Setting out on the journey on Ash Wednesday with Samuel Johnson’s prayer at the beginning of Lent

Ready for takeoff … a wall painting in a coffee shop at Heathrow Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are at Heathrow Airport at the beginning of a lengthy odyssey that begins this evening, arriving in Muscat early tomorrow, and continuing on through Kuala Lumpur, expecting to arrive in Kuching shortly after midnight tomorrow or in the very early hours of Friday morning.

Lent, which began today (Ash Wednesday, 18 February 2026), is a spiritual journey that leads us to the pains of the Crucifixion on Good Friday and the hope and joy of the Resurrection on Easter morning.

In previous years, my morning Lenten reflections have journeyed with the saints, looked at Lent in Art, reflected in the music of Vaughan Williams or the writings of Samuel Johnson, and similar themes.

I was writing yesterday about Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), and how my photograph of his bust recently restored in Bird Street, Lichfield, by the local historian and tour guide Jonathan Oates, has been used by Jono in his design of a new lapel badge or pin as a fundraiser for the Johnson Birthplace Museum.

The Lichfield lexicographer and writer compiled the first authoritative English-language dictionary. Perhaps I am sympathetic to Johnson because of his origins in Lichfield. Perhaps I am drawn to him because he recalled that when he lived in in London he went ‘every day to a coffee-house.’ But he was also a pious Anglican, a regular communicant, and he wrote regularly and carefully about his observance of Lent and Easter.

At an early age, his mother encouraged Johnson to learn the Book of Common Prayer by heart, including its many rich collects in Lent. The Book of Common Prayer invites us ‘to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and Repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.’

Johnson once declared, through his amanuensis James Boswell, that unless we set aside certain days for particular remembrances, we will probably fail to remember.

Johnson was generally negative about religious verse and his own devotional poems, marked by earnestness and humility, were composed mainly in his later years. There are several meditations and seven Latin prayers, the majority of them based on the Collects in The Book of Common Prayer.

David Nichol Smith, in Samuel Johnson’s Poems, says these verses ‘are preserved for us in sufficient numbers to rank [Johnson] as a religious poet, though a minor one.’

John Myatt’s mural on a wall in Bird Street, Lichfield, commemorating Samuel Johnson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Collect of Ash Wednesday in its traditional version in The Book of Common Prayer prays:

‘Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent; Create and make in us new hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

Johnson translates this into Latin as:

Summe Deus, qui semper amas quodcunque creasti,
Judice quo scelerum est poenituisse salus,
Da veteres noxas animo sic flere novato,
Per Christum ut veniam sit reperire mihi.

His translation, written 245 years ago, is dated 13 April 1781 and was first published in Works in 1787 (see Poems, pp 229-230).

Translated back into English, this reads:

Almighty God, who dost always love what thou hast made,
before whom as judge to have repented of one’s sins is salvation,
grant that with my soul made new I may so lament my former sins
as to be able to obtain forgiveness through Christ.

Johnson condensed the original without losing very much and made it a personal prayer. But his emphasis is a positive one, so that he begins with an affirmation of God’s love rather than asserting that God does not hate.

It is a twist in emphasis that reveals much about Johnson’s piety and his confidence in the love of God. And it is an emphasis worth reflecting on as we begin Lent and as we set off on this lengthy, marathon journey.

Samuel Johnson’s statue in the Market Place in Lichfield, facing the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 1, Wednesday 18 February 2026, Ash Wednesday

Lent offers a time for renewed reflection … February reflections at night at Minster Pool in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Lent begins today with Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025), which is being marked in this parish today with the imposition of ashes and the Eucharist or Holy Communion in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this morning (10:30) in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this evening (6 pm).

I m going to miss both as later today two of us set off on an epic journey to Kuching, with a flight from Heathrow that leaves this evening and arrives in Muscat early tomorrow morning local time (07:15), but still the middle of the night back in England (03:15). We have barely breathing time to connect with the next flight from Muscat (09:20) to Kuala Lumpur, and a similar short gap there tomorrow tonight, before our connecting flight, hopefully getting to Kuching after midnight and in the very early hours of Friday (20 February).

But before my day begins, before packing and making sure I have all my papers, 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.

Lenten array in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 1 ‘Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 ‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

16 ‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’

‘Dancing to the Heartbeat of God, Stories of Discipleship’ (SPCK) is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 2026, with a foreword by Archbishop Sarah Mullally


Today’s Reflections:

It is striking how often in the Bible encounters with God take place on a mountain top: Mount Sinai, Mount Zion, the Mount of Olives, Calvary and the Ascension from the Mount called Olivet.

In the Gospel reading on Sunday (Matthew 17: 1-9, 15 February 2026), we heard the story of the Transfiguration, where Christ is presented on a high mountain as the Father’s beloved Son, and placed on either side of him are Moses and Elijah – for Christ is truly the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets, of all of God’s promises.

In the Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday, we meet Christ as we listen to his Sermon on the Mount.

And there is a link between this mountain-side sermon and the Transfiguration.

The Transfiguration presents an opportunity not only for us to Christ as he truly is – the incarnate, living God; but also an opportunity for us to be reminded of how God sees us – made in his image and likeness.

The first reading the previous Sunday (Genesis 1: 1 to 2: 3), which I read at the Parish Eucharist in Stony Stratford on the Sunday before Lent (8 February 2025), is a reminder that when God made us, God made us from the earth, but also that God made us in God’s own image and likeness. What a compliment.

Then, at Christmas, God takes on our image and likeness. God in Christ does not just look like us, Christ is truly one of us, both God and flesh. Again, what a compliment.

On Calvary, Christ shows he is truly flesh. It is not that he appears to die. He dies. He truly is like us, is one of us. Again, what a compliment.

In the Resurrection, we are called to be what we are truly made to be – to be restored so that once again we are in God’s image and likeness. And once again, what a compliment.

So Lent is an opportunity to look back on who we are, and to look forward to who we are truly called to be: made in God’s image and likeness, and restored to God’s image and likeness.

One way of reminding us of this is to read this Gospel reading reminding us to pray, fast, to do good, to give alms, to seek our rewards in pursuing the values of the Kingdom of God.

This Gospel reading can be understood when it is read within the context of the full Sermon on the Mount, including the Beatitudes.

To be like Christ is to what he asks us to do.

A second way of reminding us of how we are made in God’s image and likeness, and how we are to be restored to God’s image and likeness, is the tradition of using ashes on Ash Wednesday.

It is a Biblical paradox that we are both made from the earth and yet are made in God’s image and likeness. We are made from the soil, yet in Saint John’s understanding of the cosmos all creation also dwells within God’s womb.

Our ashes on Ash Wednesday call us back to our beginnings, so that we can look forward to our glory in the Risen Christ at Easter. We are made of the earth, yet we are made in God’s image and likeness.

Quite often, we mark Lent with traditional customs such as giving up things, donating to charity, deliberate attitudes of kindness, or taking part in parish Bible studies. These customs are like New Year’s resolutions: they make us feel good for as long as we keep them, but they make us feel guilty when we fall behind.

But Lent is not about either: about feeling guilty or about feeling better … even if it is a good idea that I should become less self-centred and it is a good for me if, after a few weeks, I feel fitter and healthier.

In Old English, the word ‘Lent’ has the same meaning as ‘Spring.’ It means the days are lengthening – hence ‘Lent’ – and that signs of life are beginning to emerge after the coldness of winter.

As Spring prepares us to look forward to days that are longer and are warmer, so, Lent as a season prepares us to look forward to Easter: to the conquest of death and to new life through the Resurrection of Christ.

In the early Church, Easter was the time to receive new members of the Church in Baptism, the gift of new life in Christ. Baptism was, and is, a second birth, a way of being made one with Christ and one in the great company of believers who are his body, the Church on earth and in heaven.

Before Baptism, the early Church had a careful period of preparation for all new members. This was a period of instruction in Christian faith and practice, leading to Baptism on Easter Eve.

New Christians were taught to turn their back on old ways, superstitions and idolatries, and to replace them in Lent with acts such as generosity to the poor, the sick and those in prison. As their Baptism and Easter approached, they practised fasting, almsgiving and prayer, supported and encouraged by members of the Church. It was a communal exercise and experience.

And so began the customs and traditions we associate with the season of Lent. They were seen as an imitation of Christ during his 40 days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness after his baptism by Saint John the Baptist.

The traditional Ash Wednesday invitation or exhortation begins:

‘Brothers and sisters in Christ: since early days Christians have observed with great devotion the time of our Lord's passion and resurrection. It became the custom of the Church to prepare for this by a season of penitence and fasting.

‘At first this season of Lent was observed by those who were preparing for baptism at Easter and by those who were to be restored to the Church’s fellowship from which they had been separated through sin. In course of time the Church came to recognize that, by a careful keeping of these days, all Christians might take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and in devotion to our Lord.

‘I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Lord to observe a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.’

There are some ways I could suggest for observing Lent this year:

1, Come and See, Discovering Jesus through the Eucharist, is a free online invitation in the Diocese of Oxford to explore spirituality and find out more about the Christian faith. People are invited receive daily emails through Lent, with reflections, readings and encouragements. Each Sunday, there is a video from Bishop Steven Croft unpacking another aspect of the Eucharist. More information here.

2, My reading for Lent this year is Dancing to the Heartbeat of God, Stories of Discipleship, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 2026, with a foreword by Archbishop Sarah Mullally and an introduction by Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of York. This book brings together around 30 contributors from across the globe, who reflect the breadth, diversity and vitality of the Anglican Communion, and who offer a confident and hopeful vision of faith lived out in everyday life through personal stories, testimonies and reflections on what it means to follow Christ faithfully.

3, USPG’s Lent Appeal this year seeks to bring hope for the future to Myanmar. Through the Church of the Province of Myanmar’s Integrated Education Programme, vulnerable children are finding sanctuary in classrooms, sustenance in daily meals, and strength in community. USPG is supporting this partnership of faith and action throughout Lent 2026. Find out more and support the appeal here.

4, Pope Leo XIV, in his invitation for Lent this year, says: ‘I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbour. Let us begin by disarming our language, avoiding harsh words and rash judgement, refraining from slander and speaking ill of those who are not present and cannot defend themselves.’ This is a wonderful way to start Lent, and a wonderful way roo to show we are listening to what Christ asks of us.

There is a necessary rigour to Lent. It is meant to offer a time for change to take place.

Fasting also allows us to learn the extraordinary richness of God’s creation: we can appreciate it more if we seek to tame our appetites for a while. Put this alongside prayer and almsgiving and we cannot but help to turn away from self a little more and so have space for God and the claims of God and neighbour on our lives. Over the past four years, I have been in and out of hospitals and clinics in Milton Keynes, Oxford, Sheffield and London, for tests related to a battery of conditions and injuries falling a fall. I did not need to read today’s Gospel to be reminded ‘whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.’

Spring follows winter and holds the promise of summer; Lent holds the hope of Easter and the Resurrection. And the next six weeks of Lent offer a fresh opportunity to do those things, and to pray in those ways, that make us less self-centred, that make us feel fitter and healthier – spiritually as well as physically – and that renew and refresh our faith, our hope, our love.

A window ledge in the chapel in Dr Miley’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 18 February 2026, Ash Wednesday):

The theme this week (15-21 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Look to the Amazon!’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Bishop of Amazonia and Archbishop of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 18 February 2026, Ash Wednesday) invites us to pray:

Merciful God, as we begin this season of Lent, remind us to seek your presence with humble hearts. Teach us to give, to pray, and to fast however we can out of love of you. May we walk each day in the light of your grace.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
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:

Almighty God,
you have given your only Son to be for us
both a sacrifice for sin
and also an example of godly life:
give us grace
that we may always most thankfully receive
these his inestimable gifts,
and also daily endeavour
to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
our lives are laid open before you:
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Lent offers a time for renewed reflection … night-time reflections in the February rain in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Churchyard, Stony Stratford (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

How my photograph of Samuel Johnson’s bust in Lichfield has become part of a museum fundraiser

My photograph of Samuel Johnson’s bust in Lichfield has become part of a museum fundraiser (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

It is a real pleasure to be part of another local history project in Lichfield, albeit a very small part. This time, though, my contribution is of a very different nature, with my photograph of the bust of Samuel Johnson on Bird Street becoming part of the design of a new commemorative badge for the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum and the Johnson Society.

Jono Oates of Jono’s Tourism has designed and donated the new commemorative badges of the Johnson’s head bust to raise funds for the Dr Johnson’s Birthplace Trust, a registered charity managed by Lichfield City Council.

The trust supports the activities of the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, including public engagement and learning events, it funds new acquisitions and exhibitions, and helps support the ongoing costs of caring for the Grade I listed building and its collection.

Jono Oates presents the stylish mew badge to the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum

The stylish badges were produced using the remaining funds from a Go Fund Me campaign set up by Jono to assist with the restoration and installation of the 1884 bust, which was unveiled in 2024 above the door of 10 Bird Street.

And the new badge was designed using a photograph I took of the Johnson bust on Bird Street in Lichfield last year.

The bust was donated by Peter Hone as a gift to the people of Lichfield, with the support of local people, organisations and businesses in Lichfield, including Jono, the Go Fund Me campaign, the Johnson Society, Viking E-Cigs and the George Hotel.

The bust required extensive restoration and specialist installation. The work was carried out by Jones Carving, Messenger BCR, Brownhill Hayward Brown Chartered Architects, Hibberd Consulting Engineers (of Lichfield), and Green Power Plant Hire. All of them donated their time to the project, which was led by Lichfield City Council.

The pin badges produced by Jono Oates of Jono’s Tourism are beased on my photographs of Samuel Johnson’s bust in Bird Street, Lichfield

When Jono’s fundraising campaign was left with unspent funds, he looked at various projects to spend theresidual money on and eventually settled on a lapel pin badge version of the bust. He has donated hundreds of the pin badgesm based on my photograph to the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Musuem, where they are now on sale in the bookshop museum for a small donation, with all proceeds going to the Dr Johnson’s Birthplace Trust. He also produced some special versions of the badge which will go to members of the Johnson Society who were instrumental in arranging the transfer of the bust from Peter Hone, who agreed to return the bust to Lichfield for free.

There was still £150 of unspent money, and Jono has donated this to two local charities, the Lichfield Christmas Toy Appeal, organised by Elaine Hutchings, and the Friends2Friends charity.

Since 1901, Johnson’s birthplace has been a museum to the writer and compiler of the first standard English dictionary and his times. The house was built in 1708 for Samuel Johnson’s parents, Sarah and Michael Johnson, and the family ran their bookshop business on the ground floor. Now a Grade I listing building, the Birthplace is a vibrant accredited museum with events and activities throughout the year.

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum and Bookshop on Breadmarket Street, Lichfield, was closed temporarily for essential building maintenance from 2 February, but reopened last week (Wednesday 11 February 2026). The museum and bookshop are open every day, admission is free and donations are welcome.

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum and Bookshop on Breadmarket Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

23.5 million Dutch speakers, 23.5 million New Yorkers, 23.5 million hungry people, 23.5 million blog readers

Tulips from Amsterdam, seen in Schiphol Airport … 23.5 million people speak Dutch as their first language (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Once again, this blog continues to reach more and more readers as it reaches the milepost of 23.5 million readers this morning (17 February 2026), having reached 23 million readers only five days ago (12 February 2026) and 22.5 million earlier this month (4 February). These figures follow so soon after passing the landmarks of 22 million hits late last month (20 January) and 21.5 million hits a week before that (13 January). At the end of 2025, this blog had 21 million hits by New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025), with almost 2.5 million visitors throughout December (2,423,018).

So far this year, there have been almost 2.5 million hits or visitors for 2026 by this morning. This means, this blog has passed the half million mark three times this month alone, twice last month, and five times in December.

I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached within the past week alone. It then took more than another year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. This blog reached the 10 million mark a year ago (12 January 2025), almost 15 years later. In less than 12 months since then, another 13.5 million hits have been counted.

Throughout last year, the daily figures were overwhelming on many occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in December last, three were in January 2025, and two are in this week in February alone:

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 166,155 (15 December 2025)
• 146,944 (14 December 2025)
• 144,935 (16 February 2026)

• 144,866 (14 February 2026)
• 140,417 (16 December 2025)
• 122,398 (17 December 2025)
• 116,911 (30 December 2025)
• 112,221 (13 December 2025)
• 106,475 (27 December 2025)

The latest figure of 23.5 million is all the more staggering as more half of those hits have been within less than a year, since March 2025. The rise in the number of readers seems to have been phenomenal throughout last year, and the daily figures are overwhelming at times, currently running at more than 60,000.

With this latest landmark figure of 23.5 million readers, I once again find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 23.5 million people look like?

• Where do we find 23.5 million people?

• What does £23.5 million, €23.5 million or $23.5 million mean?

• What would it buy? How far would it stretch? How much of a difference would that much make to people’s lives?

Aston Villa paid 23.5 million in transfer fees for the Nice forward Evan Guessand last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Astronomers have also calculated that the diameter of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole is around 23.5 million km . But this is  tiny compared to the Milky Way itself, which is 100,000 light-years wide and 1,000 light-years thick.

Despite Trump’s persistent claims about ‘voter fraud’ in the US, a Brennan Center for Justice study of 42 jurisdictions, covering 23.5 million votes cast in the 2016 general election, found that election officials referred only 30 cases of suspected non-citizen voting for further investigation. This represented approximately 0.0001% of the total votes in those areas.

About 23.5 million people in the US live in low-income areas that are more than one mile from a supermarket, often referred to as ‘food deserts’.

An estimated 23.5 million people in the US are living with an autoimmune disease, and almost 80 per cent of them are women.

Climate extremes have been the main driver of acute hunger in eight African countries, pushing 23.5 million people into emergency levels of hunger. Humanitarian organisations say 23.5 million people in the Sahel face food insecurity, and that 23.5 million people in Bangladesh are facing high levels of food insecurity.

The number of households in England is projected to grow from 23.5 million in 2022 to 25.9 million by 2030.

The population of the New York Combined Statistical Area (CSA) or the New York Metropolitan Area is approximately 23.5 million. Both Syria and Taiwan have a population of about 23.5 million people.

A report this month estimates around €23.5 million in public money is paid to sitting Dáil politicians every year.

Aston Villa signed the Nice forward Evan Guessand last year, with the transfer costing an initial £23.5 million that was expected to rise to about £28 million.

The Netherlands and Belgium have a combined total of 23.5 million Dutch speakers with another half a million more Dutch speakers in former Dutch former colonies such as Curacao, Aruba, St Maarten, and Suriname.

And 23.5 million minutes is 44.68 years, or roughly 391,666.67 hours or 16,319.4 days. In other words, if this blog was getting one hit a minute, it would take almost 45 years to reach today’s 23.5 million mark.

So, yet again, this blog has reached another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

Once again, a continuing and warming figure in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows my morning prayer diary continues to reach up to 70-90 people each day.

It is almost four years now since I retired from active parish ministry, but I think many of my priest-colleagues be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 500 to 600 people or more each week.

Today, I am very grateful to all the 23.5 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I am grateful for the faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

23.5 million people in the Netherlands and Belgium speak Dutch as their first language (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 15, Tuesday 17 February 2026

The staff of life … 12 loaves of bread depicted in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This period of Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar has been very short this year, lasting for little more than two weeks, today is Shrove Tuesday, or in most of our childhood memories, Pancake Tueday, with pncake races in Lichield, Olney and many other places. Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026).

The calendar of the Church of England today remembers the life and witness of Janani Luwum (1977), Archbishop of Uganda and Martyr. Before this day 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.

‘When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve’ (Mark 8: 19) … 12 loaves of bread in the Bretzel Bakery in Portobello, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 14-21 (NRSVA):

14 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out – beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.’ 16 They said to one another, ‘It is because we have no bread.’ 17 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ 20 ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ 21 Then he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’

‘Bread is still the staff of life’ … the façade of Frank O’Connor’s former bakery on North Main Street, Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

I can truly identify with the forgetfulness of the disciples in this morning’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 14-21). I have forgotten to pack enough clothes for a weekend away and for holidays. I have left clothes behind in hotels, keys on a shop counter, lost a phone on a train between Tamworth and Lichfield and another in a taxi from Luton. I got a train in the wrong direction when I was to speak at a book launch in London. I have even left my passport behind in Stony Stratford, so that I missed a flight and the launch in Dublin of a book to which I had contributed two chapters.

I know it happens to others too. I hope this forgetfulness does not mark the way we set out on a long journey tomorrow. But with those memories and that in the background, I understandably feel sympathetic with any of the disciples in today’s reading who might be dismissed by readers as being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic.’

I have memories from my more youthful days in Wexford, when I worked with the Wexford People and Frank O’Connor’s bakery was on North Main Street. The bakery dated back to 1860, and closed in 1979. But I remember the initials FOC on the façade, and the slogan: ‘Bread is still the staff of life.’

The constant and witty response from one friend as he passed that shop in North Main Street was: ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’

One is a popular proverb that many assume is a Biblical quotation; the other is a Biblical quotation, that appears once in Deuteronomy and twice in the Gospels.

The Gospel reading for the Eucharist today reflects the importance of breads in daily life in the time of Jesus and the Disciples – it was truly the staff of life.

The Kupa Synagogue in the Old Jewish in Kraków has a wall painting or fresco of 12 loaves of bread that are described as ‘sacramental.’

To what degree is this morning’s Gospel reading for the Eucharist a sacramental reading?

When the disciples are rebuked for forgetting to bring any bread with them, it is not just a matter of everyone in the group going hungry for a little while. The Greek verb used here for ‘to forget’ (ἐπιλανθάνομαι, epilanthanomai) conveys the sense of negligence or disregarding rather than memory loss. I am inclined to read it as describing a wilful decision not to remember to bring bread rather than some forgetful lapse of memory.

And the Greek word used here to describe to bring or to take (λαμβάνω, lambanō) describes not the process of buying bread, or putting it in your shopping basket or a picnic hamper. It describes laying hands on it.

Taking, blessing, breaking and giving … essential acts of giving and receiving, Eucharistic acts.

Bread is still the staff of life, and encountering Christ in the breaking of the bread, in sacramental living, still brings and gives life.

The church is the boat, and not merely forgetting but neglecting the opportunity to share the staff of life in the Church, for me, is one of the weaknesses I find in a church that professes to be a church of word and sacrament.

A sandwich bar in Zurich Airport … were some of the disciples close to being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 17 February 2026):

The theme this week (15-21 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Look to the Amazon!’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Bishop of Amazonia and Archbishop of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 17 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, bless the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil as it stands alongside Indigenous communities in the Amazon to protect forests and defend the rights of land and culture.

The Collect:

God of truth,
whose servant Janani Luwum walked in the light,
and in his death defied the powers of darkness:
free us from fear of those who kill the body,
that we too may walk as children of light,
through him who overcame darkness by the power of the cross,
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:

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Janani Luwum:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A town sign in Olney depicts the town’s traditional pancake race on Shrove Tuesday (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

Saint Tikhon of Mount Athos, a key figure in modern Orthodox spirituality, has been recognised as a saint

Alexandra Kauoki working on a new icon of Saint Tikhon in Retymnon in Crete

Patrick Comerford

The Ecumenical Patriarchate announced ;ast week that that the Holy and Sacred Synod under the presidency of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has decided unanimously to include two monks of Mount Athos in the canon of saints of the Church: Elder Tikhon, who lived an ascetic life at the Holy Stavronikita Cell of the Precious Cross in the Skete of Kapsala, attached to Stavronikita; and Father George, also known as Hadji-Georgis, who was from Cappadocia and died in Constantinople.

The two Athonite monks were canonised last week (11 February). I first learned of the life of the saintly Athonite monk Saint Tikhon on courses in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, which is now based at Jesus College, and during visits to Saint John’s Monastery in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex.

Saint Tikhon is one of the key influential thinkers in Orthodox spirituality in recent decades, and his biography by Saint Paisos has introduced him to theologians and spiritual writers far beyond the Orthodox world.

Saint Tikhon was born Timotheos Golenkov in 1884 in the village of Novaya Mikhailovka, in present-day Volgograd in Russia, into a devout family. From a young age he wanted to dedicate his life to God. Despite his parents’ concerns, he went on pilgrimages to more than 200 monasteries throughout Russia, then to Mount Sinai and the Holy Land, and finally settled on Mount Athos at the age of 24.

He received the monastic tonsure with the name Tikhon in the cell of Saint Nicholas at Burazeri, near Karyes. For 15 years, he lived an ascetic life in Karoulia, an area in the extreme south end of Mount Athos that is known for its wilderness, harsh conditions, and the austere life of its hermits.

He then moved to one of the cells of Stavronikita Monastery at Kapsala, where his humility and asceticism led many people to seek him out for advice and spiritual consolation. He eventually agreed to be ordained a priest so he could offer sacramental confession as a father-confessor. He continued to live a life of humility and prayer, especially the Jesus Prayer, and built a small church in honour of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

He usually celebrated the Divine Liturgy every Sunday, though he always kept the Precious Gifts in his cell and took Communion daily. It is said that during the Liturgy people would see the his face transformed, and his eyes seemed to be radiating light in the dark. He frequently visited Esphigmenou Monastery to hear the confessions of the monks there.

Some of Saint Tikhon’s sayings include:

‘Good habits are virtues, and bad habits are passions.’

‘Let a monk not connect with animals because they will win his mind and heart and the monk will waste his love on animals instead of giving it wholeheartedly to God.’

‘The prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me! is the pure wheat.’

‘A good, obedient monk will be able to acquire the habit of unceasingly repeating the Jesus Prayer.’

‘If you don’t exercise caution while reading the Gospel, you may fall into delusion like Origen.’

‘Better three prostrations with humility than 1,000 prostrations with arrogance. Only humility will save us! Few people have acquired humility of mind and it is almost impossible to find them!’

Saint Tikhon lived his final days lived in seclusion, alone and in complete devotion to prayer. He is known particularly as the spiritual father of Saint Paisios (1924-1994), and had a profound influence on his spiritual formation of his spiritual path.

Saint Paisios received the Great and Angelic Schema from Saint Tikhon at the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, of the monastery of Stavronikita on 11 January 1966. Saint Tikhon died on 10/23 September 1968. Saint Paisios, who was with Father Tikhon in his last days, buried him, became his successor in his hermitage cell, and later wrote his life, which was published after Saint Paisios’s death, emphasising Saint Tikhon’s humility and holiness.

Wider interest in Saint Tikhon has grown since the canonisation of Saint Paisios the Athonite, his most famous disciple, in 2015. But in recent years, Russian church and state authorities have tried to use the memory of Saint Tikhon in their continuing attacks on the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The Russian Justice Minister, Alexander Konovalov, supported an initiative within the Russian Church to canonise Saint Tikhon as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. He claimed, ‘In 1,000 years of the presence of Russian monks on Mount Athos, only one of the Russian ascetics has been glorified by the Church of Constantinople – Saint Silouan the Athonite.’

However, the Ecumenical Patriarchate alone is responsible for canonising a monk of Mount Athos. Indeed, the Church and the Holy Mountain of Athos are not concerned whether someone is Greek, Romanian or Russian, and are concerned only whether someone is a saint, and has canonised Saint Silouan the Athonite, Saint Sophrony (Sakharov), who founded the monastic community of Saint John the Baptist in Essex, and now Sait Tikhon.

Saint Paisios of Mount Athos, who was born Arsenios Eznepides in Cappadocia, was canonised by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 13 January 2015. He was the biographer of Elder Hadji-Georgis the Athonite, who was also canonised last week (11 February 2026).

During the past week or so, my friend the iconographer Alexandra Kauoki has been working in Retymnon in Crete on a new icon of Saint Tikhon in advance of his canonisation, including the halo. On the day of his canonisation, she said: «Άγιε Τύχων, πρέσβευε υπέρ όλου του κόσμου», ‘Saint Tikhon, intercede for the whole world.’

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 14, Monday 16 February 2026

They came to … ‘him, asking him for a sign from heaven’ (Mark 8: 12) … Comberford name signs and street signs (Photo montage: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and Lent is about to begin. Yesterday was the Sunday before Lent and Lent begins on Ash Wednesday this week (18 February 2026).

Later this morning, I hope to attend the Founder’s Day celebrations with the Anglican mission agency USPG and the publishers SPCK in Saint Alban the Martyr Church, Holborn. This annual event remembers the Revd Thomas Bray and reflects on our shared mission as we prepare for Lent. The service is followed by a shared lunch.

Later this evening, back in Stony Stratford, we plan to celebrate Chinese New Year’s Day. But before the day begins, and before catching the train to London, 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.

‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation’ (Mark 8: 12) … confusing signs leading into the sea at the beach in Bettystown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 11-13 (NRSVA):

11 The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. 12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’ 13 And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side.

‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation’ (Mark 8: 12) … ‘Structure, Sign and Play’ by Jacques Derrida

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading this morning (Mark 8: 11-13), the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign (Mark 8: 11-13; see Matthew 12: 38-39; Matthew 16: 1-4; Luke 11: 16, 29). The request for a sign (Mark 8: 11-13) is also found in Saint John’s Gospel: ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?’ (see John 6: 30).

The Greek word used here is σημεῖον (sēmeion) meaning a sign, a mark, token, by which anything is known or distinguished; it can be a token, pledge, assurance, a proof, evidence, a sign, wonder; a remarkable event, wonderful appearance, or extraordinary phenomenon; a portent, prodigy, or a wonderful work; a miraculous operation, a miracle.

Signs are a common motif in the Hebrew Bible. In its Biblical usage, the word σημεῖον (sēmeion) often means a prophet’s actions that verify that the prophet has been sent from God. So the Pharisees in today’s reading are making what would seem to all around them as a reasonable request.

There are seven miracles in Saint John’s Gospel that are referred to as ‘signs’:

• water into wine (John 2: 1-11)
• healing with a word (John 4: 46-51)
• healing a crippled man at Bethesda (John 5: 1-9)
• the feeding of 5,000 (John 6: 1-14)
• walking on water (John 6: 16-21)
• the man born blind (John 9: 1-7)
• the Raising of Lazarus (John 11: 1-46)

These seven signs are generally seen as given to confirm the deity of Christ. But they also show compassion and empathy for others and affirm or underline the core values at the heart of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5: 3-12; Luke 6: 17-26).

These seven signs show:

• water into wine: saving people from public embarrassment, and affirm love and relationships (John 2: 1-11), blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled;
• healing a royal official’s son in Capernaum: care for the sake and infirm, no matter who their families or parents are (John 4: 46-51), blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy;
• healing a crippled man at Bethesda: acting on behalf of those who have no-one to act on their behalf (John 5: 1-9), blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth;
• the feeding of 5,000: feeding the hungry (John 6: 1-14), once again, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled;
• walking on water: being in control of our environment and caring for the climate, and calming all the storms and tempests in the world (John 6: 16-21), blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God;
• the man born blind: bringing sight to the blind (John 9: 1-7), blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God;
• the Raising of Lazarus: blessed are those who mourn (John 11: 1-46), blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

And to continue:

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

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

In this world, that is becoming more oppressive, fragile, tense and dangerous with each new set of daily decisions in the Oval Office, what other signs do we need for Christian hope, discipleship and action?

‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation’ (Mark 8: 12) … a warning sign on the old town beach in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 16 February 2026):

The theme this week (15-21 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Look to the Amazon!’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by the Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Bishop of Amazonia and Archbishop of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 16 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Loving God, we lift up Archbishop Marinez, asking for your guidance, wisdom, and strength. May she lead with courage and compassion, protect your creation, and inspire communities to act in justice and love.

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

A memorial in Saint Botolph Without, Aldgate, London, to Thomas Bray, a former Vicar and founder of USPG and SPCK (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

‘God, by His bow, vouchsafes to write This truth in Heaven above: As every lovely hue is Light, So every grace is Love’

‘What but the gentle rainbow’s gleam, / Soothing the wearied sight, / That cannot bear the solar beam, / With soft undazzling light?’ (John Keble) … a rainbow seen at the beach in Portrane, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Sunday before Lent, and many churches and parishes, including Saint Mary and Saint Giles,Stony Stratford, have marked today as Transfiguration Sunday. In the past, the Transfiguration was traditionally marked on 6 August and this Sunday, the Sunday before Lent, was known as Quinquagesima.

The three Sundays before Lent once had special Latin names in the Book of Common Prayer, names that were shared in most traditions in the Western Church. Although these Sundays are usually counted as ‘Ordinary Time’ in many traditions today, some Anglican parishes still use the original Latin names, and they are reminders that Lent and its disciplines are imminent.

These three Sundays were known as:

Septuagesima Sunday: the Third Sunday before Lent, which this year fell two weeks (Sunday 1 February 2026), although most parishes and churches celebrated it as the Feast of the Presentation, and some as the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany IV). In the early Church, no Gloria or Alleluia was sung on that Sunday because it was the first Sunday of the call to Lenten discipline. Although the word Septuagesima means ‘seventieth’, this Sunday falls only 63 days before Easter.

Early Christians began observing Lent the day after Septuagesima Sunday. This is because Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays were not days of fasting in the early Church. So, if the faithful wished to fast for 40 days before Easter, they would start the Monday after Septuagesima Sunday. Today, only Sunday is a non-fast day, and so Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026).

Sexagesima Sunday: the Second Sunday before Lent, which was last Sunday (8 February 2026). In the Early Church, Lent would have started on the previous Monday. In some parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church, that Sunday is known as ‘No Meat Sunday,’ and the dietary observances for Lent begin on this day.

Quinquagesima Sunday: the final Sunday before Lent, or the Sunday before Ash Wednesday (15 February 2026). It is 50 days before Easter, hence quinquagesima or ‘fiftieth.’

Today [15 February 2026] is the Sunday before Lent, is Quinquagesima Sunday, and as a reflection today, I have been re-reading John Keble’s poem, ‘Quinquagesima Sunday,’ recalling the traditional name once used for the Sunday before Lent.

John Keble (1792-1866) was an Anglican priest and poet, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and one of the leading figures in the Oxford Movement. He was born on Saint Mark’s Day, 25 April 1792, in Fairford, Gloucestershire, where his father, the Revd John Keble, a former Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was Vicar of Coln St Aldwyn’s. The choir sang his ‘Blest are the pure in heart’, written in 1819, as the anthem at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning, and we sang another version as the Post-Communion hymn.

John Keble studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and in 1810, at the age of 18, he graduated with a double first in classics and mathematics. He became a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1811 and he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford in 1815 and priest in 1816.

Keble published The Christian Year in 1827. He wrote the poems to restore a deep feeling for the Church Year among Anglicans, and it received such acclaim that it became the most popular volume of verse in the 19th century. One of the most popular poems in The Christian Year is the well-known hymn, ‘New every morning.’

The Christian Year went into 95 editions in Keble’s lifetime, and by the time the copyright expired in 1873, over 375,000 copies had been sold in Britain and 158 editions had been published.

The success of The Christian Year led to Keble being appointed Professor of Poetry in Oxford University (1831-1841).

His ‘Assize Sermon’ in Saint Mary’s University Church, Oxford, in 1833 was the spark that ignited the Oxford Movement. He was appointed Vicar of Hursley, Hampshire, in 1835, and he settled down to family life and remained there for the rest of his life as a parish priest at All Saints’ Church.

He edited an edition of Richard Hooker’s works in 1836. The most important of his prose writings, however, was his treatise on Eucharistic Adoration.

John Keble died 160 years ago, on 29 March 1866 at the age of 74. Within three years of his death, Keble College, Oxford, was established at Oxford ‘to give an education in strict fidelity to the Church of England.’

Keble College, Oxford, was established in 1870 as a tribute to John Keble, a founding figure in the Oxford Movement (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Quinquagesima Sunday by John Keble:

Sweet Dove! the softest, steadiest plume,
In all the sunbright sky,
Brightening in ever-changeful bloom
As breezes change on high; –

Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth,
“Long sought, and lately won,”
Blessed increase of reviving Earth,
When first it felt the Sun; –

Sweet Rainbow! pride of summer days,
High set at Heaven’s command,
Though into drear and dusky haze
Thou melt on either hand; –

Dear tokens of a pardoning God,
We hail ye, one and all,
As when our fathers walked abroad,
Freed from their twelvemonth’s thrall.

How joyful from the imprisoning ark
On the green earth they spring!
Not blither, after showers, the lark
Mounts up with glistening wing.

So home-bound sailors spring to shore,
Two oceans safely past;
So happy souls, when life is o’er,
Plunge in this empyreal vast.

What wins their first and fondest gaze
In all the blissful field,
And keeps it through a thousand days?
Love face to face revealed:

Love imaged in that cordial look
Our Lord in Eden bends
On souls that sin and earth forsook
In time to die His friends.

And what most welcome and serene
Dawns on the Patriarch’s eye,
In all the emerging hills so green,
In all the brightening sky?

What but the gentle rainbow’s gleam,
Soothing the wearied sight,
That cannot bear the solar beam,
With soft undazzling light?

Lord, if our fathers turned to Thee
With such adoring gaze,
Wondering frail man Thy light should see
Without Thy scorching blaze;

Where is our love, and where our hearts,
We who have seen Thy Son,
Have tried Thy Spirit’s winning arts,
And yet we are not won?

The Son of God in radiance beamed
Too bright for us to scan,
But we may face the rays that streamed
From the mild Son of Man.

There, parted into rainbow hues,
In sweet harmonious strife
We see celestial love diffuse
Its light o’er Jesus’ life.

God, by His bow, vouchsafes to write
This truth in Heaven above:
As every lovely hue is Light,
So every grace is Love.

John Keble (1792-1866) … his poems in ‘The Christian Year’ include ‘Quinquagesima Sunday’

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 13, Sunday 15 February 2026, Sunday before Lent

The Transfiguration (Metamorphosis) … an icon by Hanna-Leena Ward in her current exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the last days of this period of Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Today is the Sunday before Lent (15 February 2026) and Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026). Many churches and parishes mark this Sunday as Transfiguration Sunday and the traditional name for this Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer was Quinquagesima.

Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. Then, after wall-to-wall rugby yesterday, watching Ireland’s victory over Italy and England’s defeat by Scotland in the Six Nations Championship, I hope to find an appropriate place to watch Wales and France this afternoon. But, before my day 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.

The Transfiguration … an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 17: 1-9 (NRSVA):

1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’

The Transfiguration depicted in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó, in the hills above Hersonissos in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on image for full-screen viewing)

Today’s Reflections:

This morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 17: 1-9) challenges us to hear God’s word, to see God as God would want us to see God, and to see ourselves as God sees us.

Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a high mountain, by themselves. What were they expecting?

They have been with Christ for some time, but have they had an encounter yet with the Living God?

What did they think God was like?

Whatever they thought of God before this, it certainly was not an encounter or an experience they were expecting.

They have an encounter with the Living God, who within God’s own single existence is also community: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God the Father is heard speaking, ‘This is my Son, the beloved.’

God the Holy Spirit is experienced as the cloud hovers the whole scene.

God the Son is revealed to be the living Christ in a way that they had never seen him before.

What do you think God looks like?

God is not some, monolithic, totem-like idol, who needs sacrifices and seeks vengeance, who makes crushing demands on people.

Instead, God is community.

This is also the God of Creation.

Think of how we heard last week as we looked at the Creation story (Genesis 1: 1 to 2: 3) how the Spirit of God swept across the creation like the wind.

This is the God of promises and covenants.

Think of how the Ten Commandments are given to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai, how Elijah has an encounter with the God of promises in the cleft in the mountainside.

This is the God who fulfils all the promises of the covenant: here is Moses on one side.

This is the God who fulfils all the promises of the prophets: here is Elijah on the other side.

This is a God who calls us to action.

When I was back in Rethymnon for the Easter celebrations in Crete the year before last, I managed also to return to the village of Piskopianó in the hillside above Hersonissos, which I have known for more than 30 years, since the mid-1990s.

The new village church in Piskopianó, which has been renamed the Church of the Transfiguration was built in 2002-2008 and was dedicated in 2014. A fresco of the Transfiguration in the church shows, on the left, Christ leading the three disciples, Peter, James and John, up the mountain; in the centre, these three disciples are stumbling and falling as they witness and experience the Transfiguration; and then, to the right, Christ is leading these three back down the side of the mountain.

In other words, we are invited to see the Transfiguration not as a static moment but as a dynamic event. It is a living event in which we are invited to move from all in the past that weighs us down, to experience the full life that Christ offers us today, and to bring this into how we live our lives as Disciples in the future, a future that begins here and now.

The Transfiguration is both an event and a process. The original Greek word for Transfiguration in the Gospels is μεταμόρφωσις (metamorphosis), which means ‘to progress from one state of being to another.’ Consider the metamorphosis of the chrysalis into the butterfly. Saint Paul uses the same word (μεταμόρφωσις) when he describes how the Christian is to be transfigured, transformed, into the image of Christ (II Corinthians 3: 18).

This metamorphosis invites us into the event of becoming what we have been created to be. This is what Orthodox writers call deification. Transfiguration is a profound change, by God, in Christ, through the Spirit. And so, the Transfiguration reveals to us our ultimate destiny as Christians, the ultimate destiny of all people and all creation – to be transformed and glorified by the majestic splendour of God himself.

The Transfiguration points to Christ’s great and glorious Second Coming and the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God, when all of creation shall be transfigured and filled with light.

According to Saint Gregory Palamas, the light of the Transfiguration ‘is not something that comes to be and then vanishes.’ It not only prefigures the eternal blessedness that all Christians look forward to, but also the Kingdom of God already revealed, realised and come.

The Transfiguration is described in the three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 17: 1-9; Mark 9: 2-8; Luke 9: 28-36), and all three accounts are very similar in wording.

The Transfiguration is an encounter with God as the Trinity; it is a reminder with the presence of Moses and Elijah that Christ is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets; it is a meeting of past, present and future; and it is a reminder of how frail is our humanity in the responses of the three Disciples present, Peter, James and John.

The Transfiguration is a reminder that God has created us in God’s image and likeness, that in Christ’s Incarnation, God took on our image and likeness, and that now we are called once again to take on the image and likeness of God.

In a lecture in Cambridge many years ago [2011], I heard the late Metropolitan Kallistos [Ware], who was the pre-eminent Orthodox theologian in England, speak of the Transfiguration as a disclosure not only of what God is but of what we are. It reminds us of our beginning, but also reminds us of the possibilities and the potentials of what it is to become like God once again.

But is the response of the disciples to the Transfiguration one that we should imitate or emulate?

As they hear the voice of God, they fall down in terror, they are overcome by fear, they are made speechless.

They are immobilised and when they think of acting, look at what they want to do: they want to put up three booths, or tents, or dwelling places, in which they can keep Jesus and Moses and Elijah. It is as if, frightened of the new, they want to fall back on the old certainties.

It is as if they want to contain God, to capture God, to keep God in a place where they can be assured of the old certainties, to turn God into a god that they can contain, capture and control. They want to put God in a box, to keep God in a box.

And, so often, instead of wanting to be in the image and likeness of God, people want God to be in our image and likeness, doing our bidding rather than listening to what God wants of us.

Seeking to capture God, to make God a captive and to control God, are strong religious instincts throughout history. In the 20th century, Hitler used the German Churches to control the people of Germany. In more recent years, the simple faith of many American people has been hijacked to support extreme politics in a land that once prided itself on the separation of state and religion.

This is what Professor Rachel S Mikva of Chicago Theological Seminary describes as ‘dangerous religious ideas’ (Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Penguin, 2020).

In an ‘Opinion’ column for USA Today in the wake of Donald Trump’s attempt to storm the Capitol in Washington five years ago [6 January 2021], she argued that ‘Religion is a dangerous business.’ In the response to the insurrection and violence in Washington, she tried to go beyond the revulsion all of us must feel when white Christian nationalism turns violent, and she drew attention to the ‘substantial number of Christians who plan to take the country for Jesus another way.’

The Christian right is ‘distorting the very meaning of religious freedom,’ she wrote. There is the obvious danger we have seen recently, with extremists who call themselves Christians ‘ready to bring on the apocalypse.’

But she warned of ‘a more resilient threat’ posed by people who claim the mantle of being Christians and who are ‘embedded throughout the governing institutions in the US – courts, military, legislatures, agencies and the police.’ In her words, they pose a real threat ‘to religious pluralism in the United States.’

She argued cogently for the need for ‘consciousness of the vital self-critical dimensions of faith,’ and said: ‘Whatever one’s spiritual life stance, we are choosing in every moment whether its power will be wielded for harm or for blessing.’

Power for harm; or power for blessing.

Do we want to keep God in a box as a power for harm; or do we really want to see God being God, and empowering us to be a power for blessing in the world?

I see this as the first great challenge posed by the Transfiguration.

And the second is like it: to see humanity as Christ in the Transfiguration would see us and would have us see each other.

Do I, so often, put people in a box in a way that denies they are made in the image and likeness of God? That they are called to become, once again, like God in Christ … what the Orthodox call ‘deification’ …?

The Revd Dr Kenneth Leech (1939-2015), the Anglican ‘slum priest’ in the East End of London, once said: ‘Transfiguration can and does occur “just around the corner,” occurs in the midst of perplexity, imperfection, and disastrous misunderstanding.’

Every time I dismiss someone because of their social background, where they were born, their gender, sexuality, ethnicity or parentage, I am making these differences more important than the way God sees them: made in God’s image and likeness, and holding, embodying the light of God in Christ.

Because those characteristics, those traits, are not self-chosen; they come at birth, we do not ask for them, you might say they are God-given. For, indeed, God sees us in God’s own image and likeness, God sees in each one of us the potential to reflect the light of Christ in the Transfiguration.

Let’s not box God in, hidden away under a booth or in a tent. Let God be God, and let’s stop trying to control him by using him to our political and social advantage.

Let’s stop categorising people so we marginalise them instead of seeing them in God’s image and likeness.

For, when we love God and love others, we see the light of God in them and, hopefully, they see the light of God in us.

When she was the guest chaplain in the House of Representatives in 1995, Rabbi Rachel Mikva included these thoughts in her prayers:

However passionately we may cling to our vision of truth,
we must never fail to recognise your image, God,
reflected in the face of the other …

Ultimately, we stand before you,
naked of power or possessions,
seeking only to understand your will
and do it with a whole heart …

God, we pray that our words and our deeds
may be for your sake,
bringing healing to our world
and wholeness to all those whose lives we touch.

Amen. אָמֵן׃

An icon of the Transfiguration in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 15 February 2026):

The theme this week (15-21 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Look to the Amazon!’ (pp 28-29). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by the Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Bishop of Amazonia and Archbishop of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil:

‘Looking after both people and the planet is central to the mission of the Anglican Church in Brazil. As the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Amazon, I have come to see myself as an Amazonian, despite being born in southern Brazil. This land is rich in culture and natural beauty, yet it faces profound challenges - from deforestation and mining to violence against traditional populations and the invasion of Indigenous territories. I often urge people to look to the Amazon, to recognise the urgent need for justice and to defend both life and creation.

‘The Church has a critical role in responding to these challenges. Through outreach work such as the Popular Educators Course, we train local teachers to carry out projects such as reopening the Alternative Cultural Centre, supporting the Movement of Black Women Artisans (MOCAMBO), and teaching art skills to young people in the neighbourhood through Tinta Preta (Black Ink). In preparation for COP30, the diocese also collaborated with the government, ecumenical partners, and interfaith organisations to ensure Indigenous voices were heard and environmental agreements are honoured.

‘USPG’s support is vital in this work. We rely on prayers, advocacy, and practical support to strengthen the diocese’s initiatives and broaden community engagement. The Anglican Church of Brazil, through our Environmental Justice Network, provides guidance, training, and resources to protect God’s creation, but this work succeeds only when the Church and its partners act together in unity and purpose.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 15 February 2026) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on the Gospel reading, Matthew 17: 1-9.

The Transfiguration … a fresco in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
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 God,
we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ:
may we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
you know the disorder of our sinful lives:
set straight our crooked hearts,
and bend our wills to love your goodness and your glory
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in the mountains above Hersonissos in Crete was established in 2002, completed in 2008 and dedicated in 2014 (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

The chapel on the highest peak on Mount Athos, at 2,033 metres, is dedicated to the Transfiguration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)