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)
• 144935 (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)

Sidney Sussex College celebratesSaint Valentine’s Day in Cambridge as the ‘College of Love’ for 430 years

A wedding party waiting to go into the chapel in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sidney Sussex College, according to one Facebook group, is known in Cambridge as the 'College of Love' – after all, the college was founded on Saint Valentine’s Day 430 years ago today, on 14 February 1596.

This weekend (14-15 February 2026), Sidney Sussex College is celebrating both the 430th anniversary of the Foundress’s Day and 50 years of women at Sidney with a special two-day conference today and tomorrow marking this milestone in academic inclusion, ‘Forward Together: 50 Years of Women at Sidney Sussex College’.

This special weekend as Sidney proudly commemorates five decades of women’s contribution to academic life and community and is also timed to honour Lady Frances Sidney and the 430th anniversary of the Foundress's Day.

All alumni, students and friends, regardless of gender or identity, received an open invitation to take part in weekend of inspiring conversations, to listen to engaging panels, to hear a ‘Fireside Chat’ between Carol Vorderman and Dame Kelly Holmes, and to join a celebratory dinner.

In addition, there is a new exhibition in the College Library, ‘The Female Pen’, that features works by authors ranging from Sappho to Christina Rossetti, alongside a selection of publications by female Fellows of Sidney.

The programme also includes three thought-provoking discussions:

• ‘Cognitive diversity, brain health, and social equity: How science can empower communities, challenge bias, and support inclusive policy and practice’, with Dr Maura Malpetti, Fellow and Director of Studies, specialising in dementia, neurology, brain imaging and biomarkers.

• ‘Authentic Leadership: Making your voice heard without compromise – a fresh take on what it means to lead without losing yourself’, with Jess Tayenjam (2007, MML), chair of CURUFC and Innovation and Cultural Transformation Consultant.

• ‘Educating Generation Alpha: A dynamic conversation exploring how today’s youngest learners are reshaping education’ with Mary Davies MBE (1986, MML), Education Consultant and former CEO of the Maiden Erlegh Trust, Victoria Penty, former primary school headteacher, Dr Catherine Sumnall (2002, Geography), Fellow, Admissions Director and Director of Studies for Geography, and Danni Elliot, Bye-Fellow and Head of Student Wellbeing.

In their ‘fireside chat’, Carol Vorderman and the Olympic medallist Kelly Holmes are talking about ‘Breaking Barriers: Women, Power, and Public Voice in a Changing Britain.’

Other parts of the programme this weekend include a choir recital in Chapel, a drinks reception in the Master’s Lodge and Old Library, and a celebration dinner in Hall and the Mong Hall.

The open sports sessions include rowing, organised by the Boat Club with the option of fielding up to two boats, and football, either joining an open training session or taking part in a friendly match at the new Mumford Pitch at Grange Road.

In the closing conversation tomorrow, students share their vision for the future of Sidney Sussex.

Choral Evensong at 6 pm tomorrow features an all-female composers lineup, including Sidney’s previous Composer in Residence, Joanna Marsh. Bishop Dagmar Winter, Bishop of Huntingdon and acting Bishop of Ely, is preaching.

Snow in Cloister Court, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge … some students label L staircase in Cloister Court the ‘staircase of Love’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sadly, Sidney Sussex has become the first college in Cambridge to cancel its May Ball this year, following a slew of May Ball cancellations in 2025. In an email sent to all college students in November, the Domestic Bursar, Kathryn Smart, said: ‘We understand that this will be disappointing but hope that you will have ample time to make alternative plans for May week.’

Reports say May Balls across Cambridge are facing growing legal, financial and logistical challenges. While the college held a May Ball last in 2024, this year’s cancellation comes after Sidney’s 2025 May Event was cancelled due to ‘low ticket demand’. The college has said it will organise an event in June 2027.

The cancellation follows major challenges for May Week events last academic year. Clare May Ball and Emmanuel June Event were cancelled, while Robinson’s May Ball was down-sized to a ‘mega bop’. Despite having cancelled its May Week event twice in a row, the committee said that it did not ‘see this as the end of the Sidney May Ball, but as a chance to come back stronger’.

It is said by some Sidney students that many of them have fallen in love with their prospective partners there, and have even married in the college itself. This college has a reputation for science, but can science explain why love matches are made there?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that Sidney’s bar is the only student-run bar left in Cambridge? Or is it because Sidney also has an awesome wine cellar, and some of the best formal Hall nosh? Sidney also has a rather beautiful walled garden. Does this enhance lovers’ privacy?

Sidney is quite small by Cambridge college standards, and it is not well-known on the tourist trail. Perhaps this means students know they can relax in their natural environment … away from the pressures of camcorders and cameras.

One year ‘Love’ was the very appropriate topic for a summer school at Sidney Sussex College organised by the Institute for Orthodox Studies. Dr Marcus Plested spoke of ‘A many-splendoured thing’; Dr Alexander Lingas looked at ‘Music, Psalmody and the Love of God: ancient traditions and modern challenges’; Dr Christine Mangala Frost asked ‘Who’s afraid of the Song of Songs’ as she looked at ‘Love in Christian and other traditions.’

Other speakers that year included Professor David Frost, Father Michael Harper, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, the Revd Professor Andrew Louth, Dr Sebastian Brock, Father Alexander Tefft, and Archimandrite Zacaharias. During a visit to the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Sister Magdelen spoke about ‘The monastery as a school of universal love.’

Some students romanticise the claims of Sidney Sussex as the ‘College of Love’, even claiming the source of the love power emanates from L staircase – the staircase of Love – in Cloister Court.

During that summer school in July 2009 with ‘Love’ as its theme, I was staying on Staircase H in Chapel Court. I looked out my window as I settled in to see in the court below a bride waiting with her wedding party for the photographer before going into chapel for the wedding. That evening the reception took place in the gardens … Sidney Sussex truly was the College of Love that year.

Wedding flowers bedecking the door into the chapel at Sidney Sussex College … the view from my bedroom window in Chapel Court in 2009 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 12, Saturday 14 February 2026

Hearts in the window of Damn Fine Café on Bird Street, Lichfield … today is Saint Valetine’s Day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Tomorrow is the Sunday before Lent (15 February 2026) and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are four days away (18 February 2026). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Cyril (869) and Saint Methodius (885), Missionaries to the Slavs, and Saint Valentine (ca 269), Martyr at Rome.

It looks like an afternoon of wall-to-wall rugby later today and I hope to find an appropriate place to watch Ireland’s match against Italy in the Six Nations Championship (2:10 pm) and England’s games against Scotland (4:40 pm). But, before today begins, before an afternoon of rugby, before any romantic thoughts for Saint Valentine’s Day begin, 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.

A variety of bread on the Isla Jane Bakery stall in Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Mark 8: 1-10 (NRSVA):

1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way – and some of them have come from a great distance.’ 4 His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ 5 He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

Five loaves and two fish in a motif on the railings of Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

There are six different accounts of two miracle stories associated with the Feeding of the Multitude. The first story, the feeding of 5,000, is found in all four Gospels (see Matthew 14: 13-21; Mark 6: 31-44; Luke 9:10-17; and John 6: 5-15). This is the only miracle – apart from the Resurrection – that is found in all three Synoptic Gospels and in Saint John’s Gospel. The second story, the feeding of 4,000, is told by both Mark in today’s reading (Mark 8: 1-10) and by Matthew (Matthew 15: 32-38), but not by either Luke or John.

In the Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus feed the multitude with five loaves and two fish shared by a boy. When Jesus hears that John the Baptist had been killed, he take a boat to a solitary place, near Bethsaida. The crowds follow him on foot from the towns, and when Jesus lands he sees a large crowd. He had compassion for them and heals their sick. As evening approaches, the disciples tell him it is a remote place, it is late, and urge him to send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy food.

Jesus says they do not need to go away, and asks the disciples to give them something to eat. They find five loaves and two fish, Jesus asks the people to sit on the grass in groups of 50 and 100, takes the five loaves and two fish, looks up to heaven, gives thanks, breaks them. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. Taking, blessing, breaking and giving are the four essential liturgical actions at the Eucharist identified by Dom Gregory Dix in The Shape of the Liturgy.

All eat and are satisfied, and the disciples pick up 12 baskets full of broken pieces that are left over. The number of those who ate was about 5,000 men, as well as women and children.

If there were 5,000 men there that day, one woman with each man and two children with each couple, then we are talking about the feeding of 20,000 people, or the population of a town like Wexford, Carlow or Sligo in Ireland, Berkhamsted, Brownhills, Truro or Wednesbury in England, Ierapetra or Agios Nikolaos in Crete.

The physicist Professor Sir Colin Humphreys of Selwyn College, Cambridge, challenges many early calculations and instead suggests the number of men, women and children at the Exodus was about 20,000. So, in feeding the multitude, Christ is bringing all our wanderings, all our journeys, all our searches for God, to their fulfilment when we meet him in sharing the good news and break bread together.

In Apocryphal writings, II Baruch 29: 8, a Jewish pseudepigraphical text thought to date from the late 1st century CE or early 2nd century CE, also connects the feeding in the wilderness in Exodus 16 with the Messianic age.

The feeding with the fish also looks forward to the Resurrection. The fish is an early symbol of faith in the Risen Christ: Ichthus (ἰχθύς, ΙΧΘΥC) is the Greek word for fish, and can be read as an acrostic, a word formed from the first letters of words, spelling out ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (Iēsous Khristos Theou Huios, Sōtēr), ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’

The story of the feeding of the 4,000 is told only by Matthew and Mark. A large crowd gathers and follows Jesus. He calls his disciples and tells them he has compassion for the people, who have followed him for three days and now have nothing to eat. He does not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.

The disciples say they are in a remote place and ask where they could find enough bread to feed such a crowd. All they have is seven loaves and a few small fish.

Jesus tells the people to sit down on the ground, he takes the loaves and fish, gives thanks, breaks them and gives them to the disciples, who then give them to the people. All ate and were satisfied. Afterwards, the disciples collect seven basketfuls of broken pieces that are leftover. The number of those who eat is 4,000 men, with the number of women and children not counted. Jesus then sends the crowd away, gets into the boat and goes to the area of the district of Dalmanutha (Matthew names it as Magadan or Magdala).

There are differences in the details of the two feeding stories. Are they two distinct miracles?

The baskets used to collect the food that remains are 12 κόφινοι (kófinoi, hand baskets) in Matthew (14: 20) and Mark (6: 43). But they are seven σπυρίδες (spyrídes, large baskets) in Matthew 15: 37 and Mark 8: 8. A σπυρίς (spyrís) or large basket was double the size of a κόφινος (kófinos). An indication of the size of a spyrís is that the Apostle Paul was let out in one through a gap in the city wall in Damascus to escape a plot to kill him (Acts 9: 25).

The two feeding miracles – the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000 – show that Christ cares for all seek him and listen to his teaching, both Jew and Gentile.

At the feeding of the 5,000, the people were certainly almost all Jews. They came from the surrounding towns and were familiar with where Jesus was going with his apostles to get some time alone. Then, after he fed them, they were about to come and make him king (see John 6:15).

When Jesus makes the people sit in groups of hundreds and fifties (Mark 6: 40; Luke 9: 14), the numbers may recall the place in the Exodus story where the people had rulers over fifties and hundreds (Exodus 18: 25). When the 12 have fed the multitude, each gets a full basket back. Perhaps the 12 baskets of leftovers represent the 12 tribes of Israel.

The feeding of the 4,000, on the other hand, may take place in a Gentile setting. It takes place after Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon. This is Gentile territory, although there would have been some Jews that lived there, which is why he was able to stay in a house there (Mark 7: 24).

This is the area where Christ heals the daughter of the Greek-speaking Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman (see Matthew 15: 22, Mark 7: 26), the only miracle of Jesus recorded in that region, and which we read about on Thursday. Both may be seen as clear signs that the Messianic blessing now extends to all people through the Messiah, and a fulfilment of the prophecy that the Messiah is to be a ‘light to the Gentiles’ (Isaiah 42: 6, 49: 6), which is one of the Christmas promises at Candlemas two weeks ago (see Luke 2: 29-32, 2 February).

When Christ leaves the area, Saint Mark says, he goes to the Sea of Galilee and then to its east coast, ‘the region of the Decapolis’, populated by Gentiles (Mark 7: 31). There he heals a deaf man who has a speech impediment, and the people spread the word about him (Mark 7: 31-37, which we read yesterday, Friday 13 February 2026).

By now, a large number of Gentiles from the region of Tyre and Sidon and from the Decapolis are following Jesus. He goes up a mountain and does many healings (Matthew 15: 29-31), and ‘they praised the God of Israel’. This last phrase indicates that these people are not primarily Jews, for when Jesus does miracles among Jews, they ‘praised God’ (see Matthew 9: 8; Mark 2: 12; Luke 13: 13; 18: 43; etc.).

What is the significance in Mark 8: 8 of saying that there are seven large baskets of leftover bread? In the Gentile context of the feeding of the 4,000, perhaps the seven full baskets harken back to the seven Gentile nations in Canaan that had once been driven out God but that are now counted in by Christ.

All are invited to be healed and fed at the Eucharist. As were reminded at Candlemas two weeks ago,

‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’ (Luke 2: 29-32).

FBread in a shop window in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 14 February 2026):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been: ‘Safe Routes’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 14 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Pour your love on the exiled in supported accommodation. Let them feel the acceptance and care of the Church, even amid suffering.

The Collect of the Day:

Lord of all,
who gave to your servants Cyril and Methodius
the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavs:
make your whole Church one as you are one
that all Christians may honour one another,
and east and west acknowledge
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and you, the God and Father of all;
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 Cyril, Methodius and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Collect on the Eve of the Sunday before Lent:

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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Hearts for Saint Valentine’s Day in the window of Ivision’s florists shop on Bird Street, Lichfield (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