Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 30, Monday 19 May 2025

‘The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything …’ (John 14: 25) … Pentecost depicted in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó, in the hills above Hersonissos in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (8 June 2025), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V, 18 May 2025), known in the calendar of the Orthodox Church as the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today celebrates Saint Dunstan (988), Archbishop of Canterbury and Restorer of Monastic Life. 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.

‘The Advocate, the Holy Spirit … will … and remind you of all that I have said to you’ (John 14: 15) Pentecost (El Greco)

John 14: 21-26 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 21 ‘They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ 23 Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.’

‘Come Holy Spirit’ … the holy water stoup in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Today’s short Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary at the Eucharist (John 14: 21-26) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in Saint John’s Gospel.

This chapter (John 14) includes questions from three of the disciple and three answers from Jesus, which we hear over the course of three days, Friday, Saturday and today:

• ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ (Thomas, John 14: 5)

• ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied’ (Philip, John 14: 8)

• ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ (Judas Thaddeus, John 14: 22)

These are also the questions and problems faced by the communities and churches gathered around Saint John in Ephesus and in Asia Minor. The answers Jesus gives to these three questions are like a mirror in which those communities find a response to their doubts and difficulties.

Jesus is preparing the disciples to separate themselves and reveals to them his friendship, communicating to them security and support.

Today’s reading begins with Jesus reminding the disciples: ‘They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them’ (verse 21).

This continuing use of encouraging words in the face of troubles and differences reflects the many disagreements within those communities, each claiming to have the right approach to living out the faith and believing the others are living in error.

Jesus’ words in this morning’s reading are reminders that the unity of the church should reflect the unity found in the Trinity.

Judas Thaddeus or Jude then asks ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ (verse 12).

Jesus replies, saying that anyone who responds to Jesus with love will certainly experience the love of Jesus. He again reminds the disciples that everything he passes on to them comes ultimately from the Father and not from him alone. He is the mediator, he is the Way, he is the Word of God. And later, after he has gone, this role will be taken over by the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.

The word ‘paraclete’ (παράκλητος, paráklētos) has many meanings. It can mean a defence lawyer in a court of law who stands beside the defendant and supports him in making his case. It means any person who stands by you and gives you support and comfort. So, the word can signify:

1, Someone who consoles or comforts.
2, Someone who encourages or uplifts.
3, Someone who refreshes.
4, Someone summoned or called to one’s side, especially called to one’s aid.
5, Someone who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, the counsel for the defence, a legal assistant, an advocate.
6, Someone who intercedes to plead another person’s cause before another person, an intercessor.
7, In the widest sense, a helper, one who provides succour or aid, an assistant.

So, in its use, παράκλητος appears to belong primarily to legal imagery. The word is passive in form, and etymologically it originally signified being ‘called to one’s side.’ The active form of the word, παρακλήτωρ (parakletor), is not found in the New Testament but is found in the Septuagint in the plural, and means ‘comforters’, in the saying of Job regarding the ‘miserable comforters’ who failed to rekindle his spirit in his time of distress: ‘I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all’ (Job 16: 2).

However, the word παράκλητος in its passive form is not found in the Septuagint, where other words are used to translate the Hebrew word מְנַחֵם‎ (mənaḥḥēm ‘comforter) and מליץ יושר‎ (Melitz Yosher).

In Classical Greek, the term is not common in non-Jewish texts. But the best known use is by Demosthenes:

‘Citizens of Athens, I do not doubt that you are all pretty well aware that this trial has been the centre of keen partisanship and active canvassing, for you saw the people who were accosting and annoying you just now at the casting of lots. But I have to make a request which ought to be granted without asking, that you will all give less weight to private entreaty or personal influence than to the spirit of justice and to the oath which you severally swore when you entered that box. You will reflect that justice and the oath concern yourselves and the commonwealth, whereas the importunity and party spirit of advocates serve the end of those private ambitions which you are convened by the laws to thwart, not to encourage for the advantage of evil-doers.’ (Demosthenes, On the False Embassy, 19: 1).

In Jewish writings, Philo of Alexandria speaks at several times of ‘paraclete’ advocates, primarily in the sense of human intercessors. The word later passed from Hellenistic Jewish writing into rabbinical Hebrew writing.

In the Greek New Testament, the word is most prominent in the Johannine writings, but is also used elsewhere:

1, In Saint Matthew’s Gospel (see Matthew 5: 4), Christ uses the verb παρακληθήσονται (paraclethesontai), traditionally interpreted to signify ‘to be refreshed, encouraged, or comforted.’ The text may also be translated as vocative as well as the traditional nominative. Then the meaning of παρακληθήσονται, also informative of the meaning of the name, or noun Paraclete, implicates ‘are going to summon’ or ‘will be breaking off.’ The Paraclete may thus mean ‘the one who summons’ or ‘the one who, or that which, makes free.’

2, In Saint John’s Gospel, it is used four times (14: 16, 14: 26, 15: 26, and 16: 7), where it may be translated into English as counsellor, helper, encourager, advocate, or comforter. In the first instance (John 14: 16), however, when Christ says ‘another Paraclete’ will come to help his disciples, is he implying that he is the first and primary Paraclete?

3, In one brief paragraph in II Corinthians 1: 3-7, the word παράκλητος, is used in various forms seven or eight times in the sense of comfort and support. The word has a wide range of meanings that include advocate, encourager or comforter.

4, In I John 2: 1, παράκλητος is used to describe the intercessory role of Christ, who advocates for us or pleads on our behalf to the Father.

The Early Church identified the Paraclete with the Holy Spirit (Το Άγιο Πνεύμα) received in the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles (see Acts 1: 5, 1: 8, 2: 4, and 2: 38; see also Matthew 3: 10-12 and Luke 3: 9-17).

The word Paraclete may also have been used in the Early Church as a way of describing the Spirit’s help when Christians were hauled before courts. Christ has already promised ‘When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit’ (Mark 13: 11; see Luke 12: 11-12).

In the next chapter of this Gospel (John 15: 26-27), much of the legal imagery remains intact. Here the Spirit is the advocate employed by the Father to advocate on behalf of the Son. Even the language of ‘sending’ is legal, since one of the major avenues of communication in the ancient world was through one’s legal agent or ἀπόστολος (apostolos), ‘sent one.’

So the role of the Spirit is to make a case for Christ in the court of the world and to help us to do so. That is our task in mission as the Church.

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

The Holy Spirit shapes the top panel in the Triptych (1999) of the Baptism of Christ in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 19 May 2025):

‘That We May Live Together: A Reflection from the Emerging Leaders Academy’ is 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). This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Annsli Kabekabe of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 19 May 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, we praise you for Annsli and young people enrolled in the Emerging Leaders Academy. Thank you for their willingness to serve you and follow your example.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who raised up Dunstan to be a true shepherd of the flock,
a restorer of monastic life
and a faithful counsellor to those in authority:
give to all pastors the same gifts of your Holy Spirit
that they may be true servants of Christ and of all his people;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Dunstan revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Dunstan depicted in a stained glass window above the High Altar in Saint Dunstan-in-the-West Church, Fleet Street, London (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 the Kingdom Season: 20, Wednesday 20 November 2024

The Parable of the Talents (Luke 19: 11-27) … a stained-glass window in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent, and this week began with the Second Sunday before Advent. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Edmund (870), King of the East Angles, Martyr, and Priscilla Lydia Sellon (1876), a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England.

The long odyssey back from Kuching continues today. We travelled on overnight from Singapore to Paris, and we are booked on a flight later this morning from Paris to Birmingham, hoping to be home in Stony Stratford by the afternoon, perhaps even for time for the choir rehearsal in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church.

But, before the day begins, before I look for breakfast in Charles de Gaulle Airport, I am taking some quiet time early 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.

‘Well done … you have been trustworthy in a very small thing’ (Luke 19: 17) … coins from the Brooke era in Sarawak that have lost their spending value (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 19: 11-28 (NRSVA):

11 As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. 12 So he said, ‘A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. 13 He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, “Do business with these until I come back.” 14 But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, “We do not want this man to rule over us.” 15 When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. 16 The first came forward and said, “Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds.” 17 He said to him, “Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities.” 18 Then the second came, saying, “Lord, your pound has made five pounds.” 19 He said to him, “And you, rule over five cities.” 20 Then the other came, saying, “Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.” 22 He said to him, “I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest.” 24 He said to the bystanders, “Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds.” 25 (And they said to him, “Lord, he has ten pounds!”) 26 “I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and slaughter them in my presence”.’

28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

‘Why then did you not put my money into the bank?’ (Luke 19: 23) … a collection of old Greek banknotes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 19: 11-28) is about so much more than wise investment and shrewd dealing.

The catchphrase ‘Loadsamoney’ and the character to go with it were part of the comedy sketches created by the English comedian Harry Enfield on Channel 4 in the 1980s.

‘Loadsamoney’ was an obnoxious Cockney plasterer who constantly boasted about how much money he had to throw away. The character took on a life of his own and adapted the song ‘Money, Money,’ from the musical Cabaret, for a hit single in 1988 and a sell-out live tour.

That year, the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, used the catchphrase to criticise the policies of the Conservative government of the day and journalists began to refer to the ‘loadsamoney mentality’ and the ‘loadsamoney economy.’

On the other hand, we all know people who are reluctant to flash their cash and who would prefer to stash their cash. We have all heard of people who kept their savings in a mattress, thinking it was safer there than in the bank.

They may never have realised how right they might have been about the banks. But leaving your money under the mattress is not going to put it to work. And, these days, putting my money on deposit in the bank may cost me money rather than earning it. With low deposit rates and taxation at source, you may end up collecting less than you had when you first opened that savings account.

But piling up your money has its risks too. At a time of rapid inflation in war-time Greece and Germany, people who saved their money as banknotes found it quickly depreciated in value. I have enough 5 million drachmai notes to make my two sons multi-millionaires. Sad to say, those notes date from the 1940s and the only value they have today is mere curiosity value.

Saving them in the bank, or piling them up under the mattress would have earned nothing for their original owners.

And yet, man businesses and many peole continue to feel the financial pinch created some years ago by the pandemic. Shops and businesses closed, household incomes went down, economic activity was in freefall, and some people never really recovered.

The parable we are reading this morning is set in the realm of finance. Before leaving on a journey, a master entrusts his servants (that word deacon again) with his money, each according to his ability.

A talent (τάλαντον, tálanton) was a lot of money – enough to make any one of those slaves a millionaire, and enough to make them fret and worry about the enormity with which he had been entrusted.

One source says a talent was the equivalent of more than 15 years’ wages for a labourer. Another suggests a talent was worth the equivalent of 7,300 denarii. With one denarius equal to a day’s pay, a talent would work out at more than 26 years’ wages. So a talent was extremely valuable, and the slave who was given five talents was given 85 to 130 years’ wages, vastly more than he could ever imagine earning in lifetime.

Two servants invest the money they have been entrusted with and earn more, but the third simply buries it.

When the master returns, he praises the investors. He says they will be made responsible for many things, and will enter into the joy of their master.

But the third slave, admitting that he was afraid of his master’s wrath, simply returns the original sum. The master chastises him for his wickedness and laziness. He loses not only what he has been given but is also condemned to outer darkness.

What would have happened to the two investors who took risks with vast sums of money had they lost everything?

There was an old maxim that you ‘must speculate to accumulate.’ But every investor knows there are risks, and the greater the risk the higher the interest rates that are promised.

What if they had overstepped their master’s expectations in the risks they had taken?

What if this bondholder had been burned because of the folly of two of his risk-takers, and only one had been a careful steward? After all, there is a rabbinical maxim that commends burying money to protect it.

If this parable is about the kingdom of heaven, if the master stands for God and the servants for different kinds of people, what lesson does it teach us?

Does God reward us for our works but behave like a stern judge when we keep faith without taking risks?

Will we be judged by our work?

Will failure to use what God gives us result in punishment and our separation from God?

Of course, we cannot imagine that the two slaves who traded with their talents and produced a profit were engaged in reckless trading and speculation, still less in reckless gambling.

What was the third slave doing with his time after he buried his talent? Was he doing any other work on behalf of the master? Is he chided for his refusal to invest or speculate, or for his refusal to work, his laziness?

In this, did he show disdain for his master?

Is mh relationship with God one of trust and gratitude? Or do K fear God to the point of thinking of God as the source of injustice?

What talents and gifts has God entrusted me with?

Are they mine? Or are they God’s?

Am I using or investing them to my fullest ability?

Saint Edmund depicted in a window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin … he is remembered in ‘Common Worship’ on 20 November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 20 November 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Coming Together for Climate Justice’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by Linet Musasa, HIV Stigma and Discrimination Officer, Anglican Council of Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 20 November 2024) invites us to pray:

We pray for churches, communities and all the vulnerable people that have been impacted by climate change.

The Collect:

Eternal God,
whose servant Edmund kept faith to the end,
both with you and with his people,
and glorified you by his death:
grant us such steadfastness of faith
that, with the noble army of martyrs,
we may come to enjoy the fullness of the resurrection life;
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.

Post-Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Edmund:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Edmund depicted in a window in Saint Mary’s Church in Whitby, Yorkshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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 the Kingdom Season: 8, Friday 8 November 2024

The Unjust Steward … part of the East Window in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick, made 1878 by Mayer & Co and illustrating 10 parables (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the Saints and Martyrs of England (8 November).

Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early 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.

‘The Unjust Steward,’ by the Kazakhstan Artist, Nelly Bube (Bubay)

Luke 16: 1-8 (NRSVA):

1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” 3 Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” 6 He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” 7 Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.’

A ‘Shop To Let’ sign within view of Sidney Sussex College chapel, Cambridge … can we reconcile the values of the Kingdom and the demands of commercial life? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

In the Gospel reading for the Eucharist today, we the parable of ‘the Unjust Steward’ or the ‘Parable of the Dishonest Manager’.

Whatever name you give it, this morning’s reading is about ignoring and exploiting the plight of the oppressed and the poor tells us that this amounts to turning away from God and turning towards idolatry. We are called to turn around, and in turning to the needs of the poor we find that we are turning to God.

So, let me tell this morning’s Gospel story (Luke 16: 1-13) in another way. When I left school, I started training as a chartered surveyor and estate manager. I never finished that training, but I can visualise some of the characters in this story.

A very, very rich man lives in a big city, let’s say it is Dublin. He has a luxurious lifestyle made possible by the income from the apartments, hotels and office blocks he owns in the city centre. He has been a major property developer, and a key shareholder in one of the business banks lending to developers.

He has hired an estate manager to run his property holding company, his building society, and his insurance agency while he spends most of his time in his large country house in Co Kildare or Co Meath, or in Marbella playing golf and on his yacht.

All the work of painting, maintaining the lifts and the plumbing in his apartment blocks, working the bar and servicing the rooms in his hotels, and working at the call centres in the office blocks, is done by people who travel in and out from the rims of the city, people whose grandparents probably once lived in the small terraced houses that once stood along the docks or the canal banks but were levelled to build those apartments, office blocks and hotels.

They pay their mortgages to the bank that financed the apartment blocks and similar developments. Their overdrafts are from the same bank. Their mortgage, insurance and life assurance policies are from an agency he owns. They find themselves increasingly in debt, paying school fees, running a car or two cars, meeting hire purchase payments for fridges, freezers, TVs, the children’s school fees and laptops … What they earn is never enough to pay off their mortgages, their overdrafts, their term loans.

These families are slipping further and further into debt, working harder and harder to pay what cannot be paid.

But they never meet the rich developer. The immediate face of this system, of his companies and his investments, is the face of the estate agent who manages the blocks – a man whose grandparents came from the same families as the people who now suffer under his management.

However, his parents had escaped the system, he got a good education, and then got sucked into the system.

The developer hears rumours that the estate manager, who is also his insurance agent, has been squandering the developer’s resource, and gives him his dismissal notice. Now, remember that ‘squandering’ is not necessarily a bad word here – the sower in another parable squanders seed by tossing it on roads and in bird-feeding zones, and the shepherd in one of this week’s parables potentially squanders 99 sheep by running after the lost one; the widow searching for her lost coin risks losing her other nine as she sweeps everything out.

Meanwhile, the estate agent has to work out his notice, but is no longer authorised to let, to rent, to buy, to sell, to do anything at all in the developer’s name.

He probably shares the same background only a generation or two ago with the maintenance workers, the tenants, the workers in the office blocks. But when he is out on his ear, they are not going to help him to find a place to live, or find a new job, given that up to now he has allied himself with the developer’s interests, collecting high rents, refusing to bring down rents when the reviews are due, managing the work rotas for the maintenance workers, forcing them to work longer hours rather than taking on the staff needed for the job, dealing unjustly with both tenants and workers.

He has been demanding higher rents and premiums, and longer working hours, yet providing fewer and fewer services – doing what certain economists have advised him to do: increasing profit margins and productivity and cutting costs at one and the same time.

He may be shrewd, but that is why he is called ‘the dishonest manager’ (verse 8).

The the agent does something that is extraordinarily clever.

He gathers all the tenants and workers who owe him money, and he declares that their debts have been written down, more than the courts could ever write them down, to something that might be repaid, freeing families from heart-breaking choices. He has been upping their rents and their premiums; now he brings them all back to a payable rate. And in doing this, he manages to wipe out the arrears that have been mounting up.

The smart agent manages not to tell the tenants or the workers that he has been sacked. Nor does he tell them that the developer has not authorised any of his largesse. But the tenants and the workers now think the developer, their landlord, is more generous than anyone else in his position could be. The developer is now a hero in their eyes – and, by extension, the agent is too.

The developer comes back for his quarterly or annual visit to pick up the income the agent has collected for him, and he gets a surprise that is exhilarating and challenging. The people are delighted to see him. Workers shake his hands, tenants lean out of the balconies to wave at him, children want to have ‘selfies’ taken with him.

Then, as he inspects the books in the small office the agent has worked from in the complex, he finds out what the agent has done in telling the tenants and the workers that the developer has forgiven their debts.

He has a choice to make.

He can go and tell them that it was all a terrible mistake, that the agent’s ‘stroke’ amounted not to generosity but to theft, or at least to dishonesty, and has no legal basis – he can tell them they are still responsible for the unpaid rent, for the overdrawn loans.

The warm welcome could quickly turn to nasty protests.

Or, the developer can go outside, bask in the unexpected welcome he has received, and take credit for the agent’s actions. At least he has cash in his hand where once he might have had nothing because of defaulting tenants and clients. That would save him going to court, but has he to take the agent back to work for him?

What would you do?

Picture yourself in this dilemma, both as the agent and as the developer.

From the agent’s point of view, does it matter any more what the developer decides to do? Whatever decision the developer makes, his future is safe – either he gets his job back, or his own people are going to look after him.

But here is the big problem: what the agent did is clearly dishonest. He has taken the landlord’s property and squandered it – even after he was sacked and had no right to do anything in the developer’s name.

What is it that the agent has done, without permission? Who has he deceived?

The agent forgives. He forgives things that he had no right to forgive. He forgives for all the wrong reasons, for personal gain and to compensate for his past misconduct. But that decisive action that he undertakes redeems him from a position to which it seems he could not be reconciled, to the developer any more than to the tenants and workers.

So what is the moral of the story?

This story is unique to Saint Luke’s Gospel, and for him there is a significance that is important throughout the third gospel: Forgive. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want. Forgive for the right reason. Forgive for the wrong reason. Forgive for no reason at all. Just forgive.

Remember, Saint Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer includes the helpful confusion: καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίομεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν: καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν (‘and forgive us our sins for indeed we ourselves are forgiving everyone who is [monetarily] indebted to us’) (Luke 11: 4) – the monetary indebtedness is obvious in the original Greek.

We pray it, but do we put it into practice?

The arrival of the Kingdom of God is no occasion for score-keeping of any kind, whether monetary or moral.

Why should I forgive someone who has sinned against me, or against my sense of what is obviously right? I don’t have to do it out of love for the other person.

I could forgive the other person because of what I pray in the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday if not every morning.

I could forgive because I know I would like to be forgiven myself.

I could forgive because I know what it is like to be me when I am unforgiving.

I could forgive because I am, or I want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Christ’s power to forgive and free someone just like me.

Or I could forgive because I think it will improve my life and sense of well-being.

It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish or unselfish, there is no bad reason to forgive.

Extending the kind of grace God shows me in every possible arena – financial and moral – can only put me more deeply in touch with God’s grace.

If a crafty agent, a dishonest manager, an unjust steward, the sort of person we meet in this Gospel reading, can forgive to save his job or give himself a safety net when he is sacked, then those of us who have the experience of real grace, we have been invited to the Heavenly Banquet, have a better reason than most people to forgive.

Where is the place for Christian values in today’s world of finance and debt? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 8 November 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Conflict, Confluence and Creativity’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Rebecca Boardman, former Operations Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 8 November 2024) invites us to pray:

We give thanks to all who have answered your call to ministry and for all who educate and support them to shape them for your service. May you challenge and nurture them with your Word.

The Collect:

God, whom the glorious company of the redeemed adore,
assembled from all times and places of your dominion:
we praise you for the saints of our own land
and for the many lamps their holiness has lit;
and we pray that we also may be numbered at last
with those who have done your will
and declared your righteousness;
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.

Post Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness
and giver of all good things:
may we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The memorial to the Martyrs of the Reformation, both Catholic and Protestant’ in the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Oxford (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 2024: 113, Saturday 31 August 2024

‘Loadsamoney’ was a catchphrase of comedian Harry Enfield … but is a load of money worth stashing away? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 1 September 2024). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (31 August) remembers Saint Aidan (651), Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary.

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.

Talents and drachmai … old coins outside an antique shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 25: 14-30 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 14 ‘For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents,[a] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” 21 His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” 22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, “Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.” 23 His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” 24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” 26 But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.’

Is the parable less about talents and money and more about those who are exploited in the world by others and who are left destitute? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The catchphrase ‘Loadsamoney’ and the character to go with it were part of the comedy sketches created by the English comedian Harry Enfield on Channel 4 in the 1980s.

‘Loadsamoney’ was an obnoxious Cockney plasterer who constantly boasted about how much money he had to throw away. The character took on a life of his own and adapted the song ‘Money, Money,’ from the musical Cabaret, for a hit single in 1988 and a sell-out live tour.

That year, the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, used the catchphrase to criticise the policies of the Conservative government of the day and journalists began to refer to the ‘loadsamoney mentality’ and the ‘loadsamoney economy.’

On the other hand, we all know people who are reluctant to flash their cash and who would prefer to stash their cash. We have all heard of people who kept their savings in a mattress, thinking it was safer there than in the bank.

They may never have realised how right they might have been about the banks. But leaving your money under the mattress is not going to put it to work. And, these days, putting my money on deposit in the bank may cost me money rather than earning it. With low deposit rates and taxation at source, you may end up collecting less than you had when you first opened that savings account.

But piling up your money has its risks too. At a time of rapid inflation in war-time Greece and Germany, people who saved their money as banknotes found it quickly depreciated in value. I have enough 5 million drachmai notes to make my two sons multi-millionaires. Sad to say, those notes date from the 1940s and the only value they have today is mere curiosity value.

Saving them in the bank, or piling them up under the mattress would have earned nothing for their original owners.

And yet, I am aware of how many people in this parish are feeling the financial pinch created by the fiscal policies over the past 14 years by the previous government. Yet the cost of living seems to continue to rise.

This morning’s parable is set in the realm of finance. Before leaving on a journey, a master entrusts his servants (that word deacon again) with his money, each according to his ability.

A talent (τάλαντον, tálanton) was a lot of money – enough to make any one of those slaves a millionaire, and enough to make them fret and worry about the enormity with which he had been entrusted.

One source says a talent was the equivalent of more than 15 years’ wages for a labourer. Another suggests a talent was worth the equivalent of 7,300 denarii. With one denarius equal to a day’s pay, a talent would work out at more than 26 years’ wages. So a talent was extremely valuable, and the slave who was given five talents was given 85 to 130 years’ wages, vastly more than he could ever imagine earning in lifetime.

Earlier in this Gospel, we have come across another parable of talents, when a servant who is forgiven a debt of 10,000 talents refuses to forgive another servant who owes him only 100 denarii (Matthew 18: 23-35).

Two servants invest the money they have been entrusted with and earn more, but the third simply buries it.

When the master returns, he praises the investors. He says they will be made responsible for many things, and will enter into the joy of their master.

But the third slave, admitting that he was afraid of his master’s wrath, simply returns the original sum. The master chastises him for his wickedness and laziness. He loses not only what he has been given but is also condemned to outer darkness.

What would have happened to the two investors who took risks with vast sums of money had they lost everything?

There was an old maxim that you ‘must speculate to accumulate.’ But every investor knows there are risks, and the greater the risk the higher the interest rates that are promised.

What if they had overstepped their master’s expectations in the risks they had taken?

What if this bondholder had been burned because of the folly of two of his risk-takers, and only one had been a careful steward? After all, there is a rabbinical maxim that commends burying money to protect it.

If this parable is about the kingdom of heaven, if the master stands for God and the servants for different kinds of people, what lesson does it teach us?

Does God reward us for our works but behave like a stern judge when we keep faith without taking risks?

Will we be judged by our work?

Will failure to use what God gives us result in punishment and our separation from God?

Of course, we cannot imagine that the two slaves who traded with their talents and produced a profit were engaged in reckless trading and speculation, still less in reckless gambling.

What was the third slave doing with his time after he buried his talent? Was he doing any other work on behalf of the master? Is he chided for his refusal to invest or speculate, or for his refusal to work, his laziness?

In this, did he show disdain for his master?

Is my relationship with God one of trust and gratitude? Or do I fear God to the point of thinking of God as the source of injustice?

What talents and gifts has God entrusted me with?

Are they mine? Or are they God’s?

Am I using or investing them to my fullest ability?

‘To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability’ (Matthew 25: 15) … old coins in a table top in the bar at the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 31 August 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been the ‘Theological Education Executive Leadership Programme in Africa.’ The course is expected to start in August 2024 and run until December 2025, and this theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Regional Manager Africa, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 31 August 2024, International Day for people of African Descent) invites us to pray:

We pray for the people of Africa and all who have links to the continent.

The Collect:

Everlasting God,
you sent the gentle bishop Aidan
to proclaim the gospel in this land:
grant us to live as he taught
in simplicity, humility and love for the poor;
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 Aidan and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XIV:

Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Saint Aidan depicted in a panel on the altar in Saint Chad’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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

‘Throw him into the outer darkness’ (Matthew 25: 30) … at night on Souliou Street in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 88, Monday 5 August 2024

Five loaves and two fish … ‘St Peter’s Harrogate Feeding Hungry People’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X) yesterday (4 August 2024). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Oswald (642), King of Northumbria, Martyr.

Later this morning, I have yet another appointment in Milton Keynes University Hospital in connection with ongoing monitoring of my sarcoidosis. But, 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 miracle of the loaves and fishes in a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli, Crete … there are only two fish, but the loaves of bread have already been multiplied (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 14: 13-21 (NRSVA):

13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ 16 Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ 17 They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ 18 And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Five loaves in a shop window in Dingle, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflection:

The feeding of the multitude is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels (see Mark 6: 30-44; Luke 9: 12-17; John 6: 1-15), with only minor variations on the place and the circumstances.

In the verses immediately before this morning’s reading, Saint Matthew tells of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, who was executed after he denounced Herod Antipas for marrying his brother Philip’s wife, while Philip was still alive (see Matthew 14: 1-11).

The disciples of Saint John the Baptist took his body and buried it – a foreshadowing of how his disciples are going to desert Christ at his own death and burial – and they then go to Christ to tell him the news (verse 12).

When Jesus hears this, he takes a boat and withdraws to a deserted place. But the crowds follow him on foot around the shore and find him, and when he comes ashore there is a great crowd waiting for him. He has compassion for them, and he cures the sick among them (verses 13-14).

But a greater miracle is about to unfold – perhaps even two greater miracles.

This is a story of a miracle, but which miracle?

The multiplication of the five loaves and two fish is a miracle in itself, of course. But we might consider how there is another miracle here too.

Saint Matthew places this story in a section in his Gospel about training the disciples for their mission. So, perhaps, Christ is teaching them about how they can do this.

Christ tells the people to sit down – well, not so much to sit down as to recline (ἀνακλίνω, anaklíno, verse 19). They are asked to recline on the grass as they would at a banquet or at a feast – just as Christ reclines with the disciples at the Last Supper.

In verse 19, we have a reminder of the feeding of the people in the Wilderness (see Exodus 16), but also a foretaste or anticipation of the Last Supper (see Matthew 26: 20-29), the Eucharistic feast, and of the Messianic banquet at the end of time.

Christ takes bread, looks up to heaven, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them to distribute it among the people

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

In verse 20, we are told all ate and were filled (see Exodus 16: 15-18, Numbers 11: 31-32; Elisha’s food miracles, II Kings 4:42-44; cf John 6: 31-33, Revelation 2: 17). In Apocryphal writings, II Baruch 29: 8, a Jewish pseudepigraphical text thought to date from the late 1st century CE or early 2nd century CE, also connects the feeding in the wilderness in Exodus 16 with the Messianic age.

There is yet another level to the story in verse 20. The disciples get everyone to work together with a common purpose. All are filled, and yet much is left over: a basket for each disciple. Each of them has a mission, telling the good news of the infinite abundance of God's love and the kingdom in which all can eat.

Whether they are Birthdays, baptisms, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, retirements, or parish celebrations, we all enjoy a good party. Parties affirm who we are, where we fit within the family, and mark the rhythm of life and the continuity of families and communities.

It is not only the eating or the drinking. It is very difficult to sit beside someone at the same table after a funeral, or to stand beside someone at the bar at a wedding, and not to end up getting to know them and – as is said in Ireland – getting to know ‘their seed, breed and generation.’

Families share names, share stories, share memories, share identities, share anniversaries. And that is not all in the past. These celebrations allow us to express and share our hopes for the future too … is that not what baptisms and weddings are about in every family – hope for the future, hope for life itself?

In this story, the disciples have failed to buy or produce enough bread for a meal. Christ responds not by sympathising but by demanding great generosity (see verse 18).

The disciples gather up what is left over. Gathering is an act of reverential economy towards the gifts of God; but gathering also anticipates Christ gathering all to himself. The amount that is left over is a sign of the outpouring of God’s generosity. There are 12 baskets – one for each tribe of Israel and one for each of the 12 disciples. God’s party, the Eucharist, looks forward to the new Israel, not the sort of earthly kingdom that the people now want but the Kingdom of God.

Christ puts no questions of belief to the disciples or to the crowd when he feeds them on the mountainside. They do not believe in the Resurrection – it has yet to happen. But he feeds them, and he feeds them indiscriminately. The disciples wanted to send them away (verse 15), but Christ wants to count them in. Christ invites more people to the banquet than we can fit into our churches.

The Revd Albert Ogle, who was once a priest in Dublin and studied at the Irish School of Ecumenics. He now lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and recalled this story on Facebook last week:

‘One of the bishops who participated in the irregular ordination of the first 11 women priests in the Episcopal Church was Bishop Daniel Corrigan. I met him in Santa Barbara many years ago and he told me this amazing story about connections and memory.

‘The Episcopal Church has a long history to Scotland and Corrigan found himself as a 15 year old serving with the US Naval submarine unit, off the coast of a remote Scottish island where the locals lived in cave houses. Corrigan and the crew had been submerged for days and without food, decided to knock on one of these creaky wooden doors in the dead of night.

‘He recalls how a very tall gaunt figure appeared at the door in lamplight to greet the strangers who were covered in oil and grime from the submarine. They wanted something to eat. She turned away from them and the next thing he remembered was seeing her return to the door with a large round loaf, like a priest at the Eucharist.

‘This impression of priestly generosity and open invitation remained with Corrigan all his life and it was this seminal experience for him to agree to ordain the Philadelphia 11, 50 years ago today.

‘I am sure the enigmatic generous Scottish woman had no idea what her kindness would release into the world. Keep loving and being generous. You never know who or what you might be feeding.’

We often describe this morning’s Gospel story as the Feeding of the Multitude, or the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But how many people are there?

Verse 21 tells us that there were ‘about five thousand men,’ but adds also, ‘besides women and children.’

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

Sir Colin J Humphreys of Selwyn College Cambridge, former Professor of Materials Science, in his analysis of the number of people in the Exodus suggests the number of Israelite men over the age of 20 in the census following the Exodus was 5,000, and not 603,550. He attributes the apparent error to an error in interpreting or translating the Hebrew word ’lp (אלף), and he goes on to suggest the number of men, women and children at the Exodus was about 20,000. Both of his figures correlate with the figures for the feeding of the multitude in this Gospel reading.

When we invite people into the Church, we have so much to share – much more that the meagre amount people may think we have in our bags.

As we enjoy the feast, enjoy the banquet, enjoy the party, share the Eucharist, are we prepared to be open to more being brought in to enjoy the banquet and the party than our imagination allows us to imagine.

A basket of bread in Barron’s Bakery in Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 5 August 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Understanding each other by walking together’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from the Right Revd Eduardo Coelho Grillo, Anglican Bishop of Rio de Janeiro.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 5 August 2024) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for the Church in Rio de Janeiro, for its mission and leaders, in particular its inter-faith work.

The Collect:

Lord God almighty,
who so kindled the faith of King Oswald with your Spirit
that he set up the sign of the cross in his kingdom
and turned his people to the light of Christ:
grant that we, being fired by the same Spirit,
may always bear our cross before the world
and be found faithful servants of the gospel;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Oswald:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of the Transfiguration:

Father in heaven,
whose Son Jesus Christ was wonderfully transfigured
before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain,
and spoke of the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem:
give us strength so to hear his voice and bear our cross
that in the world to come we may see him as he is;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Saint Oswald depicted in a panel on the altar in Saint Chad’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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

Warm bread and a warm welcome in Pepi Studios on Tsouderon Street in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 67, Monday 15 July 2024, Saint Swithun

Saint Swithun depicted on the gateway at Magdalen College, Oxford … is today’s weather going to last for 40 days? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VII). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (15 July) remembers Saint Swithun (ca 862), Bishop of Winchester, and Saint Bonaventure (1274), Friar, Bishop and Teacher of the Faith.

I am planning to visit Tamworth and Lichfield later today. But, before the day 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 gateway at Magdalen College, Oxford with Saint Mary Magdalen (centre) between Saint Swithun (right) and Bishop William Waynflete (left) of Winchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 5: 43-48 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’

Patrick Gale’s ‘A Perfectly Good Man’ … a reminder of how we speak of being ‘Good Enough’ and being ‘Perfect’

This morning’s reflection:

We are half-through July, yet this has hardly been perfect summer weather. Today is Saint Swithun’s Day, so many people – in a very traditional English way of being superstitious – may be half concerned that whatever weather we have today is going to continue for the next 40 days, imperfect as it may be.

Last night’s England v Spain Euro final could have been a very perfect evening indeed. But iin many ways it was a good end to what has been a very good championship for an English team that represents so much that is good in England today. They were more than good enough as a team, but too often in our lives we demand what is perfect at the expense of delighting in what is good and what is good enough.

However, this morning I am wrestling with the advice in this Gospel reading: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matthew 5: 48).

I certainly cannot ever see myself as being perfect, or even aspiring to be perfect. But this Gospel advice this morning reminds me of Patrick Gale’s novel, A Perfectly Good Man, one of the books that was part of my holiday reading some years ago.

I had never read any of his novels before, but this book was recommended to me by someone who felt she was eerily reading a book about someone who knew more about me than she realised was possible.

TS Eliot’s ‘East Coker’ begins with the words:

In my beginning is my end.

And it closes:

In my end is my beginning.

Without giving away the story line of this book, in many ways these two lines could describe how Patrick Gale narrates his story in A Perfectly Good Man. As I read it, I was not waiting to discover what happens in the end, but was waiting for an end that could tell me why all that is happening is taking place.

I was surprised at the writer’s twists and turns, but more taken aback when I felt I was holding up a mirror to myself.

There is the description of farm life that brought me back to a time when I lived on my grandmother’s farm.

There was the religious experience in teenage years that become life-changing for the main character, Father Barnaby Johnson.

There is his approach to spirituality and liturgy, his choice of reading, and the off-centre involvement of Quakers.

I am more positive about my experiences of old second-hand bookshops, but I could identify with his experience of visiting the old ancestral home in rural England.

There is his dysfunctional relationship with his father, his liberal boarding school or minor public school education, a sibling who died while he is still in his teens, an adoption, and a feeling of being marginalised or even being an outsider at a parent’s funeral.

There is his participation in street protests in 1980s England that parallels my own role in CND protests.

There are developed interests in art and the artist, in museums and music.

And there is the powerful use of a Facebook group today and the impact of social media.

Even the graffiti on the church walls, which may shock many readers, even those who are not church-going, reminded me of graffiti I found on a church wall many years ago while I was providing Sunday cover.

And there is the chilling parishioner, Modest Carlsson, who shows that cruelty and evil can stalk the land.

This is a very Anglican story about a very Anglican priest.

It is a life story presented almost like a series of photographs that have fallen out of a family album and that are put back in a random way, yet only make sense when they are all looked at each in turn. The primary suspense in this novel lies not in the ‘what’, but the ‘when’ and ‘how.’

Time and again, in recent months, I have asked who decided in recent years that ‘good enough’ is simply not good enough, that we have to excel?

‘Please don’t feel you always have to be good,’ eight-year-old Barnaby Johnson is advised close to the end of this novel. ‘Sometimes you’re so good it hurts to watch you.’

They are wise words, indeed. But too often they go largely unheeded. Father Barnaby is a complex and nuanced character. Yet he is also an ordinary man, with all the sinfulness, temptations and ambiguities of a good but ordinary man.

It is also about cruelty, deception and love, and it is written with compassion and understanding.

I have only been to Cornwall once, but many his descriptions of England could be of places I know and love near Lichfield and in rural south Staffordshire, or in East Anglia, North Wiltshire or the West Country, although the setting could easily be moved to many parts of Ireland too.

This is a discussion of what it means to be a good person that should be read by every priest and every aspiring priest. Once again, it is an example of a novelist dealing with religion and belief in the 21st century, and with so many of the issues debated in pastoral theology today.

In the many flashbacks I have from my childhood, one is of being told I needed to try harder.

‘I’m doing my best,’ was my quick retort.

‘Well, your best is simply not good enough’ was the cruel response from an adult who thought this was being smart and witty, but who never knew how to be loving and encouraging.

Rather than crumbling under his response, I have been content enough ever since to try to do my best and to accept that as being good enough. I do not seek to be perfect or need to be perfect in the eyes of others.

‘The Perfect Blend’ … a sign in a café in Charleville, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 15 July 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Advocacy, human, environmental and territorial rights programme in Brazil.’ This theme was introduced yesterday by the Revd Dr Rodrigo Espiúca dos Anjos Siqueira, Diocesan Officer for human, environmental and territorial rights in the Anglican Diocese of Brasilia.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 15 July 2024) invites us to pray:

Pray for the advancement of sexual and reproductive rights for all, especially women and those affected by gender-based prejudice and violence.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
by whose grace we celebrate again
the feast of your servant Swithun:
grant that, as he governed with gentleness
the people committed to his care,
so we, rejoicing in our Christian inheritance,
may always seek to build up your Church in unity and love;
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.

Post Communion Prayer:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Swithun revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

Saint Swithun (second from left) in the second row of saints and martyrs on the Great Screen in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

• Patrick Gale A Perfectly Good Man (HarperCollins UK/Fourth Estate, 2012).

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