Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 81, Monday 27 July 2026

‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened’ (Matthew 13: 33) … a variety of bread on a market stall in Buckinghamo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). Today (27 July), the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship gives thanks for the life and work of Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), Bishop of Durham and Teacher of the Faith. He was one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ and was the founder Westcott House, the theological college in Cambridge that I visited last week and that I described in blog posting on Saturday evening.

Later this evening, I have a meeting of the trustees of a local charity in Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened’ (Matthew 13: 33) … bread in a shop window in Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 13: 31-35 (NRSVA):

31 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

33 He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

34 Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. 35 This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet:

‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.’

‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field’ (Matthew 13: 31) … the Mustard Seed is a restaurant in a country house setting in Ballingarry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflections:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Matthew 13: 31-35) repeats part of yesterday’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52). I suppose it helps to be reminded this morning to be reminded how why Jesus keeps on trying to grasp at images that might help the Disciples and help us to understand what the Kingdom of God is like.

Christ tries to offer us a taste of the kingdom in this reading, as he continues to speak in parables. The two parables in today’s reading – the Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Parable of the Yeast – are really similes that must have seemed incredible in their day because of Christ’s use of exaggeration and hyperbole.

A mustard seed is very small, but it grows into a large shrub, rather than a tree. Birds do not nest in it.

Bread made with three measures of flour would feed 100 people, so once again we have hyperbole. The Kingdom of God will grow from small beginnings to something beyond our measure or imagination.

We have a romantic imagination that confuses gardens with Paradise, and Paradise with the Kingdom of Heaven. But perhaps that is a good starting point.

I was reflecting yesterday how the Kingdom of Heaven may be so like so many of those places that I see as snatches of heaven, places where I find myself constantly praising God and thanking God for creation.

But … but it’s not just that. And I start thinking that Christ does more than just paint a scene when he describes the kingdom of heaven.

I also need thanks for the small seeds or fistfuls of yeast, and share them with those I love and cherish.

You may wonder why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in this morning’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.

But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.

We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about this morning.

Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or a mighty oak tree?

Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.

But he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree (verse 6) into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.

As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’. Another version is ‘Here we go gathering nuts in May’. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, ‘I saw three ships’. TS Eliot used the nursery rhyme in his poem ‘The Hollow Men’, replacing the mulberry bush with a prickly pear and ‘on a cold and frosty morning’ with ‘at five o’clock in the morning.’

Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person. It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.

The Greek word used in verse 31 for a tree, δένδρον (dendron), appears 25 times in the New Testament as the ordinary word for a tree, not a shrub or a bush. Although generic, it carries rich theological weight. A tree stands rooted between heaven and earth, silently declaring the Creator’s power (Genesis 1-2) and inviting reflection on life, growth, fruitfulness, and judgment.

When the New Testament writers select dendron, they tap into this panoramic biblical backdrop to illuminate the message of repentance, authentic discipleship, kingdom expansion, and final judgment. In first-century Judea and Galilee, hillsides were dotted with olive, fig, date-palm, sycamore, oak, and cedar. Trees furnished timber, fuel, medicine, oil, fruit, shade, and landmarks for travellers. Their steady annual cycles made them ideal teaching aids.

However, the tree Christ names in a smiliar reference in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 17: 1-6) is the sycamine tree (συκάμινος, sikámeenos), which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus). Others think the tree being referred to here is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), a tree the same as the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).

The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.

Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, or a small amount of yeast used in baking bread, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.

Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters.

‘It … becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches’ (Matthew 13: 32) … old trees in Saint Mary Magdalene churchyard, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2066)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 27 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 27 July 2026) invites us to pray:

God of all peoples, we pray for migrant workers who begin each week in uncertainty and hard labour. Surround them with protection and your love.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that have taken holy things;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
your Son left the riches of heaven
and became poor for our sake:
when we prosper save us from pride,
when we are needy save us from despair,
that we may trust in you alone;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Westcott House, Cambridge … the calendar in Common Worship today remembers Bishop Brooke Westcott (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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

Finding a Pugin link with Buckingham in a former Franciscan college and chapel on London Road

The former Franciscan seminary and church on London Road, Buckingham, are now part of the University of Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I spent time in both Ireland – mainly in Co Wexford – and in Staffordshire visiting and tying to catalogue churches and college chapels designed by AWN Pugin (1812-1852), the towering figure in the Gothic Revival in English and Irish church architecture.

The Pugin trail resumed recently in Buckingham, when I had a brief visit to the Verney Park campus of the University of Buckingham on London Road to see a collection of Gothic-style buildings designed by the Pugin family. They were built in 1892-1894 by the Franciscans, and include a former chapel, bell turret and college designed by Pugin & Pugin as a junior seminary for the Franciscans.

Aside from being notable buildings in the Victorian Gothic style, they are part of the social history of the development and expansion of Buckingham at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and are part of the history of educational provision in the town.

At the end of the 19th century, Father Thaddeus Hermans, a Belgian Franciscan friar, wanted to open a college for young men wishing to become Franciscans. He arrived in Buckingham in 1892 and rented a cottage in Elm Street, where he said the first Mass, finally settling on 9 Chandos Road to set up his first chapel.

Hermans then obtained a site on London Road and the ractice of Pugin & Pugin was commissioned to design a new chapel and college.

The former seminary and church on London Road, Buckingham, were designed by Pugin & Pugin and built in 1892-1894 and 1912 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin & Pugin was a London-based family firm of church architects that worked from about 1873 until about 1958. The origins of the partnership lay with the practice of Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875). He had worked in the London office of his father, AWN Pugin, who died when Edward was 18. Following his father’s death in 1852, EW Pugin was involved in completing some of his works in Ireland, including the cathedral in Killarney, Co Kerry.

Edward Welby Pugin formed two successive partnerships with Irish architects: the first with James Murray, as Pugin & Murray from 1857 to 1858; and Pugin & Ashlin in 1860 with George Coppinger Ashlin, who married his sister Mary in 1867. The partnership of Pugin & Ashlin was dissolved in late 1868.

EW Pugin’s works in Ireland include Saint John’s Covent, Birr, Co Offaly; the Presentation Convent, Waterford; the chapels for the Cliffe family at Bellevue, Co Wexford, and the Power family at Edermine, Co Wexford; Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Cork; the Convent of Mercy, Nenagh, Co Tipperary; Saint Brigid’s Church, Crosshaven, Co Cork; and a convent in Fethard, Co Lane.

Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, the Church of Saint Augustine and Saint John, Thomas Street, Dublin, often known as John’s Lane Church, and Saint Kevin’s Church, Harrington Street, Dublin, are among the many works by Pugin & Ashlin.

After EW Pugin was bankrupted by a business venture in 1873, his firm’s work in England and Scotland was continued by his brother Cuthbert Welby Pugin (1840-1928) and their half-brother Peter Paul Pugin (1851-1904), and the practice became known as Pugin & Pugin.

The foundation stone of the seminary was laid by Bishop Arthur George Riddell of Northampton in 1894 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin & Pugin worked exclusively in the Gothic Revival style, and produced many buildings, alterations and furnishings for the Catholic Church. They include the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart Church, Liverpool; Sacred Heart Church, Kilburn; the English Martyrs Church, Tower Hill; Saint Mary’s Church, Morecambe; the presbytery of the Sacred Heart Church, Bridgeton, Glasgow; and Saint Mary’s Church, Stirling. The firm designed the high altar of Saint John Cantius and Saint Nicholas Catholic Church in Broxburn, West Lothian, in Caen stone and marble.

There are reputedly about 100 buildings by the firm in Australia, built from the mid-1850s onwards, and one building in New Zealand, the Bishop’s Palace (1894) in Saint Mary’s Bay, Auckland, commissioned by Dom John Edmund Luck (1840-1896), Bishop of Auckland.

The foundation stone of the new seminary in Buckingham, under the patronage of Saint Bernardine, a Franciscan saint, was laid by Bishop Arthur George Riddell of Northampton in June 1894. When the Franciscan college opened, there were few Catholics living in Buckingham, and the registers record 12 baptisms in 1900. The parish of Saint Bernardine was set around the college, and the college chapel designed by Pugin & Pugin was blessed and opened for public worship in 1912.

The college chapel was blessed and opened for public worship in 1912 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The parish grew quickly after World War II, and the college continued as a boarding and day school. In the post-war years, the friars were asked to open Mass centres in nearby towns and villages, including Brackley.

However, with changing circumstances, the college closed in 1968 and the buildings were sold to Buckingham County Council. However, the friars were allowed to continue to use the chapel until the parish could build its own church. Eventually it was decided to build onto the new friary in Chandos Road where the friars had set up their first chapel.

After the college buildings were bought by Buckinghamshire Country Council, they were used as an annex to the Buckingham School. The buildings were bought in 1977 by the University of Buckingham, the first independent university in the UK. Initially they were used as residential accommodation for both staff and students, and the former chapel is now part of the University of Buckingham library services.

Meanwhile, the Franciscans who had relocated to Chandos Road, built a new church, which I wrote about in a blog posting some months ago (6 November 2025). Many of the internal features and furnishings in Saint Bernardine’s Church came from the earlier college chapel in Buckingham, including statues of Saint Anthony, Saint Francis and Saint Bernardine, the font, the church bell, the organ and the organ pipes, the pews and the octagonal stone font (1946).

Today, Saint Bernardine’s Church is part of the joint Parish of Buckingham and Brackley and continues to serve the Catholic community in the area.

The former college and chapel are now part of the University of Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 53, Monday 29 June 2026, Saint Peter and Saint Paul

The Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul holding the church in unity … an early 18th century icon in the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary time in the Church Calendar. The week began with Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV, 28 June 2026) and today is the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (29 June). This time of the year is known sometimes as Petertide, because of the ordinations at this time of the year.

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

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the paired niches above the south porch in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 16: 13-19 (NRSVA):

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ 14 And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ 15 He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ 16 Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ 17 And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

The statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the porch of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on Queen Street, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Last week I was marking the 25th anniversary of my ordination as priest (24 June 2001) and the 26th anniversary of my ordination as deacon, on both occasions by Archbishop Walton Empey in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin In recent days, many of ordained colleagues have been posting photographs on social media celebrating the anniversaries of their ordinations too.

Today is the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Apostles (29 June), and this time of the year is known in Anglican tradition as Petertide, one of the two traditional periods for the ordination of new priests and deacons – the other being Michaelmas, in the days close to 29 September.

The Cambridge poet-priest Malcolm Guite has said on his blog that Saint Peter’s Day and this season are appropriate for ordinations because Saint Peter is ‘the disciple who, for all his many mistakes, knew how to recover and hold on, who, for all his waverings was called by Jesus “the rock,” who learned the threefold lesson that every betrayal can ultimately be restored by love.’

Saint Peter argues with Saint Paul at Antioch, and Paul rebukes Peter for seemingly trying to insist that Gentiles must become Jews if they are to convert to Christianity (see Galatians 2: 11-13). But if Saint Peter gets it wrong in Antioch, he goes on to get it right at the first Council of the Church in Jerusalem (see Acts 15: 7-20). He later refers to Saint Paul as ‘our beloved brother’ and his letters as ‘scripture,’ even when they may be difficult to understand (see II Peter 3: 16-17).

A later Church tradition says Saint Peter and Saint Paul taught together in Rome, founded Christianity in the city, and suffered martyrdom at the same time, so that an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, standing side-by-side, is a popular icon of Church unity and ecumenism in the Orthodox Church.

In the Orthodox Church, Saint Peter and Saint Paul are seen as figures of Church Unity, sharing a common faith and mission despite their differences. They are often seen as paired, flanking images at entrances to churches, and the icon of Christian Unity in the Orthodox tradition shows the Apostles Peter and Paul embracing each other – signs of the early Church overcoming its differences and affirming its diversity.

As they embrace each other in these icons, Peter and Paul are almost wrestling, arms around each other, beards so close they are almost intertwining. This icon reminds me of Psalm 133:

How very good and pleasant it is
when [brothers] live together in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life for evermore.

So, despite many readings of the New Testament, especially the Acts of the Apostles, that see Peter and Paul in conflict with each other rather than complementing each other, they can be models for Church Unity.

We may rejoice in the Church that our differences may complement each other. Pope Francis marked the feast of Saint Peter and Paul in 2020 by stressing the importance of unity in the Church and allowing ourselves to be challenged by God, urging people to spend less time complaining about what they see going wrong, and more time in prayer.

He noted that Saint Peter and Saint Paul were two very different men who ‘could argue heatedly’ but who ‘saw one another as brothers, as happens in close-knit families where there may be frequent arguments but unfailing love.’

God, he said, ‘did not command us to like one another, but to love one another. He is the one who unites us, without making us all alike.’

Saint Peter and Saint Paul depicted in the window commemorating William Cowper in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Churh, Olney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 29 June 2026, Saint Peter and Saint Paul)

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 28 June to 4 July 2026 (pp 14-15), is ‘Living Stones’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a reflection by the Very Revd Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, President and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School.

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 29 June 2026, Saint Peter and Saint Paul) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, you called apostles to proclaim a love that disrupted power and turned the world upside down. Help us, as living stones, to support one another in courageous truth-telling and bearing witness against empire.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul
glorified you in their death as in their life:
grant that your Church,
inspired by their teaching and example,
and made one by your Spirit,
may ever stand firm upon the one foundation,
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever..

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Peter and Saint Paul depicted in statues on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 52, Sunday 28 June 2026, Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV)

‘Whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me’ (Matthew 10: 40) … a welcome sign at Birkbeck University of London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary time and today is the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV, 28 June 2026). This time of the year is known sometimes as Petertide, because of the ordinations at this time, close to tomorrow’s Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (29 June).

Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me’ (Matthew 10: 40) … a welcome sign at a church in Buckingham says Everyone is Welcome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 10: 40-42 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 40 ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

‘Whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous’ (Matthew 10: 41) … a welcome sign at a front door in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We are preparing to welcome a new rector to the parishes of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford. It is interesting that the word welcome is used six times in the three short verses in this morning’s Gospel reading.

The verb that is used here (δέχομαι, déchoma-ee), means to take by the hand, to receive, to grant access to, a visitor, to receive with hospitality, to receive into one’s home. It can refer to a way of responding generously to something said, to respond positively to teaching or instruction, to receive favourably, to embrace or to make one’s own.

Irish people like to think of Ireland as the land of a hundred thousand welcomes. English people have always put a high value on hospitality – although I fear that ten years after the Brexit vote that hospitality is widely cherished as an English value today.

Even then, our concepts of welcome and hospitality come nowhere close to the way these values are expressed by Greeks. In a village in Crete where I have stayed regularly and still go back to visit, the baker welcomes me back as I am buying bread for breakfast, wanting not only to assure me that he remembers me year-by-year but to be assured that I remember him too.

In the newsagents, I am asked how long I am there for ‘this time’ – it not only conveys the memory that I have been there before but contains the hope that I would be here many more times too.

The Greek concept of welcome implies that the stranger is becoming a neighbour, a friend. It is not a tourism marketing ploy. It is not a cheap expression of gratitude for return business. It is simply a part of the Greek nature and culture to welcome the stranger or the foreigner. And the Greeks have another word for it – φιλοξενία (philoxenia) – meaning literally ‘love of the stranger or outsider.’

In classical Greece, hospitality was a right, and a host was expected to see to the needs of the guests. There is a classical Greek term ξενία (xenia) or θεοξένια (theoxenia) that expresses this ritualised guest-friendship relation: θεοξένια (theoxenia, welcoming the guest, becomes welcoming a god. In classical Greece, someone’s ability to abide by the laws of hospitality determined nobility and social standing, and showed that someone was truly religious.

The Stoics regarded hospitality as a duty inspired by Zeus himself.

The word φιλοξενία (philoxenia) – from φῐ́λος (phílos), a loved one who is more than a ‘friend,’ and ξένος (xénos), a ‘stranger’ or ‘outsider’ – is used by many of the philosophers (Plato, Polybius, Philo of Alexandria and others) to express the warmth properly shown to strangers, and the readiness to share hospitality or generosity by entertaining in one’s own home.

It is a word that is used constantly in the epistles in the New Testament.

Saint Paul speaks of the importance of contributing to the needs of the saints – those inside the Church, and extending hospitality to strangers – those from outside who must be welcomed (κοινωνοῦντες τὴν φιλοξενίαν διώκοντες, Romans 12: 13).

In Hebrews 13: 2, the author uses a similar phrase (τῆς φιλοξενίας μὴ ἐπιλανθάνεσθε) when saying, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’

The concepts of to be hospitable (Φιλόξεον, philoxeon or φιλόξενος, philoxenos), or to show hospitality (ξενοδοχέω, xenodocheo), occur throughout Saint Paul’s letters (see I Timothy 3: 2; Titus 1: 8, I Peter 4: 9, and I Timothy 5: 10). For example: ‘she must be well attested for her good works, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality (ἐξενοδόχησεν), washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way’ (I Timothy 5: 10).

One of the requirements of a bishop in the New Testament Church is to be ‘hospitable’, to be welcoming to strangers (I Timothy 3: 2; Titus 1: 8).

But the NRSV translation shows its weaknesses in those passages. It is not enough to translate these words as hospitality or welcome; it is hospitality towards the stranger, it is welcoming the outsider, the stranger, the foreigner, the person who is different, who comes among us: the people who look different, smell differently, wear different clothes, speak different languages, have different family structures, different names, different religious beliefs and practices.

And in the list of priorities in the New Testament, care for others, for children and hospitality to the stranger come before looking after the needs of church members, described here are washing the saints’ feet.

In his book, Faith in the Future, the former British Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, says: ‘The Hebrew Bible contains the great command, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19: 18), and this has often been taken as the basis of biblical morality. But it is not: it is only part of it. The Jewish sages noted that on only one occasion does the Hebrew Bible command us to love our neighbour, but in 37 places it commands us to love the stranger. Our neighbour is one we love because he is like ourselves. The stranger is one we are taught to love precisely because he is not like ourselves.’

In the New Testament, the concept and the duty of philoxenia is in contrast to ordinary love, φιλία (philia), for it is easy to love those who are like us, from the same family or locality, and is in contrast to xenophobia, the fear of the stranger or the other, which is both unfounded and obsessive – and which is on the rise everywhere and finding expression in disgusting far-right and so-called ‘populist’ movements.

The Christian virtue of philoxenia has its roots in the injunctions to hospitality in Leviticus 19: 18 and 34. We are not just to love our neighbours as ourselves, but: ‘The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’

Despite what is being said in the current debate dividing Anglicanism and many other Christian traditions, the sin of Sodom (see Genesis 19) was to refuse to welcome the stranger. The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 109, makes it clear. For 1,700 years after the destruction of Sodom, ancient Jews linked the destruction of Sodom to the refusal of hospitality, not to homosexuality.

What we often call ‘hospitality’ is really entertaining, and typically we offer it to friends who reciprocate by inviting us back. Hospitality to strangers is not entertaining friends or neighbours. Philoxenia is much more than that. Philoxenia turns on its head xenophobia and any other irrational attitude to those who are different, those who are strangers, those who come from the outside.

And Christ reminds the disciples in this Gospel reading this morning that whoever welcomes them welcomes him. And that welcome begins not in the large gestures, such as accepting a whole, complex set of dogmatic statements and teachings, but in small, gentle gestures, such as offering a cup of water to those who are thirsty.

There can be no limits or bounds to our welcomes, to our hospitality, to our openness to others who are different or who are outsiders.

‘Welcome, No Exit’ … ‘Welcome, Way Out’ … signs at Cambridge Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 June 2026, Trinity IV)

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 28 June to 4 July 2026 (pp 14-15), is ‘Living Stones’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by the Very Revd Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, President and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School:

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, I find myself taking stock of the hopeful and brutal legacies I have inherited as a citizen of this country – and the liberated communities I feel called by my faith to build. In 1 Peter 2: 5, Peter urges believers to “let [our]selves be built into a spiritual house”.

This image stands out to me: the Church as a house made of living stones. Each of us is a stone, chosen and placed by God, not to dominate or exclude, but to support and strengthen the whole. Being chosen does not mean superiority; it means belonging, responsibility, and care.

When our theological lens is too narrow, we risk building houses that exclude God’s people and the earth itself. Often, the concept of 'chosenness' has been weaponised to justify the displacement of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of African peoples, and the denial of rights and justice for those outside its walls. The promise of 'We the People' was a curated liberty, denied to many whose labour and lands were stolen.

Today, the promise of freedom remains unfulfilled as our nation prioritises war and state violence over structures that would make us more free: healthcare, education, restorative justice, and more. We continue to witness exclusion in the denial of rights and protections for immigrants, those made and kept poor, those in prison, our trans siblings, and others whose lives have been politicised rather than cherished.

This week, let us imagine ourselves as living stones, placed together by God’s hand to support rather than dominate, in a living wall where everyone can find a home.

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 28 June 2026, Trinity IV) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 10: 40-42.

The Collect of the Day:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope:
teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
by the obedience of Jesus
you brought salvation to our wayward world:
draw us into harmony with your will,
that we may find all things restored in him,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Peter and Saint Paul:

Almighty God,
whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul
glorified you in their death as in their life:
grant that your Church,
inspired by their teaching and example,
and made one by your Spirit,
may ever stand firm upon the one foundation,
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

‘Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple …’ (Matthew 10: 42) … a café in Ashford, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 18, Wednesday 22 April 2026

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35) … bread on the Isla Jane Bakery stall in Buckingham Market (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost, and this week began with the Third Sunday of Easter (Easter III, 19 April 2026).

Later this evening, I hope to be at the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35) … bread in the window of Hindley’s Bakery on Tamworth Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 35-40 (NRSVA):

35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; 38 for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35) … bread in a shop window in Hampstead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We have read in recent days about Jesus feeding of the 5,000 and walking on the water, and we are now introduced to reading the long Bread of Life discourse (verses 22-59), spoken in the synagogue in Capernaum (John 6: 59).

The day following the feeding of the 5,000, the people go in search of Jesus, but when they go to the site of the feeding, they find he is not there either. Eventually they find Jesus and his disciples near Capernaum, Jesus’ principal base in Galilee. They ask him: ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ (verse 25).

When the people push their questions onto Jesus, he insists on speaking of himself in relationship to God the Father, who has sent him.

And then Jesus uses the first of his seven ‘I AM’ sayings in Saint John’s Gospel, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35).

These seven ‘I AM’ sayings are traditionally listed as:

1, I am the Bread of Life (John 6: 35, 48)
2, I am the Light of the World (John 8: 12)
3, I am the gate (or the door) (John 10: 7)
4, I am the Good Shepherd (John 10: 11 and 14)
5, I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11: 25)
6, I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14: 6)
7, I am the true vine (John 15: 1, 5)

These ‘I AM’ sayings echo the divine name revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, ‘I AM’ (Exodus 3: 14). In the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of God’s name is closely related to the emphatic statement ‘I AM’ (see Exodus 3: 14; 6: 2; Deuteronomy 32: 39; Isaiah 43: 25; 48: 12; 51: 12; etc.). In the Greek translation, the Septuagint, most of these passages are translated with as ‘I AM’, ἐγώ εἰμί (ego eimi).

The ‘I AM’ of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint and the ‘I AM’ of Saint John’s Gospel is the God who creates us, who communicates with us, who gives himself to us.

But what does it mean to acknowledge Christ as ‘the Bread of Life’?

I once spent some time at Easter in Cappadocia, in south-central Turkey, because I was teaching a module on Patristics and I was interested in sites associated with the three Cappadocian Fathers: Saint Basil the Great (329-379), Bishop of Caesarea, his brother Saint Gregory (335-395), Bishop of Nyssa, and Saint Gregory Nazianzus (329-390), who became Patriarch of Constantinople.

They challenged heresies such as Arianism and their thinking was instrumental in formulating the phrases that shaped the Nicene Creed, and we were celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed last year.

Saint Basil is also remembered for his challenging social values. He wrote: ‘The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.’

So faith and belief must be related to how we live our lives as Christians.

Bishop Frank Weston, who was the Bishop of Zanzibar from 1908, held together in a creative combination his incarnational and sacramental theology with his radical social concerns formed the keynote of his address to the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923. He believed that a true sacramental focus gave a reality to Christ’s presence and power that nothing else could.

However, 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 … 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.’

So, from Basil the Great in the fourth century to great mission pioneers in the Anglican Communion in recent generations, sacramental life is meaningless unless it is lived out in our care for those who are hungry, who are suffering and who are marginalised.

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

‘The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry’ (Saint Basil) … the rock-hewn Chapel of Saint Basil at Göreme in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 22 April 2026):

‘Turning Waste into Wonder’ provides the theme this week (19-25 April 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 48-49. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Linet Musasa, team member of the Partners in the Gospel Comprehensive Climate Change initiative of the Anglican Council of Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 22April 2026) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, guide the Provincial Climate Change Campaign across 47 dioceses. May it change hearts, encourage action, and strengthen the Church’s witness for creation care.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
who in your great mercy gladdened the disciples
with the sight of the risen Lord:
give us such knowledge of his presence with us,
that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life
and serve you continually in righteousness and truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Living God,
your Son made himself known to his disciples
in the breaking of bread:
open the eyes of our faith,
that we may see him in all his redeeming work;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
you filled your disciples with boldness and fresh hope:
strengthen us to proclaim your risen life
and fill us with your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Collect on the Eve of Saint George:

God of hosts,
who so kindled the flame of love
in the heart of your servant George
that he bore witness to the risen Lord
by his life and by his death:
give us the same faith and power of love
that we who rejoice in his triumphs
may come to share with him the fullness of the resurrection;
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

Aghios Vassilios (Saint Basil) in traditional icon-style on a door in Koutouloufári 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 prayer in Lent 2026: 7, Tuesday 24 February 2026

‘Padre Nuestro, que estas en el Cielo … Our Father, who art in Heaven’ … the words of the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish in the shape of a Cross from Santiago de Compostella (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began last week on Ash Wednesday, and this week began with the First Sunday in Lent (Lent I).

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, a memory that is reflected today in the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time in Kuching this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Give us this day our daily bread’ … bread in a shop window in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 6: 7-15 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 7 ‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 ‘Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

14 ‘For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’

Prayer books and prayer shawls in the synagogue in Porto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading today (Matthew 6: 7-15) provides the verses that we missed in our Gospel reading last week on Ash Wednesday (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21).

We are all so familiar with the Lord’s Prayer, that we often recite it by rote without noticing the significance and intention of each petition. Have you noticed this in your own prayer life?

The Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel reading today is the more familiar version, but there is another, shorter and slightly different version in Saint Luke’s Gospel (see Luke 11: 2-4).

In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Christ teaches the Lord’s Prayer within the context of the Sermon on the Mount. But in Saint Luke’s Gospel, immediately after visiting the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany, Christ finds a private place to pray. It is then that the disciples ask him to teach them ‘to pray, as John taught his disciples.’

The disciples are already familiar not only with the prayers of Saint John the Baptist, but also with traditional Jewish prayers in the home, in the synagogue and in the Temple in Jerusalem.

So why did they ask Jesus to teach them how to pray?

As a rabbi and a religious leader, Jesus was responsible for teaching his followers how to fulfil Jewish religious commandments, including the obligation to pray at certain times and in certain forms.

Then and now, a religious community has a distinctive way of praying; for Anglicans and most other Christian traditions, it is exemplified by the Lord’s Prayer, which is a communal rather than individual prayer, expressed in the plural and not the singular:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

We approach God in a personal way, as Father. We then bring before him petitions that are not on behalf of me personally, but on behalf of us, on behalf of all.

Sometimes we miss out on the impact of the Lord’s Prayer because we are so familiar with it. But in the public worship of the Church we often facilitate people missing out on the impact of the Lord’s Prayer when we privatise it.

Many of us were taught to pray the Lord’s Prayer as a private personal prayer as children, perhaps even saying it kneeling by our bedside, hands joined together, fingers pointing up.

So often, in our churches, we encourage people to kneel for the Lord’s Prayer, as if this was now both the most sacred and the most personal part of the Liturgy, rather than asking them to remain standing and to continue in collective prayer.

Or, at great public events in the life of the Church, such as synods and conferences, we invite everyone present to say the Lord’s Prayer in their own first language. In this way, a collective, public prayer becomes a private, personal prayer, detached from and ignoring where everyone else is at each stage in the petitions.

As someone with English as my first language, I often notice how others finish a lot later than we do – the Finns in particular, but even the Germans too. Each language has its own rhythms and cadences. And the cacophony and conflicting rhythms mean it sounds as if we are in Babel rather than praying together, collectively and in the plural.

The first two petitions place us in God’s presence (‘hallowed be your name’ and ‘your kingdom come’). The next two then ask to control of our lives and of life around us: ‘Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ The next two bring our needs before God, both physical (‘daily bread’) and spiritual (forgiveness, verse 4). The final petitions have an eschatological dimension, looking forward to the fulfilment of all God’s promises, in God’s own time (‘the time of trial’ and being rescued from evil).

The ‘time of trial’ is the final onslaught of evil forces, before Christ comes again, but also refers to the temptations we experience day-by-day.

So there is a temporal and an eternal dimension to these petitions, even when we pray for ourselves in the here and now.

The privatisation of the Lord’s Prayer, even on Sundays, takes away from its impact and from the collective thrust of each of the petitions.

Jesus, when he is teaching us to pray, is responding not to one individual but to the disciples as the core, formative group of the Church. God is addressed not as my Father, but our Father, and each petition that follows is in the plural: our daily bread, our forgiveness, our sins, our debts, how we forgive, and do not ‘bring us’ to trial or temptation.

When we say ‘Amen’ at the end, are we really saying ‘Amen’ to the holiness of God’s name, to the coming of Kingdom, to the needs of each being met, on a daily basis, to forgiveness, both given and received, to being put on the path of righteousness and justice, to others not falling into evil or into any harm.

If we privatise the Lord’s Prayer, we leave little room for its collective impact to grab a hold of those who are praying, and we leave little room for our own conversion, which is a continuing and daily need.

And so, let the kingdom, the power and the glory be God’s, both now and for ever, Amen.

‘Give us this day our daily bread’ … bread on the Isla Jane Bakery stall in the market in Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 24 February 2026):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 24 February March 2026, Anniversary of the Invasion of Ukraine) invites us to pray:

God of peace, we remember Ukraine on this day. Give comfort to the grieving, strength to the weary, and wisdom to those who seek an end to war. May justice and reconciliation take root where violence has torn lives apart.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Give us this day our daily bread’ … liturgical bread in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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 2026: 12, Saturday 14 February 2026

Hearts in the window of Damn Fine Café on Bird Street, Lichfield … today is Saint Valetine’s Day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Tomorrow is the Sunday before Lent (15 February 2026) and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are four days away (18 February 2026). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Cyril (869) and Saint Methodius (885), Missionaries to the Slavs, and Saint Valentine (ca 269), Martyr at Rome.

It looks like an afternoon of wall-to-wall rugby later today and I hope to find an appropriate place to watch Ireland’s match against Italy in the Six Nations Championship (2:10 pm) and England’s games against Scotland (4:40 pm). But, before today begins, before an afternoon of rugby, before any romantic thoughts for Saint Valentine’s Day begin, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

A variety of bread on the Isla Jane Bakery stall in Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Mark 8: 1-10 (NRSVA):

1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way – and some of them have come from a great distance.’ 4 His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ 5 He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

Five loaves and two fish in a motif on the railings of Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

There are six different accounts of two miracle stories associated with the Feeding of the Multitude. The first story, the feeding of 5,000, is found in all four Gospels (see Matthew 14: 13-21; Mark 6: 31-44; Luke 9:10-17; and John 6: 5-15). This is the only miracle – apart from the Resurrection – that is found in all three Synoptic Gospels and in Saint John’s Gospel. The second story, the feeding of 4,000, is told by both Mark in today’s reading (Mark 8: 1-10) and by Matthew (Matthew 15: 32-38), but not by either Luke or John.

In the Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus feed the multitude with five loaves and two fish shared by a boy. When Jesus hears that John the Baptist had been killed, he take a boat to a solitary place, near Bethsaida. The crowds follow him on foot from the towns, and when Jesus lands he sees a large crowd. He had compassion for them and heals their sick. As evening approaches, the disciples tell him it is a remote place, it is late, and urge him to send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy food.

Jesus says they do not need to go away, and asks the disciples to give them something to eat. They find five loaves and two fish, Jesus asks the people to sit on the grass in groups of 50 and 100, takes the five loaves and two fish, looks up to heaven, gives thanks, breaks them. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. Taking, blessing, breaking and giving are the four essential liturgical actions at the Eucharist identified by Dom Gregory Dix in The Shape of the Liturgy.

All eat and are satisfied, and the disciples pick up 12 baskets full of broken pieces that are left over. The number of those who ate was about 5,000 men, as well as women and children.

If there were 5,000 men there that day, one woman with each man and two children with each couple, then we are talking about the feeding of 20,000 people, or the population of a town like Wexford, Carlow or Sligo in Ireland, Berkhamsted, Brownhills, Truro or Wednesbury in England, Ierapetra or Agios Nikolaos in Crete.

The physicist Professor Sir Colin Humphreys of Selwyn College, Cambridge, challenges many early calculations and instead suggests the number of men, women and children at the Exodus was about 20,000. So, in feeding the multitude, Christ is bringing all our wanderings, all our journeys, all our searches for God, to their fulfilment when we meet him in sharing the good news and break bread together.

In Apocryphal writings, II Baruch 29: 8, a Jewish pseudepigraphical text thought to date from the late 1st century CE or early 2nd century CE, also connects the feeding in the wilderness in Exodus 16 with the Messianic age.

The feeding with the fish also looks forward to the Resurrection. The fish is an early symbol of faith in the Risen Christ: Ichthus (ἰχθύς, ΙΧΘΥC) is the Greek word for fish, and can be read as an acrostic, a word formed from the first letters of words, spelling out ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (Iēsous Khristos Theou Huios, Sōtēr), ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’

The story of the feeding of the 4,000 is told only by Matthew and Mark. A large crowd gathers and follows Jesus. He calls his disciples and tells them he has compassion for the people, who have followed him for three days and now have nothing to eat. He does not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.

The disciples say they are in a remote place and ask where they could find enough bread to feed such a crowd. All they have is seven loaves and a few small fish.

Jesus tells the people to sit down on the ground, he takes the loaves and fish, gives thanks, breaks them and gives them to the disciples, who then give them to the people. All ate and were satisfied. Afterwards, the disciples collect seven basketfuls of broken pieces that are leftover. The number of those who eat is 4,000 men, with the number of women and children not counted. Jesus then sends the crowd away, gets into the boat and goes to the area of the district of Dalmanutha (Matthew names it as Magadan or Magdala).

There are differences in the details of the two feeding stories. Are they two distinct miracles?

The baskets used to collect the food that remains are 12 κόφινοι (kófinoi, hand baskets) in Matthew (14: 20) and Mark (6: 43). But they are seven σπυρίδες (spyrídes, large baskets) in Matthew 15: 37 and Mark 8: 8. A σπυρίς (spyrís) or large basket was double the size of a κόφινος (kófinos). An indication of the size of a spyrís is that the Apostle Paul was let out in one through a gap in the city wall in Damascus to escape a plot to kill him (Acts 9: 25).

The two feeding miracles – the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000 – show that Christ cares for all seek him and listen to his teaching, both Jew and Gentile.

At the feeding of the 5,000, the people were certainly almost all Jews. They came from the surrounding towns and were familiar with where Jesus was going with his apostles to get some time alone. Then, after he fed them, they were about to come and make him king (see John 6:15).

When Jesus makes the people sit in groups of hundreds and fifties (Mark 6: 40; Luke 9: 14), the numbers may recall the place in the Exodus story where the people had rulers over fifties and hundreds (Exodus 18: 25). When the 12 have fed the multitude, each gets a full basket back. Perhaps the 12 baskets of leftovers represent the 12 tribes of Israel.

The feeding of the 4,000, on the other hand, may take place in a Gentile setting. It takes place after Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon. This is Gentile territory, although there would have been some Jews that lived there, which is why he was able to stay in a house there (Mark 7: 24).

This is the area where Christ heals the daughter of the Greek-speaking Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman (see Matthew 15: 22, Mark 7: 26), the only miracle of Jesus recorded in that region, and which we read about on Thursday. Both may be seen as clear signs that the Messianic blessing now extends to all people through the Messiah, and a fulfilment of the prophecy that the Messiah is to be a ‘light to the Gentiles’ (Isaiah 42: 6, 49: 6), which is one of the Christmas promises at Candlemas two weeks ago (see Luke 2: 29-32, 2 February).

When Christ leaves the area, Saint Mark says, he goes to the Sea of Galilee and then to its east coast, ‘the region of the Decapolis’, populated by Gentiles (Mark 7: 31). There he heals a deaf man who has a speech impediment, and the people spread the word about him (Mark 7: 31-37, which we read yesterday, Friday 13 February 2026).

By now, a large number of Gentiles from the region of Tyre and Sidon and from the Decapolis are following Jesus. He goes up a mountain and does many healings (Matthew 15: 29-31), and ‘they praised the God of Israel’. This last phrase indicates that these people are not primarily Jews, for when Jesus does miracles among Jews, they ‘praised God’ (see Matthew 9: 8; Mark 2: 12; Luke 13: 13; 18: 43; etc.).

What is the significance in Mark 8: 8 of saying that there are seven large baskets of leftover bread? In the Gentile context of the feeding of the 4,000, perhaps the seven full baskets harken back to the seven Gentile nations in Canaan that had once been driven out God but that are now counted in by Christ.

All are invited to be healed and fed at the Eucharist. As were reminded at Candlemas two weeks ago,

‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’ (Luke 2: 29-32).

FBread in a shop window in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 14 February 2026):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been: ‘Safe Routes’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 14 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Pour your love on the exiled in supported accommodation. Let them feel the acceptance and care of the Church, even amid suffering.

The Collect of the Day:

Lord of all,
who gave to your servants Cyril and Methodius
the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavs:
make your whole Church one as you are one
that all Christians may honour one another,
and east and west acknowledge
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and you, the God and Father of all;
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:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Cyril, Methodius and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Collect on the Eve of the Sunday before Lent:

Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
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

Hearts for Saint Valentine’s Day in the window of Ivision’s florists shop on Bird Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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