Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 44, Monday 18 May 2026

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 13) … Christ in Majesty depicted by Sir Ninian Comper in a window in the Shrine Chapel in Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing through Ascension Day (14 May 2026) until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday next Sunday (24 May 2026). Yesterday was the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII).

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.

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33) … the Crucifixion and the Resurrection in a windows in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John 16: 29-33 (NRSVA):

29 His disciples said, ‘Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! 30 Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.’ 31 Jesus answered them, ‘Do you now believe? 32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. 33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 13) … the Risen Christ above Sir Ninian Comper’s baldacchino in the Chapel in Pusey House, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

As I was saying in my reflections yesterday, we are, in some ways, caught in the church calendar in an in-between time, between Ascension Day, last Thursday [14 May 2026], and the Day of Pentecost next Sunday [24 May 2026].

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 16: 29-33), we continue reading from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ when Jesus talks with the Disciples at the Last Supper about their future and the future of the Church after he leaves them.

The disciples now claim to understand exactly what Jesus is talking about, although it seems they really do not. It is not until later that they grasp the meaning of his words fully.

In the coming days, they will be scattered in all directions and leave Jesus alone as he faces death. In the years ahead, they will be scattered abroad, and they too will face persecution and death. But they are to take courage, for Christ has conquered the world and overcome evil in the world. The disciples and we can share in his peace and in his victory: ‘I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (verse 33).

The term ‘Christus Victor’ has become an influential phrase through Christus Victor by the Swedish bishop and theologian Gustaf Aulén (1879-1977), first published in Swedish as Den kristna försoningstanken (The Christian Idea of the Atonement) in 1930, and in English as Christus Victor in 1931.

Aulén reinterpreted the classic ransom theory of atonement, which says that Christ’s death is a ransom to the powers of evil that had held humankind in captivity. It is an understanding of the atonement until the time of Anselm of Canterbury. What became the satisfaction theory of atonement or penal substitutionary atonement sees Christ’s suffering as paying the penalty for human sin, and continues to dominate western theological thinking, particularly among ‘conservative’ evangelicals.

The concept of Christus Victor (‘Christ the Victor’) as a description of Christ’s triumph over evil and death through his death and resurrection, emphasises God’s victory over the forces of sin and darkness and highlights Christ’s role as the cosmic liberator, rescuing humanity from the bondage of evil and restoring a relationship with God.

The Christus Victor view has its roots in early Patristic teachings, and the Eastern Orthodox Church still holds to the view of the atonement put forward by Irenaeus and that is called ‘recapitulation’, in which Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is.

For Irenaeus, the ultimate goal of Christ’s work of solidarity with humanity is to make humankind divine. Of Jesus he says, he ‘became what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself.’ These ideas were shared by many other Church Fathers, including Sainr Athanasius, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint Augustine and Saint Maximus the Confessor. They have been most influential within the Eastern Orthodox Church, and this Eastern Orthodox theological development out of the recapitulation view of the atonement is called theosis (‘deification’).

Aulén argues that theologians have incorrectly concluded that the early Church Fathers held a ransom theory of atonement. Aulén argues that the Church Fathers’ theory was not that the crucifixion is the payment of a ransom to the devil, but rather that it represents the liberation of humanity from the bondage of sin, death and the devil. As the term Christus Victor (Christ the Victor) indicates, the idea of ‘ransom’ should not be seen as some sort of business transaction, but more in the terms of a rescue or liberation of humanity from the slavery of sin.

He sees the concept of Christus Victor as uniting Christ and his Father at the Crucifixion in a subversive condemnation of the unjust powers of darkness, a drama and a passion story in which God conquers the Powers and liberates humanity from the bondage of sin: ‘The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil.’

The Christus Victor theory is becoming increasingly popular with both paleo-orthodox evangelicals because of its connection to the early Church Fathers, and with liberal Christians and peace churches because of its subversive nature, seeing the death of Jesus as an exposure of the cruelty and evil present in the worldly powers, and the resurrection as a triumph over these powers.

The Christus Victor theory has also influenced liberation theology in Latin South America, as well as feminist and black theologies of liberation.

‘I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).

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

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33) … a window in the funeral chapel in Saint Joseph’s Church, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 18 May 2026):

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

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Monday 18 May 2026):

Lord, we pray for girls in Malawi, that each one may take hold of courage, be granted protection and the support needed to stay in school. May education open doors for every girl’s future and dreams.

The Collect:

O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33) … a window in Saint Peter and Saint Church, Watford, Northamptonshire (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

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

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

Patrick Comerford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 41, Friday 15 May 2026, Saint Matthias the Apostle

Saint Matthias the Apostle depicted in a window in Saint Peter’s Church in Padungan, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026), and yesterday was Ascension Day. The Church Calendar usually celebrates the Feast of Saint Matthias the Apostle on 14 May, but because of Ascension Day yesterday, his celebration has been transferred to today.

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.

Saint Matthias the Apostle depicted in a side panel in a window in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 9-17 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.’

Saint Matthias is usually missing from icons of the 12 Apostles, in which Saint Paul replaces Judas … an icon in Panormos, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

‘I chose you. And … I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another’ (John 15: 16-17).

The Acts of the Apostles recall how Saint Matthias was chosen as one of the Twelve to replace Judas (Acts 1: 15-26).

I sometimes wonder whether Saint Matthias saw the humour in being second choice. After all, he was the second choice – not the first choice, but the second choice – to succeed Judas among the Twelve.

Imagine how Saint Matthias might have felt. The first time round, he was not good enough to be among the Twelve. But Judas was, and he would betray Christ. So too were Peter, James, John and Thomas. They were called to be among the Twelve, but Peter would betray Christ three times before his crucifixion, James and John had ambitions beyond their station, while Thomas would refuse to believe until he met the Risen Christ on his own terms.

After the Ascension, 120 believers met to pick a successor to replace Judas Iscariot. But even then, even on the second time round, Matthias is not the first name mentioned, he is not the first choice. Instead, the first name to come forward is that of Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus.

Nobody ever since remembers Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus. His saintly life, such as it was, has passed into oblivion. It may only be as an afterthought that someone suggests the name of Matthias. And then, they cannot make up their minds. Instead, they cast lots, and the lot falls to Matthias.

I doubt any of us would be happy to hear we have been selected or nominated for any role in the Church, for example, at PCC, select vestry or synod meetings, by tossing a coin, drawing names from a hat or rolling a dice as others pray about whether we are suitable or qualified.

Saint Matthias is unnamed before this account. He is not named in the Gospels and after one reference in Acts there is no further mention of him. He is the forgotten apostle, like the ‘Fifth Beatle’, the sub who is called from the bench when the game is in the 89th minute. Having made an unexpected entrance onto the stage, Saint Matthias walks off once again. And we hear nothing more about him.

In icons and stained glass windows depicting the Twelve, Judas is generally replaced by Saint Paul, and Saint Matthias is seldom depicted. His name, identity and life story have been forgotten, apart from making him the patron saint of alcoholism and smallpox, and of a few small towns. We are not sure when he died or where he is buried.

When we were back in Kuching 18 months ago, Charlotte and I presented a church bell to the people of Saint Matthias Chapel in Sinar Baru, about 21 km south of Kuching in Sarawak. They had told us how the chapel had a bell tower, but no bell, and how they were praying and hoping for one that would be heard throughout the surrounding countryside, calling people to church on Sundays.

It was our wedding anniversary that weekend, and we thought about the possibility of a thank-offering and how it might be another way of ringing our wedding bells a year later.

We bought an old, second-hand bell at Ho Nyen Foh’s tinsmith shop in Bishopsgate Street, one of the streets running between Carpenter Street and the Main Bazaar in Kuching’s old Chinatown. It may have been a ship’s bell, or a school bell, he could not remember which. It may have been a second-hand bell, but it certainly was not second-best – it was what the people of Saint Matthias had been praying for, and it was true symbol of love in so many ways.

The Early Church writer Clement of Alexandria says the apostles are not chosen for some outstanding character, and certainly not on their own merits. The apostles are chosen by Christ for his own reasons, but not for their merits.

If Saint Matthias had not been worthy of being called first time round, how is he worthy now to join the Twelve?

Like Saint Matthias, we are often in the place where we are in life only because the person who was there before us failed: Joshua led Israel because Moses failed in the wilderness; David became King because Saul failed; Matthias became an apostle because Judas failed.

Discipleship, being a follower of Christ, is never about my worthiness, my merits. It is Christ alone who calls us.

Saint Matthias was elected not because he was worthy but because he would become worthy. Christ chooses each one of us in the same way. We have been grafted into the company of the Children of God, not through our own merits, but by God’s grace.

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

Saint Matthias depicted in a window in Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 15 May 2026, Saint Matthias the Apostle, transferred):

The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 15 May 2026, Saint Matthias the Apostle, International Day of Families) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, we lament that many families in the Solomon Islands and across the world struggle to live in peace and safety. Bring your healing and guidance to restore trust and nurture love within every home.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who in the place of the traitor Judas
chose your faithful servant Matthias
to be of the number of the Twelve:
preserve your Church from false apostles
and, by the ministry of faithful pastors and teachers,
keep us steadfast in your truth;
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:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Presenting a church bell to Saint Matthias Chapel, Father Jeffry Renos Nawie (right) and the people of Sinar Baru, south of Kuching

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 Easter 2026: 40, Thursday 14 May 2026, Ascension Day

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

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday in ten days’ time (24 May 2026). This week began with the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026), and today is Ascension Day (14 May 2026).

There is an Ascension Day Eucharist in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, later this morning, but many parishes and churches are probably going to celebrate the Ascension next Sunday (17 May 2026).

Later today (5 pm), I hope to take part in ‘Threads, Echoes, and Ink: Uncovering Minority Voices in Medieval Spain, Sefarad and al-Andalus’, a seminar organised by the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, with three talks, each looking at Spain and Medieval Mediterranean culture from a different perspective, and a panel discussion between the speakers and questions from the audience.

Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time at home 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 Ascension depicted in a fresco in the ceiling in the parish church in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 24: 44-53 (NRSVA):

44 Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah[a] is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’

50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

The Ascension depicted in the East Window by Alexander Gibbs in the chapel of Keble College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Our view of the universe, our understanding of the cosmos, shapes how we image and think of God’s place in it, within it, above it, or alongside it. And sometimes, the way past and outdated understandings of the universe were used to describe or explain the Ascension now make it difficult to talk about its significance and meaning to today’s scientific mind.

In his occasional series, ‘Theology Matters’, Professor Andrew Davison of Oxford wrote in the Church Times last weekend (8 May 2026) of ‘the many rather embarrassed sermons that I have heard on Ascension Day over the years.’

When we believed in a flat earth, it was easy to understand how Christ ascended into heaven, and how he then sat in the heavens, on a throne, on the right hand of the Father. But once we lost the notion of a flat earth as a way of explaining the world and the universe, we failed to adjust our images or approaches to the Ascension narrative. Ever since, intelligent people have been left asking silly questions:

When Christ went up through the clouds, how long did he keep going?

When did he stop?

And where?

Standing there gaping at the sky could make us some kind of navel-gazers, looking for explanations within the universe and for life, but not as we know it. In our day and age, the idea of Christ flying up into the sky and vanishing through the great blue yonder strikes us as fanciful.

Does Jesus peek over the edge of the cloud as he is whisked away like Aladdin on a magic carpet?

Is he beamed up as if by Scotty?

Does he clench his right fist and take off like Superman?

Like the disciples, would we have been left on the mountain top looking up at his bare feet as they became smaller and smaller and smaller?

But the concept of an ascension was not one that posed difficulties in Christ’s earthly days. It is part of the tradition that God’s most important prophets were lifted up from the Earth rather than perish in the earth with death and burial.

Elijah and Enoch ascended into heaven. Elijah was taken away on a fiery chariot. Philo of Alexandria wrote that Moses also ascended. The cloud that Christ is taken up in reminds us of the shechinah – the presence of God in the cloud, for example, in the story of Moses receiving the law (Exodus 24: 15-17), or with the presence of God in the Tabernacle on the way to the Promised Land (see Exodus 40: 34-38).

Saint Luke makes a clear connection between the ascension of Moses and Elijah and the Ascension of Christ, when he makes clear links between the Transfiguration and the Ascension. At the Transfiguration, he records, a cloud descends and covers the mountain, and Moses and Elijah – who have both ascended – are heard speaking with Jesus about ‘his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem’ (Luke 9: 30-31).

So, Saint Luke links all these elements as symbols as he tells this story. There is a direct connection between the Transfiguration, the Ascension and the Second Coming … the shechinah is the parousia. However, like the disciples in this reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we often fail to make these connections. We are still left looking up at the feet … an enigma posed by Salvador Dali almost 70 years ago in his painting, The Ascension (1958).

Let us just think of those feet for a moment.

In the Epistle reading that is provided in the Lectionary today (Ephesians 1: 15-23), the Apostle Paul tells says that with the Ascension the Father ‘has put all things under [Christ’s] feet and has made him the head over all things’ (Ephesians 1: 22).

‘Under his feet’ … Salvador Dali’s painting of the Ascension, with its depiction of the Ascension from the disciples’ perspective, places the whole of creation under Christ’s feet. Of course, Isaiah 52: 7 tells us: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns”.’

Feet are important to God … there are 229 references to feet in the Bible and another 100 for the word foot. When Moses stands before God on Mount Sinai, God tells him to take his sandals off his feet, for he is standing on ‘holy ground’ (Exodus 3: 5) – God calls for bare feet on the bare ground, God’s creation touching God’s creation.

Later, when the priests cross the Jordan into the Promised Land, carrying the ark of the Lord, the water stops when they put their feet down, and the people cross on dry land (Joshua 3: 12-17): walking in the footsteps of God, putting our feet where God wants us to, is taking the first steps in discipleship and towards the kingdom.

The disciples object when a woman washes and anoints Jesus’ feet and dries them with her hair, but he praises her faith (Luke 7: 36-50). On the night of his betrayal, the last and most important Christ Jesus does for his disciples is wash their feet (John 13: 3-12).

Footprints … many of us have learned off by heart or have a mug or a wall plaque with the words of the poem Footprints in the Sand. We long for a footprint of Jesus, an imprint that shows where he has been … and where we should be going. The place where the Ascension is said to have taken place is marked by a rock with what is claimed to be the footprint of Christ. And, as they continue gazing up, after his feet, the disciples are left wondering whether it is the time for the kingdom to come, are they too going to be raised up.

Yet it seems that the two men who stand in white robes beside them are reminding them Christ wants them not to stay there standing on their feet doing nothing, that he wants us to pay more attention to the footprints he left all over the Gospels. Christ’s feet took him to some surprising places – and he asks us to follow.

Can I see Christ’s footprints in the wilderness?

Can I see Christ walking on the wrong side of the street with the wrong sort of people?

Can I see Christ walking up to the tree, looking up at Zacchaeus in the branches (Luke 19: 1-10), and inviting him to eat with him?

Can I see his feet stumbling towards Calvary with a cross on his back, loving us to the very end?

Am I prepared to walk with him?

Since that first Ascension Day, the body of Christ is within us and among us and through us as the Church and as we go forth in his name, bearing that Good News as his ‘witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1: 8).

Meanwhile, we are reminded by the two men in white: ‘This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’ (Acts 1: 11). Between now and then we are to keep in mind that the same Jesus is ‘with [us] always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28: 20).

The disciples who are left below are left not to ponder on what they have seen, but to prepare for Pentecost and to go out into the world as the lived Pentecost, as Christ’s hands and feet in the world, leaving behind us the footprints of Christ.

Saint Paul paraphrases Isaiah when he says: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ (Romans 10: 15). Our feet can look like Christ’s feet. Our feet can become his feet until he returns in glory once again (Acts 1: 11), when he returns exactly as he ascended. And we need to keep the tracks fresh so that others may follow us in word, deed, and sacrament, and follow him.

The disciples are sent back to Jerusalem not to be passive but to pray to God the Father and to wait for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In time, the Holy Spirit will empower them, and they will be Christ’s witnesses not just in Judea and Samaria, but to the ends of the earth fulfilling that commission in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

The disciples who are left below are left not to ponder on what they have seen, but to prepare for Pentecost and to go out into the world as the lived Pentecost, as Christ’s hands and Christ’s feet in the world.

As Andrew Davison wrote last weekend: ‘The ascension belongs to the gospel, and bears witness to the gospel, because it is so much about Christ, and about God’s unshakeable commitment to being with us and for us. It is good news because it shows that our humanity has been taken into God’s presence: Christ going ahead of us rather than abandoning us, and interceding for us there … The gospel is proclaimed in the ascension as “God is with us.” We can add that “We are with God”.’

Andrew Davison is Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford and a canon of Christ Church. In that column in the Church Times, he wrote: ‘Paradoxically, then, the ascension of Christ proclaims the good news of Christ’s presence, not his absence. Christ takes our humanity into the presence of the Father for all eternity, and in that he goes from being, to some, locally present to being universally present to all.’

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

The Ascension depicted in a tile frieze designed by William Butterfield in All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 14 May 2026, Ascension Day):

The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 16 May 2026, Ascension Day) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, on this Feast of Saint Matthias and Ascension Day, we give thanks for apostles and leaders called to witness your love. Inspire us, by your power, to do the same.

The Collect:

Grant, we pray, almighty God
that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ
to have ascended into the heavens,
so we in heart and mind may also ascend
and with him continually dwell;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God our Father,
you have raised our humanity in Christ
and have fed us with the bread of heaven:
mercifully grant that, nourished with such spiritual blessings,
we may set our hearts in the heavenly places;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
you have raised our human nature to the throne of heaven:
help us to seek and serve you,
that we may join you at the Father’s side,
where you reign with the Spirit in glory,
now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Ascension depicted in a window in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney, Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The Ascension Window in the North Transept (Jebb Chapel), Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 39, Wednesday 13 May 2026

The Visitation of Abraham or the ‘Old Testament Trinity’ … a new icon by the iconographer Alexandra Kaouki in Rethymnon interprets a Trinitarian and Eucharistic theme (Photograph © Alexandra Kaouki, 2026)

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 Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026), and tomorrow is Ascension Day (14 May 2025).

Later today I hope to be involved in a meeting of local clergy in Saint Frideswide's Church, Water Eaton, and there is choir rehearsal in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this evening. 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.

An icon of the Trinity in Saint Nektarios Church in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 16: 12-15 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 12 ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.’

The Visitation of Abraham or the ‘Old Testament Trinity’ … a fresco in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary today (John 16: 12-15) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper in Saint John’s Gospel ((John 14: 1 to 17: 26), where Christ continues to prepare his followers for his departure, and reminds them of his promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: ‘When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth’ (verse 13).

Today’s reading is also the Gospel reading provided later this month for Trinity Sunday (31 May 2026).

Allow me to introduce us this morning to some ways of thinking of God as the Trinity.

If I were to introduce you to my world, to my story, I might invite you to visit the places that have shaped and made me.

I might invite you to imagine what it was like for a small boy to lay awake in his grandmother’s farmhouse in west Waterford, it was so bright outside on a balmy summer’s evening. Downstairs, I can hear the old clock chiming out the time: it’s ten, and a hush descends on the house as the adults settle down in their chairs to listen to the news on the wireless. I hear the old black kettle boiling over the open fire as someone prepares to make a pot of tea. Outside, a pigeon is still cooing in the thatch, I imagine I can hear the abbey bells ringing out the time across the fields, and I know I am safe and loved in this world.

Twenty or so years later, once again it’s late at night, in the top storey of a tall house in a narrow street in Wexford town.

It’s comforting to hear the clock of Rowe Street church count out the hours. Is that a late train I hear trundling along the quays? A lone voice in the Theatre Royal braving a late rehearsal for one of next week’s operas? And I am so looking forward to the Festival Service in Saint Iberius’s Church.

Let us move forward another two decades or so. I can’t sleep in the suburban house in south Dublin. But I can hear my children snoring contentedly in their own rooms. Outside, the unseasonable rain is pelting down, the wind is rustling through the cherry tree outside, and I wonder whether all the cherry blossom will be shaken down and washed onto the grass below by the time morning dawns. An apposite memory this morning as the theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is Parenting with Purpose.

We can use words not only to tell our stories, but to paint pictures, to invite others into our communities, into our families, and into our lives. Now that you have heard and seen what has shaped me, where I have been formed, what made me feel loved and secure, now that you have been invited into my story, my family, and know me, we are ready to sing the same songs, to sit together at the same table. Why, we might even dance.

The Trinity is an image of God, a perfect community, a community of God that invites us to share God’s story, to sit at table with God, to sing songs with God, … all the things we’re doing at this Festal Eucharist. Why, as Karen Baker-Fletcher says in her book, the Trinity could be God’s invitation for us to dance with God. [Karen Baker-Fletcher, Dancing With God: A Womanist Perspective on the Trinity (St Louis: Chalice Press, 2006; 2007)]

Two of the great Early Fathers of the Church, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint John of Damascus, use the term perichoresis, an image of going around, enveloping, to describe the mysterious union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Clark Pinnock writes: ‘The metaphor suggests moving around, making room, relating to one another without losing identity.’ [Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love, A theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996)].

There is a play on words – a pun on the Greek origins of the word – that allows us to think of creative choreography, to imagine a dance of reciprocal love. This divine unity is expressed in the relationship of the three as one, for relationship is at the heart of the unity of the three-in-one. It is a relationship that is mutual and reciprocal. The Trinity tells us that shared life is basic to the nature of God: God is perfect social relationship, perfect mutuality, perfect reciprocity, perfect peace, perfect love.

‘As a circle of loving relationships, God is dynamically alive.’ The three persons of the Trinity are caught up in an eternal dance of reciprocity, so intertwined that at times it may appear difficult to tell who is who. They move with choreographed harmony. The love emanating from within cannot help but create, for it is the nature of love not to harbour and to hoard but to expand and to create.

God has, from the beginning, been wooing creation to dance. The community of God desires community with us. You and I are being courted, God wants to dance with you, and with me. The love that created us and our world is the same love that longs to be in fellowship with us.

When we worship in spirit and in truth, do others, does the world see us united as one, bound by love, dancing in harmony and flinging out new creation from within our midst? And do we call others to dance with us?

The Russian icon writer Andrei Rublev tried to create the same picture in a different way. In his famous icon of ‘The Visitation of Abraham’ – a modern interpretation of which you can see in this cathedral – he depicts three visitors who arrive at Abraham’s door. The guests become the hosts, the host becomes the guest, and Abraham is invited to a meal that is past, present and future. It is every domestic meal, it is a foretaste of the Eucharist, it is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. In welcoming strangers, he is entertaining angels; but in entertaining angels, he is invited into communion with God as Trinity.

It is a moment in the past, a moment in the present and a moment in the future, when we shall all be restored to being in the image and likeness of God our Creator. God, in creating us, creates out of love, making our destiny eternal life with him. We are created to experience life within the Trinitarian communion of persons.

For there are three things we all encounter in our lives: we all need to be cared for; we all encounter suffering; we all need company. God the Father creates us and cares for us; God in Christ identifies with our suffering, takes on and takes away our suffering; God the Holy Spirit enlivens our communities, gives us that divine measure. God has, in a very real way, entered into the mystery of our humanity, so that we may enter into the mystery that is his communio personarum.

‘This deifying union has, nevertheless, to be fulfilled ever more and more even in this present life, through the transformation of our human nature and by its adaptation to eternal life.’ [Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Press, 2002), p 196.]

The Communion reflection in the notices leaflet Sunday last year in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, included a ‘Meditation on the Holy Icon of Rublev’ by Saint Evdokimos of Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos:

‘Tell me, did you ever feel inhabited? Can you not feel life palpitating in your depths? Yes, the three are there, in all their mystery. Yes, you are inhabited! “If only you knew what God is offering.” “If anyone me, my father will love him, and we will come to him, and live with him.” Yes, you live in the Trinity, who lives in you; you are his guest, and he is your guest. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit; because the tears of the Spirit are in us. He will never impose himself. He will never violence your freedom. Let your three guests love each other within you, praise each other in you, and sing of each other, let them dance for joy in your tent. Your secret is the secret that God is in you. Become aware of that in the land of silence!’

God invites us in creation, in Christ, in the Church, in the Word, and in the Sacrament, to be in union with God, to share God’s story, to sit down and dine with God, to sing and dance with God, to find our inner dwelling with God, and to be at one with God. And that is the purpose and the fulfilment of Christian life.

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

An icon of the Holy Trinity by Hanna-Leena Ward in her recent exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral … there is explicit Trinitarian language in John 16: 12-15 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 13 May 2026):

The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 13 May 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for families facing challenges such as domestic violence, child abuse, and broken relationships. Surround them with support, healing, and practical tools to grow in love, safety, and faith.

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us
to eternal joy;
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 our Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life:
may we thirst for you,
the spring of life and source of goodness,
through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:
help your Church to obey your command
and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father.

Collect on the Eve of Ascension Day:

Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ
to have ascended into the heavens,
so we in heart and mind may also ascend
and with him continually dwell;
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

The Trinity in an icon of the Heavenly Divine Liturgy by Michael Damaskinos (ca 1585-1591) in the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion, Crete (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 Easter 2026: 38, Tuesday 12 May 2026

The Holy Spirit descending as a dove … the ceiling in the apse in the Slipper Chapel in Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (4 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026), and this Thursday is Ascension Day (29 May 2025).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today celebrates the life and work of the liturgist Dom Gregory Dix (1901-1952), priest, monk and scholar. 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 Holy Spirit depicted in a window in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 16: 5-11 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 5 ‘But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement: 9 about sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; 11 about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.’

‘The Advocate will … prove the world wrong’ (John 16: ) … Les Colombes, the White Doves, in the art-for-peace installation by Michael Pendry in Milton Keynes last July (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary today (John 16: 5-11) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper in Saint John’s Gospel (John 14: 1 to 17: 26), where Christ continues to prepare his followers for his departure, and reminds them of his promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: ‘And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement’ (verse 8).

Christ’s challenge, ‘yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” ’ (verse 5) seems strange because the disciples have asked this question earlier, not just once (see John 13: 36, 14: 5).

Perhaps Christ is saying: overwhelmed with ‘sorrow’ (verse 6), you are missing the main point: the coming of the Spirit. By leaving them, Christ is able to send the Spirit, the Comforter, ‘the Advocate’ (verse 7).

One thing the Spirit will do is show ‘the world’ (verse 8) that they are wrong on three counts:

• their idea of sin is incorrect (verse 9)
• the righteous were wrong about Christ Jesus: he is God’s agent (verse 10)
• he has defeated sin (verse 11)

This part of the ‘Farewell Discourse’ continues in our reading tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, this morning, considering today’s tense global political atmosphere, which has become so violent and filled with hatred, I wonder whether it is appropriate to take comfort in today’s reading, where Christ promises that the, Comforter, the Advocate, ‘will prove the world wrong … about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned’ (verses 7-11). Is it appropriate to ask who thinks he is the ‘ruler of the world’?

Last year, at the beginning of Pope Leo XIV’s new papacy, Robert Mickens, an experienced Vatican commentator, wrote an interesting analysis of the new Pope and the Trump administration. Looking back on his commentary a year later, it is surprising how insightful and apposite his analysis provided to be.

At the time (23 May 2025), Robert Mickens said in his ‘Letter from Rome’ that it was ‘encouraging that at a time when Planet Earth is on the brink of destruction, our new pope has chosen peace and unity in the world and within the Church as one of the fundamental goals of his pontificate.’

He said then that Pope Leo ‘has positioned himself to be a force for unity at a critical moment. This starkly contrasts with the cynical and self-serving agenda of Donald Trump, the recently re-elected US president, who has emerged as a significant source of division and hatred on the world stage.’

Robert Mickens wrote, ‘As Trump continues to crassly revel in being a conduit for evil, Leo has expressed a desire to channel goodness, compassion, forgiveness, and love. These are all Christian virtues that Trump and his Catholic vice president, JD Vance, persist in mockingly dismiss as weakness, without any apparent sense of shame.’

That persistent mocking and misrepresentation has not only persistent in the past year, but has intensified since the war against Iran began in February. But we must live with Easter hope. The Collect today gives thanks that ‘God our redeemer’ has ‘delivered us from the power of darkness.’

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

‘When he comes, he will prove the world wrong … because the ruler of this world has been condemned’ (see John 16: 8-11) … folded doves made by the children in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Starford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 12 May 2026):

The Feast of the Ascension is on Thursday (14 May 2026). The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 12 May 2026) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, bless Sandra and Mothers’ Union leaders across Guadalcanal, Temotu, and the wider Solomon Islands. Grant perseverance to champion change in families and communities..

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us
to eternal joy;
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 our Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life:
may we thirst for you,
the spring of life and source of goodness,
through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:
help your Church to obey your command
and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” (John 15: 5) … road signs at Calverton, near 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

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 36, Sunday 10 May 2026, the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI)

‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them’ (John 14: 23) … family homes in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (4 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This is the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026).

Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, and to read one of the lessons. 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.

‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’ (John 14: 27) … a banner in Stony Stratford Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 14: 23-29 (NRSVA):

23 Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.’

‘The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you’ (John 14: 26) … lighting candles at Eastertime in the Cathedral in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary today (John 14: 23-29) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper in Saint John’s Gospel.

Christ continues to prepare his followers for his departure. Judas, son of James, who is one of the Twelve in Saint Luke’s list of disciples, has asked Jesus how he will reveal himself to them but not to the world (verse 22).

Christ answers, but not directly. In the era to come, when the Father and Son come, separation between God and those who love him will no longer exist (verse 23). Loving Christ implies obeying him. The message Christ brings is ‘from the Father,’ who has sent Christ (verse 24).

Christ’s words will be complemented by the actions of the Holy Spirit (verse 26), who will be the Advocate, or helper and counsellor, to believers. He will cause the disciples to remember what Christ has said, and help them to understand the true significance of Christ’s words and deeds.

Christ gives his followers peace (verse 27), but how is this gift of peace a challenge to the world today?

Pope Leo XIV said recently (16 April 2026): ‘Jesus told us: Blessed are the peacemakers! But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth … We must make a decisive change of course — a true conversion — that will lead us in the opposite direction, onto a sustainable path rich in human fraternity. The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters!’

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams, spoke out directly about the existence of evil in the world. He was pushed by Freddie Sayers in an interview on UnHerd about what he meant by calling American political culture ‘demonic’.

Rowan Williams had given as an example Pete Hegseth invoking the will of God in the US military campaign against Iran. Sayers asked him whether using the word ‘demonic’, rather than ‘misguided’, ‘not very intelligent’ or ‘making a grave mistake’ was making the former archbishop guilty of demonising his political opponents or suggesting that he is animated by a malign spirit.

‘Animated by a malign spirit,’ Lord Williams confirmed, ‘which is not necessarily Pete Hegseth. I’m rather old fashioned in believing in the Devil. I actually do believe there are malign forces in the universe and that people who may not consciously have malign or diabolical designs can be manipulated and destroyed by those destructive forces.’

Does he believe then, Sayers asked, that the Devil is at work in the Trump administration?

‘The Devil is at work in you and me. The Devil is at work in every institution. Sometimes it comes to the fore more clearly. And at the moment, I worry that something is being normalised, licensed and allowed into the room which ought to be regarded (to put it with Anglican politeness) with considerable suspicion.’

In his Viewpoint column in the Church Times (1 May 2026), Andrew Brown commented: ‘If an archbishop can’t speak intelligently about how evil works in the world, who can? It’s not as if the subject is going to go away.’

As the Collect prays today:

God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us
to eternal joy;
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.

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

‘If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father’ (John 14: 28) … Christ the Pantocrator in the dome in the Church of the Four Martyrs, Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 10 May 2026, Easter VI):

The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania:

Introduced to the Anglican Church of Melanesia in 2011 and supported by USPG, the Positive Parenting programme equips communities across the Solomon Islands with skills in relationship-building, communication, and positive discipline. It addresses domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse, and broken families - issues affecting over two-thirds of women and girls in the Pacific.

Recently, a training course at Good Shepherd, North Guadalcanal, brought together facilitators from local parishes in Temotu to explore family cycles, behaviour change, child development, and protection. Through participatory exercises such as the Trust Walk, participants experienced firsthand the importance of trust and mutual support between parents and children.

For Sandra Rollands, the goal is clear: to build safer, stronger, and more nurturing families by equipping local leaders to support parents in their communities. Rooted in the Church’s mission of demonstrating God’s love in action, the Positive Parenting Programme is both practical and deeply spiritual. With 54 trained facilitators ready to take these lessons back to their parishes, Sandra hopes the seeds sown will grow into resilient families, thriving communities, and, as she says, ‘Happy families form a happy community and consequently, a happy nation.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 10 May 2026, Easter VI, International Mother’s Day) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, we give thanks for mothers and maternal figures everywhere. Bless each one with wisdom, patience, and love as they nurture children and strengthen family units.

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us
to eternal joy;
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 our Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life:
may we thirst for you,
the spring of life and source of goodness,
through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:
help your Church to obey your command
and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘God our redeemer, you have delivered us from the power of darkness’ (the Collect) … sunset in Rethymnon (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