Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 68, Tuesday 14 July 2026

The Crying Women of Sidon … a sarcophagus from Sidon now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 12 July 2026), and last night in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, the Revd Dr David Jarratt was welcomed as the new Rector of Stony Stratford and Calverton.

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers John Keble (1792-1866), priest, Tractarian and poet. Later today, I hope to take part in a meeting of the Town Centre Working Group, a working committee of Stony Stratford Town Council. But, 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.

The Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite Woman … a modern icon by Brother Robert Lentz OFM

Matthew 11: 20-24 (NRSVA):

20 Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent. 21 ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum,

will you be exalted to heaven?
No, you will be brought down to Hades.

For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.’

Iokasti, a restaurant in Koutouloufari in Crete … are there comparisons between Iocasta and her daughter in ‘The Phoenician Women’ and the Greek-speaking Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman in Tyre and Sidon? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The short Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 11: 20-24) seems to threaten judgement and doom for two pairs of cities – Chorazin and Bethsaida, and Tyre and Sidon – and links Capernaum with Hades, but not Sodom with Gomorrah.

But what deeds of power are going to be done in Tyre and Sidon? What signs of the day of judgement are going to be seen in Tyre and Sidon?

Perhaps this passage should not be read without also skipping forward a few chapters to Matthew 15: 21-28:

21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

One of the first decisions of Jesus on that visit to Tyre and Sidon is to hear the cry for mercy from a Canaanite or Syro-Phoenician woman, to heal her daughter, and to commend their faith. The outsiders are counted in, and judgement is experienced as love and mercy, compassion and inclusion.

Can you recall a moment, a place, or an occasion when you felt rejected? To be rejected I do not need to be an outsider. We can be rejected by our own brothers or sisters, by those who live around us, by those who share our religious or cultural values.

We can be rejected because of our lifestyle, our family background, our political and social values, our ethnic or religious backgrounds, our personal habits, our family circumstances, our sexuality, or marital status or lack of marital status … the list is endless.

Can you think of how you feel when you are made to feel rejected, an outsider, sent away?

And, have you found yourself blaming yourself rather than those who reject or marginalise you?

If so, then you know what it is like to become a double victim: a victim of the prejudices of others, and a victim of the perceptions that are projected onto you.

The disciples reject the Canaanite woman who is pleading for mercy, seeing her as unclean and an outsider, and bring judgement down on this woman and her daughter in Tyre and Sidon.

Having heard the Pharisees suggest Jesus should reject them, they now say to Jesus, ‘send her away’ (verse 23).

But there is a paradox in their rejection of her, for they use a word (ἀπόλυσον, apoluson) that also means to set free, to let go, to give liberty to, to release.

The same verb is used to set a debtor free of debts, or to allow a woman to divorce her husband, setting her free from the bonds that tie husband and wife. In wanting to be free from her demanding calls, they – ironically – call for mother and daughter to be freed from their torments.

In our feelings of rejection and marginalisation, how do we find acceptance, liberation, and a place in God’s unfolding plan for his people, for all people, God’s future for us?

The disciples want to turn her away. They see her as a pest, a nuisance, a pushy woman, breaking into their closed space, their private area.

Christ and the Disciples are in the coastal area of Tyre and Sidon, an area of small villages, perhaps looking for a quiet break for a few days. But if they are planning to get away for a few quiet days, those plans are frustrated when this woman arrives with her pressing demands.

This is foreign territory, inhabited by Canaanites or Phoenicians, who were culturally Hellenised and mainly Greek-speaking. It is also the territory associated with Elijah, who raised the widow’s child from death (I Kings 17: 9-24) and who ‘was markedly open to foreigners.’

So, Christ could expect to find himself among a large number of Greek-speaking ‘Gentiles.’ Would the Disciples expect him to behave like Elijah and break all the rules in being open to them, taking miraculous care of a lone mother and her child?

In the classical world, Phoenician women were pushy women. About 400 years earlier, the great Greek playwright Euripides wrote his tragedy The Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι, Phoenissae).

The title of the play, The Phoenician Women, refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi and who are trapped in Thebes by war.

The two key women in the play are Jocasta and her daughter Antigone, who have survived against all odds. They challenge the accepted concepts in Classical times of fate and free-will.

In the face of death, they refuse to accept what others see as their destiny, they refuse to be pushed aside, marginalised and dismissed as the men around then compete for power.

So, in Christ’s time, educated people could expect a Phoenician woman and her daughter to be pushy in the face of what appears to be a cruel fate, even if this involves confronting successful or ambitious men: they are prepared to stand up to kings and rulers, prepared to challenge them, and prepared to risk judgement that means rejection and exile.

Faced with her daughter’s needs, this woman ignores the disciples: she is direct and aggressive in demanding healing and justice. And in demanding justice and healing for her daughter, she is, of course, demanding these for herself too.

Nothing is said about the response of the disciples to the woman. They had been trying to push her away, despite her crying, her tears, her distress, her plight over her daughter.

Perhaps nothing is said about the response of the disciples … because we are the disciples. How do you and I respond to encounters like this?

As a social response, for example, we might consider that the confrontation is an illustration of how we might respond to the needs of strangers and foreigners.

Do we find them pushy and demanding?

How do we respond when the foreign woman in our society wants the same treatment in hospital for her child as a child born here?

How do we respond when foreigners who are more open and joyful in conversation, appear to be encroaching on our privacy on the bus, on the street or in a shop?

Are we like the Disciples, and want to send them away? Or are we like Jesus, and engage in conversation with them?

Do we think we have some privileges that should not be shared with the outsider and the stranger?

How do we respond to people who are pushy and continue to demand care for their children in the face of society’s decision to say no?

The parents who want teaching support for children with learning disabilities, the parents who want to know why children’s hospitals are so badly funded that they have to raise funds with charity events while their children wait for treatment.

But this Gospel story also raises questions at a personal, spiritual level too, when it comes to matters of faith.

How many people do you know who give up when they turn to God in prayer and find those who are supposed to represent Jesus appear to turn them away?

How many times have I dismissed the needs and prayers of others because they appear to be outside the community of faith as I understand it?

This woman is insistent, she is persistent; she refuses to accept what other people regard as her fate and destiny.

In the end, she receives the mercy and help she asks for, and much, much more … she is commended in front of the disciples for her faith, and her daughter is healed instantly.

We do not have to accept misery and rejection, especially when others see them as our fate or our destiny. And, in simple prayers, we may find more in the answer than we ever ask for.

‘What overwhelms us?’

‘What can we do about being overwhelmed?’

These questions were put to us some years by Bishop Margaret Vertue of the Diocese of False Bay in South Africa, at the USPG conference in High Leigh.

Bishop Margaret, who was the second woman to become a bishop in Africa, was leading that morning’s Bible study in 2017 on Matthew 11: 20-24.

She challenged us to think of how we respond in love and not in judgement. And, drawing on the wisdom of the Carthusian monks of Grand Chartreuse, she asked: ‘I became human for you, will you become God with me?’

To illustrate how we might respond in love and not in judgement, she shared ‘The Story of a Sign’ by Alonso Alvarez Barreda, with music by Giles Lamb. This short film from Purplefeather illustrates the power of words to radically change our message and our effect upon the world.

She challenged us that morning to consider our own contexts and to discuss: ‘What overwhelms us? What can we do about being overwhelmed?’

And she asked, in the words of the wisdom of the Carthusian monks of Grand Chartreuse: ‘I became human for you, will you become God with me?’

‘The Story of a Sign’ by Alonso Alvarez Barreda / Purplefeather, music by Giles Lamb

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 14 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 12 to 18 July 2026 (pp 18-19), is ‘The Land of the Highlanders’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Most Revd Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

The USPG prayer diary today (Tuesday 14 July 2026) invites us to pray

Heavenly Father, we remember those displaced from ancestral lands during the Highland Clearances and all who continue to suffer the effects of dispossession. Grant justice, restoration, and dignity to communities longing to return and remain.

The Collect of the Day:

Father of the eternal Word,
in whose encompassing love
all things in peace and order move:
grant that, as your servant John Keble
adored you in all creation,
so we may have a humble heart of love
for the mysteries of your Church
and know your love to be new every morning,
in 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:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant John Keble revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

The Theatre of Dionysus, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens … plays by the great playwrights, Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles were first performed there (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 49, Thursday 25 June 2026

‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock’ (Matthew 7: 24) … a monastery built on a rock top in Meteora, Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The week began with the Third Sunday after Trinity (Trinity III, 21 June 2026). I was in Lichfield yesterday marking the silver jubilee of my ordination as priest 25 years ago, on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist [24 June 2001], and today marks the 26th anniversary of my ordination as deacon [25 June 2000].

Because of the heat warnings against travel yesterday, I cancelled my plans to be in Lichfield to mark the 25th anniversary of my ordination as priest. I was invited to speak this afternoon at the Stony Last Thursday History Society event in the library in Stony Stratford, looking at the stained-glass windows in Saint Mary and Saint Giles, and telling a story that has links with some of the famous films and film stars of Hollywood. However, all of England is sweltering in this heatwave, and that talk has been postponed until October.

Meanwhile, 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.

The Acropolis at night, standing on a large rocky outcrop above Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on image for full-screen view)

Matthew 7: 21-29 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 21 ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” 23 Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”

24 ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall!’

28 Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, 29 for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.’

‘Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand’ (Matthew 7: 26) … a sandcastle on the beach at Playa de la Carihuela in Torremolinos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 7: 21-29) brings to a conclusion to our series of readings from the Sermon on the Mount in Saint Matthew’s Gospel. In the reading we missed yesterday because of the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, Christ warns of the dangers posed by ‘false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.’ We are to ‘know them by their fruits.’

Today he warns about what awaits those false prophets and wolves in sheep’s clothing, and talks about a foolish man who built his house on sand. On the other hand, we are told, those who both hear Christ’s words and act on them will show that their faith is built on firm foundation, ‘like a wise man who built his house on rock’.

I have, on many occasions times, stood at the top of Acropolis (Ἀκρόπολις) in Athens, taking in the breathtaking views in every direction across the city and out to the port of Piraeus.

The Acropolis is the highest point in Athens. It stands on an extremely rocky outcrop and on it the ancient Greeks built several significant buildings. The most famous of these is the Parthenon. This flat-topped rock rises 150 metres (490 ft) above sea level and has a surface area of about 3 ha (7.4 acres).

Below, immediately north-west of the Acropolis, is the Areopagus, another prominent, but relatively smaller, rocky outcrop. Its English name comes from its Greek name, Ἄρειος Πάγος (Areios Págos), the ‘Rock of Ares,’ known to the Romans as the Hill of Mars.

In classical Athens, this functioned as the court for trying deliberate homicide. It was said Ares was put on trial there for deicide, the murder of the son of the god Poseidon. In the play The Eumenides (458 BCE) by Aeschylus, the Areopagus is the site of the trial of Orestes for killing his mother.

Later, murderers would seek shelter there in the hope of a fair hearing.

There too the Athenians had an altar to the unknown god, and it was there that the Apostle Paul delivered his most famous speech and sermon, in which he identified the ‘unknown god’ with ‘the God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth’ (Acts 17: 24), for ‘in him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17: 28).

This is the most dramatic and fullest reported sermon or speech by the Apostle Paul. He quotes the Greek philosopher Epimenides, and he must have known that the location of his speech had important cultural contexts, including associations with justice, deicide and the hidden God.

The origin of the name of the Areopagus is found in the ancient Greek, πάγος (pagos), meaning a ‘big piece of rock.’

Another word, λιθος (lithos) was used for a small rock, a stone, or even a pebble – it is the Greek word that gives us words like lithograph and megalithic, meaning Great Stone Age.

When you see breathtaking sights like these, you understand how culturally relevant it was for Christ to talk in today’s Gospel reading about the wise man building his house on a rock rather than on sand (Matthew 7: 24-26).

Ordinary domestic buildings might have been built to last a generation or two, at most. But building on rock, building into rock, building into massive rock formations like the Acropolis, was laying the foundations for major works of cultural, political and religious significance that would last long after those who had built them had been forgotten.

And so, the Church is to be built on a rock, with the foundations a movement, an institution, an organisation, a community that is going to have lasting, everlasting significance, and survive the crass abuse of the Gospel message by political opportunists.

The Acropolis in Athens seen from the new Acropolis Museum, standing on a large rocky outcrop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 25 June 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 21 to 27 June 2026 (pp 12-13), is ‘Land Taken, Land Remembered’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Venerable Rosalyn Kantlaht’ant Elm, Director of Indigenous Ministries, Anglican Church of Canada.

The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 25 June 2026) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, we pray for the Most Revd Shane Parker, Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. Grant him wisdom, humility, and courage as he leads your Church in the work of healing and reconciliation.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
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:

O God, whose beauty is beyond our imagining
and whose power we cannot comprehend:
show us your glory as far as we can grasp it,
and shield us from knowing more than we can bear
until we may look upon you without fear;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Additional Collect:

God our saviour,
look on this wounded world
in pity and in power;
hold us fast to your promises of peace
won for us by your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Built on rock or built on sand? The ruins of Ballybunion Castle, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

‘The Thucydides Trap’ could trap Trump, with classical lessons on war and democracy

The Monument of the Unknown Soldier outside Parliament in Athens … the quotations are from the Funeral Oration by Pericles, recounted by Thucydides in ‘The History of the Peloponnesian War’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

When Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met in Beijing last week, the Chinese leader recalled another conflict between superpowers of the past, when he referred to the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, a decades long conflict that between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BCE.

In a reference to classical rivalry, Xi asked: ‘Can China and the United States transcend the so-called “Thucydides Trap” and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?’

I doubt that Trump had much of a classical education, and the reference must have gone over his head, presuming he was awake and listening at the time. If he was listening, I cannot imagine that he connected with the Peloponnesian War, still less that he ever heard of Thucydides or Pericles, just as I imagine that throughout the illegal war that has been waged continuously against Iran for weeks now, he has been incapable of knowing about the Persian Wars, still less that Persia was once one of the great classical civilisations.

Trump took a pack of ambitious business deal-makers with him on the jolly to Beijing, but few actual members of his administration, and probably no-one who was educated enough to understand the reference to the Thucydides Trap or anyone who was wise enough to grasp the significance of the citation.

The Thucydides Trap refers to the idea that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the result is often war. ‘It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable,’ Thucydides wrote in The History of the Peloponnesian War. Just as Athens was once at war with Sparta, the implication is that China’s rise provokes anxiety and potential conflict with the US.

But the term the ‘Thucydides Trap’ was not devised by Thucydides. Instead, the label was first used by the US political scientist Graham Allison of Harvard in a feature in the Financial Times in 2012 to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power, such as Athens, threatens to displace an existing great power, such as Sparta, as a regional or international dominant power. The term has been widely used since 2015, and it primarily applies to analyses of China-US relations.

Graham Allison led a study at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs which found that, among a sample of 16 historical instances of an emerging power rivalling a ruling power, 12 ended in war. Allison expanded his theory in 2017 in his book Destined for War, where he argues that ‘China and the US are currently on a collision course for war’.

However, Allison’s theory has come under considerable criticism, and scholars remain divided on the value of the ‘Thucydides Trap’, particularly as it relates to a potential military conflict between the US and China.

If anybody is brave enough to explain to Trump the meaning of the ‘Thucydides Trap’, they might also be well-advised to explain how the concept and values of democracy – so under threat in Trump’s America today – emerged and were consolidated around the same time as Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War.

The term democracy first appeared in Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Greek word δημοκρατία (dēmokratía), a compound of δῆμος (demos, people) and κρατία (kratía, power or rule). The term first appeared in Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens. The first attested use of the word democracy is found in prose works in the 430s BCE, such as Herodotus’ Histories. But its usage was older by several decades, and Aeschylus strongly alludes to the word in his play The Suppliants (ca 463 BCE), in which he mentions ‘the demos’s ruling hand.’

Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices, and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens.

All eligible citizens could speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners, and youths below the age of military service. Effectively, only 1 in 4 residents in Athens qualified as citizens.

During the run-up to this week’s election, I have been re-reading one of the greatest Greek speeches about democracy and democratic values. For many years I had a T-shirt, bought in Athens, with quotes from that funeral oration by Pericles in the cemetery in Kerameikos in Athens at the height of the Peloponnesian War.

The funeral oration by Pericles has been handed down in history by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. He tells us Pericles delivered his oration in the cemetery in Kerameikos – not only to bury the dead, but to praise democracy.

There are excerpts from the speech on the Monument of the Unknown Soldier on Parliament Square (Plateia Voulis) on Vasilissis Amalias avenue, facing onto Syntagma Square. The monument, designed by the architect Emmanuel Lazaridis in 1929-1930, includes a large bas-relief of a dying Greek soldier by Kostas Demetriadis (1881-1943) and the Greek text of the funeral oration delivered by Pericles in 431 or 430 BCE.

Part of the Parthenon frieze in the Acropolis Museum in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Pericles was a Greek leader and statesman and a supporter of democracy during the Peloponnesian War. He was so important for Athens that his name defines the age – the Periclean Age – during which Athens rebuilt what had been destroyed during the recent war with Persia.

The people of Athens, including those from the countryside whose land was being pillaged by their enemies, were kept in crowded conditions within the walls of Athens. Near the start of the Peloponnesian War, a plague swept through the city. Pericles succumbed to this plague and died.

Before he died, though, Pericles delivered his rousing speech about the virtues of democracy. Thucydides puts in Pericles’ mouth key democratic values that are worth remembering today when democracy is under threat:

• Democracy allows humanity to advance because of merit instead of wealth or inherited class.
• In a democracy, citizens behave lawfully while doing what they like without fear of prying eyes.
• In a democracy, there is equal justice for all in private disputes.

Pericles, in his ‘Funeral Oration’ in Athens, uses ‘the many,’ οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy. He contrasts them with ‘the few’ (οἱ ὀλίγοι, hoi oligoi), who abuse power and create an oligarchy, rule by the few. He advocates equal justice for ‘the many’, ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.

And that’s what democracy should have at its heart despite all the threats it faces from the Trump autocracy in the US and from the far-right in Britain and across Europe: equal justice for ‘the many’ and ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.

A grave in Kerameikós, Athens, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ A lesson from Saint Paul in Athens in this morning’s readings

The Hill of the Areopagos in Athens, looking across to the Acropolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

An early Christian thinker, Tertullian, once asked, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’

What have the ways of the world got to do with the way we live our life as Christians?

How does God respond to the cry of the poor?

How is God present in our lives?

How do we live a life of love that shows we know the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

How do we respond in love and in faith and love to suffering in the world and to suffering of those we love?

Where do we find God in the midst of all this?

All these questions are asked regularly, and the first morning reading at the Eucharist this morning was a reminder that God never leaves us alone.

Saint Paul’s words inscribed on a plaque on the Areopagos in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today has been the Sixth Sunday of Easter (10 May 2026), and at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning I read the first readings (Acts 17: 22-31), in which the Apostle Paul is at the Areopagos in Athens.

The people who worshipped the unknown God on the slopes beneath the shadow of the Acropolis were assured that God had heard their prayers, and they are now being invited to join in communion with this God through Saint Paul’s proclamation.

The Stoa of Attalos is one of the many splendid buildings beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens. This stoa (στοά), a covered walkway or portico in the Agora, was built by and named after Attalos II (159-138 BCE), King of Pergamon. Its arcades were divided into shops and stalls, and it was a popular place for wealthy Athenians to meet and gossip.

There were many stoas in Athens, including the Stoa Poikile or Painted Porch, built in the fifth century BCE on the north side of the Agora.

‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ (Tertullian) … the Stoa of Attalos, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This is where we find Saint Paul in today’s morning, in one of the most famous sites in ancient Athens. Its fame was enhanced by the paintings and loot from wars displayed there. It was in this porch that Zeno of Citium (ca 333-262 BCE) taught Stoicism, the philosophical school that takes its name from this place.

The Stoics believed in a god, and this god played an important role in their general philosophy. But Stoic theology was fluid in its concept of god. Zeno argued that the cosmos is an intelligent being, although he seems not to have explicitly identified that intelligent being as God.

According to the Roman orator and philosopher Cicero, the Stoics recognised four main questions in theology: they prove that the gods exist; they explain their nature; they show that the world is governed by them; and that they care for the fortunes of humanity.

Essentially, Stoicism is a philosophy of personal ethics. It teaches that the path to happiness is found in accepting this moment as it presents itself, by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure or our fear of pain, by using our minds to understand the world around us and to do our part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others in a fair and just manner.

The Stoics taught that emotions resulted in errors of judgment that were destructive, due to the interaction between cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will that is in accord with nature. To live a good life, they taught, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they taught that everything is rooted in nature.

Later Stoics believed that virtue is sufficient for happiness.

The steps leading up to the top of the Areopagos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

During his visit to Athens, the Apostle Paul debates with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in the stoa, the marketplace or the agora. They take him to the shrine of the unknown god at the Areopagos (see Acts 17: 16-19).

Saint Paul tells them that they already know God in their hearts, they just have to come to realise who God is. In his speech at the Areopagos, Saint Paul also quotes the Cretan philosopher Epimenides: ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’

Epimenides was a poet and philosopher from Knossos, so he was familiar with the ancient Greek myths. All of his works are now lost, but he is remembered because he popularised the story in Crete that Zeus was dead, which led him to being condemned as a liar by his Greek contemporaries, and because he is quoted by Saint Paul not once but twice in the New Testament.

At the Areopagos in Athens (see Acts 17: 22-34), Saint Paul, quotes from Epimenides, referring him as one of ‘your own poets,’ when he says: ‘For “In him we live and move and have our being”.’

Later, when Saint Paul writes to Saint Titus about his mission in Crete, he commits a logical fallacy by quoting Epimenides: ‘It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.” That testimony is true’ (Titus 1: 12-13a).

The ‘lie’ of the Cretans is that Zeus was mortal, for Epimenides believed that Zeus is dead. The logical inconsistency of a Cretan asserting that all Cretans are always liars may not have occurred to Epimenides, nor to Callimachus, who both used the phrase to emphasise their point, without irony.

However, Saint Paul must have thought long about the idea of a dead god and the dead god’s tomb as he sought to preach the Resurrection Athens and in Crete.

The American theologian John Piper is a fundamentalist whose views on women and Jews I find misogynist and bordering on the antisemitic. Dismissing the horrors of domestic violence, he has said, ‘If her husband isn’t requiring her to sin, but simply hurting her, then i think she endures verbal abuse for a season, she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.’

In one of his books, Coronavirus and Christ, Piper claimed that Covid-19 was God’s judgment on society, and he singled out, among other things, gay people as a deserving ‘due penalty.’ When I hear things like this, I wonder whether preachers like this believe in the dead Zeus rather than the Risen Christ and the God in whom ‘we live and move and have our being.’

The old myths and superstitions are dead and gone, and with them the false expectations and demands they made on us. But the one true God has been with us always. This is Saint Paul’s message to the people of Athens in the first century. We do not believe in a superstitious way in a god like Zeus who exerts his control over weak humans in an angry and vengeful way, sending plagues and viruses to wipe us out as a way of asserting his control. We look to a loving God who has always been at work among people who seek to do God’s will: the Samaritan woman at the well comes to understand this; the Ethiopian eunuch who meets Saint Philip comes to understand this.

During the pandemic lockdown, as people asked where God was in the middle of that crisis, many of us, hopefully, realised that God is at work through everyone who is already doing God’s work. And we should rejoice in this and affirm this.

Epimenidou Street in Rethymnon … the philosopher from Crete gives his name to streets in towns and cities throughout Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Acts 17: 22-31 (NRSVA)

22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor[a] he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God[b] and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,

“For we too are his offspring.”

29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

Looking across the Hill of the Areopagos and Athens from the Acropolis (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

34 million blog readers, and how the Mayor of Athens is responding to the arrival of 34 million tourists

A welcome sign at Athens International Airport … 34 million passengers passed through the airport in 2025 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The viewing and reading figures for this blog continue to surprise me. These figures have passed the million mark four times this month, reaching the 34 million mark shortly before mid-day yesterday (29 April 2026), having reached the 33 million mark last Saturday (25 April 2026), 32 million at the beginning of last week (19 April 2026) and 31 million earlier this month (8 April 2026).

This blog had already passed the million figure in readership numbers five times last month, reaching the 30 million mark by 29 March, 29 million four days earlier (25 March), 28 million on 20 March, 27 million on 12 March, and 26 million at the beginning of that month (1 March). The number of hits yesterday was 509,644, the highest figure for one single day, and follows the recrods set on two days last month: 323,156 on 27 March 2026 and 318,307 on 1 March.

I have seen a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog so far this year, and it continues to reach a volume of readers that I could never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (17 million) have been within little more than seven months, since 30 September 2025. The total hits in March 2026 were the highest monthly total ever (4,523,648), and the figures the following month were close to equalling that, with 4,365,464* hits by the end of April 2026.

At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 13.6 million hits or visitors in 2026.

I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. Throughout this year and last, the daily figures continue to be overwhelming on many occasions. Of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog, three were this month (26, 29 and 30 April 2026), four were last month, three were in February, and two were in January 2025:

• 509,644 (29 April 2026)
• 344,003 (30 April 2026)*
• 323,156 (27 March 2026)
• 322,038 (26 April 2026)
• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)

• 301,449 (2 March 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 280,802 (26 February 2026)
• 273,022 (27 February 2026)
• 270,983 (25 March 2026)

The number of readers continues to be overpowering and the daily averages have been about 145,000* or more hits a day this month. Ten years ago, in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000.

‘We cannot become Barcelona’, the Mayor of Athens, Dr Haris Doukas, said last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

To put today’s figure of 34 million in context:

Last year alone, 34 million passengers passed through Athens International Airport, an all-time high and a 33% rise compared with the pre-COVID figures. Of that huge traffic, more than 8.7 million direct arrivals by foreign tourists were recorded in Athens.

But these figures mean Athens is facing a crisis in overtourism. With the number of annual visitors pushing out residents, the mayor has been prompted to seek hotel freezes and short-term rental limits. ‘We cannot become Barcelona’, the Mayor of Athens, Dr Haris Doukas, said last weekend. He believes the historic heart of the Greek capital is now at risk of ‘tourism suffocation’.

‘Athens cannot operate as if it were a giant hotel,’ the Mayor of Athens told Helena Smith of The Guardian. ‘Restrictions and rules are needed. Cities must also have a say in the way they develop.’ He warns of the reality on the ground: with 700,000 residents facing nearly 8 million tourists, tourism development becomes unrestrained and simply pushes local residents out of their neighbourhoods.

Haris Doukas is stepping up his campaign and plans to use a bill on tourism-related land use to introduce a sweeping ban on new business activity in the historic centre and to set a cap on hotel beds.

‘We’ll be stopping all tourist investment in Plaka, which I am on a mission to save. There’s no more room. Not for short-term rental, not for serviced apartments, not for hotels, or any other tourism use. The area is oversaturated. We want to say ‘enough is enough’ in a bill that is enshrined in law.’

In neighbourhoods with views of the Acropolis, the number of overnight stays has doubled since 2018 and rental prices have soared for local residents. Even the head of Greece’s hoteliers’ association, Evgenios Vassilikos, has joined calls to impose quotas on building new hotels.

City officials and the tourism sector in Athens are repeating the same mantra: ‘Athens cannot become Barcelona.’ Barcelona hosted the 1992 Olympic Games; Athens hosted the Olympics in 2004, and is now watching as Barcelona’s residents struggle with the same problems. Doukas has drawn considerable encouragement from the Mayor of Barcelona Mayor, Jaume Collboni, who recently announced a drastic move of his own: a complete ban on short-term rentals starting in November 2028 and revoking licences for more than 10,000 tourist apartments.

Haris Doukas was a professor of energy and climate policy at the National Technical University of Athens, with an impressive track record of academic publications, before entering politics. He became the Mayor of Athens in 2024 after unexpectedly winning victory with the support of the main opposition Pasok party and the Athens Now party on a pledge ‘to green’ what is widely seen as Europe’s ‘hottest capital’.

His environmental agenda goes beyond restrictions on the holiday rental model. So far, he has planted 3,855 trees in the historic centre and has introduced sweeping measures such as demolishing buildings to create public spaces, parks and playgrounds. At the same time, all of Athens is currently being dug up to upgrades the city’s electricity, water and drainage systems, which are not suited to the large number of visitors.

The mayor’s campaign extends to the bars and restaurants popping up on city rooftops and offering views of the Acropolis, some operating without licenses and creating noise nuisances. At the same time, he wants to block building companies and property developers from building high-rises along the first line facing the Acropolis to protect the city’s historic skyline.

‘Athens is for its people,’ he says. ‘It is not only for those who simply want to exploit it.’

34 million square metres is 34,000 sq km, the approximate land area of Macedonia in Northern Greece, the largest and second most-populous geographic region in Greece, with a population of almost 2. 4 million people. The major urban centres include Thessaloniki, Katerini and Kavala, and Macedonia also includes the autonomous monastic community of Mount Athos, under the shared jurisdiction of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

Mozambique has a population of over 34 million, and 34 million people aged 16+ are in employment in the UK.

34 million minutes is about 64 years, 7 months, and 22 days. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take more than 64½ years, from mid-1962, to reach today’s latest figure of 34 million.

I retired from active parish ministry more than four years ago, on 30 March 2022. These days, though, about 120-140 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning. A similar number have been reading my current series of postings on churches and local history in Staffordshire, and were reading my recent series of postings on the churches and chapels of Walsingham. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 800-1,000 or more people each week.

This evening, I am truly grateful to the real readers among those 34 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I am thankful for the faithful core group of 120-140 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each morning.

The peaks of Mount Athos … Macedonia has a land area of 34,000 sq km or 34 million square metres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

* These figures were adjusted after midnight on 30 April 2026 to give the full figures for that day and for April 2026

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 24, Tuesday 28 April 2026

‘What my Father has given me is greater than all else … The Father and I are one’ (John 10: 29-30) … Christ the Pantocrator depicted in church domes in Rethymnon, Panormos and Iraklion in Crete (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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. This week began with the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Easter IV, 26 April 2026), sometimes known as ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Peter Chanel (1803-1841), a French missionary in the South Pacific and martyr. 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.

‘My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me’ (John 10: 27) … street art in Carlingford, Co Louth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 10: 22-30 (NRSVA):

22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ 25 Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.’

The Stoa of Attalos beneath the Acropolis in Athens … it gives an idea of what the Stoa or Portico of Solomon in Jerusalem looked (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This week’s theme in the lectionary of the Good Shepherd in the ‘Good Shepherd Discourse’ (John 10: 1-42) continues in the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today. We read verses 1-10 on Sunday, and verses 11-18 yesterday. Today we read verses 22-30.

Saint John’s Gospel focuses on major biblical festivals, such as Passover, Shavuot (which this year from 21 May 2026 until 23 May 2026) and Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles (this year from 25 September to 2 October ), and Jesus is seen to connect his mission with each of the these major festivals.

In Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus celebrates Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights in Jerusalem: At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon (John 10: 22-23, NRSVA).

Hanukkah is not one of the major Jewish festivals. It is not included in the Torah, nor is it referred to in the writings of the Prophets. It is a feast of dedication, remembering the Maccabees who recaptured the Temple from Antiochus Epiphanius after it had been captured and desecrated more than 150 years before Jesus was born (see I Maccabees 3-4; II Maccabees 8: 1 to 10: 18).

The Books of Maccabees describe the events over eight days that Hanukkah commemorates. The requirements for the rededication of the Temple seemed impossible, with only one day’s supply of oil for the temple menorah or lampstand remaining. According to these accounts, God miraculously allowed the oil to last the full eight days so that the dedication would be complete.

The name of Antiochus Epiphanes means ‘god manifest’. He was one of the successors of Alexander the Great and sought to unify his empire by establishing a single religion. Judaism and its practices, including Sabbath observance, scripture reading and the circumcision of eight-day-old boys, were outlawed, and the Temple was desecrated when a pig was sacrificed to Zeus there.

Under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus, a nickname meaning ‘hammer’, the Jewish people fought a guerrilla-style war against the forces of Antiochus Epiphanes. Although greatly outnumbered, the Jewish rebels were victorious and retook the Temple. On the 25th day of the month Kislev 164 BCE, the defiled Temple was reconsecrated and sacrifices were offered to God.

The people joyfully celebrated the rededication of the Temple for eight days. At the conclusion of the festivities, it was decreed that a similar festival be held each year beginning on 25 Kislev (I Maccabees 4: 36-39).

Hanukkah was not one of the required pilgrimage festivals (see Exodus 23), but those who attended celebrated the days with great rejoicing.

According to Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus is in Jerusalem during Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights, a celebration of hope and justice against dark oppression and tyranny. The account in John 10: 22-42 concludes a festival cycle in John 5: 1 to 10: 42: Sabbath (John 5), Passover (John 6), Tabernacles (John 7: 1 to 10: 21), and Dedication (John 10: 22-42).

In other places, Jesus tells his followers that they are the light of the world and should not be hidden away but to be like a lamp stand (or menorah), and to ‘let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5: 14-16).

Hanukkah continues to be celebrated in Jewish homes and communities. Hanukkah and Christmas are not the same, nor are they equivalent. But, during both festivals, we are called to be lights in the midst of darkness.

With all the evil, division, oppression and injustice that is taking place in the world today, it is important for us too to be the lights of this world for all around us who desperately need light in their darkness.

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

‘Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon’ (John 10: 23) … the Temple-like portico built by the Williamson brothers at Emo Court in Co Laois (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 28 April 2026):

‘Prayer and Action in Pakistan’ provides the theme this week (26 April to 2 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 50-51. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from the Revd Davidson Solanki, Senior Regional Manager for Asia and the Middle East.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 28 April 2026) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, as communities continue to to heal and rebuild, may our prayers spread like a vast tent over the nation, covering every person with your mercy, care, and enduring peace.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Merciful Father,
you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd,
and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again:
keep us always under his protection,
and give us grace to follow in his steps;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep:
teach us to hear your voice
and to follow your command,
that all your people may be gathered into one flock,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Jesus was walking in the Temple, in the portico of Solomon’ (John 10: 23) … the portico of the Duomo di Sant’Andrea in Amalfi (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 9, Wednesday 11 February 2026

‘It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mark 7: 21) … hearts at Winchester Walk near Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Second Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just a week away (18 March 2025).

Later today, I hope to take part in both a lunchtime meeting of clergy in the Milton Keynes area at the Servant King Church in Furzton and in the evening in choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. Before today begins, however, 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.

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) … pots and pans in the kitchen in Bryce House on Garinish Island, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 7: 14-23 (NRSVA):

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

‘Why do your disciples … eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) … preparing to eat lunch at a restaurant in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

During my hospital visits, I find it interesting to see how many people still wear face masks and sanitise their hands in those places. It is so easy to forget how we were all wearing facemasks in public places not so long ago, sanitising our hands, and how we got used to having our temperatures taken in many buildings.

The arguments about sanitising our hands and wearing facemasks are a very different order of argument to the arguments in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 7: 14-23) about washing my hands before I prepare food, and about presenting that food with clean cups and plates and knives and forks.

It is so easy for me to look at the people I do not like and then to find passages in the Bible that shore up, that support and that justify that prejudice, and that make me feel good because I now feel a little more smug, a little more superior.

And that is precisely the moment when the Jesus of today’s Gospel reading steps in and upbraids me, and calls me a hypocrite.

As we saw with the Gospel reading yesterday (Mark 7: 1-13), in Greek, the word hypocrite (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who masked or hid his face. It came to mean someone who plays a part on stage. Because these people did not speak their own words, this label came to mean a pretender, what we call today a hypocrite.

When I speak words that are taken at random, or taken out of context in the Bible, I need to be careful I am not using them out of context, or condemning people for a fault that is not necessarily theirs, something I project onto them.

Some years ago, I came across this piece of doggerel inside a church porch in Ardmore, Co Waterford:

I was shocked, confused bewildered
as I entered heaven’s door,
not by the beauty of it all,
nor the lights or its décor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp –
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from sixth class
who swiped my lunch box twice.
Next to him was my old neighbour
who never said something nice.

Bob, who I always thought
would rot away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking oh so well.

I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take.
How come these sinners get up here?
God must have made a mistake.

‘And why is everyone so quiet,
so sombre – give me a clue?’
‘Hush child,’ he said ‘they’re all in shock.
They weren’t expecting you.’

If I saw myself the way others see me, I would be less reluctant to open my mouth so often.

But the Church is full of people who continue to judge others – even other members of the Church – and justify their judgmentalism with passages of Scripture they quote out of context, sometimes even claiming passages of Scripture that simply do not exist – for example the way an altered version of Ezekiel 25: 17 is recited in Pulp Fiction by Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson). It is a cinematic invention heavily influenced by a similar speech in The Bodyguard (1976), but is now quoted as Scripture, chapter and verse, by violent ultra-right activists.

Literalist hypocrisy it is not just about washing hands and pots and pans. If it was only that, it might be funny.

There are people who condemn people for their sexuality, they look down on people because of who they fall in love with or marry, they even claim to uphold Biblical standards of marriage. But David, for example, offered no Biblical standards of marriage; and Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, hardly offered a Biblical standard of marriage either.

I find it quite shocking, yet it seems inevitable, that many people in the Church use arguments about sexuality, bolstered with phrases such as ‘Biblical standards of marriage,’ to express prejudices about sexuality. Some even remain opposed to women being ordained priests and bishops.

This is using another voice, another set of words, Biblical quotations, to express what is not in the Bible; the very origins of the word ‘hypocrite’ in the classical Greek and in this reading readily come to mind.

In the Church, there can be no discrimination against people in ministry based on gender, age, sexuality, marital status, ethnicity, class or cultural background, or language, for God knows no such discrimination.

I too easily become a hypocrite when I use the words or behaviour of others to condemn them, without having the courage to say exactly where I stand.

Father Tikhon (Murtazov) was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide who died in 2018. A nun, Sister Olga (Schemanun of Snetogorsk Monastery), recalled how he welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.

Amazed at his kindness, she asked him one day: ‘Why don’t you refuse anyone? You bless whatever they ask of you.’

‘We’re in difficult times now,’ he said. ‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’

‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’

We should worry as much about making careless wounding remarks as much as we would worry about preparing food unhygienically.

As I asked yesterday, can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put into seeing we have sanitised our hands, were wearing colourful facemasks a few years ago, seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church on Sunday morning – or even as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?

Classical masks from the theatre in Athens in the Acropolis Museum … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 11 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 (Wednesday 11 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray that the Church in the UK may be a steadfast and courageous voice for refugees. Inspire us to speak against racism and injustice, to welcome and protect those seeking safety, and to act with compassion and integrity toward every displaced person in need.

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

‘It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mark 7: 21) … street art in Porto (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

Daily prayer in Advent 2025: 5, Thursday 4 December 2025

The Acropolis at night, standing on a large rocky outcrop above Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

The Season of Advent – and the real countdown to Christmas – began on Sunday with the First Sunday of Advent (30 November 2025), and today there are three weeks to go to Christmas Day. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint John of Damascus (ca 749), Monk, Teacher of the Faith; and Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637), Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community.

I have a rehearsal with a play-reading group in the library in Stony Stratford later this afternoon. But, before the 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 Hill of the Areopagos and the Agora of Athens seen from the Acropolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 7: 21, 24-27 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 21 ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

24 ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall!’

The Acropolis seen from the new Acropolis Museum on Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, standing on a large rocky outcrop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

During visits to Athens, I never fail to be impressed by the overpowering majesty of the Acropolis and the rock on which it is built.

Later in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Christ uses the word πητρα (petra), meaning a giant rock, again when he says to the Apostle Peter: ‘I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16: 18).

Other words for rocks in Greek at the time include the word λιθος (lithos), used for a small rock, a stone, or even a pebble – it is the Greek word that gives us words like lithograph and megalithic, meaning Great Stone Age – and πάγος (pagos), which in Ancient Greek, means ‘big piece of rock.’

The last word probably explains the name of the Areopagos in Athens, the prominent outcrop of rock immediately north-west of the Acropolis. Its English name is the composite form of the Greek name, Ἄρειος Πάγος (Areios Págos, ‘Rock of Ares’).

In classical Athens, this functioned as the court for trying deliberate homicide. It was said Ares was put on trial here by the gods for the murder of Halirrhothios, the son of Poseidon. The gods supposedly accepted his defence of justifiable deicide on the grounds that he was defending his daughter Alcippe from unwanted advances.

A temple dedicated to the Erinyes stood at the foot of this rocky outcrop, and murderers sought shelter to escape the consequences of their actions.

Before the 5th century BCE, the Areopagos was the council of elders of Athens, similar to the Roman Senate. But in 462 BCE, Ephialtes put through reforms that deprived the Areopagos of almost all its functions except that of a murder tribunal. The centre of decision-making shifted to the ecclesia or ekklesia (ἐκκλησία), the principal assembly of the democracy of ancient Athens which met at the Theatre of Dionysus from about 300 BCE.

In the play The Eumenides (458 BCE), Aeschylus places the Areopagos as the site of the trial of Orestes for killing his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

Phryne, the hetaerae or courtesan famed for her beauty, appeared before the Areopagos in the 4th century BCE, accused of profaning the Eleusinian mysteries. One story says she was acquitted when she let her cloak drop, impressing the judges with her physical beauty.

The Areopagos continued to function in Roman times, and the Romans referred to the rocky outcrop as Mars Hill, identifying Ares with Mars, the Roman god of war.

Here too was the Athenian altar to the Unknown God, where the Apostle Paul delivered his speech below the Acropolis in which he says:

22 ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

‘For we too are his offspring.’

29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’(Acts 17: 22-31)

This is the most dramatic and fullest reported sermon or speech in the missionary career of the Apostle Paul. Saint Paul is quoting the Cretan philosopher Epimenides, but the location of his speech has important cultural contexts, including justice, deicide and the hidden God.

After his sermon, a number of people in Athens became followers of Saint Paul. They include a woman named Damaris, and Dionysius the Areopagite (Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεωπαγίτης), a judge at the court of the Areopagos who is said to have become the first Bishop of Athens. The street that runs along the southern slope of the Acropolis is Dionysiou Areopagitou. There I have had breakfast before climbing the Acropolis.

Tertullian asked rhetorically, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ (De praescriptione, vii), meaning ‘What has Greek thinking to do with Christianity, or philosophy with theology?’ But Tertullian was strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy, and without that approach he might never have posed his question. His thinking was founded on the two mighty rocks of both philosophy and theology.

But despite all this, do I have the simple but rock-solid faith of Saint Peter, summarised in his simple, direct statement: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’ (Matthew 16: 16)?

The Stoa of Attalos beneath the Acropolis at night … Tertullian, who was strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy, asked rhetorically, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 4 December 2025):

The theme this week (30 to 6 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Kingdom is for All’ (pp 6-7). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Revd Magela, Vicar of Cristo Redentor Parish in Tocantins, Brazil and coordinator of Casa A+, a place of hope and healing for people living with HIV.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 4 December 2025) invites us to pray:

Let us pray that the Church remains steadfast in its prophetic mission, breaking the silence, welcoming without judgement, and courageously defending life in the face of structures of exclusion.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

O Lord our God,
make us watchful and keep us faithful
as we await the coming of your Son our Lord;
that, when he shall appear,
he may not find us sleeping in sin
but active in his service
and joyful in his praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
as your kingdom dawns,
turn us from the darkness of sin
to the light of holiness,
that we may be ready to meet you
in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

On the corner of Dionysiou Areopagitou and Vyronos (Byron) streets in Athens (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