Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 131, Wednesday 16 September 2026

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Luke 7: 31-32) … traditional Greek folk music celebrated at a restaurant in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 13 September 2026).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (16 September) remembers Saint Ninian (ca 432), Bishop of Galloway and Apostle of the Picts, and Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), Priest and Tractarian.

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.

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Luke 7: 32) … ‘Τα κάλαντα’ (‘Carols’), Νικηφόρος Λύτρας (Nikiphoros Lytras)

Luke 7: 31-35 (NRSVA)

[Jesus said:] 31 ‘To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the market-place and calling to one another,

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not weep.”

33 ‘For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, “He has a demon”; 34 the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” 35 Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.’

Imagine going to a wedding but not getting onto the floor and dancing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

When we were looking at the Gospel reading yesterday, which told the story of the widow of Nain grieving her son at his funeral, I said how funeral stories and the stories of children being raised to life are not always the most cheerful Bible readings, and I recalled how that reading was particularly difficult when I was preaching one Sunday morning when I was baptising a little baby boy.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus compares ‘the people of this generation’ with children sitting in the market-place calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep’ (Luke 7: 31-32).

I have often stayed up late at weddings, at the receptions after funerals, and enjoying late night sporting events, especially rugby and football. Each time, in ways that were appropriate to each occasion, I have entered into the spirit of the event, and where possible, moved from being a mere spectator to being a full participant.

When we go to weddings and funerals … and as a priest I got my fair share of both … when we go to weddings and funerals, the attitude we go with makes a world of difference: do I go as a spectator or do I go as a participant?

Imagine going to a funeral and failing to offer sympathy to those who are grieving and mourning.

Shortly after my ordination, I was asked to officiate at my first wedding. Initially, I declined the invitation to go to the reception afterwards, until someone chided me gently and asked me: are you at this wedding as a spectator or as a participant?

Perhaps, as a new curate, I was too worried about sending out the wrong signals. If I stood back, would I be reproached for not eating and drinking with the people I was there to serve (see Luke 7: 33)? If I went, would I be seen as being there only for eating and drinking (verse 34)?

But it was never about me, surely; it was only ever about the couple getting married.

A student in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute was telling me once about her parish placement as an ordinand. Initially, she was uncomfortable with the style of worship and the theological emphasis of the parish she was placed in. But the parish reacted to her warmly and gently. And as the weeks rolled by she realised she had moved from being an observer on Sunday mornings, to being an engaged visitor, to being a participant.

When we join in waves and chants at a football match, join in the dance at weddings, sing the hymns and enter into the prayers at another church, cry and hug those who are grieving and mourning at a funeral, we move from being observers and spectators to being participants. And the great opportunity for this transformation is provided Sunday after Sunday, not at the Liturgy but in the Liturgy.

If you have been to the Middle East, or have just seen Fiddler on the Roof, you know that dancing at Jewish weddings was traditionally a male celebration. I have seen at funerals in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean that the open mourning and weeping is usually expressed on behalf of the community by women in particular.

Indeed, we know since classical times how a man’s worth in life was once counted by the number of women crying at his funeral.

These traditions were passed on through the generations by children watching learning from adults and by children in turn teaching one other.

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 7: 31-35), we see how Christ has noticed this in the streets and the back alleys as he moves through the towns and cities, probably in Galilee and along the Mediterranean shore.

He sees the children playing, the boys playing wedding dances, and the girls playing funeral wailing and mourning.

He notices the ways in which children can reproach each other for not joining in their playfulness:

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn. (verse 32)

Even as he speaks there is playfulness in the way Jesus phrases his observation poetically. There is humour in the way he uses Greek words that rhyme for dance and mourn at the end of each line of the children’s taunts:

Ηὐλήσαμεν ὑμῖν
καὶ οὐκ ὠρχήσασθε·
ἐθρηνήσαμεν
καὶ οὐκ ἐκλαύσατε.

Perhaps he was repeating an everyday rebuke in Greek at the time for people who stand back from what others are doing. We might put poetic rhyme on his lips here:

A wedding song we played for you,
The dance you did but scorn.
A woeful dirge we chanted too,
But then you would not mourn.

The boys playing tin whistles and beating tin drums are learning to become adult men. The girls wailing and beating their breasts in mock weeping are learning to become adult women. Each group is growing into the roles and rituals that will be expected of them when they mature.

Like all good children’s games, the point is the game, not who wins.

The games we played as children may now seem silly and pointless. But when we were children they mattered as a communal and community experience. The fun was not because there was anything to win. The fun was in taking part. And in taking part we were helped in the process of growing and maturing and making the transition from childhood to adolescence, and from adolescence to adulthood.

To and fro, back and forth, these boys and girls in the market place play the games of weddings and funerals.

The music they play shifts and changes its tones and tunes. This endless, pointless, repetition is their inherited way of learning and socialising. Their playfulness ensures their tradition and culture is reinforced and is handed on to the next generation.

But if the boys make music and the girls do not dance, if the girls wail, and the boys do not weep, how can they have a shared story, a shared adulthood, a shared culture, a shared future, a shared humanity?

When we refuse to take part in the game, in the ritual, we refuse to take part in the shaping of society, we are denying our shared culture. When I try exclude others from the taking part in the game, in the ritual, I am refusing them their role rightful in shaping society.

When reciprocity collapses, we are denying our shared humanity.

We can become paralysed by our inability to enter into the game of others. And then the game turns from song and dance to what we might call ‘the blame game.’

It is so easy when I withdraw from the social activities of others to blame them.

Yes, there is a time for dancing and a time for mourning: each has its proper place, and they flow into each other, like the children’s game when it is working. But when vanity gets in the way, there is a breakdown in our understanding of time and of humanity.

If I stand back detached, and remain a mere observer of the joys and sorrows in the lives of others, I am not sharing in their humanity.

And in not sharing in your humanity, I am failing to acknowledge that you too are made in the image and likeness of God.

But when we rejoice with people in their joys, and when we mourn with people in their sorrows, we are putting into practice what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us about us being not only made in the image and likeness of God individually but communally and collectively too as humanity.


The ‘Bottle Dance’ at the wedding in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 16 September 2026):

The theme this week (13 -19 September 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Witness as With-ness’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Canon Dr Peniel Rajkumar, Director of Global Mission and Theologian, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 16 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Merciful God, when I am tempted to complain, remind me of the suffering you bore. Form in me a heart that listens before it speaks.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who called your servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up in this and every land
heralds and evangelists of your kingdom,
that your Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who called your servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up in this and every land
heralds and evangelists of your kingdom,
that your Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow


‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Luke 7: 31-32) … music at the Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Peace Pagoda in Milton Keynes (Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 130, Tuesday 15 September 2026

The Widow of Nain … a window by Hardman at the west end of the south aisle in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (15 September 2026) remembers Saint Cyprian (258), Bishop of Carthage and Martyr.

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 resurrection of the young man of Nain, by Lucas Cranach (1569)

Luke 7: 11-17 (NRSVA)

11 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12 As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13 When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ 14 Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ 15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus[b] gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ 17 This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Jesus Raising the Widow’s Son at Nain (James Tissot, ca 1890)

Today’s Reflection:s

Funeral stories and the stories of children being raised to life, like the story in the Gospel reading this morning, are not always the most cheerful Bible readings. This reading was particularly difficult when I was preaching one Sunday morning many years ago in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, north Co Dublin, when I was baptising a little baby boy.

But at the moment in the lectionary each weekday morning we are working our way through Saint Luke’s Gospel. It is full of stories about healing and wholeness. And I found myself that morning asking who does Jesus bring healing and wholeness to in this reading.

When we look at any Gospel story it is always good to ask a few basic questions, like who, what, where, when and why.

If you want to watch a movie on Netflix this evening, you would probably ask a few basic questions before making your choice:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the principal characters, the main actors?

• In other words, is there anything in this for me?

In a similar way, if we are to find anything in a Gospel story that not only makes it interesting but makes it relevant for me, then I suppose I could approach a Gospel reading with the same questions:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the main characters?

• Where’s the action?

In today’s Gospel story, there is a lot of action, and a lot of people. In fact, there are two large crowds, and the drama is created in the way they meet each other, in an unexpected and unplanned way.

The first crowd is made up of those following Jesus, who have just arrived after a long, 20-mile walk with him from Capernaum.

This group includes not just those who are his disciples. But a lot of other people too – people are there to see what he is doing, what’s going on. Like Netflix viewers after a hard day’s work, they are looking for the entertainment, looking for the drama, perhaps even hoping for a miracle or too … after all, at Capernaum they have seen him heal the centurion’s servant.

And we ought not to be too dismissive of this crowd following Jesus, or their motives. After all, that is the way a lot of people end up coming to church. They go with the flow, they like what is on offer for their children, it gives them a sense of identity. And, in coming along, they find out who Jesus really is, why it matters to follow him.

Perhaps they were expecting nothing. Perhaps they were just tired, and after a 20-mile walk are anxious about whether there are enough beds in the tiny village of Nain for them all to stay overnight.

And, unexpectedly – in a way that no-one could have planned – this large crowd bumps into another, second large crowd. Nain is called a town here, but it was more like a village, about nine or ten miles south of Nazareth. Until the mid-20th century, it had a population of less than 100 or 200, so we can imagine a tiny place in the days of Jesus.

So, one large crowd bumps into another large crowd. And it is bad news for the large crowd that has been following Jesus.

In a tiny place like Nain, to have a large crowd they must have been drawn from every house and dwelling place, every family in the village. If they are all in mourning, not only are they unlikely to be able to offer anyone bed and breakfast for the night, they probably are ritually unable to do so: a dead body, a corpse, a funeral, a burial, all make a practising, observant Jew ritually unclean.

The disciples and the other people who are following Jesus on the road from Capernaum to Nain must have taken pity on themselves. Where are they going to go tonight? What can they do? Where can they stay?

Perhaps the appeal of following Jesus, waiting for the miracle to happen, suddenly evaporated as this reality dawned on them.

Perhaps they even thought that Jesus should have pity on them, pity on their plight.

But instead, Jesus takes pity, not on them, and not even on the poor young lad who has died either. Instead, he takes pity on the boy’s widowed mother. He has compassion for her, he tells her not to weep.

However, having compassion and doing something about it make two separate sets of demands.

The love of a mother for her young son is incomparable, as people knew too that Sunday morning at the baptism in Donabate, Co Dublin.

Jesus recognises, Jesus identifies with, Jesus is consumed with, the love of this widowed, probably young widowed, mother. As a widow, left financially ruined, her only hope of survival in this world may have been in the livelihood her son would eventually attain.

She has already been widowed, now her son has died. She faces not only emotional devastation, but financial destruction and social ruin … she will have no-one to work her fields, no-one to provide an income, no-one to guarantee her safety and security.

Jesus recognises her plight … and he does something about it. First he does something that is shocking in his day, shocking behaviour for a rabbi in those days. He touches the bier, he touches the dead body. It is no wonder the bearers stood still. He has identified so much with the widow’s plight that he too becomes ritually unclean. In Christ, God’s identification with our humanity is so complete that he takes on everything about us. God so identifies with us in Christ that he even identifies with us in birth, in life, and in death.

The miracle is amazing. The fact that God identifies so much with us is even more amazing. God’s compassion should be more amazing than God’s miracles. It is because of his love and compassion in the first place that there are miracles.

No wonder the crowds, the two large crowds, all of them, are seized with fear. It is awesome.

And yet, in telling this story, Luke rises to some of his most poetic language in this Gospel.

He looks back to the words of the pregnant Mary and ageing Zechariah in the canticles Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, when Saint Luke says they glorified God (7: 16, cf Luke 1: 47-48), when they realised a great prophet had risen among them (cf Luke 1: 69-70), when they said God has looked favourably on his people (cf Luke 1: 48), when they realised a new day had dawned. She has been shown mercy, she has been saved from the hands of her enemies, she has received the tender mercy of God.

Saint Luke looks forward to that moment when the suffering Christ meets the weeping women outside the gates of Jerusalem (Luke 23: 28-29). And he looks forward to that moment on the Cross, in Saint John’s Gospel, when the dying Jesus takes pity on his widowed mother and entrusts her and the Beloved Disciple to the mutual care of each other (John 19: 26-27).

What we are invited to be witnesses to is not some old-fashioned miracle show. That’s what the large crowd was hanging around Jesus for what the large crowd was hanging around the funeral procession for.

What we are being invited to is the realisation that in his compassion, in his actions, in his caring, Jesus shows us that God loves us, each of us individually, as a mother loves her only and precious child.

If you imagine for one moment the love that little boy who was being baptised in Donabate that morning could expect from his parents, then you can catch, just catch, a glimpse of the love that God has for each of us, individually. God loves you and God loves me as if were the only child in the world that matters … and even more than that.

This is a new dawn. That is what the promise of Baptism is: it is about dying to sin, to the old ways, rising to new life in Christ, and continuing for ever.

The raising of the son of the widow of Nain … a modern icon in a Greek Orthodox church

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 15 September 2026):

The theme this week (13 -19 September 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Witness as With-ness’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Canon Dr Peniel Rajkumar, Director of Global Mission and Theologian, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 15 September 2026) invites us to pray:

God of the margins, open my eyes to the many ‘Simons’ around me who feel unseen and unwanted. Help me to walk beside them with humility and compassion.

The Collect:

Holy God, who brought Cyprian to faith in Christ,
made him a bishop in the Church
and crowned his witness with a martyr’s death:
grant that, after his example,
we may love the Church and her teachings,
find your forgiveness within her fellowship
and so come to share the heavenly banquet
you have prepared for us;
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:

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Cyprian:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

or

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Cyprian:
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 reflections

Continued tomorrow

Saint Cyprian’s Church on Glentworth Street, Marylebone … the Church calendar remembers Saint Cyprian (258), Bishop of Carthage and Martyr, on 15 September (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

The Oak Chapel by Adrian Morrow at Crownhill Crematorium is a homage to Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum

The Oak Chapel at the Crownhill Crematorium in Milton Keynes was opened 15 years ago, on Saturday 27 August 2011 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was at two funerals in recent weeks, one day after another. I have been at crematorium funerals before, and back in 2010 I was even elected a Fellow of the Society of Crematorium Organists (FSCO). But this was my first time I was in the Oak Chapel and the Crownhill Crematorium in Milton Keynes.

Crownhill Crematorium is about 2 km west of Milton Keynes, with its main entrance off Dansteed Way. It is on a 7 ha site that incorporates informal woodland walks, water features, and a layout that provides privacy and a calm atmosphere for mourners and visitors.

Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) identified the need for a crematorium for the new town in 1971. Several areas were considered, including Tattenhoe, Willen, Kents Hill, Walton, and Crownhill, when the Crownhill site was chose in 1978, the area was then agricultural land off Watling Street, with four fields and four small ponds, one in each.

The phased development began in 1979, with plans for a chapel, a site for a second chapel, a crematorium in the middle and a cemetery spreading around the foot of the slope down to Watling Street. The crematorium designed by Roger Hobbs opened in 1982 but within a short span of time the rapid population growth of the city meant it could not meet the increased demands.

The Oak Chapel at the Crownhill Crematorium was designed in 2011 by the architect Adrian Morrow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A large new complex, including the Oak Chapel, crematorium and offices, was built in the south-east half of the site in 2011 as the new operational focus, and was designed by the architect Adrian Morrow. He has designed an impressive list of buildings and has worked with first-class architectural practices.

The proposals called for a spiritual and tranquil design using austenitic stainless steel clad, cycloid form concrete roof vaults, located over thermally separated split concrete columns.

Adrian Morrow’s Oak Chapel is part of the striking architecture at the Crownhill complex, with its blend of exposed in-situ concrete cycloids, warm oak timber, stainless steel and striking stained glass windows, all within a tranquil woodland setting.

Andrew Morrow’s design is an aesthetic homage to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth designed by Louis Kahn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Morrow’s design is an aesthetic homage to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, designed by the architect Louis I Kahn (1901-1974) and widely recognised as one of the most significant works of architecture of our time.

The Oak Chapel is a 145-seat multi-faith space featuring natural light, fine acoustics, and bespoke stained glass created by Julian Stocks.

The building includes a waiting area, a porte cochère, a chapel with a circular sanctuary, a catafalque, a Japanese garden, a cremator room for two new cremators, staff accommodation, a wreath court, and a promenade with a rill.

Julian Stocks designed the stained glass artwork Aqua in ultramarine blues, aquamarine and turquoises (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Julian Stocks, who designed the stained glass, was inspired by the cycloid geometry within the chapel roof. The cycloid is one of the strongest natural forms and the design includes references to the mathematics associated with this structure.

The cycloid is found in nature in wave formation and water dynamics. The title of the artwork, Aqua, is taken from the Latin for water.

Water has endless positive associations and this theme supports the abstract architectural qualities in the design. Waves and the confluence of water are central to the design. These patterns are consciously soothing and lead the eye through the artwork and into the architecture. The choice of colour is also designed to be comforting and is based on a palette of ultramarine blues, aquamarine and turquoises.

A water feature at the Oak Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Sustainability has been a prime consideration in the planning at Crownhill. Many of the building materials selected are Green Guide A rated. The principal spaces are naturally ventilated by means of windcatchers.

The roof was originally designed before the sustainability requirements imposed the rows of windcatchers, and in some small way distract from the simplicity of extruded vaults used by Louis I Kahn.

Heat energy is recovered from the plant to heat the building. Additional free winter heating and summer cooling is provided by ground source heat pumps. The grounds have been developed into a wildlife garden with SUDs ponds, with sustainable drainage systems.

The Japanese-style gardens and the woodland setting support the privacy of families and mourners (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The building was carefully planned to maintain the privacy of families and mourners, with a clear route from the entrance to the waiting room, chapel, flower court and garden of remembrance. The calming design uses height, daylight, water and views to allow visitors time for contemplation.

The first service in the Oak Chapel was held 15 years ago, on Saturday 27 August 2011. A commemorative plaque quotes Winston Churchill: ‘We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.’

Some of the shapes also reminded me of the Memorial Cenotaph in Hiroshima, a saddle-shaped concrete structure designed by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and built in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in August 1952.

Today, the Oak Chapel in Crownhill Crematorium provides a tranquil and dignified space for cremation services, and it is also used for blessings at weddings.

The calming design uses height, daylight, water and views to allow mourners time for contemplation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Four weddings and some Wolseley funerals: stories of marriage and divorce in a Staffordshire family

Wolseley Hall, destroyed in a serious fire in the early 1950s and demolished in 1966 … the ancestral home of the Wolseley family

Patrick Comerford

I have been writing in recent weeks about the divorce scandal in the Talbot and Chetwynd family that becoming a sensation far beyond polite social circles in Victorian Rugeley and Lichfield in the 1860s and filled column after column in newspapers across the world.

During my summer rambles through Stafford, Rugeley, Wolseley, Lichfield and Tamworth, I was reminded of some of these marriages and divorces, with stories that must have created gossip among people who saw themselves at the centre of social life in south Staffordshire 150 or 200 years ago.

William Henry Chetwynd (1811-1890) and his wife Blanche Mary Talbot (1836-1898), 25 years his junior and a niece Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, were involved in a sensational divorce case in 1864-1865. The gossip created by the case of Chetwynd v Chetwynd echoed, in many ways, the attention a century earlier to the bigamy and divorce trials involving the widowed Sir William Wolseley (1692-1779) and the widowed Ann Whitbey (1724-1782), a case that dragged on in civil and church courts over two years, from 1752 to 1754.

But I was reminded too during those summer walks of at least four other marriages in the Wolseley family down through the generations that were interesting and colourful. They may not have created scandal in the same ways but, at times, they saved the Wolseley family from what seemed like certain financial and social ruin.

The coat-of-arms used by the Duques de Losada y Lousada … but were they really entitled to their titles? (Source)

1, The Jamaican planter: was he a Spanish duke?

Marianne Wolseley (1813-1881) of Wolseley and Count Francis Baruch Lousada (1813-1870), who was born into a rich family of sugar planters in Jamaica, were married in Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, on 25 November 1834. Marianne’s father, Sir Charles Wolseley (1769-1838), had succeeded as the seventh baronet in 1817 and was a radical politician who was at the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and was surety for some of the victims of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. He was jailed in 1820 for sedition and conspiracy, and his political activism threatened the financial stability of his family.

However, his daughter Marianne managed to avoid her own possible financial and social ruin in 1834 when she married Count Francis Baruch Lousada. The Baruch Lousada family in Jamaica commissioned a Spanish herald and genealogist to produce a set of lurid, expensive-looking but specious documents enabling them to claim they were the successors to the titles of the Duque de Losada.

Isaac Lousada (1783-1857) assumed the title of Duque de Losada in 1848, and after he died his eldest son, Emanuel de Lousada, lost little time in making himself known as the Duke de Losada y Lousada, drafting and fabricating a family tree for an entry in Burke’s Peerage.

It is a pointless genealogical exercise to explain his claimed link to the Spanish duke, and there is no logical way to trace how the dukes inherited – in Spain – a moribund Italian title that had been held by someone they were not related to. The creative, but nonetheless fictitious, explanations are found in the work of the Spanish herald and genealogist, the gullibility of the genealogical authorities in Spain and London, and the audacity of Emanuel.

The reward for the whole escapade and the social and political compensation for the expenses in pursuing this genealogical deception were many: Emanuel received a British passport in 1862; his brother Francis married into the minor ranks of the British nobility when he married Marianne Wolseley, wangled another title in the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and became a British diplomat in the US. Indeed, three further members of his immediate family went unchallenged in their use of the title of duke.

Another version of the coat-of-arms used by the Duque de Losada y Lousada … Marianne Wolseley was daughter-in-law of the first duke, sister-in-law of the second duke, and mother of the third and fourth dukes (Source)

In polite Victorian society, most people seem never to have queried the standing of the soi-disant dukes, overlooking their peculiar change of name, their use of a hybrid coat of arms and the lack of official authentication. Members of the Lousada family married into leading Sephardic families in England, including the Montefiore and Mocatta families.

Twelve years Marianne and Francis were married, Francis was given the title of Marchese de San Miniato by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1846. It was said widely at the time that he paid for the title while Marianne was a lady-in-waiting in London to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

Francis Lousada was the British Consul in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and died in Boston in 1870. Marianne died on 1 November 1884 in Tarvis in Carinthia, Austria, now Tarvisio in Italy. Their eldest son, Horace Francis Lousada (1837-1905), succeeded his father as the second marchese and his uncle as the third duke. The fifth and last duke, Edward Eugene Lousada (1853-1941), returned to live in Jamaica.

The confirmation by Pope Leo XIII of Anita Murphy, later Lady Wolseley … a painting in the Villa Magistrale on the Aventine in Rome

2, the daughter of an American Papal ‘marchese’:

Marianne Wolseley’s marriage to this soi-disant marchese, and the titles used by her children create a story with many parallels in that of the marriage almost 30 years later in 1883 of her nephew, Sir Charles Wolseley (1846-1931), the ninth baronet, and Anita Murphy, the daughter of an Irish-American magnate, Daniel T Murphy, who bought the title of marchese from the Pope.

Sir Charles Wolseley may have found a role model or inspiration in his aunt Marianne, for he married into a wealthy family with a title that had been bought and in the hope of rescuing lost fortunes and social status.

Esther (née Chichester) Grehan wrote from London in 1882 to her husband in Dublin, Stephen Grehan (1859-1937), describing how Charles came to London to look for an heiress. My interest is added to by Stephen’s descent through his mother from the Langton and Comerford families of Danganmore Castle, Co Kilkenny. In her letters, laden with snobbery, elitism and disdain, Esther describes how Charles was introduced to two Irish-American Murphy sisters from San Francisco, who were ‘vulgar but pretty.’ He fell in love, but had a reputation as a fortune hunter, and was distraught when he was rejected.

But, undeterred, Charles married the elder sister, Anna Theresa (Anita) Murphy in 1883. Her father, an Irish-American entrepreneur Daniel T Murphy, founded the pioneer house of Murphy, Grant & Co, and was living in San Francisco. Anita, her sisters and her mother had moved to London, and they moved in fashionable circles in England and Europe. Anita was confirmed by Pope Leo XIII and a painting of Anita and her sister at their confirmation by Pope Leo XIII was once in the Wolseley family collection, and was still at Wolseley in 1971 when I interviewed Sir Charles Wolseley for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

Later, Anita was presented at the Court of Saint James. She visited Osborne, the royal residence on the Isle of Wight, where she met Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice, ancestor of the Mountbatten family. In her diary, Anita tells how she turned down a proposal of marriage from Prince Luigi del Drago, an Italian whose family included many cardinals and princes. Back in England, Anita’s first choice as husband was George Brundenell-Bruce, then known as Viscount Savernake and later 4th Marquess of Ailesbury. But Willie, as he was known, was an incessant gambler with an excessive lifestyle, and he brought his family to the brink of financial disaster. Eventually, he married Dolly Tester, a music hall actress, and Anita had a fortuitous escape from certain calamity.

Anita’s father, Daniel T Murphy, was a self-made multi-millionaire who had more money than he could spend. In 1857, he married Anna Geoghagan, also from an Irish family. The couple were the parents of four daughters, Isabella (Issy), Helene (Nellie), Anna Theresa (Anita) and Frances (Fanny), and three sons, Eugene, Daniel and Samuel.

Daniel Murphy visited his wife and daughters in London at least once a year. He was a staunch Roman Catholic and donated $5 million to Pope Pius IX. In return, the Pope made Murphy first a Knight and then a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory. Pope Leo XIII, who confirmed two of his daughters in Rome, gave Murphy the Grand Cross of Saint Gregory, and with a royal and papal patent of nobility, gave him the papal title of marchese or marquis, with the right of succession to his eldest son and his heirs.

Murphy enjoyed showing his American friends the papal patent, but he never used the title in public and his wife continued to be known in London only as Mrs Murphy and not as marchesa.

Anita Murphy and Sir Charles Wolseley were married on 17 July 1883 in the Catholic Pro-Cathedral in Kensington. The four bridesmaids were her three sisters, Nellie, Frances and Isabella, and a Miss Bedingfeld. The wedding Mass was said by the Revd Cuthbert Wolseley, OP, a Dominican priest and a younger brother of the groom – he was born Robert Joseph Wolseley (1850-1920). The wedding was blessed by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, and there was a telegram from Pope Leo XIII.

The newspapers of the day delighted in lengthy lists of the titled and public figures who attended, including the US ambassador and poet James Russell Lowell, the Duke of Norfolk, Prince Doria Pamphilji, a son-in-law of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Marquis of Bute and Lady Londonderry.

Anita (Murphy) Wolseley tired of life at Wolseley Hall and travelled abroad, alone … it was divorce Catholic-style in the early 20th century

On the day Anita and Charles were married, Mrs Murphy gave her first-born a cheque for $5 million drawn on the Bank of England. Daniel T Murphy died within two years in the Windsor Hotel, New York, on 3 June 1885. Many of his business interests passed to his brother Henry M Murphy and son, also Daniel T Murphy. His wife had arrived from England earlier that week and was with him when he died, as were two of his sons and a daughter.

In his will, dated 15 May 1883, Murphy left various bequests to the Catholic Church and family members, with his daughters receiving at least $50,000 each, even if that meant his sons received less. At first, Anita’s inheritance was estimated at $2 million, but Charles Wolseley never got his hands on it. By the time the marriage contract had been signed, Daniel T Murphy had died Anita’s sisters contested their father’s will. When Anita received her money, it was for her personally and not for her husband.

Jeannie Wolseley later said the marriage was relatively happy to begin with; the couple were the parents of two sons, Sir Edric Charles Joseph Wolseley (1886-1954) and Colonel William Wolseley (1887-1977). But Anita soon tired of life at Wolseley Hall and in rural Staffordshire, and she began travelling abroad, alone. She sent Charles a regular allowance, but this dropped steadily. It was divorce Catholic-style in the early 20th century.

By 1919, he had to sell almost all the contents of Wolseley Hall and several hundred acres of his estate. A broken man, he moved to Surrey and died on 30 January 1931, and was brought back to Rugeley to be buried in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda churchyard, where he had donated the East Window by Hardman and Powell; Anita died on 11 October 1937.

The grave of Sir Charles Wolseley (1846-1931), the ninth baronet, in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda churchyard, Rugeley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

3, Colonel William Wolseley and the Catholic Church:

When Sir Charles Wolseley died in 1931, the Wolseley title and estate passed to his elder son, Sir Edric Wolseley, tenth baronet and grandfather of the late Sir Charles Wolseley. Their younger son, Colonel William Wolseley (1887-1977), also had an interesting life and his life story is also the story of yet another interesting Wolseley marriage.

William Ralph Joseph Wolseley was born in London on 1 July 1887, the younger son of Sir Charles Michael Wolseley and Anita Murphy. He was a captain in the Staffordshire Yeomanry during World War I, and was mentioned in dispatches and decorated. He was a Justice of the Peace for Shropshire from 1939, and during World War II he was a colonel in the Royal Pioneer Corps.

William Wolseley married a vicar’s granddaughter, Ruth Gertrude Hargreaves (1893-1962), in Gnosall on 10 November 1923. Ruth was one of three daughters of Colonel Robert Halstead Hargreaves (1861-1909) of Knightley Grange, near Eccleshall. Her maternal grandfather was the Revd Charles Holden Steward (1859-1915).

The Wolseley family were staunchly Catholic, but when William married Ruth, the vicar’s granddaughter she would not agree to bring up any future children as Roman Catholics. In order to go ahead with the marriage, William had to leave the Catholic Church and he was excommunicated.

Ruth (Hargreaves) Wolseley (left) as a child with her sisters Violet (centre) and Nancy

Family members tell me Ruth ‘smoked cigars like a chimney and swore like a trooper’. She was, by all accounts, a tiny woman with a very domineering character, who probably gave William little choice but to leave the Catholic Church in order to marry her. They lived at Knightley Grange, and during World War II Ruth was in the Women’s Land Army and the WVS. Although William was devoted to Ruth, family members believe his decision to leave the Catholic Church caused him great upset in later life.

Ruth and William were the parents of a son and daughter: Robert William Hargreaves Wolseley (1924-1998), and Veronica Ruth Theresa Rose Wolseley (1928-2019). Ruth died at Knightley Grange in 1962, William Wolseley died in 1977. Some of the more valuable contents of Knightley Grange were sold off at auction over two days in June 1966, and the property, which had been in the Hargreaves family for over 100 years, was sold in 1967.

The house at Knightley Grange was finally demolished in 2019.

The house at Knightley Grange where Ruth and William Wolseley lived after they married in 1923 was demolished in 2019

4, Another American in the family:

William Wolseley’s elder brother, Sir Edric Wolseley (1886-1954), was the grandfather of the late Sir Charles Wolseley (1944-2018), the 11th baronet. A painting of two of the Murphy girls at their confirmation by Pope Leo XIII was once among the paintings in the Wolseley family collection. It was still at Wolseley Park in 1971 when I interviewed Sir Charles for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

It was a well-edited feature, with a fine photograph of Charles and his first Anita (Fried) and their eldest daughter. They warmly welcomed me to Wolseley Park House, more features followed on the Dyott, Anson, Levett and other families, and I built up a portfolio that helped to set me up for a 30-year career as a journalist.

At the time, I was in my late teens training as a chartered surveyor, and Charles Wolseley was then a chartered surveyor with Smith Gore in Lichfield, driving a trademark red sports car around town, commuting daily between Lichfield and Wolseley.

Charles and Anita were divorced in 1984, and later that year he married the American writer Imogen (Jeannie) Brown (1943-2024), who was researching a book on American heiresses who married impoverished English aristocrats.

When Charles and Jeannie had to move out of Wolseley to Penkridge after he was declared bankrupt, she talked about the painting being so large that it would be better placed in a museum in San Francisco. Today it is in the Villa Magistrale on the Aventine in Rome, where it was identified some years ago by Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen when he was the Hungarian Ambassador to the Vatican.

Sir Charles Wolseley and his second wife, Imogene (Jeannie) Brown, in 1992 … after their bankruptcy, they relied on the generosity of neighbours and friends

Family members recall how Charles and Jeannie Wolseley spoke openly of their situation and how people would come up to Charles in the supermarket in Rugeley and place a £10 note in his hand. Frequently they discovered gifts of food, money and even a car delivered to the house.

‘They were clearly a strong couple,’ a family member told me.

I wrote to him when I heard about his problems, enclosed a cutting of that full-page feature in the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury. I thanked him for an opportunity that secured a career in journalism that lasted most of my adult life, and thanked him too for that offer at Smiths Gore.

Despite his divorce and remarriage, Charles seems to have had a happier relationship with the Catholic Church than his uncle William. Charles died on 5 March 2018 and his funeral took place in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda Church on 24 March 2018. His widow Jeannie died in Rugeley two years ago, on 11 July 2024, and her funeral was held in the church on 26 July 2024.

The Wolseley Arms by the River Trent near Rugeley in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 59, Sunday 5 July 2026, Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity V)

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11: 17) … ‘Τα κάλαντα’ (‘Carols’), Νικηφόρος Λύτρας (Nikiphoros Lytras)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity V, 5 July 2026).

I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning. Then, later in the day, I hope to enjoy the annual Greek Festival, Paniyiri, taking place this afternoon, from 12:30 to 5 in the grounds of the Greek Orthodox Church, with live music, dance, barbeque food, traditional Greek cakes, and stalls with Greek products.

Before today begins, however, 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.

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11: 19) … traditional Greek folk music celebrated at a restaurant in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 16 ‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,

17 “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.”

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

25 At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Imagine going to a wedding but not getting onto the floor and dancing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Have you ever stayed up late, far too late, too late into the night, watching your favourite sport late at night on the television?

I have taken a personal decision not to watch any of this year’s World Cup fixtures in the US, as my own personal protest at the way FIFA has allowed Trump to hijack or abuse the World Cup for his own personal aggrandisement and for personal political opportunism. But I have been watching fixtures in Canada and Mexico, the co-host nations, and I am probably going to stay up late tonight and into the early hours of tomorrow morning to watch the match between England and Mexico in Mexico.

The World Cup matches that I have seen so far this summer, and those I have not watched but followed carefully, all offer gripping entertainment. And even when the team we support or the player we identify with does not get through, we keep on watching, waiting and hoping.

If this is you, if you sit on the edge of your chair rather than resting back on a comfortable cushion, then you know the difference between being a spectator and being a participant.

You don’t have to fly any flags from your window, or have your face painted to still enter into the spirit of great sporting events.

And if England gets through late tonight, early tomorrow morning, then the drama and excitement continue.

Entering into the spirit of a game moves us from being mere spectators to feeling we truly are participants … that every shout and every roar is a passionate response, is true encouragement, is wish fulfilment … the more passion the more we not only hope but believe that our team is going to win.

When we go to baptisms, weddings and funerals, the attitude we go with makes a world of difference: do I go as a spectator or as a participant?

Imagine going to a funeral and failing to offer sympathy to those who are grieving and mourning.

Imagine going to a wedding reception, but not taking your place at the table, not cheering the bride and groom, not getting onto the floor and dancing.

Sometimes we can get a little too precious, a little too worried about sending out the wrong signals. If we stand back, then like John the Baptist in this morning’s Gospel reading are we in danger of being reproached for being aloof from others (see Matthew 11: 18)?

If we enjoy ourselves, then, like Jesus in this morning’s Gospel reading, are we going to be seen as too interested in eating and drinking (verse 19; cf Romans 7: 15-16)?

When we go to church on Sundays, we have to ask ourselves whether we are here as spectators or as participants.

When we join in waves and chants at a football match, when we join in the dance at weddings, when we sing the hymns and enter into the prayers in church on a Sunday, we are moving from being observers and spectators to being participants.

The great opportunity for this transformation is provided Sunday after Sunday, in the invitation to move from being at the Liturgy to being in the Liturgy.

There is very little detail about the actual wedding of Rebekah in the first reading this morning (Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67). But if you have been to the Middle East, or you have seen Fiddler on the Roof, you know that dancing at Jewish weddings is traditionally a male celebration.

At funerals in many Mediterranean countries, open mourning and weeping is a sign not just of individual grief, but of public grief, and of the esteem the community holds for the person who has died.

These traditions were passed on through the generations – by children learning from adults, and by children teaching each other.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we see how Christ has noticed this in the streets and the back alleys as he moves through the towns and cities.

He sees the children playing, the boys playing wedding dances, and the girls playing funeral wailing and mourning.

He notices the ways in which children can reproach each other for not joining in their playfulness:

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn. (verse 17)

Even as he speaks, there is playfulness in the way Jesus phrases his observation, there is humour in the way he uses words that rhyme for dance and mourn at the end of each line of the children’s taunts.

Perhaps he is repeating an everyday rebuke at the time for people who stand back from what others are doing.

The boys playing tin whistles and tin drums are learning to become adult men. The girls wailing and beating their breasts in mock weeping are learning to become adult women. Each group is growing into the roles and rituals that will be expected of them when they mature.

Like all good children’s games, the point is the game, not who wins.

When we refuse to take part in the game, in the ritual, we refuse to take part in the shaping of society, we are in danger of denying our shared culture, denying our shared humanity.

If I stand back, detached, and remain a mere observer of the joys and sorrow in the lives of others, I am not sharing in their humanity.

And in not sharing in your humanity, I am failing to acknowledge that you too are made in the image and likeness of God.

But when we rejoice with people in their joys, and when we mourn with people in their sorrows, we are putting into practice what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us about us being not only made in the image and likeness of God individually but communally and collectively too as humanity.

‘It is like children sitting in the market-places’ (Matthew 11: 16) … Samuel Johnson amid the Christmas lights in Market Square in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 5 July 2026, Trinity V):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 5 to 11 July 2026 (pp 16-17), is ‘Faith in the Midst of Fractures’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by the Revd Godfrey Owino Adera, Anglican priest, theologian, and lecturer at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya:

Kenya, like many parts of the world, faces a tangle of urgent challenges that call for a bold and compassionate response from the Church. Gender-based violence, rising teenage pregnancies, and the ongoing burden of HIV remain pressing concerns, intensified by economic inequality, youth unemployment, political division, and corruption. Climate change adds further strain, with droughts, floods, and environmental damage hitting the most vulnerable hardest. Questions of dignity and belonging also persist, particularly for women, young people, and minorities often pushed to the margins of both church and society.

Against this backdrop, the FeAST Conference in Limuru, close to my home, proved to be a deeply formative experience. FeAST brings Anglican theologians together to reflect on faith rooted in both tradition and lived experience. In Limuru, we explored the Nicene Creed from fresh perspectives, drawing on insights from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, showing how theology is richest when shaped by lived experience and global solidarity.

Alongside the formal sessions, I had the privilege of leading Anglican worship using Kenyan liturgy. The service included singing, dancing, and a joyful rendition of ‘Nimetembea kote na hakuna kama Mungu,’ capturing the beauty and energy of African worship. These shared moments of joy and cultural expression made the conference not only intellectually engaging but also deeply human and spiritually uplifting.

Overall, FeAST strengthened my work on social justice in Kenya, offering fresh insights from new friends and practical tools to engage in difficult conversations with honesty, hope, and care.

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 5 July 2026, Trinity V) invites us to pray by reading and meditating on today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30).

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Grant, O Lord, we beseech you,
that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered
by your governance,
that your Church may joyfully serve you in all godly quietness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
send down upon your Church
the riches of your Spirit,
and kindle in all who minister the gospel
your countless gifts of grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11: 19) … music at the Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Peace Pagoda in Milton Keynes (Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 25, Wednesday 29 April 2026

‘I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness’ (John 12: 46) … looking out into the village of Piskopiano in Crete from the Church of the Transfiguration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Easter IV, 26 April 2026), sometimes known as ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Teacher of the Faith. Today also marks the 75th anniversary of the death of the philsopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and I hope to say more about that anniversary in a blog posting later today. Later this evening, I hope to take part 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.

‘Whoever sees me sees him who sent me’ (John 12: 45) … the Ancient of Days depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 12: 44-50 (NRSVA):

44 Then Jesus cried aloud: ‘Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. 47 I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, 49 for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.’

‘The Light of the World’ by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) in a side chapel in Keble College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 12: 44-50), we come to the end of what is known as the ‘Book of Signs’ in Saint John’s Gospel (chapters 1 to 12). Through these seven signs, Christ clearly indicates who he is and what his mission is.

Today’s reading recapitulates all that Christ has said in the ‘Book of Signs’. We hear how Jesus ‘cried aloud’ and spoke. This gives extra emphasis to what he is proclaiming. It is once again a call to believe in Jesus where ‘believing in’ means much more than mere acceptance of the truth of his words. It implies too a personal commitment to Christ and to his mission.

To believe in Christ is also to believe in, to surrender oneself entirely to, the One who sent him, the Father. All through this Gospel, Jesus emphasises the inseparability of the Father and the Son.

The Father sends Christ as light into the world so that ‘whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness’ (John 12: 45-46).

One of the first images of Christ that I remember being show as a child by my grandmother in her house in Cappoquin, Co Waterford, is Holman Hunt’s ‘The Light of the World’. It remains my favourite image of Christ and my favourite Pre-Raphaelite painting.

Saint Catherine of Siena, the Dominican doctor of the church remembered today, says, ‘It is only through shadows that one comes to know the light.’ Addressing Chrit in The Dialogue of Saint Catherine, where she touches topics on prayer, divine providence, and obedience, she writes, ‘You are the Fire that takes away the cold, illuminates the mind with its light, and causes me to know the truth’.

The ‘word’ of Christ is a challenge. It offers a way of living and of inter-relating with God, with others and with ourselves. Christ tells us that his Father’s commands – which he also observes – mean eternal life. Everything that Jesus did was the carrying out of his Father’s will. We are called to follow the same path, which is the way to total freedom.

But how do we follow that path, how do we walk that path?

During the week, I found myself re-reading the hymn ‘Attend and Keep this Happy Fast’ by the English Roman Catholic theologian and one-time Dominican priest, Roger Ruston. He has been strongly influential in Christian CND and similar movements. He is best known for both his careful critique of the ‘deterrence’ theory and the reliance on nuclear weapons and for his work on human rights, including his book Human Rights and the Image of God (SCM-Canterbury Press, 2004), and the conference with that name organised that year by the Dominican Justice and Peace Commission at Blackfriars, Oxford.

Roger Ruston’s insights have a pressing relevance in today’s dismal global political realities. He has also written a number of hymns that are informed by his theological priorities. His hymn ‘Attend and Keep this Happy Fast’ is based on Isaiah 58: 5-9 and expresses the idea that love is better than fasting, and looks to ‘the dawn your light will break’ and that time when ‘the glory of the Lord will shine’:

Attend and keep this happy fast
I preach to you this day.
Is this the fast that pleases me,
that takes your joy away?
Do I delight in sorrow’s dress,
says God, who reigns above,
the hanging head, the dismal look,
will they attract my love?

But is this not the fast I choose,
that shares the heavy load;
that seeks to bring the poor man in
who’s weary of the road;
that gives the hungry bread to eat,
to strangers gives a home;
that does not let you hide your face
from your own flesh and bone?

Then like the dawn your light will break,
to life you will be raised.
And all will praise the Lord for you;
be happy in your days.
The glory of the Lord will shine,
and in your steps his grace.
And when you call he’ll answer you;
He will not hide his face.

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

Rembering Mika Chrysaki who gave her name to Mika Villas in Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 29 April 2026):

I have been recalling my own grandmother in my reflections this morning. In my prayers, I am also remebering a family of dear friends in Crete who are burying a dear mother, mother-in-law and grandmother, in Iraklion this afternoon. Mika was a warm, welcoming member of the family, and her son proudly gave her name to the family hotel in Piskopiano in the hills above Hersonissos. I have stayed in or visited there countless times since the mid-1990s.

‘Prayer and Action in Pakistan’ provides the theme this week (26 April to 2 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 50-51. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from the Revd Davidson Solanki, Senior Regional Manager for Asia and the Middle East.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 29 April 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, bless the Church of Pakistan as they seek to serve all neighbours. Particularly after the devastation of the floods, may their acts of care demonstrate Christ’s love in action even across faiths.

The Collect:

God of compassion,
who gave your servant Catherine of Siena
a wondrous love of the passion of Christ:
grant that your people may be united to him in his majesty
and rejoice for ever in the revelation of his glory;
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 of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Catherine to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘It is only through shadows that one comes to know the light’ … Saint Catherine of Siena seen in a window in Saint Giles Church, Cambridge (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