a family club that has kept its timeless and personal traditions yet provides its members with a variety of modern amenities and facilities, including:

• the Hornbill Restaurant
• a swimming pool
• international standard sporting facilities
• five food and beverage outlets
• meeting and conference facilities
• private functions and dinner parties

The Sarawak Club is also used for training by many squash and swimming athletes and hosted the squash and tennis competitions for the third SUKMA Games in 1990. The site of the club’s original golf course has since become the site of the Civic Centre and Kuching Amphitheatre.

The club has reciprocal relations with similar clubs around the world, including the National Liberal Club and the Oriental Club in London.

The name of the Badger Bar, where we have been guests on a few of these recent occasions, recalls a detail in the coat-of-arms of the Brooke Rajahs of Sarawak, with ‘brock’ as a pun on the family name.

The Sarawak Club is a family club that has kept its timeless and personal traditions (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 14, Tuesday 3 March 2026

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … in Tai Tai Restaurant in Kuching, Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began almost two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026), and this week began with the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). In the Jewish calendar, today is the holiday of Purim, and the Chinese New Year celebrations here in Kuching come to a dramatic finale today with Chap Goh Mei.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time in Kuching 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.

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … tables waiting for diners in the old town in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 1-12 (NRSVA):

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … in Le Procope in Paris, one of the oldest cafés in the world (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading in the lectionary at the Eucharist today (Matthew 23: 1-12), we are in the Temple with Christ in Holy Week, the week leading up to his Passion, Death and Resurrection. There in the Temple, Christ has silenced his critics among the Sadducees and the Pharisees, showing their lack of understanding of the core messages of the Prophets and the Law in the Bible.

In today’s Gospel reading, Christ turns to speak ‘to the crowds and to his disciples’ about the scribes and the Pharisees, and their attitude to and teaching of the Law and the Bible.

Christ tells the people in the Temple that the Pharisees have authority to teach the Law, and he concedes that they are in an unbroken chain that goes back to Moses, for they ‘sit on Moses’ seat’ (verse 2).

But while honouring their teachings, the people should be wary of their practices. In their interpretation of the Law, they impose heavy burdens on others, yet do not follow the Law themselves.

Externally, they appear pious. They wear teffelin or phylacteries, small, black, leather boxes, on their left arms and foreheads with four Biblical passages as a ‘sign’ and ‘remembrance’ that God liberated their ancestors from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 13: 1-10; Exodus 13: 11-16; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; and Deuteronomy 11: 13-21). They also have lengthy fringes or tassels on their prayer shawls (tallitot, singular talit), as visible reminders of the 613 commandments in the Law (see Numbers 15: 38, Deuteronomy 22: 12).

Christ gives four examples of vanity (verse 6-7): they love places of honour at banquets, the best seats in the synagogues, being greeted with respect publicly, and being called ‘Rabbi,’ which means master and later becomes a title for the leaders in the synagogues.

We are warned about the dangers built into loving honorific titles, such as ‘teacher,’ ‘father’ and instructor (see verses 8-10) – perhaps for me that means canon and professor – because, of course, we are all students, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all disciples and children of God.

Yet I too am a father and have been a teacher and a tutor. Is Christ warning against the position? Or is he warning against seeking honours that have not been earned? I think immediately of Donald Trump’s petulant that he ought to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and have the Kennedy Centre named after him, without ever ending an actual war or having any gravitas or earned respect in the arts world.

It is a truism that politicians must earn the trust of their voters and that parents must earn the respect of their children, not seek or demand it. Most parents have, at one time or another, said to their children: ‘Do what I tell you, not what I do.’ Needless to say, children never listen to parents when we say something so silly.

All parents know, on the other hand, that actions speak louder than words.

Perhaps this reading reflects later tensions between the Jewish synagogue and the new Christian community. But, in Christ’s own days, people expected a Pharisee to be a careful observer of the Law.

Unlike the Temple priests and village elders, the Pharisees did not have a high social status. Before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the Pharisees were a relatively modest group of people without political power and they tried to live out Jewish tradition and the Torah seriously and conscientiously in their daily lives. The Pharisees saw the Law as applying not only to every aspect of public life, but to every aspect of private, domestic, daily life too.

There is another well-worn statement: ‘It’s not where you start out but where you end up.’ The Pharisees started out with good intentions, but some of them ended by seeking to be great, seeking to be exalted (verses 11-12). They started out being concerned for holiness, but some ended at exclusion. They started out seeking to recognise God in all aspects of life, but some of them ended by seeking recognition at banquets and in the synagogue (verses 6-7).

Christ calls us to live in such a way that we can say to the world: ‘Do as we say and do as we do.’

The problem here may not so much be a conflict between words and actions, but the need to make the connection between words and actions. Words must mean what they point to, and the actions must be capable of being described in words.

Most of us, as children, learned by watching how adults behave, we learn as members of the human community. As a child, when I needed to learn how to use a fork, I did not need a lecture on the hygienic and sanitary contributions that forks have made to the benefit of European lifestyles since the introduction of the fork through Byzantium and Venice to mediaeval Europe; I did not need an engineering lecture on the practicalities and difficulties of balancing the prongs and the handle; I would have been too young to read a delightful chapter by Judith Herrin in one of her books on how the fork-using Byzantines were much more sophisticated than their western allies or rivals who ate with their hands (Judith Herrin, Byzantium – the Surprising Life of a Mediaeval Empire, London: Allen Lane, 2007, Chapter 19).

The same principle applies to everything else, as is pointed out by Andrew Davison, now Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. In Imaginative Apologetics (London: SCM Press, 2011), he points out how the same principle applies to how we learn about everything else in life – cups, books, bicycles and so on. He might have added love – the love of God and the love of one another.

Over the years, I have often visited the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin. There, in the Great Palm House, are the steps on which the great German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly sat in contemplation and thought while he was living in Dublin in the late 1940s.

Even if we find Wittgenstein difficult to read, we can find useful insights in his writings.

Wittgenstein teaches us that thinking and language must be inter-connected. ‘Words have meaning only in the stream of life,’ he says. Thinking requires language, language is a communal experience, and, as Davison points out, we learn language as members of a human community and through induction into common human practices.

We can talk to others about prayer, forgiveness, and most of all about love itself. But if it only remains talk and has no application, then the words have no meaning.

In the verses before this reading (Matthew 22: 34-46), Christ tells the lawyer sent by the Pharisees and the Sadducees that the greatest commandments are to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ and to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ And, he adds: ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

If the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the young lawyer were teaching and acting in conformity with these laws, if their words and actions were inter-connected, then there would have been an unassailable ring of authenticity to their teaching.

We may say we believe in the two great commandments, but we only show we believe in them with credibility when we live them out in our lives. There must be no gap that separates what we teach and how we live out what we teach in our lives.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 3 March 2026):

The theme this week (1-7 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Saint David’s Day’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Sarah Rosser, Team Vicar in the Netherwent Ministry Area, Diocese of Monmouth, Church in Wales.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 3 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We pray for the people of Wales and the Church in Wales. May the Church serve local communities with compassion. Lord, open our eyes to the needs around us and fill us with love for all your children.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
you see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:
keep us both outwardly in our bodies,
and inwardly in our souls;
that we may be defended from all adversities
which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
by the prayer and discipline of Lent
may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings,
and by following in his Way
come to share in his glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The table remains bare if our words and our actions are not inter-connected … the Long Gallery or Dining Hall in the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street, Tamworth (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

Celebrating Saint Chad in Kuching today, although I am far away from Lichfield

Peter Walker’s statue of Saint Chad at the south-east side of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The Diocese of Lichfield is celebrating the patron saint of the diocese, Saint Chad, on his feast day today, 2 March. For the past 55 years, Lichfield, Lichfield Cathedral and the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital in Lichfield have been like a spiritual home to me after what I have described in an interview with David Moore as ‘a self-defining moment.’

He was interviewing me for A Self Defining Moment, the first of four films that went up on YouTube over 11 years ago (21 January 2015) and in which I talked about my own self-defining moment, and the scenic route I took to ordination and priesthood.

Ever since, I return to Lichfield a few times each year for prayer, reflection, and to follow the daily cycle of prayer and liturgy in the cathedral in my own personal, self-guided retreat or pilgrimage. I was there last month just a few days before we left for this visit to Kuching.

So there are many reasons for me to remember Saint Chad’s Day today, although I am in Kuching, over 11,000 km or 7,000 miles from Lichfield. Indeed, the Diocese of Kuching has been twinned with the Diocese of Lichfield in the past.

A statue of Saint Chad on one of the walls of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Chad was born in Northumbria, the youngest of four sons, all of whom became both priests and monks. They entered the monastery on the isle of Lindisfarne, where they were taught by Saint Aidan.

Saint Chad’s brother, Saint Cedd, founded the abbey at Lastingham and, on when Cedd died, Chad was elected abbot as his successor.

During the confusion in ecclesiastical discipline between the Celtic-oriented, Anglo-Saxon hierarchy and the pressure from Rome for conformity, Chad became Bishop of York for a time.

He graciously stepped back with the arrival in Britain of Theodore, who doubted the validity of indigenous consecrations. This was eventually rectified and Chad became Bishop of Mercia, a huge diocese the centre of which he moved from Repton to Lichfield.

Saint Chad travelled extensively and became much loved for his wisdom and gentleness in otherwise difficult situations. The plague was widespread at this time and Saint Chad died on this day, 2 March, in the year 672. His bones were moved to the new Lichfield Cathedral in the year 700.

The new Shrine of Saint Chad was consecrated and reinstated at two moving services in Lichfield Cathedral in November 2022. The new shrine in the Lady Chapel celebrates Lichfield’s own saint as Bishop, Evangelist and Disciple, and an inscription reads: ‘Christ is the morning star who, when the night of this world is past, brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day.’

The Shrine of Saint Chad in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Chad’s day is being celebrated in Lichfield Cathedral today at Morning Prayer (8 am), the Mid-Day Eucharist (12:30) and the Festal Evensong (5:30).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
from the first fruits of the English nation who turned to Christ,
you called your servant Chad
to be an evangelist and bishop of his own people:
give us grace so to follow his peaceable nature,
humble spirit and prayerful life,
that we may truly commend to others
the faith which we ourselves profess;
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 Chad and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The spires of Lichfield Cathedral seen from the gardens of Erasmus Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

26 million sq m in Sicily, 26 million in greater Seoul, $26 million spent on golf, or 26 million US bots?

Views of the Sicilian coast and the Ionian Sea from the garden Saint George’s Church, Taormina … Sicily has an area of 26 million sq metres or 26,000 sq km (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This blog passed yet another record landmark with 26 million views by late evening Kuching time yesterday (1 March 2026) or in the early afternoon Irish time. The views yesterday (318,307) were the highest daily figure I have ever recorded.

Last month (February), indeed this year so far, has had a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog, reaching a volume of readers that I never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (13 million) have been within less than nine months, and the February total of hits was the highest monthly total ever, at 3,386,504.

Yesterday’s total followed little more than a day after this blog passed a new milepost of 25.5 million (28 February). Indeed, it passed the half-million mark seven times in all last month: 25 million four days ago (26 February), 24.5 million hits earlier last week (22/23 February Sarawak or Irish time), 24 million the previous week (20 February 2026), 23.5 million (17 February 2026), 23 million (12 February 2026), and 22.5 million (4 February).

At the end of 2025, this blog had 21 million hits by New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 5 million hits or visitors for 2026, and February 2026 has been the busiest month ever, with over 3.3 million hits.

I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached seven times last month alone. Half of the 26 million hits – 13 million – have been within less than nine months, since 17 June 2025.

Throughout last year and this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Eight of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog have been in February alone, one was this month (March), one was in January, and two were in January last year:

• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 280,802 (26 February 2026)
• 273,022 (27 February 2026)

• 261,422 (13 January 2026)
• 195,391 (20 February 2026)
• 190,630 (23 February 2026)
• 190,467 (21 February 2026)
• 188,376 (19 February 2026)
• 183,317 (22 February 2026)

The rise in the number of readers is overwhelming this year and last, with the daily averages currently running at over 110,000 a day, and over 200,000 a day over the past week. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.

Enjoying the beach at Recanati, near Giardini Naxos in Sicily (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.’ It may only be a hunch, but I have not failed to notice that some of the record traffic on this blog has been around the days Trump declared war on Iran, his state of the union address, attacked Venezuela, in the week before and after his inauguration and his damp-squib military parade in Washington DC. Indeed, the overwhelming number of hits are not from Ireland, the UK and Greece, as I might expect, but from the US.

It is not paranoid to imagine how the bots at work in some ugly, dim basement in Washington are trawling far and wide for anyone critical of the Trump regime. The costs may be minimal, but it’s still money that could be better spent on healthcare, education, rehiring air traffic controllers or reinstating DEI programmes. But I doubt my criticisms of Trump, Rubio, Vance, Hegseth 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 dystopian regime.

I’d prefer to boost my ego and convince myself that my popularity is growing and that I have become a ‘must-read’ writer for so many people every day. But, sadly, I don’t think that is so. And if a minor critic of the Trump regime outside the US such as me is being intimidated at this level, try to imagine how many critics inside the US feel they really are being monitored, intimidated and bullied into silence.

To put this figure of 26 million in context:

UN reports show 26 million people in Sudan are experiencing acute hunger, with over 10 million displaced. About 26 million people are forced into poverty every year due to extreme natural disasters.

The populations of Australia and Mali are about 26 million each, and a similar number live in the Seoul metro area in South Korea.

Greece welcomed almost 26 million foreign visitors between January and August last year, marking a 4.1 per cent increase over the same period the previous year.

The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011 had a total average audience of 26 million viewers.

Several analyses, including those based on data from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and media reports, show US taxpayers spent over $26 million on Donald Trump’s golf outings at his own courses during the first 100 days of his second term of office. Reports last year indicate a crypto business associated with the Trump family generated roughly $26 million in unrealised profit.

Financial disclosures show the Trump Organisation received more than $26 million in income from partnerships with Dar Global, a Saudi Arabian real-estate firm, for projects in Dubai and Muscat. The 2017 Trump inaugural committee paid $26 million to WIS Media Partners, a firm set up by a friend of Melania Trump.

26 million metres is 26,000 km and 26 million sq metres is 26,000 sq km: Sicily, with a land area of about 26,000 sq km, is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and Italy’s largest region; the North Island is the larger of New Zealand’s two main islands, with an area of about 26,000 sq km; Rwanda is slightly larger at 26,338 sq km.

And 26 million minutes is 49 years, 5 months, and 20 days, or more than 180,55 days, or over 433,333 hours. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take almost 49½ years to reach today’s 26 million mark.

It is almost four years since I retired from active parish ministry. These days, though, about 100 people on average are reading my daily prayer blog posted on this blog each morning. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 700 or more people each week.

Today, I am very grateful to the real readers among those 26 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I remain grateful to the faithful core group of about 100 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each day.

The Lady Chapel in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching ... I am grateful to the readers who join me on this blog each day for prayer and reflection (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 13, Monday 2 March 2026, Saint Chad of Lichfield

‘Forgive, and you will be forgiven’ (Luke 6: 36) … street art off Carpenter Street in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began almost two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026), and yesterday was the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). The Diocese of Lichfield and the calendar of the Church of England today (2 March) celebrates the life and mission of Saint Chad of Lichfield (672), Bishop of Lichfield and Missionary. The Jewish holiday of Purim also begins this evening and continues tomorrow (3 March).

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.

‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’ (Luke 6: 36) … the ‘Corporal Works of Mercy’ window in All Saints’ Church, North Street, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 6: 36-38 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 36 ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

37 ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’

‘If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also (Luke 6: 29) … street art in Plaza de la Judería in Malaga (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today is Luke 6: 36-38, which is from the ‘Sermon on the Level Place’, Saint Luke’s equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount.

After the blessings and woes of the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us to be merciful as God is merciful. Mercy is one of God’s primary qualities (see Exodus 34: 6-7), and the concept of mercy in Luke 6 has an eschatological frame of reference. God is merciful by offering the possibility of turning away from disobedience through repentance and turning towards him and receiving forgiveness and restoration.

In Mary’s song Magnificat, God is twice identified as merciful (Luke 1: 50, 54). Zechariah too identifies mercy as a sign of God’s faithfulness to God’s promises, creating a people who ‘might serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness (Luke 1: 72-78). In this morning’s reading, Christ shows how to put this mercy into practice.

In the verses immediately before today’s reading, Luke 6: 27-29 presupposes a situation of conflict, in a time when the religious and political leaders of day were seen by many as their enemies. But Christ calls on us to respond and act in ways that seek the good of the other. This form of nonviolence goes beyond non-retaliation and takes positive steps that promote the welfare of the other parties in the conflict.

Luke 6: 30 presupposes an economic situation in which many people are exploited, live in poverty, and seek to survive by begging. The give to those who beg implies that we have an abundance from which to share (see Luke 6: 39).

Luke 6: 31 repeats the ‘Golden Rule’: ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ But the golden rule is not enough for us, the Children of God (see verse 35) in our covenant relationship with God.

Luke 6: 32-34 challenges the widely accepted notion in the Hellenistic world that relationships are reciprocal, and calls on us to go beyond behaviour is guided merely by the expectation of similar responses.

Luke 6: 35 calls on to replace old-age pattens of behaviour with ways that reflect the Kingdom of God, and to imitate God who is kind also to the ungrateful and the wicked. To be kind does not mean to approve but means to seek the best interest. Even the ungrateful and the wicked have the potential and the possibility of becoming part of the Kingdom of God.

Now, Luke 6: 36 sums up how to live a life that reflects the Kingdom of God.

Luke 6: 37 is a reminder that we not have the final say ourselves on who is in and who is outside the Kingdom of God. We do not live in the apocalyptic moment, and when he exclude others from the Church we risk finding we have excluded ourselves too.

Luke 6: 38 reminds us that God’s generosity is overflowing and overwhelming and goes beyond any possibility we have of measuring it.

As Shakespeare reminds us, in the words of Portia in The Merchant of Venice,

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven … (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1).

‘Love Being Awake’ … ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you’ (Luke 6: 26) … a sign in a café in Charleville, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 2 March 2026):

The theme this week (1-7 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Saint David’s Day’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections by the Revd Sarah Rosser, Team Vicar in the Netherwent Ministry Area, Diocese of Monmouth, Church in Wales.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 2 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We thank you for Saint David, for his love of the Gospel and his passion for sharing it. Renew your Church’s mission, give us wisdom and courage to share your love, and help us ‘do the little things’ that glorify you..

The Collect:

Almighty God,
from the first fruits of the English nation who turned to Christ,
you called your servant Chad
to be an evangelist and bishop of his own people:
give us grace so to follow his peaceable nature,
humble spirit and prayerful life,
that we may truly commend to others
the faith which we ourselves profess;
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 Chad and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Peter Walker’s statue of Saint Chad at the south-east side of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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 Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2026, but dates back to 1851

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, is the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, which includes Sarawak and Brunei (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During this visit to Kuching, I am attending the Cathedral Eucharist each Sunday in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, which includes Sarawak and Brunei. We are staying beside the cathedral, which is a three-minute walk from where we stay, and I hear the cathedral bell ringing thtroughout the day, including ringing for the angelus at 6 am, 12 noon and 6 pm.

The present cathedral is celebrating its 70th anniversary. The cathedral grounds include the cathedral, the bishop’s house on the top of a hill, the diocesan offices, the cathedral hall, the parish centre, and the House of the Epiphany, the theological college for the Diocese of Kuching. Nearby are Saint Thomas’s, the diocesan boys’ school, Saint Mary’s, the diocesan girls’ school, and the Marian Hotel, once the Ong family home, then the boarding house of Saint Mary’s School, later became the diocesan guesthouse, and now a charming boutique hotel where we stayed for a week at the beginning of our visit in 2024.

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral was built in 1954-1956. It is a plain but modern structure that in many ways is typical of many large churches of this size and importance built in the English-speaking world in the mid-20th-century.

Inside Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, facing the east end from the west doors (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The cathedral faces Padang Merdeka (Independence Square) with its monumental kapok or Java cotton tree. But the cathedral compound is also accessed from Jalan McDougall, a street named after the first Anglican bishop in Kuching, Francis Thomas McDougall (1817-1886), who arrived in Sarawak on Saint Peter’s Day, 25 August 1848.

The Borneo Church Mission and McDougall and his party were invited to Sarawak by James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak. McDougall who led the group was both a doctor and a priest. The Rajah gave the missionaries a considerable area of jungle-covered hill. on which they built Saint Thomas’s Church, a wooden church that could seat up to 250 people.

Saint Thomas’s served as a pro-cathedral for many years and stood on a hill where the parish hall now stands, about 50 metres north of the present cathedral. These first missionaries also built a school that later became Saint Thomas’s and Saint Mary’s, and a dispensary.

Inside Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, facing the west end from the chancel and choir at the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Kuching was then within the Diocese of Calcutta, and Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta, consecrated Saint Thomas’s Church on 22 January 1851. The church became the home church and base of the Borneo Church Mission in Sarawak.

McDougall returned to England in 1853 to manage the transfer of the mission from the Borneo Mission Society, whose funds came to an end, to the Anglican mission agency SPG (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), now USPG.

The initiative to create a separate diocese based in Kuching came from SPG and SPG contributed £5,000 (about £875,00 today) towards the endowment of the new diocese. McDougall returned to Sarawak in 1854 and the work of the mission grew.

McDougall was appointed the first Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in 1855. His title was chosen carefully because Labuan was a British territory and Sarawak was not, and was ruled as an autonomous state by the Brooke family with the title of rajah. McDougall was consecrated a bishop in Calcutta on Saint Luke’s Day, 18 October 1855, by Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, under a commission from John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury. His consecration was said to be ‘the first consecration of an English bishop performed outside the British Isles.’

The cathedral chancel was built with funds from SPG (USPG) to mark more than 100 years of links between SPG and the Diocese of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Thomas’s Church was wrecked in the Chinese insurrection in 1857, but was restored soon after, and continued to serve as the Pro-Cathedral after McDougall returned to England in 1868.

Walter Chambers (1824-1893) was the second Bishop of Labuan, Sarawak and Singapore from 1868 to 1881. Chambers had arrived in Sarawak in 1851, and he brought his first four converts to Kuching to be baptised on Christmas Eve 1854. He married Lizzie Wooley, another missionary and a cousin of McDougall’s wife, Harriette McDougall, in 1857.

George Frederick Hose (1838-1922), a former Archdeacon of Singapore, was the third Bishop of Labuan, Sarawak and Singapore from 1881 to 1909. He organised the first Iban conference in 1893, and expanded mission work in Sabah. Hose is also credited with having planted the first rubber seeds in Borneo.

The Lady Chapel in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral was the gift of Yap Ghee Heng (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When Hose retired, a separate Diocese of Singapore was formed, and the diocese reverted to the name of Labuan and Sarawak with William Robert Mounsey (1867-1952) as the fourth bishop (1909-1916). He founded the Borneo Mission Association in 1909, and after he retired, he joined the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, where he was known as Father Rupert.

Ernest Denny Logie Danson (1880-1946) was the fifth Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak (1917-1931). During his time, the old Saint Thomas’s continued to serve as the Pro-Cathedral. While Danson was bishop, the building was enlarged and it was given the status of a cathedral in 1920.

Danson saw these enlargements as temporary measures, and by 1920 he was proposing a permanent cathedral building of brick. However, those dreams were not realised for another 35 years.

Danson was succeeded as bishop by Noel Hudson in 1932-1937 and Francis Hollis in 1938-1948. After Hudson resigned from Sarawak, he became Secretary of SPG, then Bishop of St Albans, of Newcastle and later of Ely.

The figure of the Crucified Christ on the Rood Beam appears to be modelled on a man from one of the indigenous people of Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Francis Hollis (1884-1955) first came to Sarawak in 1916, and was the assistant priest at Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching (1916-1923), priest-in-charge of the Land Dayak mission of Saint James, Quop and Tai (1923-1928), principal of Saint Thomas’s School (1928-1938), and Archdeacon of Sarawak (1934-1938).

He became Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in 1938. During World War II, Hollis was interned at Batu Lintang camp near Kuching for 3½ years (1942-1945), and his time in internment seriously undermined his health and his eyesight. He resigned in 1948 after 32 years in Sarawak.

During World War II, the wooden cathedral suffered from four years of neglect and abuse, and the occupying Japanese forces used the old cathedral as a store. After the devastation of World War II, the Diocese of Labuan and the bishopric of Sarawak were joined into the Diocese of Borneo.

The Calvary in the cathedral grounds, close to the west doors of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Nigel Edmund Cornwall (1903-1948) became the first Bishop of Borneo in 1949. His immediate task was to restore the churches, schools and other church property destroyed during the Japanese occupation. The high points of his time as bishop were the construction of the new Saint Thomas’s Cathedral in Kuching, and the centenary of the founding of the Anglican Church in Borneo.

Soon after he arrived in Kuching, Cornwall commissioned an architect in England to design a new cathedral and an appeal was launched.

The foundation stone of a new cathedral was laid by Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, on 15 October 1952. The old cathedral building was dismantled carefully, and the parts that could be reused were taken by boat to the Iban village of Sungai Tanju, located in the Samarahan division.

The architect’s plans sought to incorporate a western plan and layout with the outward appearance of the Far East. However, it was soon realised the plans would have placed a heavy financial burden on the diocese. Alfred George Church of the Singapore architects Swan and McLaren drew up new plans that were unanimously approved in October 1954.

The coat of arms of the Diocese of Kuching beside the choir stalls and chapter stalls in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Swan and Maclaren group is one of the oldest architectural practices in Singapore and was formerly known as Swan & Maclaren and Swan & Lermit, and was one of the most prominent architectural firms in Singapore when it was a crown colony during the early 20th century.

The firm has designed numerous heritage buildings in Singapore and Malaysia, including Raffles Hotel (1899), the Teutonia Club (1900, now the Goodwood Park Hotel) and Victoria Memorial Hall (1905, now the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall), the Chesed-El Synagogue (1905), and the Sultan Mosque (1924-1928) in Singapore.

The architect of the new cathedral in Kuching, Alfred Church, had been a prisoner of war during World War II at Kanu Camp, a Japanese POW camp in Siam (Thailand).

Bishop Cornwall cut the first sod on 27 January 1955, the building was completed by May 1956, and Cornwall consecrated the cathedral on 9 June 1956.

An image of the original Saint Thomas’s Pro-Cathedral in the cathedral office (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral is built in the style of a basilica, with a bright red barrel-vaulted ceiling. As light pours in the upper windows, the of yellow and golden light and the red ceiling create a combination of colours that many Chinese people associate with prayers, worship and the spiritual life.

The 12 pillars are each marked with consecration crosses. The white pillars are thin at the bottom and thick at the top, and the arches reach a height of about 48 ft. The Rood Beam has a figure of the Crucified Christ, with the Virgin Mary and Saint John on either side. The figure of Christ on the Crucifix appears to be modelled on a man from one of the indigenous people of Sarawak.

The greater part of the cost of building the cathedral came from within the Diocese of Kuching, but there were generous outside contributions, while each parish in the diocese provided a part of the building.

The chancel was built with funds from SPG (USPG) to mark more than 100 years of links between the diocese and SPG. The six stained glass windows high above the chapter and choir stalls depict six of the seven sacraments and commemorate Geraldine Ng Siew Lan, who died in 2014.

Inside the original Saint Thomas’s Pro-Cathedral, an image in the cathedral office (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A plaque above the lectern reads: ‘Borneo Mission Association, 1909-2015, For its memorial look around you.’

The coats-of-arms of the Diocese of Kuching, Singapore, Calcutta, London, Canterbury and other linked dioceses decorate the walls above the chapter and choir stalls.

A plaque at the west end records that Saint Andrew’s in Brunei paid for the roofing, Saint Philip and Saint James in Kuala Belait provided the cost of the terrazzo paving of the floor, and the new parish of Saint Margaret and All Saints, Seria in Brunei bore the cost of the electric lighting.

The Lady Chapel is the gift of Yap Ghee Heng (1880-1967).

The chime of bells in the tower were presented jointly in 1956 by Sarawak Oilfields Ltd, British Malayan Petroleum and the Shell Company of North Borneo. The eight bells in the tower were dedicated to eight priests who were ordained on the centenary of the diocese in 1955.

A plaque above the lectern reads: ‘Borneo Mission Association, 1909-2015, For its memorial look around you.’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Sarawak and Sabah became parts of the new Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Bishop Cornwall was succeeded by Bishop David Nicholas Allenby (1909-1995), and the Diocese of Borneo was the divided into the Diocese of Kuching and the Diocese of Jesselton, later renamed the Diocese of Sabah.

Allenby appointed the Very Revd Michael Lim as the first Sarawakian Dean of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and Ven (later Bishop) Basil Temenggong, the first Sarawakian and Iban, as Archdeacon.

Bishop Allenby retired in 1968 and spent the last years of his life at Willen Hospice, near Milton Keynes. When he died in 1995, he was is buried in the churchyard of Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen.

The Diocese of Sabah, which covers Sabah and Labuan, was formed in 1962. The Diocese of West Malaysia was formed to separate that region from Singapore in 1970.

The Bishop’s House in the grounds of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bishop Basil Temenggong, who became bishop in 1968, was the first Sarawakian and the first Iban to be made bishop. He died suddenly in Simunjan while administering Confirmation in 1984. Bishop John Leong was consecrated in 1985 and enthroned in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching.

The Diocese of Kuching became a part of the Province of South East Asia when it was formed in 1996, with the neighbouring Dioceses of Sabah, West Malaysia, and Singapore. The Church of the Province of South East Asia is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its formation this year (2026).

Today, the Diocese of Kuching includes Sarawak in Malaysia and Brunei, as well as part of Indonesian Borneo lying north of the equator and west of longitude 115 42. The Right Revd Danald Jute has been the 14th Bishop of Kuching and Brunei since 2017; the Right Revd Andrew Shie is the assistant bishop.

The House of the Epiphany beside the cathedral has provided ordination training for the Diocese of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The House of the Epiphany beside the cathedral was established in 1952 and has provided ordination training for the diocese. The House of the Epiphany has been closely identified with the work of Peter Howes (1911-2003), later an assistant bishop in Kuching. He was arrested by the Japanese at Kuap in 1942. While he was interned in the Batu Lintang Prison Camp, he celebrated the Eucharist for the prisoners, together with Biship Hollis and other missionaries.

After World War II, Howes returned to Sarawak to begin rebuilding the Church. He became the first Warden of the House of Epiphany when it opened in 1953. Later, he became Archdeacon of Sarawak and Brunei, Archdeacon of Brunei and North Sarawak, and then Principal of the re-founded House of the Epiphany (1971-1976). He was an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Kuching from 1976 to 1981.

There has been a warm welcome in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral from the Dean of Kuching, the Very Revd Kho Thong Meng, the Revd Dato Bong Ah Loi who preached last Sunday and who presided this morning, from my friend the Revd Dr Jeffry Renos Nawie, who preached this morning, and from the priests of the cathedral each time I visit. Saint Thomas’s has become my home church and cathedral each time I visit Kuching.

• Saint Thomas’s Cathedral has six regular Sunday services: Holy Communion in English, 6:30 am; Sung Eucharistic in English, 8:30 am; Bahasa Malaysia Service with Holy Communion (McDougall Hall, Level 3, Parish Centre), 10:30 am; Mandarin Service with Holy Communion, 10:30 am; Iban Service with Holy Communion, 2 pm; Evensong with Holy Communion in English, 5:30 pm.

The eight bells in the cathedral tower were dedicated to eight priests who were ordained on the centenary of the diocese in 1955 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)