‘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 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

Bethel Solomons, the prominent Jewish doctor who won ten caps in international rugby for Ireland

A portrait of Dr Bethel Solomons by his sister Estella Solomons (Irish Jewish Museum, ©The Trustees of the Estate of Estella Solomons)

Patrick Comerford

This is another weekend of wall-to-wall, back-to-back rugby in the Six Nations Championship, with Ireland playing Italy tomorrow (2:10 pm) and England playing Scotland (4:40 pm), and then Wales and France on Sunday afternoon (15:10).

Despite a disappointing 36-14 defeat by France in the Stade de France last week, my fervour for Irish rugby is undimmed, and my hopes, however unfounded, remain high this weekend.

Few Jewish players have played at the highest levels in Irish rugby history. Bethel Solomons (1885-1965) is the most prominent Jewish Irish rugby international, capped as a forward for Ireland in the early 20th century, and also a noted doctor. Later, another former Irish rugby international, Tony Ward, discovered his Jewish heritage with dramatic revelations in recent years.

Dr Bethel Solons was the Master of the Rotunda Hospital, an actor at the Abbey Theatre and President of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation. In addition, he was an international rugby player.

Bethel Albert Herbert Solomons was born on 27 February 1885 into a prominent Jewish family who are one of the oldest continuous Jewish families in Ireland. The Solomons family came to Ireland from England in 1824, when Elias Solomons opened his optician’s shop in Nassau Street, close to Trinity College Dublin. His son, Maurice Solomons (1832-1922), continued the optician’s practice at 19 Nassau Street, on the corner with South Frederick Street. He is mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses, and was also a JP and the honorary consul in Ireland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

James Joyce in street art in Nassau Street … Maurice Solomons (is mentioned by James Joyce in ‘Ulysses’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bethel’s elder brother Edwin Solomons (1879-1964) was a stockbroker and prominent member of the Dublin Jewish community. Their sister Estella Solomons (1882-1968) was a leading artist; she married the poet and publisher James Sullivan Starkey (1879-1958), a Methodist, who wrote under the penname Seumas O’Sullivan. Their younger sister Sophie trained as an opera singer.

Bethel Solomons went to Saint Andrew’s School, Dublin, and studied medicine in Trinity College Dublin, where he enjoyed the social life, theatre and rugby. He captained Trinity to the Leinster Senior Cup (1908), also played for Wanderers, and played on the Hospitals’ Cup winning team in the 1903-1904 and 1904-1905 seasons. He became the first Jew to play Test rugby when, on 8 February 1908, he lined up as Ireland’s number 8 in a 13-3 defeat by England at the Richmond Athletic Ground. In all, he won ten caps for Ireland (1908-1910).

In The Oval World: A Global History of Rugby' by Tony Collins, an account is given of Solomons taking a taxi to ensure he would be in time to run on to the pitch for a rugby international: ‘Fearing he would be late for Ireland’s 1909 home match against England, he hailed a cab in the centre of Dublin. He told the cabbie he wanted to go to Lansdowne Road. “It’s for the Ireland rugby international” explained Solomons. “Ireland?” snorted the driver dismissively “it’s nothing but fourteen Prods and a Jew”.’

Ireland were defeated 11-5 by England that day, 13 February 1909.

The stadium at Lansdowne Road, the home ground of Ireland and of Wanderers … Bethel Solomons was capped ten times for Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

He acted at the Abbey Theatre, under the stage name Thomas Thornhill, in 1913 in August Strindberg’s There are Crimes and Crimes, and James Stephens dedicated The Charwoman’s Daughter to him.

Although his rugby and theatrical ambitions were limited by the demands and successful medical career, he went on to become a selector for the Irish team and was vice-president of the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) in later years.

After his experience as an extern maternity assistant at the Rotunda Hospital, attending home births in the Dublin slums, he became devoted to obstetrics and gynaecology, also studied in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and Munich, and started to teach medical students.

Bethel Solomons was a supporter of the suffrage movement and an advocate of women’s equality. He opened the Jewish Medical Dispensary in Stamer Street in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ in 1913 and ran it with Ada Shillman, a midwife who attended most of the Jewish women in Dublin during her career.

He married Gertrude Levy in 1916 at the Liberal Synagogue in London in a wedding conducted by Claude Montefiore. Gertrude was a friend of his sister Sophie since they were students at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Gertrude and Bethel lived in 42 Fitzwilliam Square, where he ran a successful practice (1916-1926). His patients included George Yeats and Iseult Gonne, and they later rented the upstairs of 42 Fitzwilliam Square to WB Yeats and his wife George. He later practiced from 30 Lower Baggot Street.

Bethel Solomons was the Master of the Rotunda Hospital from 1926 to 1933, and as Master he is mentioned by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake: ‘in my bethel of Solyman’s I accouched my rotundaties.’

He inherited considerable financial challenges at a hospital that needed to modernise and to maintain its reputation as one of the world’s leading maternity hospitals. His improvements included a new nurses’ home, new out-patient department, theatre block and sick babies ward, the introduction of X-ray facilities and incubators and a revival of the pathology laboratory.

As World War II approached, Solomons took an increased role in Jewish affairs. He wrote to the British Medical Journal in 1937 warning against the choice of Berlin as the location for an international medical academy of postgraduate work and research to ‘further international fellowship and friendship’.

The Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation on Leicester Avenue, Rathgar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From 1939, he worked to raise funds for the Jewish Refugee Aid Committee, which was chaired by Leonard Abrahamson and had among its vice-chairs, his brother Edwin, who was the President of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation at Adelaide Road Synagogue. At the end of the war, he became chair of the Jewish Children’s Refugee fund, raising funds to bring refugee children to Clonyn Castle, Co Westmeath or to Millisle Farm in Northern Ireland.

Solomons chaired a meeting in the Mansion House in Dublin in 1946 addressed by Rabbi Israel Mattuck of the Liberal Synagogue in London. The meeting led to the formation of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation (DJPC), with Bethel Solomons as president from 1946 to 1965. The former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Yitzhak Herzog (1888-1959), by then the Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land, denounced the new synagogue as an ‘open, active, organised rebellion against the Torah’, but Bethel Solomons refuted this in the Jewish Chronicle in 1946.

Solomons received many international honours and was President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1946-1949. He died on 11 September 1965 at his home, Laughton Beg, Rochestown Avenue, Dún Laoghaire. Bethel and Gertrude Solomons were the parents of three children. Their second son, Dr Michael Solomons (1919-2007) was a distinguished gynaecologist, a pioneer of family planning in Ireland, and a veteran of the bitter and divisive 1983 constitutional amendment referendum campaign.

Another Irish rugby international, Tony Ward, found out late in life that his father, Danny Ward, was from a Jewish family that fled Poland to escape Nazi persecution. In a peculiar accident or coincidence in history, his paternal ancestors too had Solomons as their original family name.

Tony Ward was only five years old when his father died, leaving him with ‘precious few early memories of him’ so that he ‘knew very little about him or his family.’ It was only in later life he discovered his father’s story as a Jewish refugee from Poland later, partly through research initiated by his daughters, Nikki and Lynn, as a Christmas present. Through a professional genealogical agency, Ancestry Made Easy, they came across findings he had never known for the best part of six decades.

His father, known as Danny Ward, was born Saul Solomons on 16 August 1909. The Solomons family were victims of their time, and following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, they fled the persecution of Jews in Russia, Poland and Finland.

Harris Solomons and Jane Cohen were the parents of Saul (Danny). Harris was a tailor and he and Jane lived at Great Garden Street, Whitechapel, in the East End of London. Saul Solomons, or Danny Ward, had three siblings: Sadie, Sydney and another sister, Sarah, who died soon after birth. The three surviving children were all born in London, but the census return listed them as Russians.

Saul Solomons and Lily Gross were married in Philpot Street Synagogue in the East End in 1934. They both worked in London as hairdressers and their son Derek, who was born in 1935, is Tony Ward’s half-brother.

That first marriage was later dissolved, and Saul Solomons then moved to Ireland and settled in Dublin in the late 1940s. He met June Connolly, a Catholic, around 1952 and there was an 18-year age gap between them. Gor them to marry, he reportedly had to give up his Jewish religion. By late November 1953, he had changed his name from Saul Solomons to Daniel Ward, had become a Catholic, and they married in Cardiff Registry Office.

The couple lived for a time in Leeds, where Tony Ward was born. Danny Ward had a heart attack and died in Leeds General Infirmary on Saint Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1960. Tony was only five, and June returned to Dublin almost immediately. Yet, having spent part of his childhood in Leeds, Tony Ward is still a committed Leeds United supporter.

There are other Jewish sports figures who have played cricket and football for Ireland, including Louis ‘Abraham’ Bookman and Finn Isaac Azaz. But more about them, perhaps, on another and appropriate Friday evening.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

Dr Bethel Solons was the Master of the Rotunda Hospital, an actor at the Abbey Theatre, President of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation, and was capped then times for Ireland in international rugby

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 11, Friday 13 February 2026

Who hears the voice of those who cannot speak out for themselves? … street art in Leighton Buzzard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Fourth Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are only five days away (18 February 2025).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Who hears the voice of the oppressed? Whose cries are we deaf to?

Mark 7: 31-37 (NRSVA):

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’

Martin Niemöller’s cell in Sachsenhausen … if we do not speak out today, who is going to speak out for us? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Jesus returns from region of Tyre and Sidon, where he has healed the daughter of a Greek-speaking Syrophoenician woman in Tyre, which we read about yesterday (Mark 7: 24-30). In this morning’s reading, he is still in a culturally Hellenised region, the Decapolis. But, from a very dramatic healing, that I have compared with the best of Greek classical drama, we move to what is intended to be a very private, one-to-one healing, that was not even meant to be a sideshow.

There are two languages at play in these two readings: Greek and Aramaic. The single word Jesus uses in verse 34, Ephphatha (Εφφαθα) is not so much an Aramaic word as the Greek form of a Syro-Chaldaic or Aramaic word, meaning ‘Be opened’. It is as though Mark has to regularly translate the Aramaic words he hears so that they can be heard by his Greek-speaking readers (see Mark 3: 17; 5: 41; 7: 11; 14: 36; 15: 34).

But this word is so guttural that even in polite parishes it can sound vulgar as people try to read it out. No matter how polite they try to be, the double F (Φ) sound can sometimes cause blushes and giggles, or even embarrass the reader.

English is such a polite language, and the translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.

During this week, we have heard a Gospel reading on Tuesday in which Jesus is being rude to some very religious people, who come with real doubts and with polite questions and end up being called hypocrites (Mark 7: 1-13). The blunt conversations continued on Wednesday (Mark 7: 14-23), with Jesus speaking about human waste, and then about fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride and folly … hardly safe topics for most Sunday services.

To add to that, in the Gospel reading yesterday (Mark 7: 24-30), Jesus later goes on to compare a woman who comes to him in distress with dogs, and he seems to call her daughter what amounts to – in the original Greek – a ‘little bitch’ (Mark 7: 24-30, 13 February 2025).

Then in the reading today, he meets a man who is deaf and dumb – and he sticks his fingers in his ears and spits on him. (Mark 7: 31-37).

It is interesting how Jesus calls this man aside for a private one-to-one. How did he do this? If the man is deaf, how could he hear what Jesus is saying to him, both in public and in private? In this area, as a deaf mute, how had he learned to speak both Greek and Aramaic?

Yes, with one, single, perhaps even coarse word, the man can hear and speak.

It has become very difficult for people in the US in the past year to speak out about events at the moment, with one disastrous and catastrophic edict following another. Children have been detained cruelly, family lives are being destroyed, protesters have been shot dead in their cars and on the streets. Many are now afraid to speak out in case they become be the victims of the next diktat signed in the Oval Office by that capricious and vengeful President. Who sees and hears what he does, but is afraid to speak out?

But if people do not speak out now, who is going to be left to speak out three years from now?

Perhaps one, simple, blunt and direct word from Jesus may empower some people to speak out before it is too late. That word may be εφφαθα. But perhaps, on the eve of Saint Valentine’s Day, we might also need to be reminded that that word may simply be ‘Love!’

I am reminded again of the words of the German theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), whose cell I once visited in Sachsenhausen:

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

The two healing stories of the mother and her daughter and the deaf mute find their context in – are sandwiched between – the two stories about feeding the crowds. The two feeding stories and the healing store in Tyre involve feeding with bread. Christ’s invitation to the Eucharist needs to be opened out, from being a rite of the Church to being a banquet for the world.

Only when we break down our limitations or prejudices, and when we are bold enough to speak out, can Christ’s healing message be brought to a world that cries out for God’s healing, God’s mercy, God’s justice … that cries out to be called into God’s Kingdom.

The Collect today prays that God who has ‘created the heavens and the earth ‘and made us in’ God’s own image my teach us ‘to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children.’

‘Christ’s invitation to the Eucharist needs to be opened out, from being a rite of the Church to being a banquet for the world’ … one of three monochrome round paintings of Christ the Pantocrator by Hanna-Leena Ward in her current exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 13 February 2026):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 13 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Inspire local leaders, the EU and UK authorities to choose hospitality over harmful policies. May decisions protect all who are stranded and in danger.

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

How can we be empowered to speak out before it is too late? … street sculpture in Beford (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

23 million digits in numbers, 23 million metres fundraising, 23 million sq metres in Tuscany, and 23 million blog hits by today

‘Tuscany … a world of wine’ … Tuscany covers 23,000 sq km or 23 million sq metres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Once again, this blog continues to reach more and more readers as it reaches the milepost of 23 million readers this evening (12 February 2026). This follows soon after passing the landmarks of 22.5 million earlier this month (4 February), 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 about 2 million hits or visitors for 2026 by this evening. This means, this blog has passed the half million mark twice this month, twice last month, and five times in December.

I 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 the 12 months since then, another 11.5 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 last month alone, four were last January, and one was last month:

• 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)
• 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)
• 106,169 (16 January 2026)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)

The latest figure of 23 million is all the more staggering as half of those hits (11.5 million) have been within less than a year, since 10 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 about 40-50,000.

With this latest landmark figure of 23 million readers, I once again find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 23 million people look like?

• Where do we find 23 million people?

• What does £23 million, €23 million or $23 million mean?

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

The Statue of Dante in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A collaborative computational effort uncovered the longest known prime number, it was announced back in 2018, and it is over 23 million digits long. The new number was given the name M77232917 for short.

Prime numbers are divisible only by themselves and one, and the search for ever-larger primes has long occupied maths enthusiasts. However, the search requires complicated computer software and collaboration as the numbers get increasingly hard to find. M77232917 was discovered on a computer belonging to Jonathan Pace, an electrical engineer from Tennessee who had been searching for big primes for 14 years. It is nearly one million digits longer than the previous record holder, which was identified as part of the same project at the beginning of 2016.

The 23 enigma is a belief in the significance of the number 23. The concept of the 23 enigma has been popularized by various books, movies, and conspiracy theories, which suggest that the number 23 appears with unusual frequency in various contexts and may have a larger, hidden significance. Since the 1990s, the free techno and raver counterculture has adopted it as a symbol.

There are about 26 million Sikhs globally, of whom 23 million live in India where they are less than 2% of the 1.4 billion population. Sikhism is the world’s fifth-largest organised religion.

Taiwan and Sri Lanka each has a population of about 23 million people.

23 million metres is 23,000 km and 23 million sq metres is 23,000 sq km.

Tuscany in central Italy has an area of about 23,000 sq km. Tuscany is the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, has many protected nature reserves and UNESCO World Heritage sites and is the second-most-popular Italian region for tourists in Italy, after Veneto.

The main tourist attractions are in Florence, Pisa, San Gimignano, Siena and Lucca. Tuscany was the home of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, the Medicis and Michelangelo … and is the home of the Uffizi … and of Chianti and Montepulciano.

23,000 sq km is also the approximate size of Belize and of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-east Germany, also known by its anglicised name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania.

Rob Goliah (36) from Nottingham has cycled 23,000 km ( million metres) from Melbourne in Derbyshire to Melbourne in Australia. He took six month to cycle 23,000 km and visited 22 countries along the route, setting out on 29 June and arriving on 26 December.

Then last weekend, large crowds gathered at Sydney Opera House on 7 February to celebrate the end of a Roscommon man’s two-year charity cycle across the world. Fergal Guihen’s mammoth ‘Rossie to Aussie’ 23,000 km challenge has taken him through 28 countries and three continents over the last two years since leaving Arigna, Co Roscommon, on 10 March 2024.

His journey aimed to raise awareness and funds for both the Mayo Roscommon Hospice Foundation and North West STOP. His fundraising cycle has raised more than €150,000 to date. He travelled the full length of three continents and 28 countries. ‘What I originally believed would take one year ultimately became a two-year adventure and, without question, the toughest thing I have ever done’.

In 2025 alone, the EU allocated a total of €23 million in humanitarian aid to UNRWA for the delivery of assistance in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. The EU remains critical to UNRWA’s ability to provide Palestine refugees in the occupied West Bank access to urgent shelter support and essential services.

A very rare sketch of a foot by Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel sold earlier this month for a record €23 million at a Christie’s auction in New York. The recently discovered drawing was part of a study for the Libyan Sibyl on the ceiling of the chapel in the Vatican.

I am one among more than 23 million adults in the UK who have not learnt the lifesaving skill of CPR. Almost half of UK adults (43 per cent) have never learnt CPR, according to new figures that suggest as many as 23 million are yet to learn the skills to save a life.

Schizophrenia affects approximately 23 million people or 1 in 345 people (0.29%) worldwide. The UN Population Fund states that a further 23 million girls risk being subjected to this violence over the next four years. An estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide, meaning 44 pregnancy losses each minute.

In September 2025, Greek authorities estimated that at least €23 million in EU agricultural subsidies were fraudulently claimed, marking a major, ongoing scandal involving 1,036 cases of illegal payments. The fraud involved false declarations of land and livestock by non-farmers, and is being investigated by Greek police and the EPPO.

The Olympic freestyle skier, Eileen Gu has become one of the world’s highest-paid female athletes, earning $23.1 million last year, according to the Forbes rankings in 2025 of the highest-paid female athletes, listing her after tennis player Coco Gauff with around $33 million, followed by Aryna Sabalenka at $30 million and Iga Swiatek at $25.1 million.

Conor McGregor has been boasting this month Donald Trump is exploring a $23 million investment in McGregor’s business interests … I can only start to imagine how they deserve each other and how well matched they are.

And 23 million minutes is 43.8 years, or roughly 383,333 hours or 15,972 days. In other words, if this blog was getting one hit a minute, it would take almost 44 years to reach today’s 23 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 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.

Vineyards, vines, groves and terraces near San Gimignano in Tuscany (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)