Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 159, Saturday 18 October 2025, Saint Luke the Evangelist

Saint Luke depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII, 19 October 2025). Today in the Church Calendar is the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist (18 October).

Later in the day, I hope to spend some time at the AGM and annual conference of Christian CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). Originally, it was going to take place in Cardiff Qaker Meeting House, but due to expected rail strikes today, it is going online. The guest speaker, Paul Ingram, is speaking talk as planned. He is a former Senior Fellow of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a think tank focusing on nuclear disarmament based in London and Washington DC. He has been vice-president of the Oxford University Student Union (1998-1999), co-leader of Oxford City Council (2000-2002), Warden of Oxford Quaker Meeting House (1994-1997), and has served on the Quaker Council for European Affairs and several Quaker committees.

Meanwhile, before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Saint Luke depicted in a window in Saint Joseph’s Church, Thame, Oxfordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 10: 1-9 (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”.’

Saint Luke in a spandrel beneath the dome in Analipsi Church (Εκκλησία Ανάληψη) or the Church of the Ascension in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Church Calendar, today [18 October] is the Feast of Saint Luke (Λουκάς) the Evangelist, traditionally remembered as the author of the Third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles.

I have never quite worked out why Saint Luke among the four evangelists is traditionally represented in Church art and architecture as a winged ox. But I find he is an interesting Biblical figure, not just as an evangelist, but as a writer who provided fascinating accounts of his travels – in all, he names 32 countries, 54 cities and nine islands – but also as a key figure in the tradition of icons and iconography.

Although Saint Luke is not one of the Twelve, he figures throughout the New Testament. Apart from the Gospel he gives his name to and the Acts of the Apostles, he is also mentioned in the Epistle to Philemon (verse 24), Colossians (4: 14) and II Timothy (4: 11), which is part of the Epistle reading in the Lectionary readings for today.

Later traditions claim Saint Luke is one of the Seventy at the heart of the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today, that he is one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or even that he is closely related to the Apostle Paul. But Saint Luke, in his own statement at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, tells us he was not an eyewitness to the events of the Gospel. On the other hand, he repeatedly uses the word ‘we’ as he describes Saint Paul’s missionary journeys in the Acts of the Apostles, indicating he was personally there so many times.

Yet, both Saint Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles are detailed in history, expression, and narrative that are held in regard by Biblical historians and archaeologists for their historical accuracy and trustworthiness.

Saint Luke is also known as the ‘glorious physician,’ and – especially in the Eastern Church – as an icon writer.

It is said that Saint Luke was born in Antioch in Syria (now in Turkey) to Greek-speaking parents. As a physician, he was said to have had a skill for healing, but that he left all this behind around the year 50 CE and joined Saint Paul after they met in Antioch.

He may have accompanied Saint Paul on his missionary journeys before staying on in Troas (Troy) after Saint Paul left, although it is also possible that he was with Saint Paul in Rome until Saint Paul was martyred (see II Timothy 4: 11; Acts 28: 16). Tradition says Saint Luke died in Thebes, in central Greece, at the age of 84.

Saint Luke gives us the great poetry of the canticles Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55), Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79) and Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2: 29-32). He alone gives us the Annunciation, the Visitation, the birth of Saint John the Baptist, and the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple. He introduces us to Elizabeth and Zechariah, the angels and the shepherds at the first Christmas, Simeon and Anna, the Christ Child lost in the Temple, the Good Samaritan, the unjust steward, the Prodigal Son, the healed Samaritan, Zacchaeus the tax-collector in Jericho, and the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus.

Saint Luke devotes significantly more attention to women. He presents Christ as the constant friend of the poor, the downtrodden, the marginalised, the sidelined, healing the sick, comforting even the despairing thief on the cross beside him.

As I am challenged by the ways of the world, I sometimes wonder how – like Saint Luke the Gospel writer and Saint Luke the Iconographer – I can present the world with meaningful and accessible accounts and images of who Christ is.

As I pray each morning about the work of the Anglican mission agency USPG, I find inspiration in the commitment of Saint Luke the early missionary, with his accounts of the missionary work of the early Church.

Without Saint Luke, we may wonder how we would have come to know about the earliest missionary endeavours of Saint Paul and the Apostolic Church.

Saint Luke remains an attractive and interesting Biblical figure … as an evangelist, as someone who presents Christ in ways that can be understood in the language of the people, whether word or image, as someone who gives healing a proper place in ministry, as a friend of the poor and the sick, the marginalised and the stereotyped, as someone who, in all his travels and travails, remains faithful unto death to the ministry he is called to and is charged with.

Saint Luke depicted in a stained-glass window by Catherine O’Brien of An Túr Gloine in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale … Saint Luke’s Day is on 18 October (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 18 October 2025, Saint Luke the Evangelist):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 18 October 2025, Saint Luke the Evangelist) invites us to pray:

Lord, we thank you for the example of Saint Luke, a healer and servant of your word. May we, like Saint Luke and Sister Gillian, serve others with compassion and care, offering both physical healing and spiritual comfort to all in need.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
by the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
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.

The Collect on the Eve of Trinity XVIII:

Almighty and everlasting God,
increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting 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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Luke depicted in a window in Saint Mary the Virgin Church in Thame, Oxfordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

ss window in Saint Michael’s Church, Tipperary (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: 158, Friday 17 October 2025

‘Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight’ (Luke 12: 6) … a mural in the Old Bath House, Wolverton, by Timothy B Layden and Luke McDonnell shows Ella Jones-Seal creating music for the birds (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Today the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Saint Ignatius (ca 107), Bishop of Antioch, Martyr.

Before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free’ (Leonard Cohen) … birds on the wires in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 12: 1-7 (NRSVA):

1 Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered in thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. 2 Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.

4 ‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. 7 But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’

The portrait of Mao Zedong overlooking the entrance to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing … Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign when it was too late (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

There is story from China in the 1950s of how Mao ordered the extermination of several pests, including sparrows. But it was a campaign that led to an environmental disaster.

It all seems to have started off with what looked like a good idea. Mao argued that nature should be fully exploited for production, and building up industry would not only modernise China but also build up an urban proletariat that would provide a solid support base for the Chinese Communist Party.

The Eurasian Tree Sparrow was singled out in particular because in was eating grain seeds. Chinese scientists calculated that for every million sparrows killed, there would be enough food to feed 60,000 people.

Chinese people took to the streets in great numbers, clanging their pots and pans or beating drums to terrorise the birds and prevent them from landing. Nests were torn down from trees, eggs were smashed, chicks were killed, and sparrows were shot down from the branches.

School children, civil servants, factory workers, farmers and soldiers were all mobilised in the campaign, along with hundreds of thousands of scarecrows and colourful, fluttering flags.

Young people trapped, poisoned and attacked the sparrows, children and old people kept watch, and free-fire zones were set up for shooting the sparrows.

Hundreds of millions of sparrows were killed in this campaign of destruction, and the sparrow almost became extinct in China.

But as well as eating grain, the sparrows also ate insects in great numbers. Without the sparrows to eat the insects, the insects gobbled the crops that the sparrows had nibbled at. Crop yields dropped to an all-time low and rice growing faced a disaster.

When Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign, it was too late. The situation got progressively worse, locusts swarmed the countryside, and the loss of the sparrow contributed to widespread famine from 1958 to 1961, when 30 million people or more died of hunger.

It still remains a chilling reminder of the dangers that can be created by any changes to an ecosystem.

The sparrow in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 12: 1-7), is, in the original Greek, στρουθίον (strouthíon), any small bird, especially a sparrow (verses 6, 7; see also Matthew 10: 29). The Hebrew word צִפּוֹר (tzippor) comes from a root signifying to chirp or twitter, a phonetic representation of the call-note of any passerine or sparrow-like bird.

This word occurs more than 40 times in the Hebrew Bible. In English translations, it is often rendered as ‘bird’ or ‘fowl’ and denotes any small bird, both of the sparrow-like species and such as the starling, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet, goldfinch, corn-bunting, pipits, blackbird and song-thrush.

However the name is translated from the Hebrew or the Greek, these birds are found in great numbers in the East Mediterranean and are of very little value, selling for the merest trifle.

The blue thrush is probably the bird to which the psalmist alludes to – ‘I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop’ (Psalm 102: 7) – is a solitary bird, setting itself apart from the company of its own species, and rarely more than a pair are seen together. The English tree-sparrow is also very common, and may be seen in numbers on Mount Olivet and about the sacred enclosure of the Mosque of Omar.

There are great numbers of house-sparrows and field-sparrows who make their nests just where people do not want them: they block stoves and water-pipes with their rubbish, and build in the windows and under the beams of roofs.

The sparrow mentioned several times in the Bible often symbolises insignificance and the providential care of God. The sparrow represents the humble and the lowly. Despite their perceived insignificance, their nuisance value, and the cheap price they sell for, the Bible uses sparrows to illustrate God’s attentive care for all his creation. And without them, without each and every one of us, the whole ecosystem of God’s beautiful creation is severely threatened and endangered.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God (Psalm 84: 3).


Watching a mother bird feed her chick at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 17 October 2025):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 17 October 2025, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty) invites us to pray:

Lord God, poverty is not your plan. We pray for an end to poverty in all its forms, that every person may live with dignity and hope.

The Collect of the Day:

Feed us, O Lord, with the living bread
and make us drink deep of the cup of salvation
that, following the teaching of your bishop Ignatius
and rejoicing in the faith
with which he embraced a martyr’s death,
we may be nourished for that eternal life
for which he longed;
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 redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Ignatius:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Luke:

Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
by the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow


Watching a mother swallow feed her chicks in a nest in the ceiling of Aghias Anna Church, Maroulas, 10 km south-east of Rethymnon (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: 157, Thursday 16 October 2025

‘Therefore also the Wisdom of God said …’ (Luke 11: 48) … Holy Wisdom as the mother of Faith, Hope and Love, seen in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Today the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, Reformation Martyrs, 1555.

Later today I have a GP’s appointment for my regular injections for my Vitamin B12 deficiency. Later in the evening, I am involved with an amateur dramatic and play reading group in Stony Stratford. In the meantime, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Therefore also the Wisdom of God said …’ (Luke 11: 48) … limited visiting hours at the Cave of the Wisdom of God near the village of Topoli in western Crete … but where do we find wisdom? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 47-54 (NRSVA):

47[Jesus said to the lawyer,] 47 ‘Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48 So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute”, 50 so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’

53 When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile towards him and to cross-examine him about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

‘Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed’ (Luke 11: 47) … Lycian rock tombs hewn into the hillsides near Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist, Jesus continues his debate with the lawyers and the Pharisees, using hyperbole as he challenges one of the lawyers that their attitudes are the sort of attitudes that led to the murder of the prophets in the past, and telling them they have ‘taken away the key of knowledge.’

Where do we find the Wisdom of God and ‘the key of knowledge’?

The multi-layered descriptions of Christ in the ‘O Antiphons’ sung during Advent include the ‘Key of David’, and there it is said it is he ‘who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open’ (c.f. Isaiah 22: 22; 42: 7; Jeremiah 51: 19; Revelation 3: 7).

Isaiah prophesied: ‘I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open’ (Isaiah 22: 22). ‘His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore’ (Isaiah 9: 7).

He is ‘to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house’ (Isaiah 42: 7).

As for Wisdom, the Psalmist reminds us that God ‘provides food for those who fear him,’ and that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (see Psalm 111: 5, 10). But the purpose of wisdom, which Solomon asks for alone, is so that good and evil can be distinguished, especially when it comes to the needs of the people.

Solomon asks not for a long life or riches, or the lives of his enemies, but for the gift of wisdom or an ‘understanding mind.’ God grants this request, and then adds on riches and honours, and also promises long life if Solomon follows God’s ways.

In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom is presented personified as Lady Wisdom, who invites the unwise or ‘simple’ to her banquet (see Proverbs 9: 1-6).

In popular Greek iconography, Wisdom is often depicted as the mother of Faith, Hope and Love.

Some years ago, I stayed in Saint Matthew’s Vicarage in Westminster, where Bishop Frank Weston (1871-1924) is said to have written a key, influential speech. He held together in a creative combination his incarnational and sacramental theology with his radical social concerns, and these formed the keynote of his address to the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923. He believed that the sacramental focus gave a reality to Christ’s presence and power that nothing else could. ‘The one thing England needs to learn is that Christ is in and amid matter, God in flesh, God in sacrament.’

And so he concluded: ‘But I say to you, and I say it with all the earnestness that I have, if you are prepared to fight for the right of adoring Jesus in His Blessed Sacrament, then, when you come out from before your tabernacles, you must walk with Christ, mystically present in you through the streets of this country, and find the same Christ in the peoples of your cities and villages. You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slums … It is folly – it is madness – to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children.’

He declared: ‘Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash their feet.’

Excerpts from his address are pinned to the west door of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford.

Something similar was said in a letter in The Tablet some years ago [4 August 2018] by Derek P Reeve, a retired parish priest in Portsmouth: ‘The … Lord whom we receive at the Eucharist is the one whom we go out to serve, and, dare I say it, to adore in our neighbour …’

So sacramental life, and accepting Christ as the ‘Bread of Life’ are wonderful concepts in my faith and in my Christian discipleship. But they are meaningless unless I live this out in the way I try to care for those who are hungry, suffering and marginalised.

And that, for me is a very concise understanding of the wisdom of God and its impact on my life.

‘For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering’ (Luke 11: 52) … an old key in Dr Milley’s Hospital on Beacon Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 16 October 2025):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 16 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, we give thanks for the long-standing partnership between USPG, the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital and the Church of Bangladesh. Please strengthen and bless it for your glory.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
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, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering’ (Luke 11: 52) … the sign of the Old Cross Keys on Stony Stratford High Street (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: 156, Wednesday 15 October 2025

‘For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them’ (Luke 11: 46) … ‘A Case History’ (1998) by John King, also known as ‘The Hope Street Suitcases’ in Liverpool (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Today the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Teacher of the Faith (15 October).

Later this evening, I hope to take part in the rehearsals with the choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford. But I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them’ (Luke 11: 46) … pilgrim figures in a shop window in Santiago de Compostela (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 42-46 (NRSVA):

42 ‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practised, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honour in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the market-places. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.’

45 One of the lawyers answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.’ 46 And he said, ‘Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.’

The General Confession at Holy Communion in the 1662 ‘Book of Common Prayer’ is phrased in the plural … a reminder that we share one another’s burdens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 11: 42-46), Jesus uses hyperbole once again as he challenges the lawyers, telling them: ‘For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.’

How often, I wonder, do people feel that they are bearing the heavy burden of sins that have been projected onto them that were never sins in the first place?

People who have been told they are sinful because of their sexuality, because of the stigma of a broken marriage, a failed relationship, the bullying or abuse they suffered and endured as children?

How many people are told that their poverty, low self-esteem, poor housing of low-paid and meaningless employment are things they have brought upon themselves?

How many people face discrimination, rejection, marginalisation or oppression, only to have that compounded by being told they are the authors of their own plight? In this way, the victims are victimised again, and the oppressed are doubly oppressed.

The General Confession at Holy Communion in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer may be difficult to read today, not only because of its archaic language, but because of its gender-specific pronouns, and its undue emphasis on God’s ‘wrath and indignation’. But it still remains a positive attitude to the burdens we need to share, for it is phrased in the plural. We must ‘bewail our manifold sins and wickedness’.

We are invited to knell together as we say together:

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we from time to time most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, Forgive us all that is past; And grant that we may ever hereafter Serve and please thee In newness of life, To the honour and glory of thy Name; Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We are heartily sorry for these our misdoings. The remembrance of sins is ‘is grievous unto us’ and ‘the burden of them is intolerable’.

We are to share that burden with one another. We are assured that forgiveness is available to all, and when we get up off our knees we are to experience the promise of ‘newness of life’, not individually but collectively. We are reminded at the very beginning of this morning’s Gospel reading that we must never ‘neglect justice and the love of God’.

Saint Teresa of Ávila … her image high on a corner of her convent church in Seville (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 15 October 2025, Saint Teresa of Ávila):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 15 October 2025, Saint Teresa of Ávila) invites us to pray:

Lord, like the staff at Bollobhpur, may your peace reign in our hearts and in our world, ending division and bringing unity. Guide us to live and work in harmony, regardless of faith or background.

The Collect:

Merciful God,
who by your Spirit raised up your servant Teresa of Avila
to reveal to your Church the way of perfection:
grant that her teaching
may awaken in us a longing for holiness,
until we attain to the perfect union of love
in Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Teresa to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Teresa of Avila … a stained-glass window by Phyllis Burke in Saint Teresa’s Church, Clarendon Street, Dublin (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: 155, Tuesday 14 October 2025

Washing hands or giving alms? … a classical-style statue of Hygeia (Ὑγίεια) outside Vergina restaurant in Platanias, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

He ‘was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner’ (Luke 11: 38) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 37-41 (NRSVA):

37 While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. 38 The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.’

A Hamsa hand is part of Jewish tradition … a restaurant in Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Between yesterday’s and today’s Gospel reading, we have skipped over a short passage about various aspects of light. In short, we are to be full of light, not like the kind of people Christ describes in today’s reading.

Jesus has been invited to dinner by a Pharisee. He seems to go straight to the dinner table, and sits down – or, more correctly, reclines – at the table that has been prepared to eat. The unnamed Pharisee is quite shocked when Jesus does not first wash his hands before eating.

Of course, I wash my hands regularly – you might say almost religiously – before I sit down to eat. But here we are not dealing with a question of hygiene, but of ritual washing. Jesus had omitted to perform a religious ritual that was expected of pious and religious Jews, although not actually part of the Mosaic Law. Originally the rule probably had a hygienic purpose. By giving it religious sanction, one made sure that it was carried out.

In ordinary day-to-day life, I imagine Jesus had no problem about this ritual, but it is likely that here he is deliberately making a point. It allows him to draw attention to what he sees as false religion. A person’s virtue is not to be judged by his performance or non-performance of an external rite.

As Jesus tells this man in a graphic way, some Pharisees appear to concentrate on making sure that the outside of the cup is clean while inside it is full of all kinds of depravity and corruption – like the judgmental thoughts in this man’s mind and the sinister plotting that some Pharisees were directing against Jesus. God is as much, if not much more, concerned about the inside as the outside.

Instead, Jesus says, ‘give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.’

When the inside is clean, there is no need to worry about the outside. Giving alms is a positive act of kindness to another, an act of love and compassion. It neutralises the greed and rapacity of which he accuses them. It is not, like washing my hands, a purely empty ritual which says little and is almost totally self-directed.

It is so easy to judge people by their observance or failure to observe certain Christian customs, which are inherently and logically of moral nature. In other places in the Gospels, Jesus tells us not to judge because it is very difficult to know what is going on in another person’s mind. What he really emphasises here is the inner spirit and motivation. Once I get that is right, everything else seems to fall into place.

I once came across q piece of doggerel inside a church porch in Ardmore, Co Waterford:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the Church is full of people who continue to judge others – even other members of the Church – and justify their judgmentalism with passages of Scripture they quote out of context, sometimes even claiming passages of Scripture that simply do not exist.

And it’s not just about washing hands and pots and pans. If it was only that, it might be funny.

There are people who condemn people for their sexuality, they look down on people because of who they fall in love with or marry, they even claim to uphold Biblical standards of marriage.

But David offered no Biblical standards of marriage, while Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines – hardly a Biblical standard of marriage.

I find it quite shocking, yet it seems inevitable, that many people in the Church use arguments about sexuality, bolstered with phrases such as ‘Biblical standards of marriage,’ to express prejudices about sexuality. Some even remain opposed to women being ordained priests and bishops. These distortions inform and underpin many of the negative responses, particularly among people and groups that call themselves ‘conservative evangelicals’, to the appointment of Bishop Sarah Mullally as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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

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

Father Tikhon (Murtazov), who died some years ago [9 June 2018], was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide. A nun, Sister Olga (Schemanun) of Snetogorsk Monastery, recalled how he welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.

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

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

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

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

‘So he went in and took his place at the table’ (Luke 11: 37) … an unexpected guest at a table in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 14 October 2025):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 14 October 2025) invites us to pray:

We pray for all those suffering from illness, that they may find healing and comfort in your love.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
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, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

You ‘clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness’ (Luke 11: 39) … cups and dishes stacked inside a rectory dishwasher (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: 154, Monday 13 October 2025

The Church of the Sandals, a surviving Byzantine church in the Göreme Open Air Museum in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Saint Edward the Confessor (1022-1066), King of England. Before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Church of the Sandals, a surviving Byzantine church in the Göreme Open Air Museum in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 29-32:

29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! 32 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!’

The Last Supper depicted in a fresco in the refectory beneath the Church of the Sandals in Göreme in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

One Easter, when I was visiting the churches dating back to Patristic and Byzantine times in the Göreme Open Air Museum in Cappadocia, one of the churches with an unusual name was the Church of the Sandals. It is an elaborate, well-preserved cave church, similar to the Dark Church and the Apple Church. This 11th century church has elaborate frescoes and is one of the finest cave churches in Cappadocia.

Historically it was called the Church of the Holy Cross and may have housed a relic of the True Cross. But the name Church of the Sandals comes from the footprints on the floor beneath a fresco the Ascension scene. According to legend, Christ left these sacred imprints at his Ascension.

The church is part of a monastic complex built into a shallow courtyard. Blind niches and red crosses decorate the two-story façade. The best-preserved refectory in Cappadocia is directly under the church. The seven-meter table has complete rock benches. The apse at the head of the table, which was the abbot’s seat, has a red-orange fresco of the Last Supper. The church above does not have an image of the Last Supper, because that image is found in the refectory.

Sandals and signs are part of the humour throughout Monty Python’s Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, a controversial 1979 film by the Monty Python team, including Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Scene 18, ‘The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem’, includes this dialogue:

FOLLOWERS: … Look! Ah! Oh! Oh!

ARTHUR: He has given us a sign!

FOLLOWER: Oh!

SHOE FOLLOWER: He has given us … His shoe!

ARTHUR: The shoe is the sign. Let us follow His example.

SPIKE: What?

ARTHUR: Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise.

EDDIE: Yes.

SHOE FOLLOWER: No, no, no. The shoe is …

YOUTH: No.

SHOE FOLLOWER: … a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance.

GIRL: Cast off …

SPIKE: Aye. What?

GIRL: … the shoes! Follow the Gourd!

SHOE FOLLOWER: No! Let us gather shoes together!

FRANK: Yes.

SHOE FOLLOWER: Let me!

ELSIE: Oh, get off!

YOUTH: No, no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must think not of the things of the body, but of the face and head!

SHOE FOLLOWER: Give me your shoe!

YOUTH: Get off!

GIRL: Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!

FOLLOWER: The Gourd!

HARRY: Hold up the sandal, as He has commanded us!

ARTHUR: It is a shoe! It is a shoe!

HARRY: It's a sandal!

ARTHUR: No, it isn't!

GIRL: Cast it away!

ARTHUR: Put it on!

YOUTH: And clear off!

How often do we pray unusual signs as indications of God’s blessing, favour, approval or intervention, or even God’s judgment?

In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus faces this sort of request too. with that in his own day. People wanted some spectacular sign from him to establish beyond doubt that he was who he said he was.

In today’s reading, Jesus addresses the crowds who gather around him as a wicked generation because they are asking for a sign. Today people can be very impressed by visionaries who claim to have visions that are denied to the rest of believers.

The church has traditionally been very wary of all such claims. In the Gospel reading Jesus accuses his contemporaries of failing to see what is there before them. They want signs and yet all they need already stands in front of them in the person of Jesus, someone greater than Solomon, greater than Jonah, greater than all the prophets and kings.

If the people of Nineveh responded to Jonah and if the Queen of the South responded to Solomon, how much more should Jesus’ contemporaries respond to him?

God has already given us all we need in and through the church, in Word, in Sacrament and in the community of believers. There we find the living word of God. There we find the Eucharist and the other sacraments. There we find Jesus present among us and within his followers.

In the Eucharist, Christ is present to us in the bread and the wine, saying, ‘This is my body … This is my blood’.

In coming to Christ in the Eucharist, we are coming to one who is greater than Jonah or Solomon. He is present to us in other ways also. We take his presence seriously by responding to his call and following in his way, as the people of Nineveh responded to Jonah’s call. And, in response to Christ’s presence, we are called to respond to his presence by living in as a sign of his presence in the world.

‘Hold up the sandal, as he has commanded us!’ (Monty Python, ‘The Life of Brian’) … large sandals as a sign at the Antika Irish bar in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 13 October 2025):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 13 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Father God, thank you for the incredible ministry of Sister Gillian. Bless and protect her for your name’s sake.

The Collect:

Sovereign God,
who set your servant Edward
upon the throne of an earthly kingdom
and inspired him with zeal for the kingdom of heaven:
grant that we may so confess the faith of Christ
by word and deed,
that we may, with all your saints, inherit your eternal glory;
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 redeemer,
who inspired Edward to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘The shoe is … a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance’ (Monty Python, ‘The Life of Brian’) … trying sandals for size 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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 153, Sunday 12 October 2025, Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII)

As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him … they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ (Luke 17: 12-13)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Later this morning, I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, reading one of the lessons.

The calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church, as I was reminded at Vespers last night, today commemorates the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (nicaea II), the 365 bishops and priests at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 who condemned the iconoclast heresy and restored the veneration of icons in the Church. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘The Healing of Ten Lepers’ (‘Guérison de dix lépreux’), 1886-1896, Brooklyn Museum

Luke 17: 11-19 (NRSVA):

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ 14 When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19 Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

The ‘Leper’s Squint’ and the Arthur Memorial behind the organ in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 17: 11-19) provides many opportunities for many sermons on faith and healing, inclusion and exclusion, how Christ meets our every need, how we need conversion, on the connection between healing of the body and healing of the soul, perhaps even on the value of good manners and learning to say thank you.

Some parishes are going to hear about one Samaritan who returns and says thank you. Others may hear about nine other lepers who did exactly as they were told, went and showed themselves to the priests, received a clean bill of health and were restored to their rightful place in the community of faith.

But which is the greatest miracle for you: the healing of these 10 people?

Or their restoration to their rightful places in the community of faith?

Perhaps it is worth noting that it is the 10 men, not Christ, who keep their distance on the outskirts of the village, because they are forced to behave this way, to be marginalised and to live on the margins.

Christ keeps his distance, as might be expected. Yet, from that distance, he sees. Many Bibles have verse 14 to say that ‘he saw them.’ But the Greek says simply, καὶ ἰδὼν (kai idon), ‘and having seen,’ without any object, there is no ‘them.’

For Christ, we are not mere objects; and for Christ there is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ He sees the future without the limits of the present.

This is a story about trusting in God’s plans for the future, rather than living in the past, living with the fears of the present, living without hope for the future … precisely the context for the urgings and exhortations to the exiles by the Prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7), precisely the hope the Apostle Paul has for Saint Timothy in the epistle reading (II Timothy 2: 8-15).

But we foil those plans, we quench those hopes, we continue to live in the past, when we continue to limit Christ’s saving powers with our own limitations, continue to look at him with our own limited vision.

Christ sees … sees it as it is in the present, and as it could be in the future.

Perhaps this is why Saint Luke has placed this story in a location that is an in-between place, the region between Galilee and Samaria. The place between Galilee and Samaria is neither one nor the other, neither this earthly existence nor what the future holds, but still on the way to Jerusalem.

Even the village here is not named.

We should not forget that not one but 10 were healed. Christ does good – even to those who will not be thankful.

And even then, we do not know why the other nine did not return to say thanks. It took an eight-day waiting process for a person with leprosy to be declared clean by the priests.

After those eight days, did they then go and give thanks to God in their local synagogues?

Did they first breathe sighs of relief and return to the families they loved but had been isolated from for so long?

Did they return to that unnamed village, and find that 10 days later Jesus had moved on … the next named place we find him in is Jericho (see Luke 19: 1-10, the Fourth Sunday before Advent, 3 November 2025)?

Surely Christ does good without expecting a thanks that comes straight from some Victorian book on good manners.

How often when we give a gift to someone do we want to control how they use it?

I give a Christmas present or a birthday gift, and then I am upset when they do not like it, when they trade it in for something else, or rewrap it and pass it on to someone else, or simply just never say thank you or acknowledge what I have done for them.

But who was the gift supposed to benefit: me as the giver, or you as the receiver? What was it a token of: my love for you, or my need for you to acknowledge how important I am to you?

A begrudging attitude to how others receive and use the gifts I give, or taking offence when I feel they have not thanked me enough, amount to a passive aggressive attitude on my part, a desire to control. If we give gifts only to be thanked, are we truly generous?

And if I only say thank you so I remain in someone else’s esteem, perhaps even to be rewarded again, to be kept on their invitation list, am I truly grateful?

Christ is not passively aggressive in this story. He is not seeking to control. He sends the 10 on their way … and they go. If he had expected them to return, he would not have been surprised that one returned; he would have waited around in that unnamed village until the other nine had time to make their humble ways back there to thank him.

Instead, it is more important what Christ frees them for, and where he frees them.

He frees them to regain their place in the community, in the social, economic and religious community that is their rightful place.

For the Samaritan, his ‘faith has made him well’: ἡπίστις σου σέσωκέν σε, or, more accurately, your faith has saved you, rescued you, restored you. The word σῴζω is all about being saved, rescued, restored, ransomed, and not just about regaining health and physical well-being.

That land between Samaria and Galilee is where we find Christ today. The in-between place, the nowhere land, the place where people need to be saved, ransomed, rescued, restored.

We all find ourselves in the in-between place, the nowhere land … to borrow a phrase from TS Eliot, wandering in the ‘Waste Land.’

Perhaps, just for one moment, it is possible to imagine that Christ has arrived in that particular in-between place for a reason. For the land between Samaria and Galilee is neither one place nor the other.

And that in-between place is a place where I might find myself unsure of who belongs and who does not, where I might be uncertain, untrusting, even frightened and afraid. It is a place where the usual rules may not apply, where I do not know my place, where I do not fit in, where I appear not as the person God see as the true me, but as others want to see me.

This is the place where Christ is travelling through in this Gospel story this morning. It seems to me that I am often travelling in that place every day, today.

It is difficult travelling in this in-between land. When we realise we are there, then it may be easier to identify with the 10 Lepers, cast out into the in-between land, not knowing where to go, rather than with those who appear certain about where they are going.

When we get to where you are going, we should remember how we feel about the present unknown, whether it is fear – ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’ – whether it is trepidation, anticipation, or joy that is tinged with all of these, in this in-between time, this nowhere place.

Shakespeare reminds us, in the words of Portia in The Merchant of Venice,

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven … (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1)

These 10 lepers were cut off from all they knew and loved, all the certainties they once enjoyed or took for granted.

And when we move from an in-between place and nowhere land, we should not hold back from the call to join the task of cleansing, healing, restoration. We do it not for ‘Thank Yous’ and plaudits. It is not about you, it is not all about me.

Indeed, it is not this one man’s thanks that is important, but that his thanks is expressed in turning around, conversion, and praising God, bowing down before Christ as his Master and as the Lord God.

Martin Luther was once asked to describe the nature of true worship. His answer was the tenth leper turning back.

Christ invites us into that region between Samaria and Galilee, that space between wrong-doing and right-doing, between them and us – and bids us find our healing and salvation – and theirs. And in doing that we find ourselves engaged, quite naturally, in true worship. And in Christ we realise that there is no us and them – there is only us.

‘Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel’ (II Timothy 2: 8) … the icon cross in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 12 October 2025, Trinity XVII):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme is introduced today with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh:

Sister Gillian Rose, now in her mid-80s, moved from England to Bangladesh in 1964 when the country was still known as East Pakistan. She has since devoted her life to serving at Bollobhpur Mission Hospital in Kushtia, western Bangladesh, and regularly writes letters to USPG to share updates.

In a recent letter, Sister Gillian describes the hospital as ‘a little oasis of peace,’ where staff live and work harmoniously together, regardless of religious or political background. In a country marked by political unrest, she finds joy in the sight of a diverse group of student nurses – Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists – living and working side by side.

Beyond providing medical care, the hospital offers spiritual support. Staff visit nearby villages three times a week, offering healthcare, prayers, and sacraments to those who wish to receive them. Sister Gillian concludes, ‘My faith is the basis of all I do, and faith is the foundation of the hospital’s work too. We are a Christian hospital, and we serve as a Christian witness in the community.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 12 October 2025, Trinity XVII) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Luke 17: 11-19.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
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, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Be joyful in God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; sing the glory of his praise’ (Psalm 66: 1) … at the mouth of the river in Messonghi in Corfu (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