Praying with the ‘in-between’ people caught in these ‘in-between’ times of uncertainty and unrest

The Ascension depicted in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In this week, we find ourselves in an ‘in-between’ time, between the Ascension and Pentecost, between the Son ascending to the Father and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

But this is also an ‘in-between’ time, with uncertainty at the top of government, and with uncertainty on the streets, with open expressions of hatred and racism and threats of violence.

In a poem he posted on his Facebook page this morning, the priest poet Jon Swales of Leeds prayed:

Christ, show us a unity
not crafted in statements,
not shouted in streets,
but broken in bread,
poured in wine,
birthed at your table.

In preparing the intercessions for the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning(Easter VII, 17 May 2026), I adapted a well-known prayer by Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711) that seems so appropriate at this time of marches, tension and the deliberate hijacking of Christian symbols and language:

O God, make the door of this house
wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship,
and a heavenly Father’s care;
and narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and hate.
Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children,
nor to straying feet,
but rugged enough to turn back the tempter’s power:
make it a gateway to thine eternal kingdom.

His prayer was inscribed on the door of Saint Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, in London, which I have visited a number of times, and it is found inside the doors of many churches in the Church of England. The prayer is found in many sources, including the King’s Chapel Prayer Book at King’s Chapel, one of the oldest churches in Boston, and The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton.

Bishop Thomas Ken is one of the founding figures in Anglican hymnody. He had an often-fraught relationship with the Church of England and was one of the Non-Juring bishops at the time of the Williamite Revolution.

Thomas Ken was born in 1637 at Little Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. His father was Thomas Ken of Furnival’s Inn; his mother was the daughter of the poet John Chalkhill; and his step-sister Anne married Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler and biographer of some of the key Caroline divines and poets, including George Herbert and John Donne.

Ken was educated at Winchester College, Hart Hall, Oxford, and New College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1662, and was the rector of parishes in Essex, the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, before returning to Winchester in 1672 as a prebendary of the cathedral, chaplain to the bishop and a fellow of Winchester College. There he prepared manuals on prayer and wrote many of his hymns, including ‘Awake, my soul, and with the sun,’ ‘Glory to thee, my God, this night’ and ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.’

Ken visited to Rome with Izaak Walton in 1674, and the journey seems to have confirmed him in his commitment to Anglicanism.

King Charles II appointed Ken chaplain to Princess Mary, wife of William of Orange, in 1679. However, he incurred William’s displeasure at the court in The Hague, and when he returned to England in 1680 he was appointed one of the king’s chaplains.

When Charles II visited Winchester with his court in 1683, Ken refused to provide lodgings for Nell Gwynne, the king’s mistress. Later that year, he accompanied Lord Dartmouth to Tangier as chaplain to the fleet.

When the fleet returned, Charles II appointed Ken as Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was consecrated at Lambeth on 25 January 1685, and one of his first duties was to attend the king on his deathbed. That year he also published The Practice of Divine Love.

When James II issued the Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, Ken was one of the seven bishops who refused to publish it. Ken and the other his six bishops were sent to the Tower of London on charges of high misdemeanour, but were acquitted at their trial.

When the Williamite Revolution followed, however, Ken believed his sworn allegiance to James II prevented him from taking an oath of loyalty to William of Orange. He became one the Non-Jurors, and in 1691 he was replaced as Bishop of Bath and Wells by the Dean of Peterborough, Richard Kidder.

For the next 20 years, he lived in retirement as a guest of Lord Weymouth at Longleat in Wiltshire. There he wrote many of his famous hymns, including ‘Awake my soul.’

Queen Anne failed to persuade him to return to Bath and Wells when Bishop Kidder died in 1703, but he persuaded George Hooper to accept the vacant see. At Hooper’s request, Queen Anne granted Ken a pension of £200. He died at Longleat on 19 March 1711.

One of Ken’s last sayings was, ‘I am dying in the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; and, more particularly, in the Communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from both Papal and Protestant innovation, and adheres to the Doctrine of the Cross.’

At dawn on 20 March 1711, while his friends sang ‘Awake, my soul,’ he was buried below the East Window of Saint John’s Church in Frome, Somerset, the nearest parish in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.

Thomas Ken is remembered in the Church of England with on 8 June and in the Episcopal Church on 20 March. He is also commemorated with a statue in a niche on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral.

‘O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all’ … Bishop Thomas Ken’s prayer was inscribed on the doors of Saint Stephen’s Walbrook (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mar Thoma Church to open new Indian church in former Central Methodist Church on Aldergate in Tamworth

The Central Methodist Church on Aldergate, Tamworth, closed in 2022 and has been acquired by the Mar Thoma Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The former Methodist church in the centre of Tamworth, the Central Methodist Church in Aldergate, closed four years ago, after its last service on Sunday 22 May 2022. When it went for sale at auction a year later (18 May 2023), many fears among local people in Tamworth about the future for the building. The Victorian chapel, with a Gothic-style street frontage, had a guide price of over £150,000.

But now it appears that the church has been saved is going to continue in use as a church having been acquired by the Mar Thoma Church. Hermon Mar Thoma Church is based in Birmingham and its liturgy and services are in the tradition of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar.

The Mar Thoma Church is in formal ‘full communion’ with the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England, the Church of Ireland and the Episcopal Church in the US, with mutual recognition of each other's sacraments and full interchangeably of clergy.

In many places, Mar Thoma parishes have the endorsement of local Anglican bishops, and the theology of the Mar Thoma Church is close to Anglican traditions while maintaining Eastern liturgical heritage. It uses a reformed variant of the West Syriac Rite Divine Liturgy of Saint James, translated into Malayalam.

The Mar Thoma Church sees itself as continuation of the Saint Thomas Christians, a community traditionally believed to have been founded in the first century by Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is known as Mar Thoma n Syriac. The church describes itself as ‘Apostolic in origin, Universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, and Episcopal in character’.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church, Midlands, is a parish of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, and held its first services in 1996. The church grew with the arrival of a new group of Diaspora Indians in the UK in 2002, including doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals. A Midlands prayer group was formed in 2004 and it became a congregation in 2006 and later given the status of a parish church.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church was formed in May 2007. The present vicar is the Revd Saju Chacko, and there are five area prayer groups: Birmingham and Solihull; Coventry, Warwick and Nuneaton; Walsall, Wolverhampton and Stafford; Leicester; Nottingham, Derby and Burton on Trent.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church … a sign outside the former Central Methodist Church in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The former Central Methodist Church on the west side of Aldergate, between St John’s Street and Lichfield Street, was one of 184 lots at Bond Wolfe’s auction on 18 May 2023. Ian Tudor of Bond Wolfe said at the time of the sale: ‘This former church … has been an important focal point for Tamworth for more than 130 years.’ He said the property was ‘suitable for a wide variety of alternative uses, subject to planning permission.’

The last service was held at the Central Methodist Church in Aldergate, Tamworth, on Sunday 22 May 2022, and the church building, which started life in Tamworth in 1886, closed. A decision has been taken to refocus the congregation on the 1960s building of Saint Andrew's Methodist Church in Thackeray Drive, Leyfields, now known as New Life Methodist Church.

The decision to close the church has left the town centre in Tamworth without a Methodist congregation or building for the first time since Methodism began in the 18th century.

The Methodist Church in Aldergate dated from a split that divided Tamworth’s Methodists in the mid-19th century. A new group was formed calling itself the Wesleyan Reformers and later the Free Methodists. When they left the Bolebridge Street Chapel, they met in a room nearby before acquiring a room in Aldergate that was known as ‘The Hut.’

By the late 19th century, the Free Methodists realised that the Hut did not meet the needs of a growing congregation. They bought a plot of land in Aldergate for £250. The memorial stones were laid at Easter 1886, and the building was completed late that summer, with a spire. The Gothic-style building cost £2,250 and opened for worship on 29 September 1886.

The Free Methodists became part of the United Methodists in 1907. In 1933, the United, Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist Churches became one Methodist Church, but it was many years before this became a reality in Tamworth. Meanwhile, the original spire was removed in the 1950s.

When they were joined by the Victoria Street Methodists in 1972, the new congregation in Aldergate became known as the Central Methodist Church.

But the premises in Aldergate were inadequate for the needs of the new congregation. It was impossible to extend laterally so it was decided to extend vertically, and a large part of the cost was met by grants from the Joseph Rank Benevolent Trust.

The church reopened on 16 September 1978. The front of the building was originally single storey. A mezzanine floor was added in the 1970s resulting in two storeys, while at the rear the original two-storey section was once used as school rooms. At the time of sale, the accommodation included a lobby, a vestry, a lower school room, a meeting room, two kitchens and toilets on the ground floor, a landing, the main worship room and an upper school room on the first floor.

The Central Methodist Church on Aldergate had an organ by Nicholson and Lord of Walsall (1903) that was Grade II* listed in its own right due to its quality. There were many fine monuments, memorials and features, some of which had been moved there from the Bolebridge Street Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Temple in Victoria Road when they closed.

With its spacious rooms, the church had welcomed many community groups for hold meetings and activities over 136 years. The Tamworth and District Civic Society (TDCS) was memorably re-launched there in 2015.

The former Wesleyan Temple, later Victoria Street Methodist Church, has been converted into apartments as Victoria Mews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John Wesley (1703-1791), the founding Methodist, first visited Tamworth in 1743. Following disturbances in the Black Country, Wesley rode over to Tamworth to take legal advice from a Counsellor Littleton who lived there. However, the first visit of Methodist preachers to Tamworth was not recorded until 1771.

The early Methodists in Tamworth first met in the home of Samuel and Ann Watton and later in a room in Bolebridge Street. In 1787, John Wesley met the first Sir Robert Peel, who gave the Methodists a site for a permanchapel in Bolebridge Street. He told them: ‘My lads, do not build your chapel too large. People would like to go to a little chapel well filled better than a large one half full.’

The new chapel was opened on 15 July 1794. But it was clearly not built ‘too large,’ for by 1815 it was proving to be too small. In 1816, a new and larger chapel that could seat a congregation of 300 was built at a cost of £1,000.

But just as the first Wesleyan chapel in Bolebridge Street had proved too small, the second one also became inadequate, and in the 1870s it was decided to build a new one.

In 1877, Thomas Argyle, a Methodist solicitor, donated a plot of land for a new chapel on the corner of Victoria Road and Back Lane, now Mill Lane. The foundation stones for what would become the Wesleyan Temple were laid on 21 May 1877 and ‘topping out’ ceremony was held on 28 November 1877. The Wesleyan Temple, which opened on 9 April 1878, had an inspiring façade and could seat 650 people.

The Sunday School continued to use Bolebridge Street Chapel until new schoolrooms were built in 1898. The old chapel was sold to Woodcocks’ Printers, who used it for many years. Later, in the 1960s, the congregation at Victoria Road was joined by families from the Bolebridge Street Mission when it closed.

However, serious defects were detected at Victoria Road Methodist Church, as it became known, and the costs of remedying them were beyond the resources of the church. In early 1972, a decision was taken to close the church on Victoria Road and to amalgamate with the Methodist Church in Aldergate. The magnificent Victorian edifice of the church was preserved and at first accommodated squash courts. The inside was stripped out in 1974 and it has since been converted into residential apartments, although the façade remains part of the architectural legacy of Tamworth’s church history.

Today, there are also Methodist Churches at Glascote and Hopwas, and the ecumenical church at Saint Martin’s-in the-Delph at Stonydelph is shared between the Church of England and Methodists.

The name ‘Methodist Free Church’ and the date ‘1886’ can still be seen on the former Central Methodist Church on Aldergate in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 43, Sunday 17 May 2026, Seventh Sunday of Easter, Easter VII

The Seventh Sunday of Easter is an ‘in-between’ time in the 10 days between Ascension Day and the Day of Pentecost … confusing signs on the beach in Bettystown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday, next Sunday. Today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII, 17 May 2026), an ‘in-between’ Sunday, between Ascension Day and the Day of Pentecost, a question full of questions and waiting.

Later this morning, I am leading the intercession at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, and singing with the choir. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘For the words that you gave to me I have given to them’ (John 17: 8) … Christ as the Great High Priest with an open Bible in an icon in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopiano, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 17: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’

‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven?’ (Acts 1: 11) … the Ascension window by Sir Edward Burne-Jones in Saint Philip’s Cathedral, Birmingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections

This Sunday is a strange ‘In-Between Time’ in the calendar of the Church. On Thursday (14 May 2026), we celebrated the Day of the Ascension; next Sunday (24 May 2026), we celebrate the Day of Pentecost.

In the meantime, we are in what we might call ‘in-between’ time.

It is still the season of Easter, which lasts for 50 days from Easter Day until the Day of Pentecost. But, this morning, we are still in the Easter season, in that ‘in-between’ time, these 10 days between the Day of Ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Church at Pentecost.

Following the Ascension, two angels in white robes ask the disciples why they are standing around looking up into heaven. In the Gospel account of the Ascension (Luke 24: 44-53), they return to ‘Jerusalem with great joy,’ and seem to spend the following days in the Temple.

As the story unfolds in the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples, as well as the Virgin Mary and other women (see verse 14), spend their time in prayer, choosing a successor to Judas, as we are told in this morning’s first reading (Acts 1: 6-14).

Ten days after the Ascension, they are going to be filled with Holy Spirit, who comes as a gift not only to the 12 but to all who are gathered with them, including the Virgin Mary and the other women, the brothers of Jesus (verse 14), and other followers in Jerusalem – in all, about 120 people (see verse 15).

But during these 10 days, they and we are in that ‘in-between’ time, the 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost. Their faith persists, but the promise has not yet been fulfilled.

They wait in hope. But until that promise is fulfilled they are, you might say, transfixed, believing without doing, unable to move from Jerusalem out into the wider world.

This Gospel reading follows Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33), Christ has just ended his instructions to his disciples, which conclude with the advice, ‘In the world you face persecution But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).

We now read from his prayer to the Father (John 17: 1-26), in which he summarises the significance of his life as the time for his glory – his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – has arrived.

This prayer is often referred to as the High Priestly Prayer, as it includes many of the elements of prayer a priest offers when a sacrifice is about to be made: glorification (verses 3-5, 25), remembrance of God’s work (verses 2, 6-8, 22, 23), intercession on behalf of others (verses 9, 11, 15, 20, 21, 24), and a declaration of the offering itself (verses 1, 5).

In the Orthodox Church, this passage is also read on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, a day remembering the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in the year 325. That council condemned the heresy of Arianism that taught that the Son of God was created by the Father and that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist. Christ’s words here bear witness to his divinity and to his filial relationship with the Father.

Verses 1-2: the Father gives this glory to the Son, and this adds to the Father’s glory because of the authority the Father has given to the Son over all people, with the promise of eternal life.

Verse 3: this eternal life is knowing the Father and Christ, who has been sent by the Father.

Verses 4-5: Christ glorifies the Father by finishing the work he has been given, and he is being restored to glory in the Father’s presence, a glory Christ had in God’s presence before the world existed.

Verse 6: Christ has made God’s name known in the world, and those who have heard him and have been obedient to the word of God.

Verses 7-8: the disciples now know that the Father is the source of all that the Christ has been given, they know that he has been sent from the Father, and that the Father sent him into the world.

Verse 9: Christ’s petitions are on behalf of his followers.

Verse 10: Those who follow Christ are committed to God’s care.

Verse 11: Looking forward to the time after his departure – after his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – Christ now asks the Father to protect the disciples in the world, and prays that they may have a unity that reflects the unity of the Father and the Son … ‘that they may be one, as we are one.’

Too often we are caught between Ascension Day and Pentecost, waiting but not sure that the kingdom is to come, frightened in the terror and the pain of the present moment. Feeling powerless and fearful and not knowing what to do combine to make a deadly cocktail that not only immobilises us but robs us of hope.

But I remember how during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, we came to see reflections of our hope for the future in the nurses, the doctors, the police, the emergency responders, who responded immediately, without considering how they were putting themselves in danger … the supermarket staff, the delivery drivers, the people in communities who delivered shopping, the postal workers who checked on the elderly and the vulnerable, the police who take smiles and verbal abuse with equal stoicism.

In those ‘In-Between Times’, we came to see ourselves in them and even to see the face of God in them. And this too is our Easter hope and faith. This is the hope that we will never lose our capacity as Christians to live with the Risen Christ, listening to his desire that we should be not afraid, and that we should love one another.

This is the hope we wait for between the glory of the Ascension and the empowering gifts the Holy Spirit gives us and promises us at Pentecost.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

‘So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed’ (John 17: 5) … Christ the Pantocrator in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration, Piskopiano (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers:

The theme this week (17-23 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) has been ‘Breaking Barriers: Gender Justice in Malawi’ (pp 56-57). This theme is introduced today with Reflections from Tamara Khismisi, Projects Coordinator, Anglican Church in Malawi:

The Gender Justice through Girls’ Education Advocacy Campaign, supported by USPG, seeks to address low retention and transition rates for girls in rural Malawi, where child marriages and limited access to sexual reproductive health information are major barriers. Implemented in the Mchinji and Chiladzulu districts under the Anglican Church in Malawi (ACM), the programme mobilises faith leaders, local authorities, and community volunteers to advocate for girls’ education. By raising awareness, influencing policy, and partnering with rights groups, the initiative promotes sustainable change and creates supportive environments for girls to remain in school.

A shining example of change is Lina*, a teenage girl from Kapiri Parish, Saint Peter’s Anglican Church in Mchinji. Life for Lina had not been easy – her family, relying on small-scale farming, struggled to make ends meet, and she had to leave school several times to help at home. Adding to these challenges, the significant lack of menstrual health education leaves many girls like Lina without guidance or support.

Thanks to the Anglican Church in Malawi’s advocacy campaign, Lina’s life began to change. She received guidance on her health and partners in global mission 56 rights, learned how to manage her menstrual hygiene with dignity, and was given a school uniform that allowed her to attend school consistently. Today, Lina sits confidently in Class 7, attending school regularly and dreaming of pursuing higher education in the future.

* name changed

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 17 May 2026) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on John 17: 1-11.

The Collect of the Day:

O God the King of Glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
Mercifully give us faith to know
that, as he promised,
he abides with us on earth to the end of time;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal Giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom.
Confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘For the words that you gave to me I have given to them’ (John 17: 7) … Christ as the Great High Priest with an open Bible … an icon in the Church of Saint Spyridon in Palaiokastritsa, Corfu (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