Daily prayer in Advent 2025: 19, Thursday 18 December 2025

‘When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him’ (Matthew 1: 24) … a mosaic in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the final days of the Season of Advent, and Christmas Day is just a week away. This week began with the Third Sunday of Advent (Advent III, 14 December 2025), also known as Gaudete Sunday.

We are catching a train to London later this morning for some pre-Christmas family meetings and perhaps lunch together. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The betrothal of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary … a panel in the Saint Joseph Window by the Harry Clarke studios in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Kilmallock, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 1: 18-24 (NRSVA):

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife.

Saint Joseph with the Christ Child … a statue at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 1: 18-24), we continue in a series of readings before Christmas that draw on the two nativity narratives found in Matthew 1: 1-24 and Luke 1: 5-79.

During the week before Christmas, the great canticle Magnificat at Evensong traditionally has a refrain or antiphon attached to it proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament. Each name develops into a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.

The Advent carol O come, O come, Emmanuel is a popular reworking of the seven ‘O Antiphons’.

O Sapientia, or O Wisdom, is the first of these days, and was marked yesterday (17 December). It is followed today (18 December) by O Adonai, O Root of Jesse tomorrow (19 December), and then O Key of David, O Dayspring, O King of the Nations, and, finally on 23 December, O Emmanuel.

In the old Sarum rite, these were sung one day earlier, beginning on 16 December, requiring another ascription for 23 December, this being O Virgin of Virgins. Since this was clearly apposite to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and not a ‘title’ of God, it was not adopted much beyond Sarum and, with the revision of the Calendar, Anglicans have adopted the more widely-used formulæ and dating.

The seven majestic Messianic titles for Christ are based on Biblical prophecies, and they help the Church to recall the variety of the ills of humanity before the coming of the Redeemer as each antiphon in turn pleads with mounting impatience for Christ to save his people.

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 1: 18-24), continues the Nativity narrative in the first Gospel. This is a reading about choices, about obedience to God’s plans, and about the fulfilment of God’s plans for all nations.

So often we talk about the Virgin Mary and her obedience, about Mary’s ‘Yes’ to the birth of Christ But it means Joseph is often pushed to the side of the stage. Joseph says ‘Yes’ too, but he says it silently; he has no scripted lines; he has no dramatic part or role; he is mute; but he is obedient.

And, like the earlier Joseph, his Biblical namesake, he too is dreamer of dreams and a doer of deeds.

Saint Matthew’s nativity story lacks the romantic imagery of Saint Luke’s account, whose heady mixture of heavenly angels with earthy shepherds is missing. Instead, the hope of all the earth takes shape under the sign of arrangements being made for a betrothal that is apparently violated. The gifts of God’s grace and the promise of God’s reign are hidden, are to be searched for and to be found in the midst of what appears be a tawdry story.

The Virgin Mary may have been a mere teenager at the time, just 14 or 15. And, like so many other teenage brides, she turns up for her wedding – pregnant! Joseph knows he could not possibly be the father. He decides to do the right thing and take off, quietly dropping out of the arrangement.

If Joseph goes ahead, then this child is going to be known in his family, among his neighbours, perhaps by everyone who needs to know, as illegitimate for the rest of his life. His critics indelicately remind Jesus of this in Saint John’s Gospel: ‘You are indeed doing what your father does.’ They said to him, ‘We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself’ (John 8: 41). The original Greek is more direct, crude and blunt: they taunt him that they were not conceived through illicit intercourse.

These fears and sneers, those social judgments and wagging fingers, must have been confronting Joseph like a nightmare. Yet the angel of Joseph’s dream makes a startling suggestion. He tells him to marry Mary, and then he is to name the child. To take on naming the child requires becoming his father. And this is suggested not as a nice thing to do, a courteous thing to do, a gallant or gentlemanly sort of thing to do. Joseph is told why: ‘You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (verse 21).

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Joseph is not promised that if he does this he is going to earn points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; that unexpected prosperity is on the horizon; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

If Joseph is not the father of the Child Jesus, he must have wondered what the angel meant by ‘his people’ and ‘their sins.’ But the forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

Advent is a time of repentance, forgiveness and expectation. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares.

Joseph dreams something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust the Virgin Mary, Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Sometimes, like Joseph, we are supposed to trust God and then get out of the way. Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Too often we forget about poor Joseph. We tend to focus on the story of the Virgin Mary, but the Annunciation occurs not just to Mary, but to Joseph too. And they both say ‘Yes.’

And Joseph says a second ‘Yes’ too later when he agrees to the angel’s prompting to flee with Mary and the Christ Child to Egypt.

Joseph listens, God sends a messenger again, Joseph dreams again, and he remains true to God, he answers God’s call.

Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in this drama. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words. Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’

Joseph’s ‘Yes’ is not only a ‘Yes’ to the Christ Child but a ‘Yes’ to all children who seem unwanted and who are easily pushed to one side. Joseph’s ‘Yes’ is not only a ‘Yes’ to the Christ Child but a ‘Yes’ to the promises the Coming Christ brings to all who are marginalised and in danger today, for because of his ‘Yes’ God is among us.

Advent is an opportunity to echo that ‘Yes’, time and time again.

Mary’s ‘husband Joseph [was] a righteous man’ (Matthew 1: 8-19) … Joseph and the Christ Child depicted at Saint Joseph’s Cottage in Thame, Oxfordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 18 December 2025):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 18 December 2025) invites us to pray:

We pray for the Sisters as they travel across the islands by boat, canoe, and on foot. May their journeys be safe, and may their pastoral care, Scripture teaching, and witness bring encouragement to isolated communities.

The Collect:

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

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Joseph depicted in a stained-glass window in Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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 2025: 15, Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph of Nazareth

Saint Joseph depicted in a stained-glass window in Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025), and this week began with the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). Today, the Calendar of the Church celebrates Saint Joseph of Nazareth.

Later this evening, I hope to join 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.

A statue of Saint Joseph in front of Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Matthew 1: 18-25 (NRSVA):

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

A window by Nathaniel Westlake (1833-1921) in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, inspired by ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir John Everett Millais (Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

Saint Joseph often goes unnoticed in Ireland as people return work after the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations and holiday weekend halfway through Lent.

We have very little information about Saint Joseph in the Gospels. He figures in the two Gospels with infancy narratives, Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, but even in those accounts, he never speaks. But he responds to God’s call – he is a man of action rather than words, a doer rather than a sayer.

He is described as a τέκτων (tekton), a word traditionally translated as ‘carpenter’, although the Greek word refers to someone who works in wood, iron or stone, including builders. Saint Joseph’s specific association with woodworking is a theme in Early Christian writings, and Justin Martyr, who died ca 165, wrote that Jesus made yokes and ploughs.

On the other hand, Geza Vermes says the terms ‘carpenter’ and ‘son of a carpenter’ are used in the Talmud for a very learned man, and he suggests that a description of Saint Joseph as naggar (‘a carpenter’) could indicate that he was considered wise and highly literate in the Torah.

Until about the 17th century, Saint Joseph is often depicted in art as a man of advanced years, with grey hair, usually bearded and balding, and occasionally frail. He is presented as a comparatively marginal figure alongside Mary and Jesus, often in the background except, perhaps, when he was leading them on the flight into Egypt. More recently, he has been portrayed as a younger or even youthful man, going about his work as a carpenter, or taking part in the daily life of his family.

This later emphasis is seen in ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ (1849–1850), a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), depicting the Holy Family in Saint Joseph’s carpentry workshop. The painting, now in the Tate Britain in London, was controversial when it was first exhibited, prompting many negative reviews, most notably one by Charles Dickens, who accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks ‘so hideous in her ugliness that … she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England.’

Critics also objected to the portrayal of Christ, one complaining that it was ‘painful’ to see ‘the youthful Saviour’ depicted as ‘a red-headed Jew boy.’ Dickens described him as a ‘wry-necked boy in a nightgown who seems to have received a poke playing in an adjacent gutter.’ Other critics suggested that the characters displayed signs of rickets and other disease associated with slum conditions.

But this painting brought attention to the previously obscure Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, influenced many artists, was replicated in stained-glass windows throughout these islands, and was a major contributor to the debate about Realism in the arts.

Today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Saint Joseph says ‘Yes’, even if he says it silently. He has no scripted lines, he has no dramatic parts or roles; indeed, he is mute. But he is obedient. And, like Joseph, his namesake in the Old Testament, he too is the dreamer of dreams and the doer of deeds.

Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary are engaged, but the marriage contract has not yet been signed, she has not yet entered into his house.

If the Mosaic law had been fully observed by Joseph, Mary could have faced ‘public disgrace,’ even been stoned to death.

Joseph is righteous and observes the Law. But he is also compassionate and plans to send her away quietly, without public shame.

The angel of the Lord tells Joseph of his role: through him, God’s promises will be fulfilled in the child to be born. And Joseph names the child Jesus.

The fear of sneers, of judgmental remarks and wagging fingers, must have been running through Joseph’s mind like a nightmare. Yet the angel in Joseph’s dream promises: ‘He will save his people from their sins.’

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Saint Joseph is not offered the promise that if he behaves like this he is going to earn some Brownie points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

Instead, the promised pay-off is for others as yet unknown. The forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is more than the self-acceptance offered in psychotherapy. Instead, it is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

This hope of all the ages, the beginning of the end of all the old tyrannies, the restoration of everything that is and will be, was always meant to take place in a virgin’s womb, in the manger, on the cross.

This is Lent – a a time of expectation, repentance and forgiveness. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares. The dream in this Gospel reading is the dream of Saint Joseph, not the Virgin Mary’s dream.

The Very Revd Samuel G Candler, Dean of Saint Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral in Atlanta, Georgia, suggested in a sermon many years ago: ‘We need sleep because we need to dream.’

Saint Joseph dreamed something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Saint Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Saint Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Saint Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in the Gospel story. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words.

Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’

But do we trust them?

Can you have faith in someone else?

Can you believe their dreams?

Can you believe the dreams of those you love?

And dream their dreams too?

As Dean Candler urged in his sermon: ‘Believe in the dreams of the person you love.’

Saint Joseph depicted on the façade of Saint Joseph’s Church in Terenure, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Truth: The Path to Reconciliation’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, whose Son grew in wisdom and stature in the home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth and on the wood of the cross perfected the work of the world’s salvation: help us, strengthened by this sacrament of his passion, to count the wisdom of the world as foolishness, and to walk with him in simplicity and trust; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Collect:

God our Father,
who from the family of your servant David
raised up Joseph the carpenter
to be the guardian of your incarnate Son
and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
give us grace to follow him
in faithful obedience to your commands;
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:

Heavenly Father,
whose Son grew in wisdom and stature in the home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth
and on the wood of the cross
perfected the work of the world’s salvation:
help us, strengthened by this sacrament of his passion,
to count the wisdom of the world as foolishness,
and to walk with him in simplicity and trust;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

A statue of Saint Joseph in the grounds of Saint Joseph’s Church, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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

Flights of fantasy in sculpture among shops in Milton Keynes

‘Sitting on History’ by Bill Woodrow in Milton Keynes was originally designed for an exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, in 1996 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

One of the many joys of living near Milton Keynes is the commitment to public sculpture by business and local bodies, with sculptures in a variety of public spaces, in parks, shopping centres and parks.

And public sculpture in Milton Keynes, despite the impressions of many outsiders, is about more than concrete cows.

I have written on this blog in recent weeks about the sculpture trail on the campus of the Open University (here and here). But, walking around the shopping centre that now promotes itself as the centre:mk, I whiled away time on a recent afternoon as I enjoyed some of the artworks that are most popular locally.

I cannot say I am ever going to enjoy time spent in shopping centres, unless I can find good bookshops and good coffee shops. After browsing books and sipping coffee in Waterstone’s that recent afternoon, I spent some time admiring Bill Woodrow’s 1996 bronze sculpture ‘Sitting on History’ in the main atrium in the Midsummer Place Shopping Centre.

The sculptor Bill Woodrow has exhibited widely since 1971. His early sculptures were made from materials found in dumps, used car lots and scrapyards, which he cut, altered and placed in new relationships to create new forms, metaphors and stories.

He began working in bronze In the late 1980s, but continued to tell stories through his work. His sculpture ‘Regardless of History’ was exhibited on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2000.

‘Sitting on History’ was originally designed for an exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London in 1996. Bill Woodrow’s idea was to create a sculpture that functioned as a seat and was only complete when someone sat on it.

‘Sitting on History’, with its ball and chain, refers to the book as captor of information from which we cannot escape. History is filtered through millions of pages of writing, making the book the major vehicle for years of research and study. Woodrow proposes that although we absorb this knowledge, we appear to have great difficulty in changing our behaviour as a result.

The books in the original maquette of the sculpture came from a box of books given to Woodrow by a London bookseller who discarded them believing he could no longer sell them. To Woodrow’s amusement, they included three volumes on the history of the Labour Party, which he used for his maquettes.

The sculpture was bought by London and Amsterdam Properties Ltd and is now outside Waterstone’s bookshop in Milton Keynes. Another version of the sculpture is installed in the British Museum.

‘The Conversation’ (1995) by Nicolas Moreton in New City Square, outside Marks and Spencer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Reading and talking go together, of course.

‘The Conversation’ (1995) by Nicolas Moreton is in New City Square, outside Marks and Spencer. It was commissioned by Hermes Properties and is a work in Kilkenny Limestone, bronze and gold leaf.

Nicolas Moreton was born in 1961 in Watford, Hertfordshire, and is best known as a stone carver. Two of his sculptures – ‘The Conversation’ (1995) and ‘The Meeting’ (1995) – are in permanent public locations in Milton Keynes.

Moreton received a National Stone Carving residency at four English cathedrals in 2004-2005. He visited Southwell Minster, Gloucester Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral and Manchester Cathedral, and was in conversation with Brian Sewell in the BBC Radio 4 series on Divine Art about his residency at Gloucester Cathedral.

‘The Conversation,’ in Kilkenny Black Fossil limestone and bronze, consists of two bronze figures in conversation over a cup of tea, raised from the ground on a plinth, away from the bustle of the people below. The plinth is their table, an intimate and private space elevated above the rest of the world.

Moreton uses the tea ritual as the symbol of a meeting. According to the artist, the column represents an arena of expectation, and the carved river motif and gold-leafed fish act as ‘the natural life forces from which we come … all fish bar one swim in one direction – the one unleafed fish representing the one that would appear to swim against the tide.’

‘Vox Pop’ or ‘The Family’ is a bronze sculpture made by John Clinch in 1988 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

‘Vox Pop’ or ‘The Family,’ a bronze sculpture made by John Clinch in 1988, is in Queen’s Court. Clinch has been creating public sculptures works since the 1960s. His group of larger than life figures was specially commissioned for Queen’s Square by Milton Keynes Development Corporation and Postel, and was donated to Milton Keynes Council.

The concept of ‘Vox Pop’ describes an interview with members of the public for TV or radio. The original Latin phrase vox populi means the voice of the people or public opinion.

John Clinch wanted ‘Vox Pop’ or ‘The Family’ to show the diversity of people in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Clinch’s work celebrates ordinary members of the public rather than the rich and famous. His multi-ethnic ‘family’ walk a dog, cycle and push a baby buggy following a circular path, encouraging visitors to walk round them and examine the detail of the sculpture.

It was ‘originally intended to show the diversity of people needed to make Milton Keynes a great city’. Clinch intended to place a bronze Union Jack in the centre of the commission on a plinth. But the sculpture was altered and the flag was omitted because of its nationalist associations, and the work was lowered to bring the figures down to the level of visiting shoppers.

‘Dream Flight’ depicts one of Philomena Davis’s children (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

A series of bronze sculptures by Philomena Davis are in Silbury Arcade, alongside branches of Marks and Spencer, Rituals, Laser Clinics, L’Occitane and Dune. Her three 1989 sculptures – ‘Dream Flight’, ‘Flying Carpet’ and ‘High Flyer’ – were commissioned by Milton Keynes Development Corporation and Hermes, and were donated to Milton Keynes Council.

Philomena Davis moved to Milton Keynes in 1980 and opened the Bronze Foundry in New Bradwell with her husband Michael. She has undertaken many commissions in Britain and abroad and was elected President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1990.

Her three sculptures in Milton Keynes focus on the theme of flight. Her three figures show children at play and dreaming, and were inspired by her own daughter and a family friend. Two are transported on flying carpets and one is almost in flight as she throws her kite up into the air.

‘High Flyer’ seem to be absorbed in her own adventure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Although the boy on the ‘Magic Carpet’ engages in eye contact with shoppers and passers-by, the two girls in ‘Dream Flight’ – one of Philomena’s children – and ‘High Flyer’ seem to be absorbed in their own adventures.

The artist says her sculptures depict our ‘fantasy with flight and escapism, in particular, the sorts of escapist dreams that come to us in childhood and adolescence.’

The three works were moved from their original positions in Queen’s Court and relocated in Silbury Arcade in 2009. Now set amidst shrubs and vegetation, they still remain slightly aloof from the commotion of the busy shopping centre.

The boy on the ‘Magic Carpet’ seems to engage in eye contact with passers-by (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Dreaming dreams and being brave enough to do the right thing

The betrothal of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary … a stained glass window from the Harry Clarke studios in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 22 December 2019

The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV)

11 a.m.: The Parish Eucharist (united group service)

The Readings: Isaiah 7: 10-16; Psalm 80: 1-8, 18-20; Romans 1: 1-7; Matthew 1: 18-25. There is a link to the readings HERE.

The betrothal of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary … a panel in the Saint Joseph Window by the Harry Clarke studios in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Kilmallock, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and this is also the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. This evening also marks the beginning of the Jewish festival, Hanukkah (חֲנֻכָּה), also known as the Festival of Lights, commemorating the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt, bringing light and purity in dark times back into the place where God was worshipped.

Are you looking forward to light coming into your life and into the life of your home, your family, this parish, and this church?

Christmas is upon us, and this morning we light the last of the purple candles on the Advent Wreath, the one representing the Virgin Mary.

Our readings this morning are about choices, about obedience to God’s plans, and about the fulfilment of God’s plans for all nations. The fourth Advent candle is a reminder of the Virgin Mary and her obedience, her choice, her ‘Yes.’

But the Gospel reading also reminds us that Saint Joseph says ‘Yes’ too, even if he says it silently. He has no scripted lines, he has no dramatic parts or roles; indeed, he is mute. But he is obedient. And, like Joseph, his namesake in the Old Testament who is named in our psalm (Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19), he too is the dreamer of dreams and the doer of deeds.

Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary are engaged, but the marriage contract has not yet been signed, she has not yet entered into his house.

If the Mosaic law had been fully observed by Joseph, Mary could have faced ‘public disgrace,’ even stoned to death.

Joseph is righteous and observes the Law. But he is also compassionate and plans to send her away quietly, without public shame.

The angel of the Lord tells Joseph of his role: through him, God’s promises will be fulfilled in the child to be born. And Joseph names the child Jesus.

The fear of sneers, of judgmental remarks and wagging fingers, must have been running through Joseph’s mind like a nightmare. Yet the angel in Joseph’s dream promises: ‘He will save his people from their sins.’

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Saint Joseph is not offered the promise that if he behaves like this he is going to earn some Brownie points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

Instead, the promised pay-off is for others as yet unknown. The forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is more than the self-acceptance offered in psychotherapy. Instead, it is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

This hope of all the ages, the beginning of the end of all the old tyrannies, the restoration of everything that is and will be, was always meant to take place in a virgin’s womb, in the manger, on the cross.

That is Advent. It is a time of expectation, repentance and forgiveness. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares.

The dream in our Gospel reading is the dream of Saint Joseph, not the Virgin Mary’s dream. The Angel Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary only in Saint Luke’s Gospel. Saint Mark and Saint John, for their part, give us no account of the birth of Christ, they have no Christmas narrative.

The Very Revd Samuel G Candler, Dean of Saint Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral in Atlanta, Georgia, suggested in a sermon on this Sunday many years ago: ‘We need sleep because we need to dream.’

Saint Joseph dreamed something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Saint Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Saint Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Saint Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in the Gospel story. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words.

Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’

But do we trust them?

Can you have faith in someone else?

Can you believe their dreams?

Can you believe the dreams of those you love?

And dream their dreams too?

As Dean Candler urges in that sermon: ‘Believe in the dreams of the person you love. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and Jesus will be born again. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and God will appear. Amen.’

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’ … the Holy Family by Giovanni Battista Pittoni, the Altar Piece in the Chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge … the depiction of Saint Joseph was typical for centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 1: 18-25 (NRSVA):

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Joseph looks after the Child (Image: Englewood Review of Books)

Liturgical resources:

The liturgical provisions suggest that the Gloria may be omitted during Advent, and it is traditional in Anglicanism to omit the Gloria at the end of canticles and psalms during Advent.

Liturgical Colour: Violet (Purple)

The Collect of the Day:

God our redeemer,
who prepared the blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
Grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Advent Collect:

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness,
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and ever.

This collect is said after the Collect of the day until Christmas Eve

Penitential Kyries:

Turn to us again, O God our Saviour,
and let your anger cease from us.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Show us your mercy, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.

Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your salvation is near for those that fear you,
that glory may dwell in our land.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Introduction to the Peace:

In the tender mercy of our God,
the dayspring from on high shall break upon us,
to give light to those who dwell in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1: 78, 79)

Preface:

Salvation is your gift
through the coming of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and by him you will make all things new
when he returns in glory to judge the world:

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
you have given us a pledge of eternal redemption.
Grant that we may always eagerly celebrate
the saving mystery of the incarnation of your Son.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

Christ the sun of righteousness shine upon you,
gladden your hearts
and scatter the darkness from before you:

Saint Joseph and the Christ Child … a mosaic in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Hymns:

160, Hark! the herald angels sing (CD 9)

133, Long ago, prophets knew (CD 8)

135, O come, O come Emmanuel (CD 8)

‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’ (Hymn 135) … candles light up the chapter and choir stalls in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

The hymn suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000).

The Angel speaks to Saint Joseph in his dream … a mosaic in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

When they saw him walking on the lake, he said, ‘do not be afraid’

‘I líonta Dé go gcastar sinn, May we meet in God’s nets’ … a modern stained-glass window in Saint Maur’s Church, Rush (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Saint Bartholomew’s Church,
Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin

10 August 2014

The Eighth Sunday after Trinity

11 a.m.: The Solemn Eucharist

Readings:

Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b; Romans 10: 5-15; Matthew 14: 22-33.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Since last weekend, each of us is aware of the real living – and dying – conditions for soldiers in World War I.

We have not descended into glorification and over romanticism. Instead, this centenary of commemorations has started with a stark realism that has helped many of us realise the brutality of war and the fears faced constantly by soldiers and civilians over the five years of World War I.

On Monday night, in our household, we switched off the lights at 11 p.m. and lit not one but two candles to remember two grandfathers:

● Stephen Edward Comerford of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who caught malaria in Thessaloniki and was sent back from Greece to Dublin in May 1916, dying in hospital in January 1921.

● Patrick Culley of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who spent World War I in the trenches and came home with what was then called “shell shock” and what we now know to be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Thessaloniki is an attractive city today, but the waterfront was a sump during World War I (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Some time ago, we spent a few days walking through the streets of Thessaloniki, imagining the nightmares my grandfather must have seen: young men, half his age, young enough to be his sons, wounded maimed and dying; imagining his own fears and nightmares as he wondered whether he would ever return home to his wife and children in Ranelagh; the frostbite and diseases he or his comrades were afflicted with in the winter when they were deployed into other parts of the Balkans; the stench of the dead water in the sump of the Thermaic Gulf (Θερμαϊκός Κόλπος) on the waterfront in Thessaloniki as he was bitten and infected with malaria.

And then I imagined his nightmares, night after night, after he came home.

The startling truth, though, is that modern warfare today, 100 years after the start of World War I, is worse than the worst nightmares of those who came home from Gallipoli, the Somme and the fields of Flanders.

I was reminded of that in the past week as I spoke publicly at the Hiroshima Day commemorations and was interviewed about the present violence in the Gaza Strip.

What are your worst nightmares?

As we grow up and mature, we tend to have fewer fears of the outside world, and as adults we begin to cope with the fears we once had as children, by turning threats into opportunities.

The fears I had as a child – of snakes, of the wind, of storms at sea, of lightning – are no longer the stuff of recurring nightmares they were as a child – I have learned to be cautious, to be sensible and to keep my distance, and to be in awe of God’s creation.

But most of us have recurring dreams that are vivid and that have themes that keep repeating themselves. They fall into a number of genres, and you will be relieved to know if you suffer from them that most psychotherapists identify a number of these types of dreams that most of us deal with in our sleep at various stages in adult life.

They include dreams about:

● Drowning.

● Finding myself unprepared for a major function or event, whether it is social or work-related.

● Flying or floating in the air, but then falling suddenly.

● Being caught naked in public.

● Missing a train or a bus or a plane.

● Caught in loos or lifts that do not work, or overwork themselves.

● Calling out in a crowd but failing to vocalise my scream or not being heard in the crowd or recognised.

● Falling, falling into an abyss.

There are others. But in sleep the brain can act as a filter or filing cabinet, helping us to process, deal with and put aside what we have found difficult to understand in our waking hours, or to try to find ways of dealing with our lack of confidence, feelings of inadequacy, with the ways we confuse gaining attention with receiving love, or with our needs to be accepted, affirmed and loved.

In our Old Testament reading this morning (Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28), Joseph is dismissed by his brothers, is seen by his brothers as a threat, because he is a “dreamer.” His perhaps naïve behaviour in his youth is threatening them as the older brothers, the adults.

But rather than confronting their fears and dealing with them, they decide to get rid of Joseph – it’s another play-out of the constant theme of shooting the messenger rather than listening to the message.

We sometimes think of the idealists in our midst as dreamers or day-dreamers. They imagine that things can be done another way, they point to potentials or possibilities, they confront us with our greatest fears. But, like Joseph’s brothers, we often confuse dreams that help us deal with our worst fears and the worst fears themselves.

Saint Peter’s plight in our Gospel reading (Matthew 14: 22-33) this morning seems to be the working out of a constant, recurring, vivid dream of the type that many of us experience at some stage: the feelings of drowning, floating and falling suddenly, being in a crowd and yet alone, calling out and not being heard, or not being recognised for who we are.

Peter sees Christ walking on the lake or floating effortlessly above the water. At first, he thinks he is seeing a ghost. But then Christ calls to him, and Peter responds.

Once he recognises Christ, Peter gets out of the boat, starts walking on the water, and comes towards Jesus. But he loses his confidence when he notices the strong wind, he is frightened, and he begins to sink.

He cries out: “Lord, save me!” Christ immediately reaches out his hand and catches him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

They get back into the boat, the wind ceases. And those in the boat worship him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Was the sight of Christ walking on the water an illusion?

Was Peter’s idea that he could walk on the water the product of an over-worked mind while it was sleeping?

Did he realise he was unprepared for the great encounter?

Did the wind cease when he woke from the dream?

All of these questions are over-analytical and fail to deal with the real encounter that takes place.

Even before the Resurrection, in his frailty, in his weakness, in his humble humanity, Peter calls out to Christ: “Lord, save me” (verse 30).

Do the others in the boat fall down at Christ’s feet and worship him because he can walk on water, because he can lift a drowning man out of the depths, or because they recognise that in Christ they can find the end to all their worst dreams and nightmares?

Saint Paul almost chides us for these questions, reminding us that people have a variety of experiences that help them to grow in faith (see Romans 10: 10).

The delusion of walking on water … learning to paddle standing up on a sailboard off Ireland’s Eye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

In the sunshine last Monday afternoon, we took a small boat from Howth Harbour to the small island of Ireland’s Eye. The waters were calm, the sun was shining, there were few clouds in the sky, the tiny beaches were covered in golden sand. A few people were sailing in the water between Howth Head and the island, and two or three men were learning to paddle standing up on sailboards.

But, in this come-and-go summer, we knew, as they say, to expect the unexpected. For a brief few minutes, black clouds suddenly moved across the whole scene. The weather could have turned, we could have found ourselves stranded on the island, or we could have found the waters started to become choppy, which can be a frightening experience, even on a short 15-minute hop like this.

As seasoned fishers and sailors, the Disciples know not to try walking on water. They know the risk of sudden storms and swells, and they know the safety of a good boat, as long as it has a good crew.

An icon of the Church as a boat, including Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers (Icon: Deacon Matthew Garrett, www.holy-icons.com)

Since the early history of the Church, the boat has symbolised the Church.

The bark (barque or barchetta) symbolises the Church tossed on the sea of disbelief, worldliness, and persecution but finally reaching safe harbour. Part of the imagery comes from the ark saving Noah’s family during the Flood (I Peter 3: 20-21). Christ protects Peter’s boat and the Disciples on the stormy Sea of Galilee (see also Mark 6: 45-52; John 6 16-21). The mast forms the shape of the Cross.

It is an image that appears in Apostolic Constitutions and the writings of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. We still retain the word nave for the main part of the church, which, architecturally often looks like an up-turned boat.

So, this morning, I do not want any of us to risk walking on water, or to play stupidly in boats in choppy waters or storms.

But if we are to dream dreams for our parish, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to be aware that it comes at the risk of feeling we are being sold out by those we see as brothers and sisters, and risk being seen as dreamers rather than people of action by others: for our dreams may be their nightmares.

If we are going to dream dreams for our parish, for the Church, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we may need to step out of our safety zones, our comfort zones, and know that this comes with a risk warning.

And if we are going to dream dreams for our parish, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to keep our eyes focussed on Christ, and to know that the Church is there to bring us on that journey.

Let us dream dreams, take risks for the Kingdom of God, step outside the box, but let us keep our eyes on Christ and remember that the boat, the Church, is essential for our journey, and let us continue to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Collect:

Blessed are you, O Lord,
and blessed are those who observe and keep your law:
Help us to seek you with our whole heart,
to delight in your commandments
and to walk in the glorious liberty
given us by your Son, Jesus Christ.

Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that holy things have taken;
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.

Canon Patrick Comerford is lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Solemn Eucharist in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge, on Sunday 10 August 2014.

‘O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee’

An angel in a window in the Round Church on Bridge Street, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

Although Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia was on the programme this morning for talking about “Demonic Temptation: the Teaching of Saint Mark the Monk (5th century),” we all knew that we were going to hear about a lot more.

Metropolitan Kallistos, who was introduced by Professor David Frost as an eminent and “paramount educator,” is also the new president of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, which is holding its summer school this week in Sidney Sussex College Cambridge.

He told us there is evidence in Scripture supernatural beings, but said he was also speaking about angels and demons from personal experience. Yet he warned us not to expect that angels should always appear to us as they are shown on icons. “Do not expect to see a winged figure in Byzantine court dress. An angel might well appear in a mackintosh and a trilby hat.”

The whole world around us is full of angels and full of demonic powers, he said, but it is not wise to think too much about the demonic powers.

To illustrate the ever-present reality of angels, he quoted from the ‘The Kingdom of God’ by the 19th century English poet Francis Thompson:

O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air –
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars! –
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places –
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry – and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry – clinging to Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

Jacob’s Ladder on the west end of Bath Abbey, illustrating Oliver King’s dream that inspired him to restore the building at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

He recalled how as a child he had been moved by the sight of Jacob’s Ladder on the facade of Bath Abbey.

He referred to Evagrius, who said that as we pray we know the angels are beside us, interceding on our behalf. He turned then to the story of Saint Anthony, the founder of monasticism, as recalled by Saint Athanasius, who places great stress on the demons.

At the beginning of his temptations, Saint Anthony sees the devil in the form of a small black boy, representing those who are on the margins of society and the city. Anthony moves out to a tomb on the margins of the community, where the struggle with the demons continues intensifies, often in the shape of wild animals, perhaps because Egyptian deities were depicted with the heads of animals, such as the head of a dog or a cat.

When they attack him physically and beat him up, Saint Anthony asks Christ where he was. The reply he heard was: “I was here all the time Anthony, but I wanted to see you fight.” It is an illustration of the relationship between grace and free will.

Saint Anthony then moves out to the deep, uninhabited Desert. There he hears the demons shouting: “Depart from what belongs to us.”

Ladybird poppies in Chapel Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Saint Anthony’s move was not a flight from the world but to a place of combat with evil. So, he asked us, where is the desert today, what is the place for demons in our own society?

Is the city a place where you feel safe and protected, and the countryside wild and a place where you feel threatened? Today, we have different perceptions of the city and the countryside than those in the ancient world.

Saint Athanasius includes a long discourse put in the mouth of Saint Anthony describing the demons, showing how the spirits of evil were understood in the early Church.

We should not be afraid of the demons, he said, for they are weak and they deserve not our respect but our contempt.

He recalled how on one occasion he had written about the devil, with a capital D. A critic responded: “You should not give the devil a capital ... that is a sign of courtesy and respect. The devil is not a gentleman.”

Yet, said Metropolitan Kallistos, God made nothing bad, so the demons were originally good. The demons are envious of us, this is what inspires them. They will try to deceive the heart, frighten us, and pretend to prophesy and to predict, even though they have no real knowledge of the future. “The devil is the father of lies, so don’t believe what he tells you.”

If initial temptations do not work, then they pretend to be behaving in a holy way, and try to tempt us through what is apparently good, pretending to chant sacred songs and quoting Scripture. Again, he said, take no notice. Demons cannot make the sign of the cross. They may pretend to be holy, but you have to challenge them.

“The demons lack the power to do anything. Essentially they are presenting us with illusions. Fear God alone, holding the demons in contempt.”

How do we distinguish between demons who are foul and evil, and the good angels? If the apparition is of a good angel, it produces a sense of calm and joy. If an appearance is demonic, even if it appears to be good, we feel troubled and disturbed.

Satan appears to Saint Anthony, and complains: Why do you censure me without a cause, why do you keep cursing me?” Then he says of troubled Christians: “I am not the one who torments them, but they disturb themselves.”

On the early fifth century, Saint Mark the Monk (Saint Mark the Hermit, or Saint Mark the Ascetic) provides an account of temptation that is also found in the first part of the Philokalia. In his system, which was taken up by John Klimakos and Maximos the Confessor in the seventh century, he identifies six forms of temptation: provocation, momentary disturbance of the intellect, coupling, assent, prepossession, and passion.

Metropolitan Kallistos lecturing in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

We had what Dr Marcus Plested described as “a double bill” with Metropolitan Kallistos, when he spoke in a second lecture later this afternoon on ‘The Theology of Dreams, Angelic and Demonic.’

Do we understand our own intellects? Do we understand our own hearts?

He spoke of the ambivalence about dreams in the Bible. “Dreams give wings to fools,” he said, quoting Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 34: 1-8. Jacob’s Ladder, Joseph’s dreams, Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and Joseph’s dreams in Matthew, the dreams of the Wise Men on their journey, where the Angel of the Lord speaks, the dream of Herod’s wife, and Saint Paul’s dream of the people of Macedonia, are examples of dreams with an important place.

The Talmud says dreams are constitute one-sixtieth of prophecy.

Why do good people often have very bad dreams? Why do we do things in our dreams that we would never contemplate when we are awake? Psychoanalysts would say: “Compensation.” But the Patristic writers would refer to the demons.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa says dreams are full of fantastic nonsense, and he excludes the notion that dreams might predict the future; instead they are a confused replay of what has already happened.

Gregory downplays the numinous possibility of dreams. Yet God may speak to us through dreams.

But there are important, positive examples of dreams in Patristic writings, including The Martyrdom of Saint Perpetua. Saint Augustine’s life was influenced by a dream his mother Monica had. And he knows of three monks in the Monastery of Saint John on Patmos who became monks in response to dreams.

Evagrius of Pontus attended the Second Council of Constantinople, where he had an affair with a married woman. Amid this temptation, he is said to have had a dream in which he was imprisoned by soldiers at the behest of the woman’s husband. This dream, and the warning of an attendant angel, made him flee from the city for Jerusalem.

For a short time, he stayed with Melania the Elder and Tyrannius Rufinus in a monastery near Jerusalem. But even there he could not forsake his pride, fell gravely ill and only after he resolved to become a monk was he restored to health.

Evagrius is the Patristic writer to write most extensively about dreams, and distinguishes three types of dreams: they may come from demons; they may come from angels; and they may be neutral, without demonic or angelic intervention. He concentrates on the first two, and says it is often difficult to distinguish whether a dream is from a demonic or angelic source.

Angels may send us terrifying dreams for our own sake.

Dreams of pride, where we have achievements or earn praise, and erotic dreams may come from demons. Demons may even appear in our dreams as angels (II Corinthians 11: 14).

Examining our dreams can help us towards spiritual self-knowledge, knowing what passions lie deep in our souls. Through dreams, the unconscious be brought to the surface and analysed, revealing hidden passions, pride and what we have been suppressing.

Angels without wings ... Harry Anderson’s reworked painting of the Second Coming

Earlier in the afternoon, after lunch, Father Ian Graham of Holy Trinity Church, Oxford, lectured on ‘Angels in Scripture.’ He began by asking: “Who is the opposite of the Devil. A large number of Christians answer God. No. The answer is the Archangel Michael, and that should put him in perspective.”

Father Ian, who grew up as a Seventh Day Adventist, recalled the story of how the Mormons rejected a commissioned painting of the Second Coming by the artist Harry Anderson, who was a Seventh Day Adventist. The painting was rejected because the angels had wings, and had to be reworked. In Mormon mythology, there are no different orders of beings, and angels and humans are merely at different stages on the same path, so that the Archangel Michael and Adam are one and the same.

In Islamic tradition, the Archangel Gabriel is winged and in human form. Angels are a different order of being in Islam, but they have no free will and carry out the will of God in perfect submission. There are no fallen angels, but there is a third order of djinn, who may be good or bad, so that Satan is a fallen djinn who refused to bow down to Adam.

And so he challenged us to think about what exactly is said in Scripture about angels.

The first appearance of angels in the Bible is in Genesis 3, where a pair of cherubim or winged beasts – rather than putti – are placed to prevent Adam and Eve returning to Eden. Is the talking serpent that tempts Eve the Devil in disguise? The text does not say so, and even in IV Maccabees 18: 6, which gives a sexual interpretation of the Fall, the snake remains a snake.

The word angel means messenger or envoy, both inside and outside Scripture.

Angel is not the name but the job description. If we translated angel as messenger or envoy, would it bring a new immediacy ad meaning to Biblical passages?

But what about the Angel of the Lord? At times, the Angel of the Lord is even allowed to pronounce the name of the Lord. He reminded that casual use of the name was punishable and its casual use by many Christians today continues to cause offence to Jews.

Why should God speak through an envoy? Could he not express himself directly?

He took us on a tour of the Biblical passages that speak of angels, from Abraham’s visitors at Mamre and the angels in Daniel and Ezekiel, to the heralds of the Incarnation and the Resurrection, and the angels in Acts, including those in the stories of Philip and Cornelius. Acts 23: 8 says the Sadducees rejected angels, spirits and the Resurrection. But as the Sadducees accepted the Pentateuch it may mean they rejected the magical manipulation of angels.

South Court, overlooking the Mong Hall in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)