Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 40, 2 February 2024

The Presentation depicted in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany come to an end today with the Feast of the Presentation or Candlemas (2 February).

Before today begins to get busy, I am taking some time for reflection, prayer and reading this way:

1, A reflection on the Feast of the Presentation;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

‘The Presentation in the Temple’ … a window by James Watson in the Church of the Holy Rosary, Murroe, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The feast we celebrate today has many names: the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, the Meeting of the Lord, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple … Candlemas – based on the tradition of the priest blessing beeswax candles on 2 February for use throughout the year, some of which were distributed in the church for use in the home.

Candles light our processions and stand on our altars; candles are with us at the time of our departing, at our funerals as a symbol of hope and light; but, above all, candles are with us at our baptisms, all our baptisms.

Christ is the light of the world, and to the darkness in the world he brings hope and love and light. We too are meant to be a light to others – to carry the love and light of Christ to all we meet.

Some years ago, at the celebration of Candlemas in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, instead of a sermon, I read TS Eliot’s poem, ‘A Song for Simeon’, based on the canticle Nunc Dimittis.

This is one of two poems written about the time of Eliot’s conversion in 1927. He titles his poem ‘A Song for Simeon’ rather than ‘A Song of Simeon’, the English sub-title of the canticle in The Book of Common Prayer, and it is one of four poems he published between 1927 and 1930 known as the Ariel Poems.

In ‘Journey of The Magi’ and ‘A Song for Simeon’, Eliot shows how he persisted on his spiritual pilgrimage. He was baptised and confirmed in the Church of England on 29 June 1927. ‘Journey of the Magi’ was published two months later, on 25 August 1927, and Faber published ‘A Song for Simeon’ the following year, on 24 September 1928.

Both ‘Journey of The Magi’ and ‘A Song for Simeon’ draw on the journeys of Biblical characters concerned with the arrival of the Christ-child. Both poems deal with the past, with a significant Epiphany event, with the future – as seen from the time of that event, and with a time beyond time – death.

The narrator in ‘Journey of the Magi’ is an old man, and in that poem, Eliot draws on a sermon from Christmas 1622 preached by the Caroline Divine, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626). ‘A Song for Simeon’ is also put in the mouth of an old man, the prophet Simeon in the Temple in Jerusalem. Here too, Eliot draws on a Christmas sermon by Andrewes.

In both poems, Eliot uses significant images to explore the Christian faith, images that are also prophetic, telling of things to happen to the Christ Child in the future. In both of these poems, he focuses on an event that brings about the end of an old order and the beginning of a new one.

A detail of Harry Clarke’s ‘Presentation Window’ in Saint Flannan’s Church, Killaloe, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A Song for Simeon, by TS Eliot:

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn season had made stand.
My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have given and taken honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.
Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children
When the time of sorrow is come?
They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

According to thy word.
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.

The Presentation in the Temple, carved on a panel on a triptych in the Lady Chapel, Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/Lichfield Gazette)

Luke 2: 22-40 (NRSVA):

22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

29 ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’

33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.

The Presentation depicted in a panel on the altar in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 2 February 2024, The Presentation, Candlemas):

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: ‘Welcoming the Stranger – A Candlemas Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Annie Bolger of the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Brussels.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (2 February 2024, The Presentation, Candlemas) invites us to pray in these words:

Radiant God, we thank you for bringing light into the world through Jesus. May we be redeemed by you.

The Collect:

Almighty and ever–living God,
clothed in majesty,
whose beloved Son was this day presented in the Temple,
in substance of our flesh:
grant that we may be presented to you
with pure and clean hearts,
by your Son Jesus Christ 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, you fulfilled the hope of Simeon and Anna,
who lived to welcome the Messiah:
may we, who have received these gifts beyond words,
prepare to meet Christ Jesus when he comes
to bring us to eternal life;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord Jesus Christ,
light of the nations and glory of Israel:
make your home among us,
and present us pure and holy
to your heavenly Father,
your God, and our God.

Yesterday’s Reflection (the Heavenly Banquet)

Continued Tomorrow

The Presentation in the Temple … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 39, 1 February 2024

Preparing for a banquet in the Boot and Flogger restaurant in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today, and the week began with the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany IV, 28 January 2024).

The calendars of the Church of Ireland and of the Church of England in Common Worship today remember Saint Brigid, Abbess of Kildare (ca 525). Major celebrations are being planned in Kildare today to mark the 1,500th anniversary of her death. Saint Brigid’s Cathedral is hosting an ecumenical service at 11 am, a Pause for World Peace takes place at 12 noon and a new mural of Saint Brigid is being launched in Market Square at 12:30. At 2 pm, 4,000 schoolchildren gather across the Curragh plains (Saint Brigid's pastures) to form a massive human Saint Brigid’s cross. Altan and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra are performing a concert in Kildare Cathedral at 8:30.

But, before today begins, I am taking some time for reflection, reading and prayer.

Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation tomorrow (2 February). The Gospel reading on the Sunday before last (21 January, John 2: 1-11) told of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories.

In keeping with the theme of that Gospel reading, I have been continuing with last week’s thoughts in my reflections each morning until the Feast of the Presentation tomorrow:

1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Are all our celebrations of the Eucharist, all our meals, a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

12, The Heavenly Banquet (Luke 14: 15-24):

My final meal with Jesus in this series of reflection on ‘Meals with Jesus’ is the climax to all the meals with Jesus.

But before this 40-day Season of Christmas season comes to an end with the Feast of the Presentation or Candlemas tomorrow (2 February), I want us to step back for a few moments, and to think again about Christmas.

Christmas is a much messier and more humbling story than we allow it to be with all our tinsel and decorations and carolling.

When the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph are refused hospitality in Bethlehem – the name of the town means the ‘House of Bread’ – they are not only refused a bed for the night, but they are also left without anywhere to eat.

One of their earliest experiences as a family for Mary and Joseph is the refusal or denial of hospitality … being denied both bed and board.

To refuse someone a place at your table is, of course, to deny them a place in your family. Yet, it is family duty – being of the House of David – that brings Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem in the first place.

I wonder what all those family meals were like for the growing Jesus. Did Joseph tell him to eat up his vegetables? Did Mary tell him he couldn’t go out to play until he had finished eating?

As a pious religious Jewish family, they would have placed a high priority on the Friday evening meal, the Sabbath eve meal that has its own beautiful domestic liturgy in the home at the blessing of the wine and of the bread.

And then there was the usual, year-by-year round of religious meals, especially the Passover, when the saving events of the past were made real in the present, and there was hope for the future. As the child in the family, Jesus would have asked why this night was different to all other nights. What made it special?

And, of course, there would have been the usual meals associated with the cycle and rhythm of life, for bar mitzvahs, for weddings, and the meals brought to family members, friends and neighbours as they mourned loved ones at shiva.

Just as he is calling his disciples, Jesus joins his family and friends for one of these types of meals, as we know from the story of the wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2: 1-12), the first of the signs in the Fourth Gospel.

At a wedding, new families are formed: there are new fathers-in-law, new mothers-in-law, new brothers and sisters-in-law. Eventually they become new grandparents, new uncles and aunts, when there are new grandchildren, new nieces and nephews.

And when the wedding is over in Cana, Jesus and his mother, and his brothers and his disciples return to Capernaum, where they spend a few days. No doubt, there is some bonding to be done, for there are new relationships, new ties of kinship.

But there are also hints at the wedding in Cana of the promise of the Resurrection and of the Heavenly Banquet. Have you noticed how the wedding takes place on the third day (John 2: 1), and just before the Passover (John 2: 13)?

It was a common in Jewish thinking and imagery at the time to speak of wedding banquets as a foretaste of God’s heavenly promises. The Mishnah says: ‘This world is like a lobby before the World-To-Come. Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall.’

But then, so often throughout the Gospels, we find that great meals and wedding banquets provide a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet.

We are invited; but are we ready, are we prepared, to be wedding guests? (see Matthew 22: 1-14; Luke 14: 15-24). Think of the Ten Bridesmaids, and how the foolish ones are not ready when the bridegroom arrives (Matthew 25: 1-13).

On the other hand, plush dining can also tell us a lot about what the Kingdom of God is not like. Consider the story of the rich man, who dined sumptuously and alone, and left the starving, sick and dying Lazarus to go hungry at his gate (Luke 16: 19-31). This is not what the Kingdom of God is like, as Dives finds out. But he finds out when it is too late for his own good.

The great Biblical meals celebrate not only what was, as with the Passover, but what is, in the present, and what is to come, as with the wedding banquets – new promises, new covenants, new families, new expectations, new hopes.

At the Resurrection, Christ breaks down all the barriers of time and space. And so every Eucharist we celebrate today, in the present, reaches back in time into the past and makes real today the promises and hopes for liberation from slavery and sin. And the Eucharist of today also reaches out into the future and is a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet, which is the completion of the promise of a New Heaven and a New Earth, the final glory of God’s creation (see Revelation 2: 17; 19: 9-10; 22: 17).

So often, we think first in terms of the Church and then in terms of the Sacraments. We think in terms of my church and its rules about who can be baptised and who can be invited to share in the Eucharist.

But we must ask again: Does the Church make the Sacraments? Or, do the Sacraments make the Church?

The Church does not own the Sacraments. They are Christ’s invitation to us. There can only be one Baptism, for we are baptised into the Body of Christ, and there is only one Body of Christ.

And there can be only one Eucharist, for we being many are one body, and we all share in the one bread. In sharing in the Eucharist we are most visibly the Body of Christ … and Christ has only one body.

And the Eucharist is a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet. And when we find ourselves invited to it, we will find that there is only one Heavenly Banquet. I hope we will not be surprised like Simon to find who Jesus keeps company with at the table.

The Meals with Jesus we have shared in these reflections can never be separated from our hopes for the Heavenly Banquet and for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

The Prophet Isaiah challenges us about which fasts we choose and tells us (Isaiah 58: 6-9):

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

Empty tables waiting for a banquet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 6: 7-13 (NRSVA):

7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10 He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ 12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

An end-of-term dinner with the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 1 February 2024, Saint Brigid):

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: ‘Welcoming the Stranger – A Candlemas Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Annie Bolger of the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Brussels.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (1 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Father God, we pray for all of the chaplaincies throughout the Diocese in Europe and for all the work and programmes that they do to support displaced people.

The Collect (Church of Ireland):

Father,
by the leadership of your blessed servant Brigid
you strengthened the Church in this land:
As we give you thanks for her life of devoted service,
inspire us with new life and light,
and give us perseverance to serve you all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Post Communion Prayer (Church of Ireland):

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 in fellowship with all your saints
we may come to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection: the meal that never was: the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 5-42)

Continued tomorrow (Candelmas)

Waiting for dinner at sunset on the beach Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Saint Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare … today marks the 1,500th aniversary of the death of Saint Brigid of Kildare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 38, 31 January 2024

An icon of Christ with the Samaritan Woman at the Well in the Monastery of Arkadi in the mountains above Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today, and the week began with the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany IV, 28 January 2024).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers John Bosco (1888), founder of the Salesian teaching order. Before this day begins, I am taking some time for reading, reflection and prayer.

Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Friday (2 February). The Gospel reading on the Sunday before last (21 January, John 2: 1-11) told of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories.

In keeping with the theme of that Gospel reading, I am continuing with last week’s thoughts in my reflections each morning until the Feast of the Presentation:

1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Water from a water jar at a well at Myli restaurant in Platanias, near Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

11, The meal that never was: the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 5-42):

In the story in Saint John’s Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 5-42), the Disciples are already doing something unusual: they have gone into the city to buy food. But this is no ordinary city – this is a Samaritan city, and any food they might buy from Samaritans is going to be unclean according to Jewish ritual standards.

While the Disciples are in Sychar, Jesus sits down by Jacob’s Well, and begins talking with a Samaritan woman who comes to the well for water. And their conversation becomes a model for how we respond to the stranger in our midst, whether they are foreigners or people of a different religion or culture.

The Samaritan woman is an outsider because of her gender, ethnicity, religion and lifestyle. Yet she becomes one of the great pre-Resurrection missionaries, for ‘many … believed in Jesus because of this woman’s testimony’

I heard years ago about a wedding that was about to take place, but the bride’s brother could not travel home to Ireland because of fears about something.

It was in the days long before the fear of the Covid-19 pandemic. But it was also a time long before texts and ’phone messages. He thought about sending a telegram, but did not know how to say something that was appropriate yet different. He asked his local vicar for a perfect, but short, Bible quote that could be sent in a quick telegram.

The vicar thought for a while before he suggested, ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.’

So, he wrote down every word – and the reference, I John 4: 18 – and headed to the post office to send the telegram. But he was short of a money and was taken aback when he was told he would be charged not just for each word but for each character and letter.

Cost overcame filial affection, and he decided to just send the Bible reference and one extra word: ‘Read I John 4: 18.’

When it reached the Best Man, something had gone amiss, the number I was missing and the message said simply: ‘Read John 4: 18.’

At the wedding, the best man read out words we in that Gospel reading: ‘You have had had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.’

I wonder how we would react or respond to the Samaritan woman if we were to meet her at the well, or in the local corner shop or pub?

She is an outsider in very sense: she is a Samaritan, she works in the mid-day heat, she is unaccompanied, she has a very questionable lifestyle. As if to underline how marginalised she is, she is left without a name, without a name that identifies her as human, as a child of God.

In the Bible, to be known by name is to be a child of God (see Exodus 33: 17; Isaiah 43: 1). So, let’s look at some details about this anonymous woman and her lifestyle.

She is a Samaritan, yet Christ constantly points to Samaritans as examples of how to live out a faith-filled life: the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37); or the healed Samaritan who is the only one among ten to go back and say thanks (Luke 17: 11-19).

She is a Samaritan, which means she is a monotheist, but people refused to accept Samaritans worshipped the same God – perhaps the parallel today is the way many Muslims face Islamophobia.

The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is a model for all our encounters with people we see as different, or as strangers, or as having a lifestyle we do not understand.

This woman is theologically informed, to the point that she is able to argue with Jesus: where should we worship God?

She may be well versed in Scripture: it has been suggested that Samaritans were Biblical fundamentalists who would only accept the first five books of the Bible as authoritative Scripture – is she wedded to those five books and not open to God’s continuing revelation?

She is confident in a way that she might be described in that English way as ‘gobby’ – not afraid to engage with men in conversation as an equal.

But let us also look at this woman’s lifestyle. We might try to calculate the number of men in her life. Verse 18 says she has had five. Then Jesus says, ‘the one you have now is not your husband.’ This brings the total to six.

Jesus at the well, Jacob’s Well, now becomes the seventh man in her life. Seven is the perfect number in the Old Testament. It is the number of completeness, wholeness, and healing.

The story also illustrates the status of women in that time, among both Jews and Samaritans. Without doubt, there was an imbalance of power when it came to marriage. Divorce was relatively easy for men, but practically impossible for women.

Even then, as I so often point out, the translation here is often very slipshod. The original text says: ‘For you have had five men [not husbands] (πέντε γὰρ ἄνδρας), and now the one you have is not your man.’

So, we cannot presume any marital status, or lack of marital status here.

Where else in the Gospels do we meet women who are in a similar dilemma?

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, we meet Mary Magdalene ‘from whom seven demons had gone out’ (Luke 8: 2). And Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 20: 27-38) also has the story of the Sadducees who posed the dilemma of a woman who is widowed in quick succession so she is married off to one brother after another, and when she dies she has been the wife and widow of seven men.

Once again, the priority of Jesus in that story is not morality or family property rights, but the right of the woman to her own integrity, her own inherit value, her own right to eternal life with equality in the eyes of God.

The woman who was married off to seven brothers never made herself the victim, never chose her own misfortune. She too is to be seen as a child of God.

Just as it was never a woman’s choice to be a widow, so it was generally true that it was never a woman’s choice to be divorced. At the time, women could often only acquiesce to what their husbands wanted to do.

In those days too, a woman who was divorced often ended up as being what was once spoken of as ‘damaged goods’. To this day, a divorced Jewish woman still cannot remarry without her former husband’s written permission, a controversial document known as the get (גט‎), which men may withhold as a means of controlling women.

Without that permission in first century Judaea, the prospects for a spurned and rejected women were dismal, financially and socially. For a divorced woman without a private source of income there were only two choices: remarriage or the streets.

This woman has been through the mill. Now she is living with a sixth man, even though they do not seem to be married.

Jesus offers no comment about her status. Instead, he treats her with dignity and respect. On that day, indeed, he is outrageous in transgressing the taboos of the day: a Jewish, single man, speaking to a multi-married, Samaritan woman in public; a rabbi discussing fine points of theology with a woman.

He could have condemned her lifestyle. Instead, he meets her deepest needs in her heart.

He is the seventh man in her life. He is perfect. Jesus is the man she has been looking for her whole life. Jesus is her living water. Jesus heals her heart. Jesus completes her creation. Jesus is her sabbath rest.

When the woman says she is waiting for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus tells her: ‘I am he.’

Just then, the Disciples return from their search for food in Sychar, although they may have come back with nothing. The meal with Jesus that had been planned and expected never seems to take place.

The empty-handed disciples are taken aback by the conversation they have come upon. They are so shocked by what they see and hear that remain silent. Their silence reflects their inability to reach out to the stranger.

These men made no contact with the people in Sychar, but this woman rushes back to tell them about Jesus. No one in the city was brought to Jesus by the disciples, but many Samaritans listened to what the woman had to say.

Because of this woman’s testimony, many of the people in Sychar believe, she brings them (literally) to Christ, and they come to believe for themselves that Christ is ‘truly the Saviour of the world’ (verse 42).

‘Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city’ (John 4: 28) … water jars by a well in Argiroupoli in the mountain in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 6: 1-6 (NRSVA):

6 He left that place and came to his home town, and his disciples followed him. 2 On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offence at him. 4 Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ 5 And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.

‘Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well’ … a working well gives its name to To Pigadi, a restaurant in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 31 January 2024):

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: ‘Welcoming the Stranger – A Candlemas Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Annie Bolger of the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Brussels.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (31 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for Holy Trinity in Brussels and for their Community Kitchen – may it continue to provide hot meals to those who are in need.

The Collect:

God our creator,
who in the beginning
commanded the light to shine out of darkness:
we pray that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
may dispel the darkness of ignorance and unbelief,
shine into the hearts of all your people,
and reveal the knowledge of your glory
in the face of 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:

Generous Lord,
in word and eucharist we have proclaimed the mystery of your love:
help us so to live out our days
that we may be signs of your wonders in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Additional Collect:

God of heaven,
you send the gospel to the ends of the earth
and your messengers to every nation:
send your Holy Spirit to transform us
by the good news of everlasting life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection (The Wedding Banquet, Matthew 22: 1-14)

Continued tomorrow (The Heavenly Banquet, Luke 14: 15-24)

A hidden well and pitcher in a colourful side alleyway near the Institute for Mediterranean Studies 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

The icon of the Samaritan woman in the monastery in Arkadi is placed above a well in the cloisters (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 37, 30 January 2024

Preparing the table in Southwark for a wedding reception (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today, and the week began with the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany IV, 28 January 2024).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Charles King and Martyr, executed 375 years ago on this day in 1649. Before this day begins, I am taking some time for reading, reflection and prayer.

Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Friday (2 February). The Gospel reading on the Sunday before last (21 January, John 2: 1-11) told of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories.

In keeping with the theme of that Gospel reading, I am continuing with last week’s thoughts in my reflections each morning until the Feast of the Presentation:

1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Banqueting at the end-of-term dinner with the Durrell School of Corfu … we are all invited to the heavenly banquet, but are we ready to accept the invitation? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

10, The Wedding Banquet (Matthew 22: 1-14):

‘For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Sometimes, the ways I can behave as a snob can catch me off-guard and unexpectedly, and I shame myself.

When I was growing up, the snobberies and class distinctions of previous generations were challenged in an old-fashioned way, in the movie My Fair Lady (1964), based on George Bernard Shaw’s earlier play, Pygmalion (1913).

But Pygmalion also inspired what I think is a much funnier movie, Hoi Polloi (1935), with the Three Stooges, Larry, Curly and Moe.

Two professors are arguing about whether our social behaviour is caused by environment or heredity. It is a very funny take on the old Nature v Nurture argument.

To settle a bet, the two professors take three binmen – Larry, Curly and Moe – train and coach them for three months, dress them up, and send them off to a posh, society dinner.

Their behaviour descends into farce, and it looks as if one professor has won his bet: our social behaviour is dictated by inherited class.

But then the tables are turned – literally. Everyone else at the party descends to the same riotous behaviour. At a base level, we are all the same, even if some refuse to accept it.

Nature or nurture? It was an important statement that we all share the same humanity, coming as racism and the Nazis were on the rise in the 1930s.

The title of the movie, Hoi Polloi, is a way of expressing class-based social prejudice. It is a Greek phrase, meaning ‘the many’ and it was used in Victorian England by people who had the benefit of a classical education in English public schools and the universities, to describe the masses, who they presumed did not understand the phrase.

Gilbert and Sullivan use the phrase to mock those who used it in their comic opera Iolanthe. Later, it was used by English public schoolboys in the 1950s and the 1960s, when they referred to ‘oips’ and ‘oiks.’

The term hoi polloi also appears in a scene in the film Dead Poets Society (1989). Professor John Keating, played by Robin Williams, speaks negatively about the use of the definite article ‘the’ in front of the phrase.

Steven Meeks (Allelon Ruggiero) raises his hands and speaks: ‘The hoi polloi. Doesn’t it mean the herd?’

Keating replies: ‘Precisely, Meeks. Greek for the herd. However, be warned that, when you say “the hoi polloi” you are actually saying “the the herd.” Indicating that you too are “hoi polloi”.’

This morning’s Gospel reading begins with a very joyful occasion – a posh nosh, a planned wedding, and generous invitations to a lavish banquet. But, instead of the farce in that movie with the Three Stooges, it quickly descends into very difficult images: slaves who are kidnapped, mistreated and killed; cities that are burned down; a man who is bound hand and feet and thrown into outer darkness.

The images of the wedding banquet and the wedding covenant are important ways of describing our relationship with God.

But the parable I have chosen this morning, the parable of the Wedding Banquet in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, is particularly difficult. This is his third parable about the kingdom of heaven, is particularly difficult. It tells the story of a king hosting a wedding banquet for his son. The king has invited a long list of guests, but even after being repeatedly sought out, none of these guests comes to the banquet.

To refuse to come, to refuse a king’s command, is treason; to kill his slaves amounts to insurrection. So the king sends out troops to put down the rebellion.

The king then sends his slaves into the streets to find enough people to sit at the tables at the wedding banquet. The phrase translated as ‘the main streets’ (διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν) in verse 9, means not the main fashionable, shopping streets in a chic part of a city centre, but refers to dirty, gritty, street corners and junctions, perhaps the main junctions outside the city gates, where those who wanted to be hired as labour, those who were refused entry, those who were on margins, could be found. Other translations catch this significance when they refer to the highways and the byways.

Notice how the invitation gathers in all people, ‘both good and bad’ (verse 10).

Yet, when the king sees that a man is not dressed appropriately for the event, the king throws him into the outer darkness.

If you were to imagine yourself as one of the characters in this parable, who would you be?

And would you behave that way?

Are you the king, throwing a lavish wedding banquet?

Are you a wedding guest who has denied the generosity of the king?

Are you one of the people brought in from the streets, but not prepared for the celebration about to take place?

Where do you find Good News in this parable?

Christ’s audience would naturally associate a festive meal with the celebration of God’s people at the end of time. The wedding feast is a recurring image in the Bible of the heavenly banquet and the coming kingdom.

What is meant by the many and the few here?

I have read that in Western thought many is a quantity much more than the majority, while few is many less than the majority. In Eastern thought, one less than 100% would be considered few.

We could put the Greek use of ‘few’ and ‘many’ by Christ in this parable in its cultural context. Pericles, in his ‘Funeral Oration’ in Athens, according to Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, uses ‘the many,’ οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy. He contrasts them with ‘the few’ (οἱ ὀλίγοι, hoi oligoi), who abuse power and create an oligarchy, rule by the few. He advocates equal justice for ‘the many’, ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.

When we celebrate the Eucharist, we remember that Christ is the victim, and that he said his blood is shed ‘for you and for many’ … you being us, the Church, the few in this parable; but the many, οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), refers to the masses, the multitude, the great unwashed, who are called too.

Christ dies for the many, the lumpen masses, all people, and not just for the few, the oligarchs. The many are invited to this banquet this morning. And who are we to behave like a tyrannical despot and exclude them? For if we exclude them, we are in danger of excluding Christ himself.

This story has elements of harshness and tragedy, and some of the responses seem out of proportion to the crime.

The first guests are those who are hostile to Christ. The one who arrives without wearing wedding robes represents those who do not count the cost in becoming disciples. The judgment on anyone who does not prepare will be at least as severe as that on those who reject Christ. The final verse is the moral of the story – a generalisation of Christ’s intent in telling the parable: ‘For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Wedding garments were provided to all comers, so refusing to wear one was not a matter of pleading poverty – it was a deliberate and direct insult to the host.

Yet is the king in the parable a paragon of virtue or a model for how Christ behaves? Christ’s condemnation of violent retaliation is clear and consistent, not only in his teaching throughout his ministry but also in his example of becoming subject to death on a cross.

I have difficulties with the traditional, exclusive claims made in many interpretations of this parable, the standard storytelling of this parable. Is Christ proclaiming that God will retaliate violently when God’s messengers are attacked?

The wedding feast is a consistent image of the messianic banquet. How often do we try to shorten and edit the guest list for the party? The task of the slaves is to gather all – ‘both good and bad.’ If it is for anyone to decide who should be ejected, that call belongs to the king.

But there is another, alternative reading of this Gospel passage. The guests have been compelled to come to the banquet, not because they have something to celebrate, but because they are in fear of the tyrant.

In this telling, Christ is the only one who speaks out and who protests against the king’s tyranny, the tyranny of the kingdoms of this world, by refusing to wear the robe, and ended up being rejected, being ejected, and being crucified on behalf of the many, on behalf of all those who are marginalised, thrown out, expelled.

For many are called to the way of the Cross, but few are chosen.

On the other hand, we might think of the person who was invited by the king, but who does not change. Many are invited to Christianity, come to the banquet, but do not change, thinking that God’s grace will cover it all.

As with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s discussions of Cheap Grace and Costly Grace, we are invited to the banquet, but we must change.

Or you might see the guest who shows up without the wedding garment as being like someone coming to a party but refusing to party. How often am I like that person? Are you?

‘Look, I have prepared my dinner … and everything is ready’ (Matthew 22: 3) … preparing for a banquet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 5: 21-43 (NRSVA):

21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ 24 So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ 29 Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ 31 And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ 32 He looked all round to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ 40 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

A summer wedding in Arkadi Monastery in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 30 January 2024):

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: ‘Welcoming the Stranger – A Candlemas Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Annie Bolger of the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Brussels.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (30 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Accept, we pray, our sorrow for the times when we have not shown compassion and mercy to those You have created in love and for love. Help us grow in courage and hope, always ready to welcome the stranger.

The Collect:

King of kings and Lord of lords,
whose faithful servant Charles
prayed for those who persecuted him
and died in the living hope of your eternal kingdom:
grant us by your grace so to follow his example
that we may love and bless our enemies,
through the intercession of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Charles:
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.

Yesterday’s reflection (A banquet with Levi, Luke 5: 27-32)

Continued tomorrow (The meal that never was: the Samaritan woman at the well, John 4: 5-42)

‘Those who had been invited to the wedding banquet … would not come’ (Matthew 22: 3) … empty tables at a wedding reception in 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

The Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth … Charles I, a guest of the Comberford family in 1619, is remembered in ‘Common Worship’ on 30 January (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 35, 28 January 2024

Would we recognise Jesus on the shore early on Sunday morning? (see John 21: 4) … the beach at Platanias near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today, the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany IV, 28 January 2024).

Later this morning I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Holy Trinity Church, Wolverton, and we may go to the Taizé service there this afternoon. But, before this day begins, I am taking some time for reading, reflection and prayer.

Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Friday (2 February). The Gospel reading last Sunday (John 2: 1-11) told of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories.

In keeping with the theme of last Sunday’s Gospel reading, I am continuing with last week’s thoughts in my reflections each morning until the Feast of the Presentation:

1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat and you will find some [fish]’ (John 21: 6) … a fishing boat with its nets at the harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

8, Breakfast by the shore (John 21: 1-17):

Saint John’s Gospel concludes not with the Ascension but with another meal, the breakfast by the shore of the Sea of Tiberias after the Resurrection and the conversation that follows (John 21: 1-17).

The Early Church, as it read the Fourth Gospel, would have understood each meal in the light of the Resurrection, with a post-Resurrection faith and understanding, and in the light of the weekly Eucharistic meal. This understanding, of course, would also have applied to Saint John’s account of the Feeding of the Multitude, or the miracle of the loaves and fish.

The feeding with loaves and fish is a prelude to, looks forward to, another meal by the shores of Lake Tiberias – that breakfast with the disciples when Jesus feeds them with bread and fish. Once again, Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to those he is feeding (John 21: 13).

The fish is an early Christian symbol of faith in the Risen Christ: Ichthus (ἰχθύς, capitalised ΙΧΘΥΣ or ΙΧΘΥC) is the Greek word for fish, and can be read as an acrostic, a word formed from the first letters of several words, spelling out Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (Iēsous Khristos Theou Huios, Sōtēr, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour).

The disciples that Sunday morning are not very successful at fishing, are they (John 21: 3)? So unsuccessful, indeed, that they are willing to take advice from someone they do not even recognise (verse 4 ff).

The disciples are at the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberias, back at their old jobs fishing. Peter, who denied Christ three times during his Passion, Thomas, who had initially doubted the stories of the Resurrection (see John 20: 24-29), Nathanael, who once wondered whether anything good could come from Nazareth (see John 1: 46), James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who once wanted to be so close to him that they wanted to be seated at his right hand and his left in the kingdom, and two other disciples who remain unnamed … how about that for fame, lasting recognition and success?

They are back on the same shore where there once were so many fish, so much bread left over after feeding the multitude, that they filled 12 baskets (John 6: 1-13). There are not so many fish around this time, at first. But then Saint John tells us that after Christ arrives 153 fish were caught that morning (verse 11).

This number is probably a symbol meaning a complete number. The number 153 is divisible by the sum of its own digits, and it is the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of cubes of its digits, since 153 = 1³ + 5³ + 3³. Aristotle is said to have taught that there were 153 different species of fish in the Mediterranean.

Whatever they say, the disciples must have thought they had managed the perfect catch that morning.

But the perfect catch was Christ – and, of course, they were the perfect catch for him too. When they came ashore once again he invites them to share bread and fish, to dine with the Risen Lord (21: 12-13).

To eat with the Risen Lord and to invite others to the Heavenly Banquet, so that every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea can say ‘Amen’ before the Throne of God … now that is what I call success (Revelation 5: 11-14).

And when others ask us, Do we love Christ?, when others ask us, Do we love them?, when others ask us, Do we love one another?, will we hesitate, like Peter in this reading, not knowing how to answer?

Or when they ask, will the answers be obvious in the ways we worship, in the way we live our lives, in the way we respond to others?

Beached … an old fishing boat on the sands at Platanias, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 1: 21-28 (NRSVA):

21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ 26 And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He[ commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

A fishing boat at the harbour in Panormos, east of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 January 2024, Epiphany IV):

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: ‘Welcoming the Stranger – A Candlemas Reflection.’ This theme is introduced today by the Revd Annie Bolger of the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Brussels:

As we approach the joyful celebration of Candlemas, we also remember the shadows cast over Jesus’ early experiences. Matthew’s Gospel speaks of a frightening threat to Jesus’ life, and an angel warns Joseph to flee from his homeland with Mary and his young son. They narrowly escape and seek asylum in Egypt.

The Holy Family’s refugee status enriches our Christian ethos towards refugees today. Due to climate crises, war, famine and many other factors, the UNHCR estimates that 117.2 million people were forcibly displaced or stateless in 2023. The numbers will only rise in the year ahead and may simply overwhelm us. We cannot possibly imagine the trauma and difficulty that each person’s story represents. That is why Jesus came among us as a refugee: to remind us of the humanity and dignity of every displaced person.

In Brussels, the existing infrastructure for refugees is inadequate, and many asylum seekers are living on the streets. We run a community kitchen in partnership with USPG that provides over 5,000 meals each week to people in need, the vast majority of whom are asylum seekers. This Candlemas, we remember the elderly Simeon taking the refugee child Jesus in his arms and praying for peace. Let us light our candles and remember that the light of Christ shines for all people.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (28 January 2024, Epiphany IV) invites us to pray in these words:

Light our darkness, O Lord,
and reveal the unspeakable
lest we forget the victims of our inhumanity.
Turn our hearts to repentance
and our actions to justice.

The Collect:

God our creator,
who in the beginning
commanded the light to shine out of darkness:
we pray that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
may dispel the darkness of ignorance and unbelief,
shine into the hearts of all your people,
and reveal the knowledge of your glory
in the face of 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:

Generous Lord,
in word and eucharist we have proclaimed the mystery of your love:
help us so to live out our days
that we may be signs of your wonders in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Additional Collect:

God of heaven,
you send the gospel to the ends of the earth
and your messengers to every nation:
send your Holy Spirit to transform us
by the good news of everlasting life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection (The Last Supper)

Continued tomorrow (A banquet with Levi)

Aristotle believed there were 153 different species of fish in the Mediterranean (see John 21: 11) … fish in a taverna 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

Audrey Hepburn’s brave role during the Holocaust and her father’s life in Dublin

Patrick Comerford

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2023). Over the past few days, the World Jewish Congress has drawn attention to the role of Audrey Hepburn as a teenager living in the Netherlands under Nazi occupation, and how she helped the Dutch Resistance and saved Jewish lives during World War II.

Audrey Hepburn died away 30 years ago this month, on 20 January 1993. She starred in many memorable roles, from Manhattan socialite Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) to Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964). The 1953 classic Roman Holiday — in which she played Princess Ann, a royal exploring the Eternal City with Gregory Peck — earned her an Academy Award. She is one of the few stars to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award.

Yet few people know that was also a Dutch aristocrat, raised by parents with controversial political sympathies, who aided resistance to the Nazis while enduring tragedy and starvation.

In his biography, Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II, the author Robert Matzen reveals his discoveries about Audrey Hepburn’s life growing up in the Netherlands during World War II, and how her parents’ Nazi connections haunted her for the rest of her life.

With meticulous research, he tells the story of her heroic efforts during World War II, and how those difficult years led her to a life of humanitarian service. During that time, she was also becoming a prima ballerina on her way to Hollywood and stardom.

Robert Matzen’s book is based on research in the Netherlands, where he had access archives, interviewed people with war-time memories of Hepburn, unearthed rare photographs, documents and mementoes, and visited Arnhem, where she lived there during World War II.

Her Dutch mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra, met Hitler in the 1930s and wrote admiringly about him in British fascist publications. She changed her mind during the brutal Nazi occupation of the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945. Her father, Joseph Ruston, ended up in jailed because of his Nazi sympathies.

The baroness aided the Dutch Resistance after Hepburn’s uncle, Otto Ernst Gelder, Count van Limburg Stirum, was executed by the Nazis. After the execution of her uncle, Audrey and her mother relocated from Arnhem to the village of Velp five km away and heard hear the destruction of their former hometown during the 1944 Allied defeat in the battles of Arnhem and Oosterbeek.

Audrey Hepburn volunteered for the resistance, aided Jews in hiding, and raised funds through dancing to keep them safe. Despite everything, fewer than 25 per cent of Dutch Jews survived the Holocaust.

Audrey Hepburn was invited in 1958 to play Anne Frank in the film version of The Diary of Anne Frank. But she found the subject too close to home and turned it down, although she met Otto Frank. Two decades later, in 1976, she turned a role in A Bridge Too Far.

Hepburn’s war years explain her later work as a UNICEF ambassador working with children affected by war.

Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston on 4 May 1929. Her family had aristocratic connections on both sides. Her Dutch grandfather, Baron van Heemstra, was a former governor of the South American colony of Surinam and a former mayor of Arnhem. Her English father claimed a royal descent from James Hepburn, the third husband of Mary Queen of Scots in the 16th-century.

Young Audrey, or Adriaantje as she was known in her family, grew up between Belgium, England and the Netherlands. Her parents visited Germany with Sir Oswald Mosley and other British fascists, and met Hitler in Munich in 1935.

Ella returned to Germany for the Nazi Party Congress later that year and praised Hitler in British fascist publications. She continued supporting the Nazis after they occupied the Netherlands. Ironically, Hepburn’s ballet teacher, Winja Marova, was Jewish and hid her identity from the occupiers.

The Nazis arrested her brother-in-law, Hepburn’s uncle Otto, a court prosecutor, and he was executed on 15 August 1942 in a mass killing with another relative, Baron Schimmelpenninck van der Oye.

Otto’s execution was a turning point and shook the family to the core. Ella relocated with Audrey to Velp, where they lived with Audrey’s grandfather, Baron van Heemstra, and Otto’s widow, Meisje. There the family joined the resistance. The refusal to join a Nazi artists’ committee ending Audrey Hepburn’s burgeoning dance career.

In Velp, Audrey assisted Dr Hendrik Visser ’t Hooft, who helped shelter hundreds of Jews. She brought messages to families protecting Jews. She danced to raise money for the resistance and to feed Jews in hiding.

In an unexpected development, when Audrey Hepburn and her mother lived in Amsterdam after liberation, their fellow lodger was the editor working on publishing the Diary of Anne Frank. Audrey and Anne were born less than five months apart in 1929, but Anne Frank was apprehended in 1944 and died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945. Audrey Hepburn would later describe Anne Frank as a soul sister.

‘I believe Audrey felt survivor’s guilt,’ Robert Matzen says. ‘She survived. Anne Frank did not.’

Eventually, she left with her mother for England, where Audrey Hepburn found success not through ballet but in film. In time, she came to terms with her past. Years after becoming a household name, she took part in public readings of The Diary of Anne Frank and became a Unicef ambassador.



Audrey Hepburn was born in Belgium, spent the war years in occupied Holland, she sounded English and her first acting roles were in British films, became a Hollywood success, and had a second international career as a Unicef ambassador and a humanitarian campaigner. Yet, there was also an Irish element in her life story too.

Her father, Joseph Hepburn-Ruston, was born Joseph Ruston in Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, in 1889 to an English father and his German wife, Catherina Wels.

He was an Englishman living in Belgium when his daughter was born in 1929. In the years before World War II, he expressed unqualified enthusiasm for Hitler. He left Audrey and her mother in 1939. After detention in the Isle of Man, made his way to Dublin where, assisted by the Carmelite order, he found lucrative work in the insurance industry.

Joseph Hepburn-Ruston became friends with the Guinness family and Sir Alfred Beit, the art collector and philanthropist. He and his third wife, the model Fidelma Walshe, more than 30 years his junior, were living near Merrion Square, Dublin, when Audrey first reconnected with him in the early 1960s.

She tracked down Joseph with the help of the Red Cross. A meeting was arranged in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, in 1964. But it was not the occasion she had hoped for. When Joseph saw Audrey, he made no move towards her. She took the initiative, stepping forward to hug him. She soon realised that the man she had pined for as a child was distant and emotionally detached. They did not speak for another 20 years.

He lived in Sydenham Road Dublin for over 35 years. His daughter supported him financially until he died in Baggot Street Hospital at the age of 91 on 16 October 1980. He is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Harold’s Cross. Audrey did not go to her father’s funeral, but returned to Dublin in 1988.

Audrey Hepburn died in Switzerland 30 years ago this month on 20 January 1993.

Shabbat Shalom

Sam Comerford, a Dublin musician and composer now based in Brussels

Sam Comerford is a musician and composer from Dublin (Photograph © Chloë Delanghe, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Sam Comerford is a musician and composer from Dublin now living and working in Brussels. He composes for and leads the trio Thunderblender, whose critically acclaimed debut album Stillorgan (WERF records, 2020) was described by RTÉ Lyric FM as ‘the estrangement of the familiar.’

He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1991, and grew up in Stillorgan in suburban south Dublin. Starting with Irish traditional music, he played tin whistle and Irish flute from the age of nine. A love of the music of Charles Mingus made him take up saxophone at 15. After four years studying with Patrice Brun, he attended the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. Being surrounded by musicians such as Dave Douglas, Matana Roberts, Donny McCaslin and Drew Gress opened his mind to the possibilities of creative music.

Sam studied saxophone with Michael Buckley and composition with Ronan Guilfoyle, and he completed his BA in Jazz Performance at 21 in Newpark Academy of Music, Blackrock, now part of Dublin City University.

He then moved to Brussels to work on his master’s degree in Jazz saxophone from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, the Royal Conservatory of Brussels (KCB). There he studied saxophone with John Ruocco, composition with Kris Defoort, and rhythm with Stéphane Galland. At KCB he was awarded the Toots Thielemans Award, given to their most exceptional masters student.

As a saxophonist, Sam represented Ireland in the European Saxophone Ensemble from 2012-2014. Led by Guillaume Orti, the project premiered works from composers working in contemporary improvised music, and performing 22 concerts in 14 European countries. He represented Ireland twice in the 12 Points Festival, in 2015 and 2016.

Sam received the ‘Best Instrumentalist prize from the Concours Tremplin d’Avignon, when performing at the Concours Tremplin Jazz d’Avignon in 2017 with Thunderblender. He has been supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Music Network, and the Vlaamse Overheid.

Alongside his own musical activities he has a busy schedule touring and recording in projects incorporating elements of jazz, improvised music, and Irish music. These include performances at venues and festivals in Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Taiwan, with the Hayden Chisholm saxophone quartet and with the European Saxophone Ensemble, led by Guillaume Orti.

He has worked with musicians and composers such as Hayden Chisholm, Ronan Guilfoyle, Guillaume Orti, Andrew Hozier-Byrne, Joao Lobo, André Vida, Ingrid Laubrock, Stéphane Payen, Yoch’ko Seffer, Nick Roth, Utsav Lal, and many more.

Sam is active on the European scene, and specialises in creative improvised music, playing tenor and bass saxophone. His current projects include his own trio Thunderblender, with Jens Bouttery and Hendrik Lasure, Insufficient Funs, a bass saxophone/drums duo with Matthew Jacobson, Aerie, an avant-garde jazz quintet led by Ingo Hipp, Umbra, Chris Guilfoyle’s contemporary jazz quintet, Hendrik Lasure’s warm bad, Heptatomic, a Belgian septet led by Eve Beuvens, and Brilliant Corners, a free jazz quartet founded by Manolo Cabras.

Sam Comerford leads Thunderblender, a trio from Brussels. Together with two trailblazers on the Belgian jazz scene, Hendrik Lasure and Jens Bouttery, they play Comerford’s dark and unpredictable compositions with joy and abandon. All three members are laureates of the ‘Toots Thielemans Award’ from the KCB.

Their music explores intense emotions, moving between order and chaos, free improvisation and intricate writing, heavy grooves and fragile intimate moments. This is a European band with a nod to the American avant-garde, influenced by Henry Threadgill and Tim Berne, with references to 20th century classical harmony.

Sam Comerford plays tenor and the rarely-heard bass saxophone, with playing that could be characterised as equal parts abrasive and lyrical. Jens Bouttery augments his drum set with left-handed bass synth, giving him complete freedom as a one-man rhythm section. Without a conventional bass player, Lasure is free to use the full range of the grand piano, sometimes with live sampling.

They released their debut album, Stillorgan, on 11 September 2020. It was recorded with producer Koen Gisen, in CD and LP formats on WERF Records. It was accompanied by a Belgian release tour in association with Jazzlab Series.

The album features Sam Comerford on tenor and bass saxophone and composition, with Hendrik Lasure, piano and effects, and Jens Bouttery, drums and bass synth. It was recorded and mixed at La Patrie in Ghent, Belgium, in 2019 and 2020, by Koen Gisen and was mastered by Rashad Becker at clunk.

Drawing on the mixture of heavy grooves and tender lyricism contained in their first EP Last Minute Panic (2017), this album offers an intensely personal statement from the bandleader and composer, Sam Comerford.

The album title Stillorgan refers to the Dublin suburb where Sam Comerford grew up. The sleeve was designed by Jelle Martens, and the cover photograph by Susan Keyes shows Sam Comerford with his father Will Comerford.

The album tracks reflect the core themes of family life and love which is affectionately conveyed through its intimate imagery. Given their impressionistic and haunting quality, reviewers say, the imagery is both opaque, and a glaring confrontation with that lived reality.

Stillorgan’s opening number, ‘Lament’ offers melancholic atmospheres, spacious chords, dispersed percussion and damp, grizzly saxophone textures, counterposed by the slightly jarring effect of Lasure’s use of live sampling techniques.

If ‘Lament’ offers a sense of contemplative flight, the LP’s single ‘Movin On’ brings the listener back to earth with its sense of urgency. Held together by Bouttery’s propulsive, syncopated groove, the track is driven forward by a lively conversation between Sam Comerford’s escalating and sinuous saxophone articulations and Lasure’s measured piano chords. This dialogue is propelled onto different sonic planes through its continually evolving and restless structure.

Following the earthy density of ‘Movin On!’, ‘Last Light Out’ oscillates into abstract speculative chaos. Reminiscent of Henry Threadgill’s admixture of contemporary classical and free jazz idioms, ‘Last Light Out’ offers a subtle dynamic between Bouttery’s cacophonous, dexterous grooves, Lasure’s complex chord progressions, and Comerford’s frenetic, yet agile tonal explorations.

‘Doubt’ shifts gear once again by plunging the listener into an eerie, contemplative state.

‘Hope’ leaps from solemn reflection into buoyancy, where obtuse angular jabs propel the track along its zigzagging terrain: we are invited to a macabre carnival, a rhizomatic tap dance.

‘Arrival’ picks up the pieces from the carnage of ‘Hope’ by offering shimmering lyrical sound passages.

Like Samuel Beckett said of his play Not I, that the piece should ‘work on the nerves of the audience, not its intellect,’ Thunderblender’s ‘Panic Redux’ operates as its sonic equivalent, hammering out electrifying doses of distilled sound clusters.

‘Lights Out’ brings to the surface many of the melancholic themes that are lurking throughout the LP into sharp relief with a sparse compositional language that is at once haunting and densely layered.

Ian Patterson, writing on their 2017 debut EP Last Minute Panic All About Jazz, says: ‘Even in Thunderblender’s most intense improvisational flights there's an abiding sense of the three musicians locked on the same intuitive wavelength, whereby freedom and control are but two sides of the same coin. Gutsy yet melodic, rhythmically complex yet grooving, there's plenty to admire in this fine debut.’

Sam Comerford’s other projects include a solo saxophone album based on the music of Irish fiddler Tommie Potts, a second album with Thunderblender, and the soundtrack of experimental horror film Hexham Heads.