Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season 2026: 2, Monday 2 November 2026, All Souls’ Day

All Souls College, Oxford … its full official name is: the Warden and the College of the Souls of All Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We moved in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar to the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent. The week began with All Saints’ Day (1 November), and today is All Souls’ Day (2 November), also described in Common Worship as the ‘Commemoration of the Faithful Departed’.

I hope to sing with the parish choirs at the All Souls’ Day Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this evening (2 November).

Meanwhile, 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.

The reredos in the chapel of All Souls College, Oxford … a reminder of the ‘Faithful Departed’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 5: 19-25 (NRSVA):

19 Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 20 The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. 21 Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomsoever he wishes. 22 The Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son, 23 so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Anyone who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him. 24 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life.

25 ‘Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.’

‘Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming … when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live’ (John 5: 25) … an unlabelled carving in All Souls College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those who are blessed, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love.

We do that on All Souls’ Day, we do that on Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday, and we do that on All Saints’ Day.

November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love.

As the evenings close in, as the last autumn leaves fall from the trees, it is natural to remember the dead and the fallen, with love and affection.

The special days in November include:

• All Saints’ Day (1 November);

• All Souls’ Day or the ‘Commemoration of the Faithful Departed’ (2 November, Common Worship, p 15);

• in Ireland, All Saints of Ireland (6 November);

• in England, the Saints and Martyrs of England (8 November);

• Remembrance Sunday (8 November 2026);

• Remembrance Day (11 November).

On this day, there are many people in my own family I am remembering, including:

• my mother, Ellen (Murphy) Comerford, who died 12 years ago, on 20 May 2014, and my father, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died 22 years ago on 27 December 2004, both buried in Bohernabreena, Co Dublin;

• my brother, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died in Durham, North Carolina, 56 years ago, on 18 December 1970;

• my foster mother, Peggy Kerr, who died on 27 July 2010, and my foster father George Kerr;

• my foster sister or ‘cousin’, Una Kerr, who died on 11 April 2021

• my grandparents, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died on 21 January 1921, having contracted malaria five years earlier in Thessaloniki, and Bridget (Lynders) Comerford, who died on 25 March 1948, both buried in Portrane, Co Dublin;

• my grandparents, Thomas Michael Murphy, who died in Queensland, Australia, on 10 September 1949, and Maria (Crowley) Murphy, who died on 8 July 1957 and is buried beside Drishane Castle in Millstreet, Co Cork;

• and, at this time of the year, my ‘Gran’, Mary (McCarthy) Hallinan, who died on 6 November 1961; and my ‘Granddad’ Edmond Hallinan, who died on 8 March 1963, both buried in Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

Hallowe’en on 31 October is the day before we remember the Hallowed, not as the dead but as the blessed, the saints, who are model for our lives, our Christian lifestyle today. We believe the dead we love are still caught up in the love of God and are alive in Christ.

Indeed, saints do not need to be dead to be examples of ‘holy living and holy dying’ (Jeremy Taylor). Saint Paul regularly refers in his letters to fellow Christians as ‘saints.’ Saints Alive!

In the past, I have realised how many people and parishes have been shy, reluctant, perhaps even fearful, in the Church of Ireland when it comes to recalling, commemorating and celebrating the saints. A comparison of the calendars of the Church of Ireland and the Church of England is very telling.

Perhaps the people who decided on the calendar in the Church of Ireland were too afraid in the past of being seen to pray to the saints, or to pray for the dead. But, really, these are quite different to finding examples of godly living among Christians from the past, and expressing confidence that the dead we have loved are now committed to God’s love.

Yet the Church of England sees the calendar of saints as a living calendar, something that is added to as we find more appropriate examples of Christian living for today.

Saints do not have to be martyrs. But in recent years Oscar Romero was canonised and there was a major commemoration in Westminster Abbey of Oscar Romero in 2017 to mark his 100th birthday.

Saints do not have to be canonised. Modern martyrs include Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, or Heather Heyer, the civil rights activist killed by far-right neo-Nazis and racists in Charlottesville, Kentucky, in 2017, and who were absolved of all guilt or blame by Donald Trump.

Many of us know people who handed on the faith to us – teachers, grandparents, perhaps neighbours. Even though many may be long dead, they remain part of our vision of the Communion of Saints.

Saints do not have to live a perfect life; as the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, ‘if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves’ (I John 1: 8) … none of us is without sin, and none of us is beyond redemption. Some of the saints carved on the West Front of Westminster Abbey might have been very surprised to know they were going to appear there. But their lives in sum total are what we are asked to think about.

They are: Maximilian Kolbe, Manche Masemola, Archbishop Janani Luwum, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esther John, Lucian Tapiedi, and Wang Zhiming.

Some years ago, I asked students to share stories of their favourite ‘saints and heroes.’ They included an interesting array of people, some of whom were the still living at the time, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In interviews in the Church Times, people are sometimes asked who they would like to be locked into a church with for a few hours.

Who are your favourite saints?

Who would you like to learn from a little more when it comes to living the Christian life?

Last year marked the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, in which we express our belief in ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’. In the Apostles’ Creed, we confess our belief in ‘the communion of saints’ and ‘the resurrection of the body.’

In the introduction to the Church Calendar and this in-between time, the time between All Saints and Advent, the resources for Common Worship remind us that ‘No Christian is solitary. Through baptism we become members one of another in Christ, members of a company of saints whose mutual belonging transcends death’. The resources then quote Charles Wesley:

One family, we dwell in him,
one Church, above, beneath;
though now divided by the stream,
the narrow stream of death.

Who are the saints in your life, in your own personal calendars? Who are those you recall whose souls we have committed to God’s love and who are part of ‘the communion of saints’?

Throughout the month of November, there are opportunities to remember their names as we are reminded in the first reading in the Lectionary today (Wisdom 3: 1-9) that ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, no torment will ever touch them’ (verse 1).

The Library at All Souls College, Oxford, with a sundial designed by Sir Christopher Wren (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 2 November 2026, All Souls’ Day):

The theme this week (1 to 7 November 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘All Saints’ Day’ (pp 52-53). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Reflection by Matthew Anns, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 2 November 2026, All Souls’ Day) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we remember all past Christian saints and martyrs who paved the way for future generations worldwide to know God, and who put God’s mission above their own lives in doing so. We pray that we can continue to follow in their footsteps.

The Collect:

Eternal God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion
and glorious resurrection
that, in the last day,
when you gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises;
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:

God of love,
may the death and resurrection of Christ
which we have celebrated in this eucharist
bring us, with all the faithful departed,
into the peace of your eternal home.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
our rock and our salvation,
to whom be glory for time and for eternity.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

All Souls College, Oxford, founded in 1438 by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, with King Henry VI as its formal co-founder (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

A poster for events marking All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day in Pusey House, Oxford, this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The ‘Emperor Heads’ in Oxford are in their third generation, but who do they depict or represent?

The ‘Emperor Heads’ decorate the railings at the Sheldonian Theatre, looking down on Broad Street in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in Oxford a few days ago, checking out the peculiar Greek inscription above the Wren Door in the Divinity School, I found myself looking once again looking at the ‘Emperor Heads’ at the Sheldonian Theatre and trying, fruitlessly, to figure out which emperors or philosophers they are supposed to depict or represent, and that are certainly more impressive than any Hallowe’en masks you may see this evening.

These heads are imposing figures at the east end of Broad Street, where the cluster of and they are one of the imposing or eye-catching features at a cluster of buildings in the heart of the city that includes the Sheldonian Theatre (1669), the Old Ashmolean Building (1683), now the History of Science Museum, the Clarendon Building (1715), originally home to Oxford University Press, and the Weston Library, redeveloped in 2015.

The so-called ‘Emperor Heads’ are 17 large stone herm busts or sculpted heads and as a collection they form one of Oxford’s most peculiar historic attractions. Each head shows a different type of beard, and they gaze down on tourists and students alike from the top of pillars that are part of the wall and fence surrounding the Sheldonian Theatre and the adjacent Museum of the History of Science or Old Ashmolean.

For 360 years or so, these characterful heads have featured in poetry, literature and art, and they remain one of the most photographed and well-recognised cultural landmarks in the city. The busts are more precisely called ‘herms’, as they depict the head and shoulders of each man.

Despite being known popularly as the ‘Emperors’, they do not represent any emperors, nor, indeed, anyone in particular. It has been suggest they represent bearded philosophers or sages, and they are bedecked with ivy wreaths, symbolising wisdom, rather than imperial laurel wreaths. It has even been suggested they were designed to compose a history of beards.

Sir Christopher Wren commissioned the bearded stone busts when the Sheldonian Theatre was completed in 1669 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Sheldonian Theatre was designed by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) and was built between 1664 and 1669. The building is named after the project’s principal financial backer, Gilbert Sheldon (1598-1677), twice Warden of All Souls College (1636-1648, 1660-1661), Bishop of London (1660-1663), Chancellor of Oxford University (1667-1669) and Archbishop of Canterbury (1663-1677).

Wren was educated at Wadham College, had been a Fellow of All Souls College (1653-1657) – Monday is All Souls’ Day – and he was based in Oxford from 1661 to 1668 when he was Savilian Professor of Astronomy. His design of the Sheldonian was based on Serlio’s 16th century engraving of the Theatre of Marcellus built in Rome in the first century BCE.

When Wren completed Sheldonian Theatre in 1669, he commissioned 14 bearded stone busts to be placed around the perimeter. He asked the sculptor William Byrd ( (1624-1691) to create 13 busts for the northern boundary, where the theatre jutted out into Broad Street. Though at first glance they appear similar, each bust is unique, and each ‘emperor’ has a completely different expression and a different type of beard.

Wren is said to have asked Byrd to carve each bust with a wide-eyed expression of shock as a not-too-subtle dig at his patron, Gilbert Sheldon, whose penny-pinching budget made Wren’s task in designing the theatre very difficult. Byrd carved the busts from Clipsham stone, an oolite limestone quarried near the village of Clipsham in Rutland. The stone is coarsely grained and hard-wearing, and remains a popular stone for building and sculpture to this day.

When the Old Ashmolean building, now the Museum of the History of Science, was built beside the Sheldonian Theatre in 1679-1683, four more heads were added to the building frontage, bringing the total number of busts to 17. In time, one was removed around 1713 to make way for the Clarendon Building.

The bearded heads in place today are the third generation of bearded heads outside the Sheldonian Theatre and the Old Ashmolean (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

But the heads we see today are not the original ones – nor are they even the original replacements. The heads in place today are, in fact, the third generation of bearded heads to sit there.

The first, original figures were carved in local Taynton limestone and they lasted for almost 200 years before Victorian replacements were put in their place in 1869.

The second set of heads was made from softer Milton limestone, and suffered miserably as a result. The heads soon became blackened by soot and disfigured by acid rain, worsened by the coal fires that burned in students’ college rooms. As Oxford’s air filled with thick smoke, its buildings and the heads were becoming more dirty and were decaying.

These 17 busts of men became known as the Emperor Heads, the Oxford Emperors, the philosophers, or, sometimes the Twelve Apostles. The first reference to them as ‘Emperor Heads’ is found in 1911 in the novel Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm.

But this second generation did not use the same hard-wearing stone as the first set. They were so badly weathered only 57 years after their installation that when the poet John Betjeman came up to Oxford in 1925, he saw them as ‘the mouldering busts round the Sheldonian’ and ‘unknown bearded guards’. In his verse autobiography Summoned by Bells (1960), Betjeman compared them to ‘illustrations of skin diseases in a medical textbook’.

The Victorian busts also became a focal point for undergraduate pranks so that they were often painted, given lipstick smiles and had traffic cones placed on their heads like hats. They were worn away by the combination of weathering, the polluted air of Victorian Oxford, harsh cleaning and vandalism, and were left in a poor state of repair.

Michael Black modelled the third generation of Emperor Heads on the originals by Wren and Byrd, including their shocked expressions (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

With the help of the Historic Buildings Fund, a widespread effort was made to clean-up, repair and replace the stone fabric of Oxford. After fruitless conservation attempts of three heads of the second generation, Michael Black, a local sculptor, was commissioned to make the new set that still stand today. The heads now looking down on on Broad Street are the third set of Emperor Heads.

But, despite their historical and cultural value, the first two sets of heads were never fully recorded and the whereabouts of many of them remains largely unknown. Black tracked down seven of the original heads, five scattered around Oxford as garden ornaments and two in a house in Herefordshire. One original head is in the Fellows Garden at Wadham College, which Wren had attended.

From 1970 to 1972, Black and his two assistants carved 13 new heads for the Sheldonian from Lincolnshire Clipsham stone. They later carved four more heads for the Museum of the History of Science. Each head took a minimum of 30 hours to complete.

Black modelled his heads on the originals by Wren and Byrd, including their shocked expressions, and also drew on 17th century engravings by David Loggan as templates to make the heads relatively true to the originals. Black made each beard different and added amusing touches, such as the small figure of a bird in the hair of one head, an allusion to the fact that the originals were designed by a man named Wren and carved by a man called Byrd.

The small figure of a bird in the hair of one head is an allusion to the surnames of Christopher Wren and William Byrd (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A recent project investigated the heads from the perspective of heritage science, seeking to unravel their history and mysteries and looking at any implications they may have for the sustainable management of built heritage, collective memory and identity. An exhibition on the heads at the Weston Library in 2019 was the culmination of over five years of research by the School of Geography and the Environment team. The display reconstructed the history of the heads and first, second, and third generation heads came face-to-face for the first time.

The 17 carved heads at the Sheldonian Theatre and the Old Ashmolean are now the third generation of Emperor Heads. As a collection, they have become an iconic feature of Oxford, almost like a 360-year record of urban architectural decay, conservation, environmental change and changing attitudes and perceptions.

The Clarendon Building beside the Sheldonian Theatre was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and built in 1711-1715 to house the Oxford University Press. It was known as the Printing House or the Clarendon Printing House until the University Press moved to Walton Street in 1832.

Lead figures of the nine Muses were placed on top of the building in 1717 and a lead statue of Lord Clarendon was placed in a clamshell niche on the first floor of the south side in 1721 and moved to the west side of the building in 1947.

All ten statues at the Clarendon Building are undergoing extensive renovation, with Lord Clarendon and four of the original muses temporarily removed and the two fibreglass ones being replaced. They will all be painted in the stone colour they would have had originally. Part of the Clarendon Building is now covered in cladding and scaffolding, but I hope to see the renovated statues in time and to blog about them then.

The heads at the Sheldonian Theatre now looking down on on Broad Street are the third set of Emperor Heads, and date from 1970-1972 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season 2025: 3, Monday 3 November 2025, All Souls’ Monday

All Souls College, Oxford … its full, official name is: the Warden and the College of the Souls of All Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The week began with All Saints’ Sunday (2 November), and I imagine few if any parishes or churches marked All Souls’ Day yesterday. On All Saints’ Day on 1 November, we moved in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar to the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (3 November) remembers Richard Hooker (1554-1600), Priest, Anglican Apologist, and Teacher of the Faith; and Saint Martin of Porres (1579-1639), Dominican friar. However, when 2 November is a Sunday, then the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day) may be observed on Monday 3 November.

Charlotte and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary later today. Meanwhile, 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.

The reredos in the chapel of All Souls College, Oxford … a reminder of the ‘Faithful Departed’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 12-14 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 37 ‘Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; 38 for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

‘I will raise them up on the last day’ (John 6: 40) … an unlabelled carving in All Souls College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those who are blessed, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love.

We do that on All Souls’ Day, we do that on Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday, and we do that on All Saints’ Day.

November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love.

As the evenings close in, as the last autumn leaves fall from the trees, it is natural to remember the dead and the fallen, with love and affection.

The special days in November include:

• All Saints’ Day (1 November);

• All Souls’ Day or the ‘Commemoration of the Faithful Departed’ (2 November, Common Worship, p 15);

• In Ireland, All Saints of Ireland (6 November);

• Remembrance Sunday (9 November 2025);

• Remembrance Day (11 November).

At this time of the year there are many people in my own family I am remembering, including:

• my mother, Ellen (Murphy) Comerford, who died 11 years ago, on 20 May 2014;

• my father, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died 21 years ago on 27 December 2004;

• my brother, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died in Durham, North Carolina, 55 years ago, on 18 December 1970;

• my foster mother, Peggy Kerr, who died on 27 July 2010, and my foster father George Kerr;

• my grandparents, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died on 21 January 1921, having contracted malaria five years earlier in Thessaloniki, and Bridget (Lynders) Comerford, who died on 25 March 1948;

• my grandparents, Thomas Michael Murphy, who died in Queensland, Australia, on 10 September 1949, and Maria (Crowley) Murphy, who died on 8 July 1957;

• and, at this time of the year, my ‘Gran’, Mary (McCarthy) Hallinan, who died on 6 November 1961; and ‘Granddad’ Edmond Hallinan, who died on 8 March 1963.

Hallowe’en is the day before we remember the Hallowed, not as the dead but as the blessed, the saints, who are model for our lives, our Christian lifestyle today. We believe the dead we love are still caught up in the love of God and are alive in Christ.

Indeed, saints do not need to be dead to be examples of ‘holy living and holy dying’ (Jeremy Taylor). Saint Paul regularly refers in his letters to fellow Christians as ‘saints.’ Saints Alive!

In the past, I have realised how many people and parishes have been shy, reluctant, perhaps even fearful, in the Church of Ireland when it comes to recalling, commemorating and celebrating the saints. A comparison of the calendars of the Church of Ireland and the Church of England is very telling.

Perhaps the people who decided on the calendar in the Church of Ireland were too afraid in the past of being seen to pray to the saints, or to pray for the dead. But, really, these are quite different to finding examples of godly living among Christians from the past, and expressing confidence that the dead we have loved are now committed to God’s love.

Yet the Church of England sees the calendar of saints as a living calendar, something that is added to as we find more appropriate examples of Christian living for today.

Saints do not have to be martyrs. But in recent years Oscar Romero was canonised and there was a major commemoration in Westminster Abbey of Oscar Romero in 2017 to mark his 100th birthday.

Saints do not have to be canonised. Modern martyrs include Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, or Heather Heyer, the civil rights activist killed by far-right neo-Nazis and racists in Charlottesville, Kentucky, in 2017.

Many of us know people who handed on the faith to us – teachers, grandparents, perhaps neighbours. Even though many may be long dead, they remain part of our vision of the Communion of Saints.

Saints do not have to live a perfect life; as the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, ‘if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves’ (I John 1: 8) … none of us is without sin, and none of us is beyond redemption. Some of the saints carved on the West Front of Westminster Abbey might have been very surprised to know they were going to appear there. But their lives in sum total are what we are asked to think about.

They are: Maximilian Kolbe, Manche Masemola, Archbishop Janani Luwum, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esther John, Lucian Tapiedi, and Wang Zhiming.

Some years ago, I asked students to share stories of their favourite ‘saints and heroes.’ They included an interesting array of people, some who were the still living at the time, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In interviews in the Church Times, people are sometimes asked who they would like to be locked into a church with for a few hours.

Who are your favourite saints?

Who would you like to learn from a little more when it comes to living the Christian life?

This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, in which we express our belief in ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’. In the Apostles’ Creed, we confess our belief in ‘the communion of saints’ and ‘the resurrection of the body.’

In the introduction to the Church Calendar and this in-between time, the time between All Saints and Advent, the resources for Common Worship remind us that ‘No Christian is solitary. Through baptism we become members one of another in Christ, members of a company of saints whose mutual belonging transcends death’. The resources then quote Charles Wesley:

One family, we dwell in him,
one Church, above, beneath;
though now divided by the stream,
the narrow stream of death.

Who are the saints in your life, in your own personal calendars? Who are those you recall whose souls we have committed to God’s love and who are part of ‘the communion of saints’?

Throughout the month of November, there are opportunities to remember their names as we are reminded in the first reading today that ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, no torment will ever touch them’ (Wisdom 3: 1).

The Library at All Souls College, Oxford, with a sundial designed by Sir Christopher Wren (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 3 November 2025, All Souls’):

The theme this week (2 to 8 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘From Solitude to Connection’ (pp 52-53). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update from Ljudmila, a Ukrainian Refugee living in Budapest, Hungary.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 3 November 2025, All Souls’) invites us to pray:

Lord, as a God of peace, we pray that you will bring peace to Ukraine so families like Ljudmila’s may live without fear, reunited in safety and love.

The Collect:

Eternal God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion
and glorious resurrection
that, in the last day,
when you gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises;
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:

God of love,
may the death and resurrection of Christ
which we have celebrated in this eucharist
bring us, with all the faithful departed,
into the peace of your eternal home.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
our rock and our salvation,
to whom be glory for time and for eternity.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

All Souls College, Oxford, founded in 1438 by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, with King Henry VI as its formal co-founder (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 the Kingdom Season 2025: 2, Sunday 2 November 2025, All Saints’ Sunday

Saints and Martyrs … the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today in the Church Calendar is All Souls’ Day (2 November). However, many churches and parishes are celebrating All Saints’ Day today as All Saints’ Sunday, transferring their All Saints celebrations from yesterday (1 November), including, for example, Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford, and All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London.

With All Saints’ Day, we move on in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar to the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent. Meanwhile, before today 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.

The 190 ft spire of All Saints’ Church, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, can be seen for miles around (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 6: 20-31 (NRSVA):

20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.

22 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

24 ‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 ‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.

26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Christ the Pantocrator surrounded by the saints in the Dome of the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

All Saints’ Day is one of the 12 ‘Principal Holy Days’ of the Church. November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those who are blessed, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love.

We do that on All Souls’ Day, we do that on Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday, and we do that on All Saints; Day, all at the beginning of this month.

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 6: 20-31), Saint Luke gives us his version of the beatitudes, with a different emphasis that the way Saint Matthew lists them (see Matthew 5: 3-12).

Christ speaks of four blessings or beatitudes and four parallel woes or warnings of the age to come. Some people are ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ (μακάριος, makários) by being included in the Kingdom, but they are paired with those who are warned of coming woes:

• those who are poor now (verse 20) and those who are rich now (verse 24)
• those who are hungry now (verse 21) and those who are full now (verse 25)
• those who weep now (verse 21) and those who laugh now (verse 25)
• those who are persecuted, or hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 22) and those who are popular (verse 26)

Who are the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are persecuted today? And do we see them as saints?

Bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897) wrote his hymn, ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (459), as a processional hymn for All Saints’ Day.

The saints recalled in his hymn are ordinary people in their weaknesses and their failings. In its original form, it had 11 verses, although three are omitted from most versions – the verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of the canticle Te Deum.

The tune Sine Nomine (‘Without Name,’ referring to the great multitude of unknown saints) was written for the hymn by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) while he was editing the English Hymnal (1906) with Canon Percy Dearmer (1867-1936).

When he wrote this hymn, Walsham How was the Rector of Whittington, Shropshire, and a canon St Asaph Cathedral. He had spent time in Rome as chaplain of the Anglican Church there, All Saints’ Church, before returning to England.

While he was Bishop of Bedford, Walsham How became known as ‘the poor man’s bishop.’ He became the first Bishop of Wakefield, and died in Leenane, Co Mayo, in 1897 while he was on an Irish fishing holiday in Dulough.

The hymn vibrates with images from the Book of Revelation. The saints recalled by ‘the poor man’s bishop’ in this hymn are ordinary people who, in spite of their weaknesses and their failings, are able to respond in faith to Christ’s call to service and love, and who have endured the battle against the powers of evil and darkness.

The heart of the hymn is in the stanza that sings about the unity of the Church in heaven and on earth, ‘knit together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of … Christ our Lord.’ Despite our ‘feeble struggles’ we are united in Christ and with one another in one ‘blest communion’ and ‘fellowship divine.’

It is a hymn that celebrates that there among the saints are the ordinary people, the people who are blessed and happy in Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes this morning.

All Saints’ Church, Rome … the Anglican church where the hymn writer Bishop William Walsham How was chaplain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 2 November 2025, All Saints’ Sunday):

The theme this week (2 to 8 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘From Solitude to Connection’ (pp 52-53). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update from Ljudmila, a Ukrainian Refugee living in Budapest, Hungary:

Next Step Hungary is a refugee-led NGO providing practical, costeffective interventions to support integration in Hungary. It is a partner organisation with Saint Margaret’s, Budapest, who reached out as part of USPG and the Diocese in Europe's joint appeal for Ukraine. Next Step is a lifeline for many like Ljudmila.

‘As a Ukrainian living in Budapest, my life was taken up by responsibilities – caring for my 12-year-old son, my parents, and even my cat – while balancing a demanding career as an architect. Despite my lifelong passion for art and design, the past few years had drained me emotionally and psychologically. Loneliness weighed heavily, and time for creativity felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford.

Then, at the end of summer, I signed up for a beading workshop run by Next Step. I was uncertain of what to expect, but from the very first session it turned out to be more than just a craft class. It was a welcoming community, a vibrant space for women filled with laughter, support, and shared creativity. Under the guidance of a fantastic teacher, I completed my first beaded ring and saw endless possibilities for new projects.

Each class became a highlight of my week, a space where I could reconnect with myself and others. This workshop didn’t just teach me a new skill – it rekindled my joy, creativity, and sense of belonging. For that, I am deeply grateful to Next Step.’

All Saints’ Church is the parish church in the centre of Northampton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 2 November 2025, All Saints’ Sunday, All Souls’ Day) invites us to pray:

God of hope, grant that we, with all who have believed in you, may be united in the full knowledge of your love and the unclouded vision of your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (A Prayer Book for Australia, 1995).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
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:

God, the source of all holiness and giver of all good things:
may we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of holiness,
your glory is proclaimed in every age:
as we rejoice in the faith of your saints,
inspire us to follow their example
with boldness and joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Christ the King and the saints on the panels of the altar in All Saints’ Church, Berkhamsted (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

All Saints’ Church in Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire, was connected with the Comberford family for about a century … Henry Comberford of Lichfield Cathedral was the rector in 1546-1560 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 172, Friday 31 October 2025

Liverpool Cathedral, where Justin Welby introduced a Hallowe’en service as ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, which changes to Kingdom-time or the Kingdom Season tomorrow with All Saints’ Day. In the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness, today is not marked as Hallowe’en but, instead, remembers Martin Luther.

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.

Stony Stratford prepares for Hallowe’en … but does Christ make a Hallowe’en choice between trick or treat? (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 14:1-6 (NRSVA)

1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 2 Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?’ 4 But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. 5 Then he said to them, ‘If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?’ 6 And they could not reply to this.

‘Ars Longa, Vita Brevis’ … words from Hippocrates at the Medical School in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Tomorrow is All Saints’ Day, although this may be celebrated in many parishes and churches on Sunday (2 November 2025) as All Saints’ Sunday.

But if All Saints’ Day is not celebrated properly and appropriately in our churches, with a celebration of the Eucharist, whether that is tomorrow or on Sunday, how do we explain to a younger generation what Hallowe’en is truly about?

Hallowe’en is the ‘Night of the Living Dead’ ... for the saints are alive, and we are part of the Communion of Saints, the Church Triumphant (Ecclesia Triumphans) and the Church Militant (Ecclesia Militans), which are part of the one Church, and we are together.

Hallowe’en, or the Eve of All Hallows, is the evening before celebrating All the Saints, All the Holy Ones in Glory, the Saints of every time and place. This is the Eve of a Great Feast of Light – the Solemnity of All Saints, the saints in glory who have ‘inherited the light’ (Colossians 1: 12-13), whether we are alive or dead, whether we have been canonised or faded into obscurity, whether they have given heroic examples in their lives or are unsung and unknown. We are all with God in endless joy.

When he became Dean of Liverpool in 2007, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, found himself in one of England’s largest and most deprived cathedrals. He doubled attendances, abseiled from the roof, and allowed John Lennon’s Imagine to be played on the cathedral bells – despite the line ‘imagine there is no heaven.’

He also encouraged a ‘Night of the Living Dead’ service on Hallowe’en, when a coffin was carried into the cathedral and a man rose from a coffin to represent the Resurrection.

If we cannot explain Hallowe’en and All Saints’ Day, how can we hope to explain the greater truths of Christmas and Easter?

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 14:1-6), we are faced with a ‘trick or treat’ conundrum. It is the sabbath and Jesus is going to eat dinner at the home of a local religious leader: if he ignores the sick man’s plight, does he ignore that love and compassion are the core of true religion? Or, if heals this man, is he going to be accused of breaching religious rules, regulations traditions.

The discussion this prompts is not about whether Christ has the duty or responsibility, the legal right or power, the appropriate qualifications or the authority, to heal the man with dropsy, but whether doing this on the Sabbath shows disdain for the law of God.

This is the sole, lone and only Gospel incident in which the Greek word ὑδρωπικός (hydropikos) is used to describe a person suffering from dropsy. It is a pathological retention of fluid that causes abnormal swelling. Although it is a medical term, its single New Testament appearance here becomes theologically rich when placed within the Gospel narrative.

In the world of the Biblical Mediterranean, dropsy was seen as incurable and associated with other systemic illnesses. Swelling of the limbs and abdomen visibly marked the sufferer, making him ritually unclean by religious understanding of the day and socially marginalised.

Physicians such as Hippocrates discussed the malady, yet effective treatment was scarce. A hydropic person embodied chronic suffering and exclusion, providing a stark contrast to the wholeness of life envisioned in God’s covenant promises.

Should this man be left, as it were, among the living dead?

By asking whether it is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not (verse 3), Jesus exposes the discrepancy between the Law’s intent and the tradition-bound application of it. When he heals the man and sends him away whole, he affirms the Sabbath as a day ‘for doing good’.

Of course, the man is not dying. Although he has dropsy, his healing could take place on any other day, indeed at any other venue. But, even before they speak, Christ’s response to his potential protagonists is to ask a question: ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?’ (verse 4).

If they say no, they show their ignorance of the law and the rabbinical tradition; if they say yes, how could they possibly disagree with what they know he is about to do?

After this healing miracle, Christ goes on to share two parables about humility and the heavenly banquet (Luke 14: 7-24). The hydropic man’s restoration anticipates the inclusive feast of the Kingdom, where the physically and spiritually bloated pride of the self-righteous is contrasted with the humble who accept the invitation.

If mercy towards animals or family members is permitted, how much more should mercy for a suffering image-bearer of God be celebrated?

What better day is there than the Sabbath, a day meant to promote God’s commitment to humanity’s well-being, for the restoration of a man with a debilitating illness?

Trick or Treat?

In his response, Christ allows this man to return to work with dignity, and restores him to his full and rightful place in the community of faith that may have been denied to him by the very people who are present that Sabbath.

The man who must once have thought he might as well have been dead is given new life, and is assured he is a Child of God.

Later this evening, as children go knocking on doors in this town, under the watchful and loving eyes of parents or older siblings, I shall remind myself that in Christ there is no trick, there is only treat. And it would be reflective and appropriate to return to a prayer attributed to Saint Ambrose of Milan has become part of Anglican tradition as part of the office of Compline in the Book of Common Prayer:

Before the ending of the day,
Creator of the world, we pray
That thou with wonted love wouldst keep
Thy watch around us while we sleep.

O let no evil dreams be near,
Or phantoms of the night appear;
Our ghostly enemy restrain,
Lest aught of sin our bodies stain.

Almighty Father, hear our cry
Through Jesus Christ our Lord most high,
Who with the Holy Ghost and thee
Doth live and reign eternally. Amen.

A sign in Lichfield Cathedral this week about the true meaning of Hallowe’en (Photograph: Hugh Ashton, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 31 October 2025):

The theme this week (26 October to 1 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Bonds of Affection’ (pp 50-51). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 31 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, we pray that one day the group may get to meet in person in order that the bonds of affection might be strengthened.

The Collect:

Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
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 of all grace,
your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry
with the bread of his life
and the word of his kingdom:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your true and living bread;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
teach us to be faithful in change and uncertainty,
that trusting in your word
and obeying your will
we may enter the unfailing joy of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of All Saints’ Day:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A carved Hallowe’en pumpkin in Stony Stratford (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

Catching the sunset over the South China Sea and walking the beaches at the resorts in Damai

A walk on the beach at sunset at Damai Beach Resort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Although Kuching stands on the banks of the Sarawak River, and for decades served as a working port and harbour, it is quite a distance from the sea. Kuching is built on a coastal plain with lots of rivers flowing into the sea, but it is about 15 km inland from the sea.

So, although we have been here since mid-October, I only had my first walk on a beach in Sarawak last weekend.

We had watched one or two races during the closing hours of the Sarawak Regatta on Sunday afternoon. But a long and steady shower of tropical rain throughout later in the afternoon, accompanied by a showcase thunderstorm, brought a dampening end to the regatta that had been going on all weekend.

It was our first wedding anniversary, and we thought we might celebrate with a romantic dinner in a nearby restaurant without walking too far or getting too wet.

But suddenly, later in the afternoon, the rains stopped, and it was possible to catch just a tiny glimpse of the skies between the dark and brooding clouds. On the spur of the moment, we decided to head north to the Santubong Peninsula and the slopes of Mount Santubong, and to go for walks in the sunset along the shores by the resort hotels facing out onto the South China Sea.

By the shores of the South China Sea at Damai Lagoon Resort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Santubong Peninsula is cut off from Kuching by the Santubong River, and I had been in the area a few days earlier visiting the Sarawak Cultural Village. It took us 40 or 50 minutes to get back there late on Sunday afternoon, and we first stopped at the Damai Lagoon Resort.

Damai Lagoon Resort is a five-star resort between Damai Bay and Damai Beach and describes itself as the ‘Jewel of Sarawak.’ It was previously known as Damai Puri Resort and Spa, and before that as Holiday Inn Damai Lagoon, and it went through a major renovation and rebranding before reopening last year.

The tide was in and we walked along the hotel terrace and by the waves, looking out to the South China Sea. Although the cloud cover left us without a clear view of the sunset, we could see the Talang Talang islands off the coast and wondered about the marine park with its turtles – but it was getting dark and we would have needed a permit too, and lot more planning.

We then walked through Damai Central Permai Rainforest Resort, an eco-resort by the sea and under the rainforest covered foothills of Mount Santubong. The treehouses there mean guests can sleep among the rustling trees and wake to the sound of the sea lapping against the shore.

By the waves in front of the Damai Central Permai Rainforest Resort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

It was a five-minute walk from Damai Central to the Damai Beach Resort, with 90 acres of grounds by the sandy beach of Teluk Bandung, also facing the South China Sea.

It seemed like a long time since I had a walk by a beach or by the sea. My last beach walks had been during a short visit to Bray, Co Wicklow, last June, and before that when I was back in Crete in April, when I stayed in Rethymnon and also visited the beaches at Platanias, Panormos and Hersonissos and the sea at Iraklion.

Now I had not just one but two walks by beaches north of Kuching and facing out onto the South China Sea.

As dusk turned to darkness we decided to linger a little longer over dinner at the Damai Beach Resort before calling a taxi for the 45-minute drive back into Kuching.

On the previous evening, during the Eucharist in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, commemorating All Souls’ Day, one of the hymns we sang was ‘The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended’, written in 1870 by the Revd John Ellerton (1826-1893).

As we were returning to Kuching in darkness on Sunday evening, I kept thinking of one particular verse in that hymn:

The sun that bids us rest is waking
our brethren ’neath the western sky,
and hour by hour fresh lips are making
thy wondrous doings heard on high.

Two minutes on the beach at Damai Beach Resort at dusk (Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 2, Saturday 2 November 2024, All Souls’ Day

The reredos in the chapel of All Souls College, Oxford … a reminder of the ‘Faithful Departed’ on 2 November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We have moved in the Church Calendar from Ordinary Time to the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent, and tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday before Advent (3 November 2024). Today in the Church Calendar is All Souls’ Day (2 November), or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed.

All Souls’ Day is being marked later today in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, with an All Souls’ Day service this evening (7:30), when the celebrant is Canon Roannie W Cannidy, canon precentor of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and the preacher is the Revd Peter Augustine, one of the cathedral priests.

People have been invited to write the name or names of their faithful departed and drop them into a special box at the front of the chancel steps in the cathedral. Although only the names of past bishops and clergy will be read out during the intercessions this evening, all submitted names will be shown on the screens during the service. In addition, many people are expected to visit the graves and tombs of family members during the day.

Before today 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.

All Souls College, Oxford … its full, official name is: the Warden and the College of the Souls of All Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 37-40 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 37 ‘Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; 38 for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

‘I will raise them up on the last day’ (John 6: 40) … an unlabelled carving in All Souls College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love.

As the evenings close in, as the last autumn leaves fall from the trees, it is natural to remember the dead and the fallen, with love and affection.

All Saints’ Day yesterday (1 November) is one of the 12 Principal Feasts of the Church. In many parts of the Anglican Communion, today (2 November) is All Souls’ Day or the ‘Commemoration of the Faithful Departed’ (Common Worship, p 15). In Ireland, 6 November traditionally recalls ‘All Saints of Ireland.’ This year we mark Remembrance Sunday next Sunday (10 November), and Remembrance Day is on 11 November.

In recent days, Charlotte and I have wandered through some of the Chinese graveyards in the Kuching area, but have yet to find the place where her grandparents are buried.

At this time of the year – especially this year – there are a number of people in my own family I am remembering, including: my mother, Ellen (Murphy) Comerford, who died 10 years ago, on 20 May 2014;
my father, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died 20 years ago on 27 December 2004; my brother, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died on 18 December 1970;
my foster mother, Peggy Kerr, who died on 27 July 2010, and my foster father George Kerr;
and, at this time of the year, my ‘Gran’, Mary (McCarthy) Hallinan, who died on 6 November 1961; and ‘Granddad’ Edmond Hallinan, who died on 8 March 1963.

Hallowe’en, which was even marked in many places in Kuching this week, is the day before we remember the Hallowed, not as the dead but as the blessed, the saints, who are models for our lives, our Christian lifestyle today.

When he was Dean of Liverpool, Archbishop Justin Welby organised a Hallowe’en service he labelled ‘Night of the Living Dead’. At first, it sounds ghoulish. But that’s what it is … the ‘Night of the Living Dead’. We believe the dead we love are still caught up in the love of God and are alive in Christ.

Indeed, saints do not need to be dead to be examples of ‘holy living and holy dying’ (Jeremy Taylor).

Saint Paul regularly refers in his letters to fellow Christians as ‘saints.’ Saints Alive!

In the past, I have realised how many people and parishes have been shy, reluctant, perhaps even fearful, in the Church of Ireland when it comes to recalling, commemorating and celebrating the saints. A comparison of the calendars of the Church of Ireland and the Church of England is very telling.

Perhaps the people who decided on the calendar in the Church of Ireland were too afraid in the past of being seen to pray to the saints, or to pray for the dead. But, really, these are quite different to finding examples of godly living among Christians from the past, and expressing confidence that the dead we have loved are now committed to God’s love.

Yet the Church of England sees the calendar of saints as a living calendar, something that is added to as we find more appropriate examples of Christian living for today.

Saints do not have to be martyrs. But in recent years Oscar Romero was canonised and there was a major commemoration in Westminster Abbey of Oscar Romero in 2017 to mark his 100th birthday.

Saints do not have to be canonised. Modern martyrs may include Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, or Heather Heyer, the civil rights activist killed by far-right neo-Nazis and racists in Charlottesville, Kentucky, in 2017.

Many of us we know people who handed on the faith to us – teachers, grandparents, perhaps neighbours. Even though many may be long dead, they remain part of our vision of the Communion of Saints.

Saints do not have to live a perfect life … none of us is without sin, and none of us is beyond redemption. Some of the saints carved on the West Front of Westminster Abbey might have been very surprised to know they were going to appear there. But their lives in sum total are what we are asked to think about.

They are: Maximilian Kolbe, Manche Masemola, Archbishop Janani Luwum, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esther John, Lucian Tapiedi, and Wang Zhiming.

Some years ago, I asked students to share stories of their favourite ‘saints and heroes.’ They included an interesting array of people, some who were the still living at the time, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In the back-page interviews in the Church Times, people are sometimes asked who they would like to be locked into a church with for a few hours.

Who are your favourite saints?

Who would you like to learn from a little more when it comes to living the Christian life?

In the Apostles’ Creed, we confess our faith which includes our belief in ‘the communion of saints’ and ‘the resurrection of the body.’ In Nicene Creed, we express our belief in ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

In the introduction to the Church Calendar and this in-between time, the time between All Saints and Advent, the resources for Common Worship remind us that ‘No Christian is solitary. Through baptism we become members one of another in Christ, members of a company of saints whose mutual belonging transcends death’. The resources then quote Charles Wesley:

One family, we dwell in him,
one Church, above, beneath;
though now divided by the stream,
the narrow stream of death.

Who are the saints in your life, in your own personal calendars? Who are those you recall whose souls we have committed to God’s love and who are part of ‘the communion of saints’?

Throughout the month of November, there are opportunities to remember their names as we are reminded in the first reading today that ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, no torment will ever touch them’ (Wisdom 3: 1).

The Library at All Souls College, Oxford, with a sundial designed by Sir Christopher Wren (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 2 November 2024, All Souls’ Day):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘All Saints’ Day’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update by the Revd Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 2 November 2024, All Souls’ Day) invites us to pray:

We give thanks for those who gone before us in the faith, may they rest in the mercy of God.

The Collect:

Eternal God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion
and glorious resurrection
that, in the last day,
when you gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises;
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.

Post Communion Prayer:

God of love,
may the death and resurrection of Christ,
which we have celebrated in this Eucharist,
bring us, with all the faithful departed,
into the peace of your eternal home.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
our rock and our salvation,
to whom be glory for time and for eternity.

Collect on the Eve of the Fourth Sunday before Advent:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love
in the hearts of the saints:
grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
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.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

All Souls College, Oxford, founded in 1438 by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, with King Henry VI as its formal co-founder (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