Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week leads us into Kingdom-time or the Kingdom Season. This week began with the Last Sunday after Trinity (26 October 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers James Hannington (1847-1885), Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda.
Later this afternoon (2:30 pm), I am speaking at the Stony Last Thursday History Society, in Stony Stratford Library, on ‘Hollywood Royalty discovered in a stained glass window in Stony Stratford’. In my talk, I am looking at windows by Nathaniel Westlake in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, and telling the story of Katherine Lester DeMille, adopted daughter of Cecil B DeMille (The Ten Commandments) and wife of Anthony Quinn, star of Zorba the Greek.
But, before the day begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading 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.
Luke 13: 31-35 (NRSVA):
31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ 32 He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”.’
Today’s Reflection:
As I was preparing for this afternoon’s history talk, I turned back to reading Zorba the Greek, the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, first published 80 years ago in 1946 as Βίος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά (Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas). The narrator, who becomes Basil in the film adaptation film adaptation by Michael Cacoyannis, describes waking one morning and seeing Zorba ‘absorbed in deep meditation … The whole universe of earth, water, thoughts and men was slowly drifting towards a distant sea, and Zorba was drifting away with it, unresistingly, unquestioningly, and happy.’
In another place in the Zorba, Kazantzakis says: ‘We sense happiness with difficulty experiencing it. Only when it has passed and we look back do we suddenly comprehend, while sometimes with astonishment, how happy we have been. I, however, on this Cretan shore, was experiencing happiness while being simultaneously aware of my happiness.’
Zorba has been described as ‘one of the greatest life-affirming novels of our time’. It is the story of God and man, the Devil and the saints, of the struggle of humans to find our souls and purpose in life, and it is about love, courage and faith. Zorba’s life is rich with all the joys and sorrows that life brings and his example awakens in the unnamed narrator an understanding of the true meaning of humanity. It is a lesson in how to find the beauty of life and to discover awe in small things.
Sometimes, when I have stood presiding at or celebrating the Holy Communion or the Eucharist, or when I was preparing the bread for the Eucharist, I found I was taken aback by intense feelings of the love of God.
On one memorable occasion, this happened to me as I was using the ‘Prayer of Humble Access’ at the fraction, when we were breaking the Bread of Communion at the invitation.
It is a prayer that has gone out of fashion in many parishes, but it is a reminder that we come to the Table or the Altar not because of our own goodness, not in spite of our own sinfulness, but because of the overflowing mercy and grace that God gives us freely and with unlimited bounty:
We do not presume to come to this your table,
merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness
but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
But you art the same Lord,
whose nature is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
I was taken aback and was conscious of the love of God unexpectedly that day as I came to those words: ‘We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.’
What flashed across my mind was a video clip that had gone viral at that time on YouTube and social media, of two small, frail abandoned children caught up in Syria’s bloody civil war, fending for themselves by picking up crumbs of bread from the street to eat.
These two homeless mites, braver than any groups fighting or waging war in Syria, told the camera crew: ‘We go to sleep hungry, we wake up hungry.’
They had been separated from their parents. At the time, the Anglican mission agency, USPG, was working with the plight of Syrian refugees in Lesvos and Athens and other parts of Greece.
In that video clip, the 10-year-old girl said she had been collecting bread crumbs off the street with her brother because their area of Damascus, al-Hajar, has been under siege for more than 15 months.
‘If we had food, you wouldn’t have seen us here,’ she said.
But their final message to the world that had abandoned them was: ‘May you be happy and blessed with what God has given you!’
Europe takes pity on children like this when we see them on YouTube or on the 10 o’clock news. But when they land on our shores in the Aegean Islands in Greece, or make their way up through central Europe and cross the Channel into England, we deem them not worthy to gather up the crumbs under our table.
I have looked at this video clip again and again since then. And I think of the image of Christ in our Gospel reading this morning: ‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Luke 13: 34)
The children of the world are the future of the world. It does not matter whose children they are. It does not matter how many of them there are: whether they are two children searching for crumbs that I am not worthy to gather up, or small enough to be gathered in by a loving parent, or are countless in numbers like the stars, they are all embraced in the love of the loving and living God. They are all heirs to God’s promises.
And how we respond to them, how I respond to them, shows them what I think, what we think, of God and how much we believe in his promises.
‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Luke 13: 35).
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 29 October 2026):
The theme this week (25 to 31 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Update from Myanmar’ (pp 50-51). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Revd Davidson Solanki, Senior Regional Manager for Asia and the Middle East, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 29 October 2026) invites us to pray:
Gracious God, guide the Church in Myanmar as it moves from emergency relief to sustainable programmes. Let its work reflect your love for those most affected by disaster.
The Collect:
Most merciful God,
who strengthened your Church by the steadfast courage
of your martyr James Hannington:
grant that we also,
thankfully remembering his victory of faith,
may overcome what is evil
and glorify your holy name;
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:
Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr James Hannington:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
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
