Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 23, Thursday 12 March 2026

‘If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?’ (Luke 11: 18) … a gargoyle at Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We have reached the half-way point in Lent, which began three weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026). This week began with the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III, 8 March 2026).

I am staying at the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk. I am speaking later today at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage to Walsingham which began on Tuesday (10 March) and continues until tomorrow (13 March).

This ecumenical pilgrimage has been organised with the support of the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius and the Society of Saint John Chrysostom and is in its 100th year. I have been invited to speak today on ‘A Priest along the Way of a Pilgrim’.

Today’s programme begins with an Anglican celebration of the Eucharist in the Shrine Church or Catholic Mass (Ordinariate Use) with the Little Sisters of Jesus, and Scripture Meditations led by the Revd Samuel Harris of the Church of Scotland in the Shrine Church, and the morning includes a talk by Father Michael Lambros of Saint Mary and Saint George Coptic Orthodox Church, East London; and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts served by Father Stephen Platt of the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. The afternoon programme includes sprinkling at the Holy Well in the Shrine Church and my talk, ‘A Priest along the Way of a Pilgrim’. In the evening, Monsignor Keith Newton is in Conversation with Father Mark Woodruff.

Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, 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 Temptation of Job in the Purgatory Window by Richard King of the Harry Clarke Studios in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 14-23 (NRSVA):

14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute; when the demon had gone out, the one who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed. 15 But some of them said, ‘He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.’ 16 Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? – for you say that I cast out the demons by Beelzebul. 19 Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. 22 But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armour in which he trusted and divides his plunder. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.’

Giovanni da Modena’s fresco of the Last Judgment in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna was inspired by Dante’s descriptions of the Devil and Hell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 11: 14-23) is laden with images of demons, Beelzebul, Satan, more demons, exorcists and still more demons. And we read of a kingdom divided against itself that becomes a desert, houses falling on houses, castles being plundered, and strong men abusing their strength.

What is your image of the Devil?

For many people today, he is old hat and the stuff of superstition. For others he is a figure of fun: the gargoyles gushing out rainwater from gutters on cathedrals and churches; the logo for Manchester United; or the impish black-and-red costumes of children at Hallowe’en or some adults at Carnival in Continental European cities in the days before Lent.

Many of our cultural images of the Devil come not from the Bible but from Dante’s Inferno, which influenced John Milton’s Paradise Lost, other poets, including TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, as well as frescoes, paintings, and stained-glass windows throughout the world.

But the Devil appears in many forms throughout the Bible.

The word satan in its original original Hebrew term sâtan (שָּׂטָן‎) means an ‘accuser’ or ‘adversary,’ and refers to both human adversaries and a supernatural entity. The word is derived from a verb meaning primarily to obstruct or to oppose. When it is used without the definite article (satan), the word can refer to any accuser; when it is used with the definite article (ha-satan), it refers specifically to the heavenly accuser: the Satan.

Ha-Satan with the definite article occurs 13 times in two books of the Hebrew Bible: Job 1 and 2 (10 times) and Zechariah 3: 1-2 (three times); satan without the definite article is used in 10 instances.

These occurrences without a definite article include the Angel of the Lord who confronts Balaam on his donkey (Numbers 22: 22); and the Angel of the Lord who brings a plague against Israel for three days after David takes a census (II Samuel 24).

The satan who appears in the Book of Job is one of the ‘sons of God’ (Job 1: 6-8) who has been roaming around the earth and who tortures Job physically, mentally and spiritually, to see whether Job will abandon his faith. But Job remains faithful and righteous, and satan is shamed in his defeat.

The English word devil, used as a synonym for Satan, can be traced through Middle English, Old English and Latin to the Greek διάβολος (diabolos), ‘slanderer,’ from a verb (diaballein) meaning to slander, but originally meaning ‘to hurl across’ or ‘to back bite.’ In the New Testament, the words Satan and diabolos are used interchangeably.

Another name in today’s Gospel reading, Beelzebub, means ‘Lord of Flies,’ and is also a contemptuous name for a Philistine god and a pun on his name meaning ‘Baal the Prince.’ Some critics in today’s reading accuse Jesus of exorcising demons through the power of Beelzebub.

Satan plays a role in some of the Gospel parables, including the Parables of the Sower, the Weeds, the Sheep and the Goats, and the Strong Man.

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, Judas betrays Christ because ‘Satan entered into’ him (see Luke 22: 3-6; cf John 12: 13: 2) and Christ implies Satan has authority to test Peter and the other apostles (see Luke 22: 31).

In Saint John’s Gospel, Satan is identified as ‘the Archon of the Cosmos’ (ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου), who is to be overthrown through Christ’s death and resurrection (John 12: 31-32).

The Letter to the Hebrews describes the devil as ‘the one who has the power of death’ (Hebrews 2: 14).

In the Book of Revelation, Satan is first the supernatural ruler of the Empire. In that book, we also come across Abaddon, whose name in Greek is Apollyon, meaning ‘the destroyer,’ an angel who rules the Abyss (Revelation 9: 11).

The vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, 10 horns, seven crowns, and a sweeping tail (Revelation 12: 3-4) is an image inspired by the apocalyptic visions in the Book of Daniel. A war then breaks out in heaven, and Michael and his angels defeat the Dragon who is thrown down. This dragon is identified with ‘that ancient serpent, who is called Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12: 9) and the accuser.

This identifies him with all the images of satan in the Hebrew Bible, from the serpent in Eden, to Job’s tempters. Later, the chained and imprisoned Satan breaks loose from his chains in the abyss and wages war against the righteous. But he is defeated and cast into a lake of fire (see Revelation 20: 1-10).

The three synoptic Gospels describe the temptation of Christ by Satan in the wilderness (see Matthew 4: 1-11, Mark 1: 12-13, and Luke 4: 1-13), and, each time, Christ rebukes Satan.

Too often we reduce temptation to small things in life. The one real temptation facing Jeff Difford, the slick pastor in the television series Young Sheldon, is greed in the form of wanting a new combined toaster and microwave oven. He resists that temptation for a day or so, and when he gives in, he asks for forgiveness.

But this is a fatuous and fraudulent presentation of temptation. True temptation can come in small ways, but it can also come in dramatic ways, leading to the abuse of privilege, position and power, in the church, in business, in politics.

There is real evil in the world. It is 81 years since the end of the Holocaust and World War II. Yet racism is rampant, open Islamophobia and antisemitism are on the rise, with the US attacks on Iran, the world is close to war yet again, peace seems impossible in the Middle East, and the rule of law is being undermined in the US, moment by the moment.

As I watch the daily rantings of the kleptocracy that has taken grip of the institutions of democracy and justice in the US, I cannot but help find parallels in the parable contained within today’s Gospel reading: ‘When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armour in which he trusted and divides his plunder. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters’ (verses 21-23).

Yet there is hope too: demons are cast out, those who were once silent finally find the power to speak out, the strong and the mighty are exposed as plunderers and despoilers, kingdoms find they are divided against themselves and become desert, and houses fall on house.

And when these things happen, as they shall happen, we must hope for signs that the kingdom of God is to come among us.

Saint Michael and the Devil … a statue by Jacob Epstein at Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 12 March 2026):

The theme this week (8-14 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Biblical Sisterhood’ (pp 36-37). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Dr Sanjana Das, PhD feminist theologian, advocate for the dignity and rights of trafficked and migrant working women.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 12 March 2026) invites us to pray:

God of courage and compassion, awaken in us the honesty to examine our own actions. Forgive the times we have looked away or acted without thought. Help us to shop, eat and live in ways that honour the labour of others, and uphold dignity and justice for all.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
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:

Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘When the demon had gone out, the one who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed …’ (Luke 11: 14) … a sculpture in the Llotja de la Seda or Silk Exchange in Valencia (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 Lent 2026: 5, Sunday 22 February 2026, First Sunday in Lent

‘The devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple …’ (Matthew 4: 5) … a gargoyle at Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began this week with Ash Wednesday, and today is the First Sunday in Lent (Lent I, 22 February 2026). After our marathon journey that began in Heathrow on Ash Wednesday (18 February) and that included stopovers and connections in Muscat and Kuala Lumpur, we have settled into our flat in Kuching and I hope attend the Cathedral Eucharist in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, later this morning (8:30). In all, Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, which is a five-minutes walk from our flat, has six regular Sunday services: Holy Communion in English, 6:30 am; Sung Eucharistic in English, 8:30 am; Bahasa Malaysia Service with Holy Communion (McDougall Hall, Level 3, Parish Centre), 10:30 am; Mandarin Service with Holy Communion, 10:30 am; Iban Service with Holy Communion, 2 pm; Evensong with Holy Communion in English, 5:30 pm.

Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Temptation of Job in the Purgatory Window by Richard King of the Harry Clarke Studios in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 4: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ 4 But he answered, ‘It is written,

“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”.’

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you,”
and “On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone”.’

7 Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”.’

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; 9 and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ 10 Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him”.’

11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Giovanni da Modena’s fresco of the Last Judgment in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna was inspired by Dante’s descriptions of the Devil and Hell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We are going to meet some interesting, unusual characters in the Gospel readings on the Sundays in Lent this year.

They include:

1, The Devil, who appears as the serpent (Genesis 2: 15-17, 3: 1-7) and the Tempter (Matthew 4: 1-11) in this morning’s readings (Lent I: 22 February 2026)

2, Nicodemus, who comes to meet Jesus in the night (John 3: 1-17) next week (Lent II: 1 March 2026)

3, The unnamed Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 5-42) two weeks from now (Lent III: 8 March 2026)

4, The women at the Cross (John 19: 25b-27) on Mothering Sunday (Lent IV: 15 March 2026)

5, Lazarus who is raised from the dead (John 11: 1-45, Lent V: 26 March 2020)

All these characters, as we meet them along the journey through Lent, prepare us for meeting Christ when he arrives in Jerusalem and we come face-to-face with him at his Passion, Death and Resurrection.

What is your image of the Devil?

For many people today, he is old hat and the stuff of superstition. For other people he is a figure of fun: the gargoyles gushing out rainwater from gutters on cathedrals and churches; the logo for Manchester United; or the impish black-and-red costumes of children at Hallowe’en or some adults at Carnival in Continental European cities in the days before Lent.

Many of our cultural images of the Devil come not from the Bible but from Dante’s Inferno, which influenced John Milton’s Paradise Lost, other poets, including TS Eliot in his The Waste Land, as well as frescoes, paintings and stained-glass windows across the world.

But the Devil appears in many forms throughout the Bible.

The word satan does not occur in today’s reading from Genesis. Instead, the tempter is a talking serpent.

The original Hebrew term sâtan (שָּׂטָן‎) means an ‘accuser’ or ‘adversary,’ and refers to both human adversaries and a supernatural entity. The word is derived from a verb meaning primarily to obstruct or to oppose. When it is used without the definite article (satan), the word can refer to any accuser; when it is used with the definite article (ha-satan), it refers specifically to the heavenly accuser: the Satan.

Ha-Satan with the definite article occurs 13 times in two books of the Hebrew Bible: Job 1 and 2 (10 times) and Zechariah 3: 1-2 (three times); satan without the definite article is used in 10 instances.

These occurrences without a definite article include the Angel of the Lord who confronts Balaam on his donkey (Numbers 22: 22); and the Angel of the Lord who brings a plague against Israel for three days after David takes a census (II Samuel 24).

The satan who appears in the Book of Job is one of the ‘sons of God’ (Job 1: 6-8) who has been roaming around the earth and who tortures Job physically, mentally and spiritually, to see whether Job will abandon his faith. But Job remains faithful and righteous, and satan is shamed in his defeat.

The English word devil, used as a synonym for Satan, can be traced through Middle English, Old English and Latin to the Greek διάβολος (diabolos), ‘slanderer,’ from a verb (diaballein) meaning to slander, but originally meaning ‘to hurl across’ or ‘to back bite.’ In the New Testament, the words Satan and diabolos are used interchangeably.

Another name, Beelzebub, means ‘Lord of Flies,’ and is also a contemptuous name for a Philistine god and a pun on his name meaning ‘Baal the Prince.’ Some Pharisees accuse Jesus of exorcising demons through the power of Beelzebub.

Satan plays a role in some of the parables, including the Parables of the Sower, the Weeds, the Sheep and the Goats, and the Strong Man.

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, Judas betrays Christ because ‘Satan entered into’ him (see Luke 22: 3-6; cf John 12: 13: 2) and Christ implies Satan has authority to test Peter and the other apostles (see Luke 22: 31).

In Saint John’s Gospel, Satan is identified as ‘the Archon of the Cosmos’ (ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου) who is to be overthrown through Christ’s death and resurrection (John 12: 31-32).

The Letter to the Hebrews describes the devil as ‘the one who has the power of death’ (Hebrews 2: 14).

In the Book of Revelation, Satan is first the supernatural ruler of the Empire. In that book, we also come across Abaddon, whose name in Greek is Apollyon, meaning ‘the destroyer,’ an angel who rules the Abyss (Revelation 9: 11).

The vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, 10 horns, seven crowns, and a sweeping tail (Revelation 12: 3-4) is an image inspired by the apocalyptic visions in the Book of Daniel. A war then breaks out in heaven, and Michael and his angels defeat the Dragon who is thrown down. This dragon is identified with ‘that ancient serpent, who is called Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12: 9) and the accuser.

This identifies him with all the images of satan in the Hebrew Bible, from the serpent in Eden, to Job’s tempters.

Later, the chained and imprisoned Satan breaks loose from his chains in the abyss and wages war against the righteous. But he is defeated and cast into a lake of fire (see Revelation 20: 1-10).

Today’s Gospel reading is one of the three accounts in the synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 4: 1-11, Mark 1: 12-13, Luke 4: 1-13) describing the temptation of Christ by Satan in the wilderness.

Satan first shows Jesus a stone and tells him to turn it into bread. He then takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and tells him to throw himself down so that the angels will catch him. Then he takes Jesus to the top of a tall mountain, shows him the kingdoms of the earth and promises to give them all to him if he will bow down and worship him.

In each of these temptations, Christ is tempted to the right thing for the wrong reasons.

What would be wrong with Christ turning stones into bread if that is going to feed the hungry?

What would be wrong with Christ showing his miraculous powers, if this is going to point to the majesty of God?

What would be wrong with Christ taking command of the kingdoms of this world, if this provides the opportunity to bring in justice, mercy and peace?

These are real temptations. Christ is truly human and truly divine, and for those who are morally driven there is always a real temptation to do the right thing … but to do it for the wrong reason.

Each time, Christ rebukes Satan, and after the third temptation he is ministered to by the angels.

Too often we reduce temptation to small things in life. The one real temptation facing Jeff Difford, the slick pastor in the television series Young Sheldon, was greed in the form of wanting a new combined toaster and microwave oven. He resisted that temptation for a day or so, and when he gives in, he asks for forgiveness.

But this is a fatuous and fraudulent presentation of temptation. True temptation can come in small ways, but it can also come in dramatic ways, in the temptation to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and in the temptation to do nothing.

There is real evil in the world, when we consider the death camps such as Auschwitz and the mass genocide of the Holocaust. Yet the far-right is on the rise not only in Britain but across Europe, with the active support of many insiders in the White House and of Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world.

Some years ago, during carnival – a time of fun before entering Lent – at a carnival parade in Campo de Criptana, about 120 km south-east of Madrid, participants dressed like Nazis and Jewish concentration camp prisoners while dancing next to a float evoking crematoria. In Aalst in Belgium that same year, some people in the carnival parade dressed like haredim or pious Orthodox Jews but depicting them as ants, others wore fake hooked noses based on Jewish stereotypes, and still others dressed in black uniforms and red armbands imitating Nazi uniforms.

Almost three generations after the Holocaust, there are people who still think real evil in the world is an appropriate theme for carnival floats. How does this prepare us for Lent and the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ?

I was reminded of the temptation to be silent in the face of evil when I visited the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, and the cell of the Revd Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), a prominent German Lutheran pastor and an outspoken opponent of Hitler, was held in isolation.

On the wall of this cell are his words:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

This Lent, I invite you to join me on the journey, on the pilgrimage that leads to Good Friday, and that leads, of course, to the joys of Easter Day.

Saint Michael and the Devil … a statue by Jacob Epstein at Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 22 February 2026, Lent I):

The theme this week (22-28 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Behold, I make all things new!’ (pp 30-31). This theme is introduced today with Reflections by the Right Revd Jorge Pina Cabral Jorge, Diocesan Bishop of the Lusitanian Church (Portugal):

‘The prophetic vision of Saint John, “Behold, I make all things new! ” (Revelation 21: 5), will be the motto and challenge of an impulse for renewal and sustainable growth, for a more consequential Anglican and Christian witness on the Iberian Peninsula, with a desired openness and cooperation with other Anglican jurisdictions in Europe.

‘The two Iberian national churches -- the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church (IERE) and the Lusitanian Church, Portugal (ILCAE) – are involved in a proposal for a new Anglican Province as a result of nearly 150 years of shared history. Together, the IERE and ILCAE serve communities across the main regions and cities, with ministries that support youth and women, provide social action, communication, and theological training, and build ecumenical and interfaith relationships.

‘In Portugal, specialised ministries include the Diaconia Secretariat dedicated to social intervention, particularly with immigrants. Also focused on social work, the Church’s two solidarity institutions (AETP in Gaia and the Sagrada Família Social Centre in Queluz) provide services to children and the elderly and support people in situations of economic vulnerability, providing meals, laundry, home help, etc.

‘Among the most important institutions and ministries in Spain are the Atilano Coco University Residence in Salamanca; the Anglican Pilgrim House in Santiago de Compostela; the religious bookshop that the Church runs in Malaga (Proyecto Logos) and the important Radio Anglicana ministry with over one million registered listeners.

‘The proposed vision is to move forward in unity and complete the process by 2030, the year in which these Iberian churches will celebrate the 150th anniversary of their founding synods.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 22 February 2026, Lent I) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 4: 1-11.

‘Then the devil left him …’ (Matthew 4: 11) … a sculpture in the Llotja de la Seda or Silk Exchange in Valencia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
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:

Lord God,
you have renewed us with the living bread from heaven;
by it you nourish our faith,
increase our hope,
and strengthen our love:
teach us always to hunger for him who is the true and living bread,
and enable us to live by every word
that proceeds from out of your mouth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Heavenly Father,
your Son battled with the powers of darkness,
and grew closer to you in the desert:
help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer
that we may witness to your saving love
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Testerday’s Reflecgtions

Continued Tomorrow

‘ … and suddenly angels came and waited on him’ (Matthew 4: 11) … two angels by Eric Gill support a bishop’s coat-of-arms in Jesus College, Cambridge (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 Christmas 2025-2026: 4, Sunday 28 December 2025, First Sunday of Christmas (Christmas I)

The Presentation in the Temple and the Flight into Egypt … scenes from Christ’s childhood years in windows designed by Father Vincent Chin in Saint Peter’s Church, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me … ‘Four Calling Birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree’.

This is the fourth day of Christmas and today in the church calendar is the First Sunday of Christmas (Christmas I, (28 December 2025), and later this morning I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

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, 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 Flight into Egypt … a stained glass window by the Harry Clarke Studios in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 2: 13–23 (NRSVA):

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’

‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879), by Luc-Olivier Merson

This Sunday can be something of an anti-climax for many people, after all that has happened on Christmas Day and the day after, Saint Stephen’s Day.

The ‘four calling birds’ on the fourth day of Christmas are said to represent the four Gospel writers. But Saint Matthew is alone among the Gospel writers in recounting the flight into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-23). We hear this morning how Saint Joseph learns after the visit of the Magi that King Herod the Great is plotting to murder the infants in his kingdom.

Herod the Great fears the new-born ‘King of the Jews’ that the Magi speak about is going to be a threat to his throne, and so he sets out to kill all innocent children under the age of two.

The wise men from the East (verse 1) came to Herod the Great asking ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’ (verse 2). Now They have visited the child with Mary (verse 11), paid him homage, and offered him gifts. They have now returned to their own country (verse 12).

In yet another dream, an angel warns Saint Joseph of the plot, and so he takes the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with him, and the family flee to Egypt (verse 13).

Egypt was to the west or south-west of Bethlehem a logical place to seek refuge: it was outside Herod’s kingdom, but both Egypt and Palestine were part of the Roman Empire, linked by a coastal road known as ‘the way of the sea.’ After a time, the Holy Family returns from exile in Egypt and settles in Galilee.

In this account, Matthew 2: 15 cites Hosea (11: 1) as prophetically fulfilled in their return from Egypt: ‘… and out of Egypt I called my son.’

We have yet to read about the Circumcision and Naming of Christ (1 January) and the Epiphany (6 January), so this Gospel reading, with its story of Saint Joseph’s dream and the Flight into Egypt, may seem out of sequence.

This story can be read as a comparison with either Moses leading the people out of exile in Egypt or with the forced exile for many generations in Babylon. In either case, Christ is seen, from the beginning of his life, as leading people out of exile and slavery.

The story is often read as the final episode in the Nativity narrative, and is associated with this season of Epiphany. Perhaps this reading, with its events and its geographical setting, may present many parishes with an interesting opportunity to consider the plight of refugees, particularly in North Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Or, perhaps, given the present political climate in the US, Russia and many other countries, the story could provide an interesting opening to discuss the policies and whims of capricious, demanding and despotic rulers.

Herod has all the infants in the area around Bethlehem area killed because he fears that Jesus may succeed to his throne, rather than one of his own sons (verse 16). The Gospel then recalls the Prophet Jeremiah (verse 18) and how Rachel weeps over the exile of her sons, and then (verse 20).

In Joseph’s next dream, the angel’s message recalls God’s words to Moses as he sends him to lead Israel out of bondage. In this way, Christ is presented as the new leader of God’s people.

Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas, ruled Galilee benignly, compared to how his brother Herod Archelaus ruled in Judea. Some commentators suggest Joseph may also have chosen to make his home in Nazareth (verse 23) because he could find work at Sepphoris, the city being rebuilt 6 km nearby.

The closing quotation is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Perhaps Saint Matthew is misquoting Isaiah, who says ‘a branch [nezer] shall grow’ out of Jesse’s ‘roots’ (see Isaiah 11: 1) – David was Jesse’s son.

The painting ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879) by Luc-Olivier Merson (1846–1920) is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is in Oil on Canvas and measures 71.8 cm x 128.3 cm. It was bought in Paris by George Golding Kennedy (1841-1918) of Boston, who bequeathed it to museum in 1918.

The scene Merson depicts is haunting and full of fatigue. An exhausted Saint Joseph is asleep, perhaps suffering from mental and physical exhaustion in his flight from danger with his wife and her baby, stretched out on the desert sands as he tries to doze off.

The Virgin Mary is resting in the arms of the Sphinx, cradling the Christ Child, both unable to sleep because of their plight, because of what they have witnessed.

The Christ Child seems to light up the whole scene but is beginning his life in exile, in homelessness, a refugee, an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land.

The donkey – that little donkey who becomes a domestic pet in children’s carols – is worn out from the journey from Bethlehem, and scavenges in the dark in the desert soil, seeking what few blades of grass he can find to eat.

By the time the 12 days of Christmas have passed, most of us will be tired of the seven swans a-swimming, the six geese a-laying … and only too happy to get back to work, and to begin looking at summer holiday brochures.

However, this is not what it is like for the Holy Family in the days after their first Christmas. That first Christmas was not one filled with tedium and boredom. Their first Christmas was the very opposite to our comfortable holiday season in Northern Europe.

This painting by Merson reminds us of the stark reality of the hardship and deprivation suffered by a family on the run. Who among us would swap the tedium and boredom of the coming week for that time Mary and Joseph had with the Christ Child?

Harried by Herod’s hunters, they barely escaped a maniacal plot for mass murder, and ended up in exile where their ancestors had once been slaves, seeking succour and refuge with the Jewish diaspora by the Nile and the Pyramids.

The Flight into Egypt was no bargain package holiday. Rather, it was an ordeal that inspired artists throughout the centuries. It has been painted by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Carpaccio, Durer, Claude Lorrain, Tintoretto, Barbieri, Tiepolo … the great Dutch and Italian masters, indeed most of the great Western artists.

Saint Matthew’s unique account of this event in this reading had many resonances for his first readers: it is a powerful restructuring of the story of Joseph forced into exile in Egypt because of the evil plots hatched against him. And the exodus from Egypt in later, safer, days, would point anew towards redemption from slavery and sin and offer the hope of imminent salvation.

Later legends surrounding the Flight into Egypt include the family hiding in a cave and being protected by a spider’s web, the beasts of the desert bowing in homage to the Christ Child, an encounter with two thieves who would be crucified beside Christ on the Cross on Calvary, and palm trees bending in reverence as Mary and Joseph passed by with the Child Jesus.

Legend says that when they found shelter on the banks of Nile, the Holy Family lived in an area known as Babylon in Egypt, where there was a long, continuous Jewish presence. Although those stories of flight and exile are unique to Saint Matthew’s Gospel, they also appear in the Quran, and are part of the way Muslims come to own the story of Jesus within their own religious traditions.

On various visits to Egypt, I was aware that the stories of the flight into Egypt, the refuge, the welcome and the asylum offered to the Holy Family there, are stories shared and definitive for all Egyptians, including Muslims, the large Christian community, and the dwindling but ancient Jewish community.

Many shrines and churches are claimed as places where the family rested or dwelt, none more so than Abu Sergha or the Church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, one of the oldest Coptic Churches in Egypt, and the place where many Patriarchs of Alexandria or Coptic Popes were elected.

Every Egyptian today – Jew, Christian and Muslim – identifies with both the Holy Family and those who offered them asylum. But who would we here identify with if you and I were hearing this story of mass murder and enforced exile for the first time?

Would I have been among the innkeepers who first refused them a welcome at my inn or hostel in Bethlehem?

Would I have been willing to work with the political apparatus around the Herod of my day, holding onto power and privilege, inspiring fear rather than respect and loyalty, no matter who had to be trampled on, no matter who suffered, no matter how the innocent would be counted among the victims?

Would I have had the courage of the wandering Magi, not only to seek truth, even if it is outside my own area of learning and knowledge, but also willing to take the risks involved in refusing to respect the immoral demands of those holding the reins of power when they are lawful but patently immoral?

When was I last like Joseph, realising that God’s promptings are not idle dreams but that they demand discipleship and action, even if this puts my personal security at risk?

When did I listen to the voice of today’s Rachels, the weeping mothers and widows, whether at a local level it was listening to the grief of someone who has lost a dear family member at Christmas time, or at a global level it was listening to those who are weeping in grief in Ukraine and Russia, in Gaza, Israel and Palestine, in Afghanistan or Sudan, or facing hostility from local communities asked to host asylum seekers and refugees in hotels and shelters?

The story of Herod’s jealous plot and of a family fleeing in search of refuge continues to have radical relevance today.

We cannot be open to the plight of the fleeing Holy Family unless we are open to the plight and needs of the families who have come to live among us today – whatever their political, social or ethnic backgrounds may be.

We cannot understand the plight of families who saw the hope of future generations sacrificed in the interest of political greed unless we too are willing to stand against political and personal greed today.

We cannot praise the disobedience of the Magi unless we are willing to say regularly that morality in politics must overrule the personal interests, gain and profit of those who hold office.

We cannot rejoice in the welcome the Egyptians gave to Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus unless we too are willing to rejoice in every initiative, every stage in the process of dialogue that brings Jews, Christians and Muslims together in our own country.

We cannot pity the plight of that family in exile unless we can acknowledge the needs of the new families living among us today.

Christmas is the story of the true insider who becomes a real outsider in order that we who in our reality are outsiders may truly become insiders.

Today’s Gospel story is an unsettling story. Perhaps it’s a story that reminds us how we can make Christmas too easy, too comfortable.

This is not a ‘family-friendly’ story, if you think of what happens to the Holy Family, to Joseph, Mary and Jesus. The Christmas story is not complete without tyrannical rulers, mass murder, refugees and families fleeing injustice.

Perhaps the Christmas story is a reminder to us that everywhere today we find oppressive rulers, the denial of human rights, child abuse, and the creation of mass numbers of refugees there is something very wrong, there is a denial of the Kingdom of God that Christ has come into the world to announce, that the state of our world today is a clear denial of the message of Christmas, of what Christmas is all about.

That’s the dark and bitter side of Christmas.

The Flight into Egypt … a stained glass window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 December 2025, Christmas I):

The theme this week (28 December 2025 to 3 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Mother and Child’ (pp 14-15). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG, who writes:

‘As we celebrate the coming of Christ, I think of the mothers I met in Tanzania and the hope I saw in their eyes. None more so than Alice, a young mother I met at Mvumi Hospital.

‘Alice and her husband both live with HIV. After losing a child and suffering several miscarriages, she feared she would never hold a healthy baby again. Through the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission programme, she received treatment, counselling, and care throughout her pregnancy.

‘When I met her, she was sitting quietly on her hospital bed, holding her one-year-old son. They had come in for a regular check-up. With deep emotion, she said, “I never thought I would see my child so healthy and strong. This hospital has given us hope and a reason to keep going.”

‘In the waiting rooms, other mothers, including many who were expecting, waited for check-ups, chatting softly and comforting one another. It was lovely to witness. I remember thinking that this is what partnership truly looks like; a church and hospital working hand in hand, creating a community and space for mothers to bring healthy children into the world.

‘It is a powerful reminder that the story of new life we celebrate at Christmas is still unfolding every day at Mvumi Hospital.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 28 December 2025, Christmas I) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 2: 13-23.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son shared at Nazareth the life of an earthly home:
help your Church to live as one family,
united in love and obedience,
and bring us all at last to our home in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God in Trinity,
eternal unity of perfect love:
gather the nations to be one family,
and draw us into your holy life
through the birth of Emmanuel,
our Lord Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Flight into Egypt in Harry Clarke’s ‘Presentation Window’ in Saint Flannan’s Church, Killaloe, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Advent 2025: 18, Wednesday 17 December 2025

The west window in All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London, by Alexander Gibbs … inspired by the 14th-century Jesse Tree window in Wells Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are two-thirds of the way through the Season of Advent, and Christmas Eve is just a week away. This week began with the Third Sunday of Advent (Advent III, 14 December 2025), also known as Gaudete Sunday. Today, the Calendar of the Church of England remembers Eglantyne Jebb (1928), Social Reformer and Founder of Save the Children.

Later this evening, I hope to take part in the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, as we continue to prepare for the Advent carol services and for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

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, 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 account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah’ (Matthew 1: 1) … the Jesse Tree in a window by Clayton and Bell in the North Transept in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 1: 1-17 (NRSVA):

1 An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, 4 and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.

Mary’s ‘husband Joseph [was] a righteous man’ (Matthew 1: 8-19) … the betrothal of Joseph and Mary, depicted in a window by Harry Clarke in Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 1: 1-17), we begin a series of readings drawing on the early stages of the two nativity narratives found in Matthew 1: 1-24 and Luke 1: 5-79.

Today (17 December) marks the start of the week before the celebration of Christmas, the birth of Christ. The Gospels offer us two different genealogies for Jesus, in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (1: 1-17) and the Gospel according to Saint Luke (Luke 3: 23-38). Both genealogies are almost exclusively male listings, but they reflect different priorities distinguished by some interesting variation in Matthew’s genealogical approach.

While Saint Luke traces the line of ancestry back to Adam, emphasising the universalist nature of the incarnation, Saint Matthew traces the line back to Abraham, rooting Jesus in space and time, placing him in the context of Israel’s story.

He is not ashamed to name some of the more colourful men in this family tree, including Jacob, who lied and cheated his old blind father; Judah who slept with his own daughter-in-law, mistaking her for a cult prostitute; David the bandit-shepherd who becomes king; Rehoboam, who encouraged pagan cults and male cult prostitutes; Jehoram (or Joram), who married Ahab’s sister and followed the depraved lifestyle of his brother-in-law and his wife, Jezebel; Uzziah the leper; and Manasseh and Amon (Amos) who burned babies alive.

This is a colourful interpretation of the family history of Jesus as offered by Saint Matthew. But perhaps it is more interesting to note that, unlike Luke, Matthew includes five women among the ancestors of Jesus. The choice of these five women has particular significance in Saint Matthew’s genealogy; a reader knowing that Matthew was anxious to prove the royal ancestry and lineage of Jesus, might expect any women selected for special mention would be queens, or the daughters of important kings, mighty warriors, or great prophets. Instead, the writer selects five women who were on the margins of society. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary were not the sort of women one might want to boast about in some imaginary Biblical version of Burke’s Peerage or Burke’s Landed Gentry.

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary are the sort of ancestors often overlooked by ancestor-searchers. But they challenged the Jewish restrictions on marriage to Gentiles and challenged the very definition of Jewish-ness which depends on a mother's authentic Jewish identity. By those rabbinical definitions of Jewish-ness, which perhaps were beginning to develop at the time the Gospels were written, we could not regard Perez, Boaz, or Solomon, or for that matter David and the whole line of kings of Israel and Judah as authentic, ethnic Jews.

Christ is coming, and he turns everything upside, removing our prejudices, calling in the outsiders and welcoming those who are on the marginalised and who are the victims of our prejudices.

The Jesse Tree depicted in the West Window in Christ Church, Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 17 December 2024):

The theme this week (14 to 20 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Floating Church’ (pp 10-11). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Sister Veronica of the Community of the Sisters of the Church in Melanesia.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 17 December 2025) invites us to pray:

We pray for the Christian Care Centre in Honiara and the women and children who find refuge there. May they experience safety, healing, and hope, and may the Sisters be strengthened in compassion and wisdom.

The Collect:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

>Continued Tomorrow

‘We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts’ (Post-Communion Prayer) … preparing for the Eucharist in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 58, Sunday 6 July 2025, Third Sunday after Trinity (Trinity III)

‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you’ (Luke 10: 11) … collecting shoes for refugee children from Syria (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Third Sunday after Trinity (Trinity III, 6 July 2025). Later this morning, I am involved in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, leading the intercessions. Later in the afternoon, two of us hope to attend Choral Evensong in Southwark Cathedral.

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.

‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you’ (Luke 10: 11) … about to put my big foot in it, again, in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20 (NRSVA):

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”

16 ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’

17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ 18 He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

Sending out the 70 … the speed limit leaving Venice and crossing the Lagoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem, and a Samaritan village has refused to welcome his messengers in the previous Sunday’s reading where the provisions for Trinity II were used (Luke 9: 51-62).

But Christ has rebuked James and John for their response to this rejection, and in this reading he now sends out 70 disciples on a mission of healing and proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God. They are to go ahead of Christ, to the places he is about to travel through on his way to Jerusalem, preparing the way for Jesus’ own mission, and tells them how to respond to both acceptance and rejection.

They are sent out with the understanding that the ‘harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few’ (verse 2).

The 70 are sent out ‘like lambs into the midst of wolves’ (verse 3), defenceless before hostile people. But the image hold within it the promise that Christ is to usher in an era of peace and reconciliation, in which ‘the wolf and the lamb shall feed together’ (see Isaiah 65: 25).

The 70 are to head out immediately and without delay (‘carry no purse …,’ verse 4) and concentrate on the mission (‘greet no one …’). They are to bring peace with them, and when they meet a person of peace, God’s peace will be with that person (verse 6).

They should accept whatever hospitality and food they are offered, and to show by their action, healing people and sharing the promise of the kingdom of God.

Verses 12-15, which are omitted here, tell the Seventy how to handle hostile situations, and to leave rejection to God’s own judgment and God’s own time.

The 70 return, and if they had any misgivings when they were sent out, they now come back surprised and filled with joy. Christ has seen their victory over evil forces, and gives them authority ‘snakes and scorpions,’ then regarded culturally as sources of evil.

But if they have returned with joy, they are not to be joyful in the face of evil. Instead, they are to rejoice in the coming of the kingdom.

We might ask this morning, what is the symbolism of the Seventy?

Naaman is told to wash seven times, and Seventy disciples are sent on a mission into Gentile territory.

The number 70 is assigned to the families of Noah’s descendants (see Genesis 10: 1-32). In Jewish tradition, 70 is the number of nations of the world, and this is repeated in the Book of Jubilees (44: 34), although is not regarded as Biblical in almost every tradition. The Septuagint lists 72 names, and some translations of Saint Luke’s Gospel enumerates the 70 as 72. Do the 70 – or the 72 – represent a future mission to all nations?

In the wilderness, Moses was aided by 70 elders (see Exodus 24: 1, 9; Numbers 11: 16, 24-25).

The Septuagint or Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, takes its Latin name, abbreviated to LXX, the Roman numeral 70, from the Greek name for the translation, Ἡ τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα μετάφρασις (ton evdomekonta metaphrasis), ‘The Translation of the Seventy.’

The Letter of Aristeas in the Second Century BCE says the Septuagint was translated in Alexandria at the command of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 BCE) by 70 Jewish scholars (or, according to later tradition, 72 – six scholars from each of the Twelve Tribes) who independently produced identical translations.

Once again, we can see the confusion between the numbers 70 and 72. Is Saint Luke saying the 70 (or 72) represent the true words of God? That they represent the 12 Tribes of Israel, six each?

The Great Sanhedrin is described in rabbinic texts as the Court of 71, although no Old Testament text ever refers to such an institution. It was regarded as the supreme authority in matters religious and civil, including the appointment of kings, authorising offensive wars, punishing idolatry and teaching Torah.

Do Jesus and the 70 represent the new 71, the new Sanhedrin?

However, despite the Gospel references to the Sanhedrin, it is worth pointing out that there are very few rabbinic references that locate a Sanhedrin in the late Second Temple period, the time of Christ and Saint Paul.

Meanwhile, what were the difficulties and the evils the 70 were to face on the way? Where were they going?

We hear more about this in the following passage in this chapter, which is the reading next Sunday (Luke 10: 25-37). This is the story of a man who is attacked on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem, and who finds that the one person who comes to assistance is a Samaritan.

The very threats we may face may not be the ones who fear, and those who offer us comfort and support on the way may be those we least expect to offer it. But more about that next Sunday.

‘See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes’ (Luke 10: 19) … a Moroccan snake charmer in Tangier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 6 July 2025, Trinity III):

The theme this week (6 to 12 July) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Following in the Footsteps of Saint Thomas.’ This theme is introduced today with a programme update from the Revd Mark Woodrow, USPG Bishop’s Nominee for St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and Parish Priest and Rural Dean in Suffolk. He writes:

Read John 11:1-16

It might seem strange that at the end of this passage Thomas replies: ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him’. As someone whose call to ordained ministry was shaped by an extended period of living and working in India prior to ordination, I have been constantly struck by Saint Thomas’ willingness to join Jesus in returning to the dangers of Judea, to put his own life on the line and to follow Jesus even if it meant dying with him.

You may know that Saint Thomas died for his faith in Mylapore, near modern-day Chennai, India, in AD 72, around 40 years after the events in Judea. Tradition holds that he brought Christianity to India 30 years earlier.

For a number of years now, I have led small group trips across India. It has been a great privilege to share with many from the UK an insight into the Christian faith that was being lived out in India long before it arrived in the UK. This was (and in many ways, still is) a faith forced to exist as a minority within a pluralistic society. It is also a place where many Christians, particularly in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, worship in communities that can trace their own faith back through their ancestors to Saint Thomas himself.

It was to these communities I returned as part of my recent extended study leave or sabbatical. Through my conversations and observations with many Priests and lay ministers, I want to share with you some aspects of the ongoing ministry and community challenges and that I commend to you to join with me in prayer.

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 6 July 2025, Trinity III) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, we thank you for all your faithful servants in India's churches. Bless those who are willing to put aside self, to hear and respond to your call.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘… whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets …’ (Luke 10: 10) … exit onto the street is possible but no entrance is permitted at Preaching Lane in Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Lent 2025: 26, Sunday 30 March 2025, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Mothering Sunday

‘Mother and Child’ … a sculpture by Anna Raynoch in Auschwitz (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV) and Mothering Sunday or Mothers’ Day. Later this morning, I am reading one of the lessons at the Mothering Sunday Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford.

This Sunday is also known as Laetare Sunday. Traditionally, this has been a day of celebration within Lent, and the name Laetare Sunday comes from the incipit of the Introit for the Mass, Laetare Jerusalem, ‘Rejoice, O Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 66: 10).

This Sunday is also known as Rose Sunday because rose-coloured rather than violet vestments are worn in many churches on this day.

The clocks went forward an hour during the night, and I may have to catch up on that lost hour of sleep later today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The distress of refugee Syrian mothers and fathers seen by the artist Kaiti Hsu

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32 (NRSVA):

15 Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

3 So he told them this parable:

11b … ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” 22 But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

25 ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 31 Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found”.’

‘Woman, here is your son … Here is your mother’ (John 19: 26, 27) … a Pieta image in the Chapel in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

I grew up on a solid diet of English boys’ comics, graduating from the Beano and the Dandy in the 1950s to the Victor, the Valiant and the Hotspur in the early 1960s, and books and films set in places like Stalag Luft III, such as The Wooden Horse and The Great Escape.

There were limited storylines, and the characters never had any great depth to them.

In those decades immediately after World War II, Germans were caricatures rather characters, portrayed as Huns who had a limited vocabulary.

And I remember how they always referred to the Vaterland. Somehow, seeing your country as the Father-land made you harsh, unforgiving, demanding and violent. While those who saw their country as a mother, whether it was Britannia or Marianne, or perhaps even Hibernia, were supposed to be more caring, empathetic and ethical, endowed with justice and mercy.

These images somehow played on, pandered to, the images a previous generation had of the different roles of a father and a mother.

So, culturally it may come as a surprise, perhaps even a cultural challenge, to many this morning, that one of the other Gospel readings provided for Mothering Sunday this year is a Parable that tells us what it is to be a good father, the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Culturally we are predisposed to thinking of this parable as the story of the Prodigal Son. But this is not a story teaching us how to be wayward children. The emphasis is three-way: the wayward son, the unforgiving or begrudging son, and the loving Father.

The missing person in this story is the Mother of these two sons.

The people who first heard that parable – eager tax collectors and sinners, grumbling Pharisees and Scribes – may well have been mindful of the Biblical saying: ‘A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a mother’s grief’ (Proverbs 10:1).

Or inwardly they may have been critical of the father, recalling another saying in the Book of Proverbs: ‘Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray’ (Proverbs 22: 6).

We all know what bad parenting is like. I know myself. I know what it is to have two sets of parents, and four sets of grandparents, who came with different gifts and different deficiencies. But I am also aware of my own many failings as a parent too, and on this Mothering Sunday I hope that in time I am forgiven for the many times I have failed as a father.

In the story of the Prodigal Son, Christ rejects all the dysfunctional models of parenting we have inherited and received.

Those first listeners to this parable may well have had wayward sons and jealous sons, and the story, initially, would have been no surprise, would have been one they knew only too well.

But they no longer need to be challenged as adult children. The challenge they need is about their own parenting skills. And they may well have been distressed as they hear a story about a man who behaves not like a father would be expected to behave but like a mother.

Where was the mother of the Prodigal Son? Did she have a role in this family drama?

Had she been praying ever since her wayward son left home, asking God to keep him safe, to bring him home?

Perhaps it was her prayers that reached him in some way and reminded her son of home.

But the Father in the parable is also both Father and Mother to the Son.

He behaves just like a mother would in these circumstances.

He is constantly looking and waiting and watching for him until the day he sees him.

And when he sees him, instead of being the perfectly-behaved gentleman, he is filled up with emotions, he runs, he hugs, he kisses. He finds him clean clothes, he finds clean shoes, he feeds him. And like a good mother, he probably also tells him his room is made up, it has always been there for him.

The father of the Prodigal Son bucks all the images of parenting we have inherited: he is both mother and father to his children.

The sufferings and compassion of three images in recent years illustrate for me how loving parents can be reflections of divine majesty and grace.

I think of the pregnant mother, a qualified solicitor who had been homeless, told Valerie Cox on RTÉ radio some years ago how she was forced to walk the streets of Dublin because the hostel where she was staying would not allow her in until 7.30 in the evening.

Like the Prodigal Son, no one gave her anything and she had no proper bed at night. She was 6½ months pregnant, had an eight-year-old daughter, and Mother Ireland has betrayed her.

Or I think of mothers as refugees crossing the Channel nd seeing their children drown just before they reach the shores of England.

We see it as our problem rather than seeing it as a problem for the people fleeing war and savage violence.

Or I think of Nuala Creane, who spoke movingly at the funeral of her son Sebastian, who was murdered in Bray in 2009. In a well-sculpted eulogy, carved with all the beauty, precision, delicacy and impact of a Pieta being sculpted by a Michelangelo, she told all present that ‘my story, my God is the God of Small Things. I see God’s presence in the little details.’

She spoke of the heartbreak and the choice that faces everyone confronted with the deepest personal tragedies, admitting, ‘Our hearts are broken but maybe our hearts needed to be broken so that they could expand.’

Broken hearts, expanding hearts, souls that have been pierced, rising to the challenge with unconditional love … this is how I hope I understand the majesty and the glory of Christ, at the best of times and at the worst of times.

How as a society – whether it is our local community, this land, or in Europe – are we mothers to mothers in need?

How, as a Church, so often spoken of lovingly as ‘Mother Church,’ do we speak up for God’s children in their time of need and despair?

Dr Samuel Johnson’s ‘Last Letter to his Aged Mother,’ written on 20 January 1769, reads:

Dear Honoured Mother:

Neither your condition nor your character make it fit for me to say much. You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman, in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well. God grant you his Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen. Lord Jesus receive your spirit. Amen.

I suppose, on this Mothering Sunday, that Christ had good experiences of mothering as he was growing up. Just a few verses before the parable of the Prodigal Son, he uses a most maternal image as he laments over Jerusalem and declares: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings …’ (Luke 13: 34).

The Christ Child, when he was born, was cradled in the lap of a loving mother who at the time could never know that when he died and was taken down from the cross she would cradle him once again in her lap.

But the experience of a mother’s loss and grief that come to mind in Lent is given new hope at Easter.

On Mothering Sunday, we move through Lent towards Good Friday and Easter Day, How do we, like Christ, and like so many suffering mothers, grow to understand those who suffer, those who grieve, those who forgive?

‘A well-sculpted eulogy, carved with all the beauty, precision, delicacy and impact of a Pieta being sculpted by a Michelangelo’ … a copy of Michelangelo’s Pieta in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 30 March 2025, Lent IV, Mothering Sunday):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Inspiration of the Holy Spirit.’ This theme is introduced today with Reflections from the Revd Rock Higgins, Rector of Saint James the Less Episcopal Church, Ashland, Virginia, and the Triangle of Hope Youth Pilgrimage Lead for the Diocese of Virginia:

As we continue to journey through Lent we share an extract from USPG’s 2025 Lent Course focused on the Nicene Creed.

Our work with the Triangle of Hope is a ministry of reconciliation. One of the greatest gifts of my life has been the opportunity to work with sisters and brothers on three continents to overcome the nightmares of the transatlantic slave trade. This is something that none of us can do in isolation, but in and through the humility that comes from being transformed by the Holy Spirit working in and through as ‘new creations.’

This work comes with much sweat and tears, often stretching us in uncomfortable ways. But like all things worth having, we must work to make it a reality. In our pilgrimages in each of our dioceses, we see the evidence of the legacy of the work done in the past. We cannot wish it away, nor can we ignore it. As we follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can honestly ‘worship and glorify’ which we promise to do in the Creed.

This season, where can you be about a ‘ministry of reconciliation’? Where can you put in your sweat and tears to help fulfil God’s dream for our hurting and sin-ravaged world? While the Triangle of Hope stretches across continents, your ministry might be with a neighbour or a family member. Begin where you are and let the Holy Spirit guide you to wholeness and healing.

[For the full reflection and others from USPG’s partner churches around the world, you can order or download the course at www.uspg.org.uk].

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 30 March 2025, Lent IV, Mothering Sunday) invites us to pray:

Lord, we thank you for the gift of motherhood. Today, we celebrate the loving sacrifice of mothers, both biological and spiritual, who nurture and guide us in your ways. Bless all who mother with joy, strength, and love. May they feel deeply appreciated and honoured today and every day.

The Collect:

Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God,
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The grave of Samuel Johnson’s mother and father in Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield (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