Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 164, Monday 19 October 2026

An empty barn near Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and the week began with the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XX, 18 October 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (19 October) remembers the life of Henry Martyn (1781-1812), Translator of the Scriptures, Missionary in India and Persia.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

An old barn at Comberford, between Lichfield and Tamworth in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 12: 13-21 (NRSVA):

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ 14 But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ 15 And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ 16 Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” 18 Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 20 But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

Old barns at Frating Hall Farm, east of Colchester in Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

If money was no barrier, what would I buy?

Would it make me happy?

Would it make anyone else happy?

Would it tell anyone that they are loved, loving, worth loving, that I love them, that I really enjoy their love?

On the other hand, I understand why the man in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 12: 13-21) does many of the things he does.

He has a bumper crop one year, and not enough room to store it in. Was he to leave what he could not store to rot in the fields?

It is a foundational principle of all economics, whatever your political values – from Marx and Malthus to Milton Friedman – that the production of surplus food is the beginning of the creation of wealth and the beginning of economic prosperity.

Even if you are a complete suburbanite, it should have brought joy to your heart the see the fields of green and gold in recent weeks, for the abundance of the earth is truly a blessing from God.

And it would have been wrong for this man to leave the surplus food to rot in the fields because he failed to have the foresight to build larger barns to store the surplus grain.

It provides income, creates wealth, allows us to export and so to import. Surplus food is the foundation of economics … and makes possible generosity, charity and care for the impoverished.

For the people who first heard this story, just image those people who first heard this parable – they would have imagined so many Biblical images of the benefits of producing surplus food.

Joseph told Pharaoh to store surplus food in Egypt and to prepare and plan ahead for years of famine (see Genesis 41: 1-36). In the long run, this provides too for the survival of the very brothers who had sold him into slavery (see Genesis 42), and, eventually, for the salvation of the people of God.

The production of extra grain in the fields at the time of the harvest allows Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi to glean in the corners of the field behind the reapers (Ruth 2: 1-4). In the long run, this provides too for the survival of Boaz and his family line, and, eventually, for the salvation of the people of God.

When the people of God go hungry, the provision of surplus food is seen as a sign of God’s love and God’s protection … whether it is:

• the hungry people in the wilderness who are fed with manna (see Exodus 16);

• or the way the Prophet Hosea reminds the people that God is the God who can say throughout their history: ‘I bent down to them and fed them’ (Hosea 11: 4);

• or the hungry people who are fed with the abundant distribution of five loaves and two fish (Matthew 14: 13-21; Mark 6: 30-44; Luke 9: 10-17; John 6: 1-14; see Mark 8: 1-9);

• or the Disciples who find the Risen Christ has provided for their needs with breakfast (John 21: 9-14).

Surplus food, wealth, providing for the future, building bigger and better barns … it is never an excuse to ‘relax, eat, drink, [and] be merry.’

Today’s Gospel reading offers the abundance and generosity of God’s provision as a sign of God’s love, for us as individuals and for all around us.

The rich man is not faulted for being an innovative farmer who manages to grow an abundant crop.

The rich man is not faulted for storing up those crops.

The rich man is not condemned for tearing down his barns and building larger ones to store not only his grain but his goods too.

The rich man is not even condemned for being rich.

The man condemns himself, he makes himself look foolish, for thinking that all that matters in life is our own pleasure and personal satisfaction.

We are human because we are made to relate to other humans.

There is no shared humanity without relationship.

We are made in the image and likeness of God, but that image and likeness is only truly found in relationship … or God is already relational, God is already revealed as community, in God’s existence as Trinity.

This man thinks not of his needs, but of his own pleasures. He has a spiritual life … we are told he speaks to his Soul. But he speaks only to his own soul. His spiritual life extends only to his own spiritual needs, to his own Soul, it never reaches out to God who has blessed him so abundantly, the God who reminds us in the Psalms that he ‘fills the hungry soul with good’ (Psalm 107: 9).

His spiritual persona never reaches out to or acknowledges God who has blessed him so abundantly, or to the people around him who have needs and who could benefit from his charitable generosity or from his business acumen.

In failing to take account of the needs of others, he fails to realise his own true needs: for a true and loving relationship with God, and a true and loving relationship with others.

He has no concern for the needs of others, physical or spiritual. He is spiritually dead. No wonder Saint Paul says that greed is idolatry (Colossians 3: 5).

But if he has stopped speaking to God, God has not stopped speaking to him. And God tells him that night in a dream that this man is spiritually dead.

God says to him in that dream that his life is being demanded of him (Luke 12: 20).

Curiously, we never hear how he responds, we never hear whether he dies.

The story ends just there.

Unlike the story of the rich man who kept Lazarus at the gate, and then died (Luke 16: 19-31), we are never told what happened to the rich man in today’s Gospel reading.

Did he die of fright?

Did he die after drinking too much?

Did he wake up and carry on regardless?

Or, like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, did he wake up and realise his folly, and embrace the joys of the Incarnation?

I am challenged not to pass judgment on this Rich Man. Instead, Christ challenges me, in the first part of this reading (Luke 12: 13-15), to put myself in the place of this man.

If we are to take the earlier part of this Gospel reading to heart, perhaps we might reserve judgment on this foolish rich man.

Perhaps, instead of judging this young man with the benefit of hearing this story over and over again, perhaps in the light of the first part of this Gospel reading, I might reflect on this Gospel reading by asking myself two questions again:

‘If money was no barrier, what would I buy?’

and:

‘Would that choice reflect the priorities Christ sets us of loving God and loving one another?’

A full barn on my grandmother’s former farm near Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 19 October 2026):

The theme this week (18 to 24 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Inclusive Education in Handeni’ (pp 48-49). This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Father John George Sembuyagi, Programme Lead, Diocese of Tanga, Anglican Church of Tanzania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 19 October 2026) invites us to pray:

Loving God, we thank you for the growing opportunities for children in Handeni to attend school and to flourish in their learning. May they come to know new depths of your love.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God, who by your Holy Spirit gave Henry Martyn
a longing to tell the good news of Christ
and skill to translate the Scriptures:
by the same Spirit give us grace to offer you our gifts,
wherever you may lead, at whatever the cost;
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 Henry Martyn and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Filling the barn at harvest time in Calverton, near Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 121, Sunday 6 September 2026, Creation in Christ, Trinity XIV

‘All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being’ (John 1: 3) … Christ the Pantocrator in the dome of the parish church in Panormos in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Festival of Creation in Christ or the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 6 September 2026).

This weekend includes the Festal Weekend in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, coming between the Feast of Saint Giles (1 September) and the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 September). There were children’s activities in the church yesterday, a Festal Eucharist this morning at which I hope to sing with the choir, and Calverton Fete is at All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this afternoon.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’ (John 1: 5) … light pours into the darkness in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 1: 1-14 (NRSVA):

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

The statue of Pythagoras (1989) by Nikolaos Ikaris (1920-1994) on the harbour front in Pythagóreio on the Greek island of Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Prologue to Saint John’s Gospel is the traditional Gospel reading on Christmas morning. Now we hear it again this morning (John 1: 1-14), when the Church Calendar in the Church of England marks Creation in Christ.

These opening verses in Saint John’s Gospel are like the opening verses of the Bible, in the Book of Genesis. They talk of a new creation, and a creation in which God is pleased, God is very pleased.

In this reading, we are introduced to key concepts in Saint John’s thinking: word or logos (λόγος, logos), life (ζωή, zoe), light (φῶς, phos), belief and being sent, testimony or witness, truth, and the cosmos (κόσμος, cosmos).

The word cosmos appears in this passage four times, and later, when Saint John goes on to tell us that ‘God so loved the world …’, he actually says ‘God so loved the cosmos that he sent his only Son …’ (John 3: 16).

The cosmos is the Universe, but the word specifically refers to a complex and orderly system or entity, the very opposite of chaos. The word cosmos gives us words in the English language like: cosmology, trying to understand the reasons for existence and its significance; or, more simply, cosmetics, an equal presence of order and beauty, an attempt to bring order or even beauty to the chaos of our skin, our facial appearance.

The term was first used by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (ca 570 BCE to ca 495 BCE), the philosopher we remember because everyone in school learned the theorem to which he gives his name: ‘The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.’

Pythagoras lived on the Greek island of Samos, and he influenced every Greek philosopher who came after him, including Plato and Aristotle. He is said to have been the first to prove that the earth is a sphere; he shaped how we think of numbers and musical notation, the perfect consonances of music; he taught the immortality of the soul; … and he was the first philosopher to develop the concept of the cosmos, the harmony of the created universe.

His followers, the Pythagoreans, believed in a superior divinity, the One God, above all other gods. Because of this belief in one God, and their rejection of the pantheon of mythical Greek gods, Pythagoras and his followers were labelled as atheists.

He was the first philosopher to give the word cosmos to the universe on the basis of his concepts of order and harmony which he believed govern all things.

He said that humanity and the universe are made in the image and likeness of God, and that understanding God, the universe and humanity are inter-connected.

In Pythagorean thinking, the cosmos is not just the whole world, but the whole universe, the whole created order; it is the earth and all that encircles the earth like its skin.

For Pythagoras, all things are related, just as in an ecosystem. In this thinking, the universe is a living organism and not an inanimate machine.

His followers compared a just and well-ordered society to a well-tuned lyre. While each note retains its individuality, all are proportionally linked together in a larger whole to form a musical scale, and all are interdependent in terms of their reliance on one another (Plato, Republic 443 D-444). Justice is present in any well-functioning organism, society, and the soul.

The word cosmopolitan, an important concept in modern philosophy and political discourse, is, of course, derived from the κοσμοπολίτης (kosmopoliítes) found in classical and koine Greek, formed from the words κόσμος (kosmos), world, universe, cosmos or created order, and πολίτης (politês), citizen, one of a city.

Contemporary usage defines the term as ‘citizen of the world’. But the word cosmopolitan was coined by the Greek philosopher Diogenes the Cynic or Diogenes of Sinope in the fourth century BCE. When Diogenes was asked from what city he hailed, he replied that he was a citizen of the world, κόσμος πολίτης (kósmos polítēs), or κοσμοπολίτης (kosmopolites), a citizen of the world, rejecting narrow local loyalties.

The plural, κόσμου πολῖται (kosmou politai), means ‘citizens of the world’ or even ‘citizens of the universe’, of the whole created order. The phrase originates from Cynic and Stoic philosophy, describing the idea that human beings belong to a single, universal community rather than being defined solely by their local city-state or nation. At the time, the broadest basis of social identity among Greeks was either the individual city-state or the culturally and linguistically homogeneous Hellenic group.

Diogenes lived from ca 413/403 to ca 324/321 BCE, and he was one of the founders of Cynicism. He was renowned for his ascetic lifestyle and radical critiques of social conventions, and he became a legendary figure whose life and teachings have been recounted, often through anecdote, in both antiquity and modernity. He Diogenes advocated a return to nature, the renunciation of wealth, and introduced early ideas of cosmopolitanism by proclaiming himself a citizen of the world. Rather than declaring his lineage, city, social class, or gender, he defined himself as a human being, implicitly asserting the equal worth of all human beings.

When Saint John the Divine wrote the Book of Revelation, he was in exile on Patmos, the neighbouring island of Samos, where Pythagoras was born, and like Pythagoras, he too was in exile in a cave.

So, is it any wonder that the idea of the cosmos, the harmony of the created universe, is a key concept in the writings of Saint John?

The word cosmos occurs 188 times in the New Testament, and the vast majority of these occurrences (104) are in Saint John’s Gospel and his three letters.

The first use of the word cosmos in the New Testament is in the Gospel reading this morning. When Saint John uses the word here – ‘He was in the cosmos, and the cosmos came into being because of him’ (John 1: 10) – he is referring not to humanity, not to the world as our planet Earth, but to the created universe, the sum total of everything, not here and now but past, present and future, the orderly universe created by God to be in harmony.

When we care for the cosmos, the created order, we reflect the life of Christ. It is not a marginal, side issue for the Church, but it is at the heart of the mission of the Church, because it is at the heart of why the Word has become flesh and dwells among us (John 1: 14).

The fifth of the five marks of mission agreed in the Anglican Communion is: ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and re-new the life of the earth.’

As we celebrate Creation in Christ and continue to mark Creation Time, it is good to be reminded that the care of creation, the cosmos, is not an added-on extra to our priorities in mission; rather, it underpins and explains all we do in mission. When we care for the cosmos, the integrity of creation, we are being like Christ.

The Tower of Lysicrates in the Plaka in Athens was once known as the Lantern of Diogenes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 6 September 2026, Creation in Christ):

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 6 to 12 September 2026 (pp 36-37), is ‘Turning Pain into Glory’. This theme is introduced today with a Reflection by Nolene Sheppard, Leader of a Women’s Empowerment Group, Magnificat, and Ukraine Aid Project Support Lead at Saint Thomas à Becket, Hamburg, Germany:

It was a deep pain that hurt so bad it made me feel sick. I looked into the mirror and saw black and brown lines. The image couldn’t possibly be me - an unrecognisable, swollen face. My head continued to spin out of control. All I felt was helplessness, anger and frustration.

Traumatic experiences like these are not an unusual experience – a first for me, but nothing that other women haven’t experienced. Could I find my way back from the depths of such overwhelming despair? How can I do this when I am in a country where I am a foreigner, and at a disadvantage in every aspect of the word.

“Are other women going through this same emotional and psychological torture due to similar experiences?”, I asked myself. The findings were overwhelming. With the power of prayer, I knew I was not walking the journey back to the top on my own. God was at my side every step of the way. He showed me the path, gave me wisdom, strength and vision.

Now on a road better than I could have ever imagined, in the same country, I created a group within the English Anglican Church in Hamburg called “Magnificat”. This group is all about empowering women. We give financial support to Ukrainian refugees, made up of women and children, in Romania and put on activities for women in Hamburg too. I listen to each of their stories. It’s been a year now and the bond is still there. Magnificat continues to uplift them, as it does me.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 6 September 2026, Creation in Christ) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 18: 15-20.

‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’ (John 1: 4) … by Minster Pool in Lichfield at night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

Holy and eternal God,
you are the Maker of heaven and earth,
you are the Word through whom all things were made,
and you are the Spirit, the giver of life:
draw us into the mystery of your love,
that with all creation we may proclaim your praise,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

or

O God and Father of all that was, is and ever shall be,
help us to be thankful for all that is made
at the hands of your Son
and through the wisdom of your Spirit,
that we may care in heart and in deed for the life of our world,
to the praise and glory of your holy name.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our Creator,
by your gift the tree of life was set
at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’ (John 1: 4) … My Village Barok by the Sarawak River in Kuching at night (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: 120, Saturday 5 September 2026

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … walking through the fields along Comberford Lane between Wigginton and Comberford in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Festival of Creation in Christ or the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 6 September 2026).

This weekend includes the Festal Weekend in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, coming between the Feast of Saint Giles (1 September) and the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 September). There are children’s activities in the church this morning, a Festal Eucharist tomorrow morning, and Calverton Fete at All Saints’ Church, Calverton, tomorrow afternoon.

Later this morning, I hope to go to Το Στεκι Μασ / Our Place, the ‘pop-up’ coffee shop in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford, from 10:30 to 3 pm today. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘While Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSVA) … cornfields near Lismore, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 6: 1-5 (NRSVA):

6 One sabbath while Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’ 3 Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?’ 5 Then he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’

The 12 loaves of shewbread or Bread of the Presence depicted in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

There are two minor details that continue to puzzle me about today’s Gospel reading (Luke 6: 1-5).

On this Saturday morning, I am slightly puzzled about the timing or the day when this event takes place. The NRSV and NIV translations refer to ‘one sabbath’, although footnotes explain that other ancient authorities read ‘on the second first sabbath.’ The KJV and similar translations refer to ‘the second sabbath after the first’.

But the KJV is based on the Textus Receptus, and the phrase in question, ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ (en sabbáto deuteropróto) only exists in the Textus Receptus, a later text, and not in the earlier manuscripts or the critical versions. The phrase is omitted by many manuscripts, including the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus.

In any case, what day did this event occur on?

When was ‘the second first sabbath’ or ‘the second sabbath after the first’?

Is the second sabbath after the first not the third sabbath?

Because the Greek word δευτερόπρωτος (deuteróprotos) is limited to Luke 6: 1, it is not found in all the manuscripts – or in other, contemporary Greek texts – and it is difficult to define and it is impossible to agree on its meaning.

One suggestion is that it refers to the Sabbath following the first day of Passover or Pascha, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Some of the other efforts to provide explanations include:

• the first Sabbath in the second year of a seven-year cycle comprising the period from one Sabbatical year to the other;
• the first Sabbath after the second day of Passover;
• the second Sabbath after the Passover has taken place;
• the first of the seven Sabbaths the people were to ‘count unto’ themselves from ‘the morrow after the sabbath’ until Pentecost (see Leviticus 23: 15);
• the first Sabbath in the Jewish religious calendar of the time – about the middle of March;
• the Sabbath during Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks;
• the first Sabbath in the civil year – about the middle of September;
• the Sabbath for the presentation of the second offering of the first fruits;
• or, simply, some ‘technical expression of the Jewish calendar’ – without asking or explaining what that may be.

Indeed, the term δευτερόπρωτος (deuteroprotos) is an awkward, clunky combination of the words δεύτερος (deuteros, ‘second’) and πρω̑τος (protos, ‘first’). Its use may point to unskilful work and textual emendations on the part of copyists. If so, then it is not necessary to try to unravel this conundrum.

The phrase has confounded scholars from as early as the fourth century, when Jerome, in a letter to Nepotianus, confesses that he consulted Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, and was unable to determine what the phrase meant:

‘My teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus, when I once asked him to explain Luke’s phrase σάββατον δευτερόπρωτον, that is ‘the second-first Sabbath,’ playfully evaded my request saying: ‘I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, everyone will put you down for a fool’ (Jerome, Letter LII, 2).

I suppose I may simply accept it is not essential that we know the precise meaning of this calendar term. It is more important to get to the heart of what this story is about.

The second minor detail that continues to puzzle me about today’s Gospel reading is why Luke’s account does not include a peculiar detail in Saint Mark’s version of this event (Mark 2: 23-30).

In Saint Mark’s account, Jesus and his disciples are criticised for ‘harvesting grain’ on the Sabbath. They are simply plucking some heads of grain to munch on as they walk through a grainfield (verse 23). When the disciples are challenged about what they are doing on the Sabbath, Jesus cites an event in I Samuel 21: 1-6, and refers to a time when ‘Abiathar was high priest’.

In that event, David and his men ate the 12 loaves of shewbread from the tabernacle in Nob. David approaches Ahimelech the priest in Nob and asks for food for his men They were on the run from King Saul, but David keeps that fact from Ahimelech. Ahimelech gives David some of the ‘bread of the Presence’ (verse 6) and then, at David’s request, he gives him Goliath’s sword, which was being kept in Nob (verses 8-9).

Later, when Saul summons the priests to Gibeah to question them, Ahimelech is the priests’ spokesperson (I Samuel 22: 6-14). The passage implies that Ahimelech is the chief priest during the time David fled from Saul. Abiathar fled to join David and served as his priest all through David’s years of wandering and exile. He was appointed high priest after David became king, and he shared the high priesthood with Zadok, Saul’s appointee, until David’s death.

Neither Matthew (Matthew 12: 1-8) nor Luke mention Abiathar. Did Matthew and Luke eliminate the reference to Abiathar, realising there was an error in the original source?

To explain why in Saint Mark’s account Jesus refers to Abiathar as the high priest, several theories are put forward, although each one is equally tortuous and difficult. They include:

• Since Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech, it is possible that both men took part in high priestly duties.
• Abiathar was more closely associated with David than Ahimelech and was a long-time high priest during David’s reign.
• Abiathar, being present in Nob when David visited the tabernacle, is called the ‘high priest’ in anticipation of his future title.

Each explanation is eager to avoid accepting a literal reading of the conflicting or irreconcilable texts. To accept that there is a conflict between the passages means accepting that I Samuel is wrong, that Mark’s text is wrong, or that Jesus has made an historical error.

In addition, this event took place not in ‘the house of God’ (verse 4), for the Temple in Jerusalem had not yet been built, but in ‘the Tent of Meeting’.

It is interesting that the people who are most likely to refuse a literal exegesis of one or both passages are those who are most likely, in a very contradictory way, to demand a very literal exegesis of their own concoction when it comes to their interpretation of passages, for example, on sexuality.

Is it any coincidence that these self-styled ‘conservative evangelicals’ are also those most likely to reject a literal exegesis of the Eucharistic passages in the New Testament?

Both Jesus and the Pharisees regard the decision to provide the shewbread as righteous on the part of both Jesus and the Pharisees.

The important points in this reading are not in the debate over the day on which the events took place, nor are they to be found in debating who knew who was once the high priest and when.

The important points in this morning’s reading are that the Sabbath is most sacred when it is about God and about people rather than about the minutiae of interpreting rules and regulations. And one of the most important emphases in Jesus’ ministry is to feed the hungry: the physically hungry with bread, and the spiritually hungry with him as the true Bread of Presence, the Bread of Life.

‘While Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSVA) … cornfields near Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire, with the tower of Saint Mary’s Church in the background (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 5 September 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 30 August to 5 September 2026 (pp 34-35), has been ‘Anglican Youth Tackle Waste in Madagascar’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update by Ialy Tongasoa, Community Development Lead, Diocese of Toliara, Madagascar.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 5 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, may this initiative continue to grow, reaching more parishes and bringing hope, care, and practical solutions to Madagascar and across the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who called your Church to bear witness
that you were in Christ reconciling the world to yourself:
help us to proclaim the good news of your love,
that all who hear it may be drawn to you;
through him who was lifted up on the cross,
and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
you feed your children with the true manna,
the living bread from heaven:
let this holy food sustain us through our earthly pilgrimage
until we come to that place
where hunger and thirst are no more;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of the festival of Creation in Christ:

Holy and eternal God,
you are the Maker of heaven and earth,
you are the Word through whom all things were made,
and you are the Spirit, the giver of life:
draw us into the mystery of your love,
that with all creation we may proclaim your praise,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

or:

O God and Father of all that was, is and ever shall be,
help us to be thankful for all that is made
at the hands of your Son
and through the wisdom of your Spirit,
that we may care in heart and in deed for the life of our world,
to the praise and glory of your holy name.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … walking through the fields in Comberford, Staffordshire (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

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … walking through the fields along Cross in Hand Lane near Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 48, Friday 22 May 2026

‘Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep’ (John 21: 15-17) … sheep in a field on farm at Comberford, east of Lichfield and north of Tamworth in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

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

This week began with the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII, 17 May 2026). 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.

‘Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep’ (John 21: 15-17) … sheep feeding on a small farm at Platanias in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 21: 15-19 (NRSVA):

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ 16 A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ 17 He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

The Risen Christ by the shore of Tiberias with the disciples and their catch of fish (John 21: 1-14) … a fresco in Saint Constantine and Saint Helen Church, Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 21: 15-19) moves forward from our recent readings from Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33) and his prayer to the Father as the High Priestly Prayer (John 17: 1-26) to the post-Resurrection appearances.

This morning’s reading is set by the shore of Tiberias, where the Risen Christ is with the disciples as they catch water in the lake. We read the preceding verses in this chapter (1-14) on the Friday of Easter Week (10 April 2026); the following verses, which we read today (verses 15-19). provided the Gospel reading at the funeral Mass of Pope Francis last year (26 April 2025).

In today’s reading, the Risen Christ has three questions that he puts to Peter after breakfast by the shore. They appear a little confused or repetitive in most English translations, but the difference is clear in the original Greek.

In his first two questions to Peter, Christ uses the verb ἀγαπάω (agapáo).

CS Lewis talks in one of his books of The Four Loves:

• The first, στοργή (storgé), is the affection of familiarity;

• the second is φιλία (philia), the strong bond between close friends;

• the third, ἔρως (eros), Lewis identifies not with eroticism but with the word we use when we say we are in love with someone;

• the fourth love is ἀγάπη (agape), the love that takes no account of my own interests, that loves no matter what happens – it is the greatest of loves, it reflects the love of God.

Perhaps, the first time, Christ asks: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than you and your friends love one another but in the way God loves you?’ (John 21: 15).

But Peter is either evasive or misses the point, and answers with a different verb: φιλέω (phileo): ‘I’m fond of you, I like you like a brother, I agree with you. I’m OK, you’re OK’ (verse 15).

‘OK,’ says Christ, ‘feed the little ones the Good Shepherd welcomes into the fold’ (verse 15).

Then a second time, we can imagine him asking more simply: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me the way God loves you?’ (verse 16).

But Peter once again misses the point, and answers with the verb φιλέω (phileo): ‘I’m fond of you, I like you like a brother, I agree with you. I’m OK, you’re OK’ (verse 16).

‘OK,’ says Christ, ‘look after those in the flock the Good Shepherd tends’ (verse 16).

But then he asks a third question: ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ (verse 17).

Many English-language translations say Peter was upset, felt hurt, when Christ asked him a third time. We might be tempted to think this is because he was asked the same question repetitively, three times, that his answer was not listened to the first or second time round.

But this third time, Christ asks a different question, using Peter’s verb φιλέω (phileo), as if to ask: ‘OK Peter, do you love me as your brother?’ (verse 17).

This time around, Peter replies using the same word Christ uses in his third question. But, more importantly, he confesses Jesus as Lord (verse 17), as Lord of everything. This confession of faith comes the third time round from the disciple who earlier denied Christ three times (see John 18). And Christ then asks him to feed the whole flock, all the sheep of the Good Shepherd, lambs, ewes, lost ones, found ones, white sheep, black sheep, fluffy sheep, bedraggled and dirt-covered sheep – the whole lot (21: 17).

The disciples do not recognise Jesus as he stands on the beach just after daybreak (verse 4). But despite their initial blindness, their initial failings, their initial denials, God continues to call them.

And so too with us. God calls us in all our unworthiness to feed his lambs, to tend his sheep, to feed his sheep, not just the little ones, not just the big ones.

Do you love him enough, as he loves you, to see this as enough fame to bask in?

Do you love him enough to feed his little ones when others want to ignore them, despise them, call them racist names, see their children as extra added burdens, want to send them back?

Do you love him enough to see this as the benchmark against which you and I, society, the Church, priests and people together, all we are involved in, mark how we relate to the myriad, the thousands and thousands, to all living life?

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

‘Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep’ (John 21: 15-17) … sheep and lambs near the River Great Ouse, between Calverton and Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 22 May 2026):

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

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Friday 22 May 2026):

Father God, guide local leaders to create safe, inclusive schools where every girl can learn and thrive without fear or stigma.

The Collect:

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

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow


Today’s Gospel reading is set by the shore after daybreak … an early morning on the town beach in Rethymnon after Easter (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: 46, Wednesday 20 May 2026

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … the astrolabe in Pusey House, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday next Sunday (24 May 2026). This week began with the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII, 17 May 2026), and today the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship recalls Alcuin of York (804), Deacon, Abbot of Tours.

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

1, 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.

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … the Twelve Apostles in the top row of icons in the iconostasis in the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Duke Street, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on image for full-screen view)

John 17: 11-19 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 11 ‘And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.’

‘I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves’ (John 17: 13) … the apse in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

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

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 17: 11-19) follows Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33), and Christ has just ended his instructions to his disciples, which conclude with the advice, ‘In the world you face persecution But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).

We are now reading from his prayer to the Father (John 17: 1-26), in which he summarises the significance of his life as the time for his glory – his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – has arrived.

This prayer is often referred to as the High Priestly Prayer, as it includes many of the elements of prayer a priest offers when a sacrifice is about to be made: glorification (verses 3-5, 25), remembrance of God’s work (verses 2, 6-8, 22, 23), intercession on behalf of others (verses 9, 11, 15, 20, 21, 24), and a declaration of the offering itself (verses 1, 5).

In the Orthodox Church, this passage is also read on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, a day remembering the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in the year 325. We celebrated the 1,700th anniversary of that council last year and its formulation of the Nicene Creed. That council condemned the heresy of Arianism that taught that the Son of God was created by the Father and that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist. Christ’s words here bear witness to his divinity and to his filial relationship with the Father.

In his time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ looks up to heaven. He prays to the Father, asking him to ‘glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.’ Christ waits to be restored to his glory. He has come to earth to provide eternal life to all who believe. Now he prays to the Father for the disciples.

He has made the Father known to those who would believe. To John, the ‘world’, or the cosmos, is notable for its unbelief and hatred. The disciples have been faithful to ‘your word,’ to truth, to God, to Christ’s teachings.

They have come to realise the relationship of the Son to the Father. They know Christ’s origin and mission. This prayer is on behalf of believers, who are God’s, and not on behalf of all people. We hear that belonging to God implies belonging to the Son. Christ’s power and authority have been shown to them.

In his High Priestly Prayer, Christ asks four things of the Father:

• that they may be ‘one,’ as he and the Father are (verse 11)

• that they may have ‘my joy’ (verse 13)

• that they may be protected from the influence of evil (verse 15)

• that they may be able then to fulfil his mission in the world (verses 17-18).

Christ asks the Father to ‘protect them in your name,’ by his authority and as his representatives. The Father has given Christ this authority. He has protected them, except for one: Judas.

In fulfilment of ‘the scripture’, or by God’s will, he asks the Father to set them apart or sanctify them as they are sent out into the world (verses 17-19) … a theme we face again next Sunday, the Day of Pentecost.

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

‘I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world’ (John 17: 11) … the Friendship Globe in a park in Kuching marking Malaysia-China Friendship (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 20 May 2026):

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

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Wednesday 20 May 2026):

Gracious God, we pray for girls like Lina who face poverty, school dropout, and lack of guidance on menstrual and reproductive health. Grant each one access to knowledge, sanitary products, and dignity to manage health and attend school confidently.

The Collect:

God of wisdom, eternal light,
who shone in the heart of your servant Alcuin,
revealing to him your power and pity:
scatter the darkness of our ignorance
that, with all our heart and mind and strength,
we may seek your face
and be brought with all your saints
to your holy presence;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Alcuin
that he served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … going out into the world from All Saints’ Church, Calverton (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 Easter 2026: 40, Thursday 14 May 2026, Ascension Day

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

Patrick Comerford

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

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

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

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

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Ascension depicted in a fresco in the ceiling in the parish church in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 24: 44-53 (NRSVA):

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

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

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

Today’s Reflections:

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

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

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

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

When did he stop?

And where?

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

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

Is he beamed up as if by Scotty?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us just think of those feet for a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can I see Christ’s footprints in the wilderness?

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

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

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

Am I prepared to walk with him?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Collect:

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

Post Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

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

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

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