Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 9, Wednesday 11 February 2026

‘It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mark 7: 21) … hearts at Winchester Walk near Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Second Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just a week away (18 March 2025).

Later today, I hope to take part in both a lunchtime meeting of clergy in the Milton Keynes area at the Servant King Church in Furzton and in the evening in choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. 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, 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.

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) … pots and pans in the kitchen in Bryce House on Garinish Island, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 7: 14-23 (NRSVA):

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

‘Why do your disciples … eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) … preparing to eat lunch at a restaurant in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

During my hospital visits, I find it interesting to see how many people still wear face masks and sanitise their hands in those places. It is so easy to forget how we were all wearing facemasks in public places not so long ago, sanitising our hands, and how we got used to having our temperatures taken in many buildings.

The arguments about sanitising our hands and wearing facemasks are a very different order of argument to the arguments in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 7: 14-23) about washing my hands before I prepare food, and about presenting that food with clean cups and plates and knives and forks.

It is so easy for me to look at the people I do not like and then to find passages in the Bible that shore up, that support and that justify that prejudice, and that make me feel good because I now feel a little more smug, a little more superior.

And that is precisely the moment when the Jesus of today’s Gospel reading steps in and upbraids me, and calls me a hypocrite.

As we saw with the Gospel reading yesterday (Mark 7: 1-13), in Greek, the word hypocrite (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who masked or hid his face. It came to mean someone who plays a part on stage. Because these people did not speak their own words, this label came to mean a pretender, what we call today a hypocrite.

When I speak words that are taken at random, or taken out of context in the Bible, I need to be careful I am not using them out of context, or condemning people for a fault that is not necessarily theirs, something I project onto them.

Some years ago, I came across this piece of doggerel inside a church porch in Ardmore, Co Waterford:

I was shocked, confused bewildered
as I entered heaven’s door,
not by the beauty of it all,
nor the lights or its décor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp –
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from sixth class
who swiped my lunch box twice.
Next to him was my old neighbour
who never said something nice.

Bob, who I always thought
would rot away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking oh so well.

I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take.
How come these sinners get up here?
God must have made a mistake.

‘And why is everyone so quiet,
so sombre – give me a clue?’
‘Hush child,’ he said ‘they’re all in shock.
They weren’t expecting you.’

If I saw myself the way others see me, I would be less reluctant to open my mouth so often.

But the Church is full of people who continue to judge others – even other members of the Church – and justify their judgmentalism with passages of Scripture they quote out of context, sometimes even claiming passages of Scripture that simply do not exist – for example the way an altered version of Ezekiel 25: 17 is recited in Pulp Fiction by Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson). It is a cinematic invention heavily influenced by a similar speech in The Bodyguard (1976), but is now quoted as Scripture, chapter and verse, by violent ultra-right activists.

Literalist hypocrisy it is not just about washing hands and pots and pans. If it was only that, it might be funny.

There are people who condemn people for their sexuality, they look down on people because of who they fall in love with or marry, they even claim to uphold Biblical standards of marriage. But David, for example, offered no Biblical standards of marriage; and Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, hardly offered a Biblical standard of marriage either.

I find it quite shocking, yet it seems inevitable, that many people in the Church use arguments about sexuality, bolstered with phrases such as ‘Biblical standards of marriage,’ to express prejudices about sexuality. Some even remain opposed to women being ordained priests and bishops.

This is using another voice, another set of words, Biblical quotations, to express what is not in the Bible; the very origins of the word ‘hypocrite’ in the classical Greek and in this reading readily come to mind.

In the Church, there can be no discrimination against people in ministry based on gender, age, sexuality, marital status, ethnicity, class or cultural background, or language, for God knows no such discrimination.

I too easily become a hypocrite when I use the words or behaviour of others to condemn them, without having the courage to say exactly where I stand.

Father Tikhon (Murtazov) was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide who died in 2018. A nun, Sister Olga (Schemanun of Snetogorsk Monastery), recalled how he welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.

Amazed at his kindness, she asked him one day: ‘Why don’t you refuse anyone? You bless whatever they ask of you.’

‘We’re in difficult times now,’ he said. ‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’

‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’

We should worry as much about making careless wounding remarks as much as we would worry about preparing food unhygienically.

As I asked yesterday, can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put into seeing we have sanitised our hands, were wearing colourful facemasks a few years ago, seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church on Sunday morning – or even as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?

Classical masks from the theatre in Athens in the Acropolis Museum … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 11 February 2026):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 11 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray that the Church in the UK may be a steadfast and courageous voice for refugees. Inspire us to speak against racism and injustice, to welcome and protect those seeking safety, and to act with compassion and integrity toward every displaced person in need.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mark 7: 21) … street art in Porto (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 2025: 10, Wednesday 12 February 2025

‘It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mark 7: 21) … hearts at Winchester Walk near Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Fourth Sunday before Lent (9 February 2025), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just three weeks away (5 March 2025).

Later today, I hope to take part in both a lunchtime meeting in Wolverton of clergy in the Milton Keynes area and in the evening choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, where we are beginning to look at Handel’s Messiah. 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, 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.

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) … pots and pans in the kitchen in Bryce House on Garinish Island, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 7: 14-23 (NRSVA):

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

‘Why do your disciples … eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) … preparing to eat lunch at a restaurant in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

I have been in two hospitals within the past week, with two consultations in Milton Keynes University Hospital and an unexpected visit to A&E in University College London Hospital. Distracted from my own concerns, I found it interesting to see how many people are still wearing face masks and sanitising their hands in these places.

It is so easy to forget how we were all wearing facemasks in public places not so long ago, sanitising our hands, and used to having our temperatures taken in many buildings.

The arguments about sanitising our hands and wearing facemasks are a very different order of argument to the arguments in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 7: 14-23) about washing my hands before I prepare food, and about presenting that food with clean cups and plates and knives and forks.

It is so easy for me to look at the people I do not like and then to find passages in the Bible that shore up, that support, that justify that prejudice, and make me feel good because I now feel a little more smug, a little more superior.

And that is precisely the moment when the Jesus of today’s Gospel reading steps in and upbraids me, and calls me a hypocrite.

As we saw with the Gospel reading yesterday (Mark 7: 1-13), in Greek, the word hypocrite (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who masked or hid his face. It came to mean someone who plays a part on stage. Because these people did not speak their own words, this label came to mean a pretender, what we call today a hypocrite.

When I speak words taken at random, or taken out of context in the Bible, I need to be careful I am not using them out of context, or condemning people for a fault that is not necessarily theirs, something I project onto them.

Some years ago, I came across this piece of doggerel inside a church porch in Ardmore, Co Waterford:

I was shocked, confused bewildered
as I entered heaven’s door,
not by the beauty of it all,
nor the lights or its décor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp –
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from sixth class
who swiped my lunch box twice.
Next to him was my old neighbour
who never said something nice.

Bob, who I always thought
would rot away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking oh so well.

I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take.
How come these sinners get up here?
God must have made a mistake.

‘And why is everyone so quiet,
so sombre – give me a clue?’
‘Hush child,’ he said ‘they’re all in shock.
They weren’t expecting you.’

If I saw myself the way others see me, I would be less reluctant to open my mouth so often.

But the Church is full of people who continue to judge others – even other members of the Church – and justify their judgmentalism with passages of Scripture they quote out of context, sometimes even claiming passages of Scripture that simply do not exist.

And it is not just about washing hands and pots and pans. If it was only that, it might be funny.

There are people who condemn people for their sexuality, they look down on people because of who they fall in love with or marry, they even claim to uphold Biblical standards of marriage. But David, for example, offered no Biblical standards of marriage; and Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, hardly offered a Biblical standard of marriage either.

I find it quite shocking, yet it seems inevitable, that many people in the Church use arguments about sexuality, bolstered with phrases such as ‘Biblical standards of marriage,’ to express prejudices about sexuality. Some even remain opposed to women being ordained priests and bishops.

This is using another voice, another set of words, Biblical quotations, to express what is not in the Bible; the very origins of the word ‘hypocrite’ in the classical Greek and in this reading readily come to mind.

In the Church, there can be no discrimination against people in ministry based on gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity or language, for God knows no such discrimination.

I too easily become a hypocrite when I use the words or behaviour of others to condemn them, without having the courage to say exactly where I stand.

Father Tikhon (Murtazov) was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide who died in 2018. A nun, Sister Olga (Schemanun of Snetogorsk Monastery), recalled how he welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.

Amazed at his kindness, she asked him one day: ‘Why don’t you refuse anyone? You bless whatever they ask of you.’

‘We’re in difficult times now,’ he said. ‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’

We should worry as much about making careless wounding remarks as much as we would worry about preparing food unhygienically.

Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put into seeing we have sanitised our hands, were wearing colourful facemasks a few years ago, seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church on Sunday morning – or even as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?

Classical masks from the theatre in Athens in the Acropolis Museum … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 12 February 2025):

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 ‘Founders’ Day.’ USPG and SPCK are celebrating ‘Founders’ Day’ in Saint James’s Church, Picadilly, next week (Monday 17 February 2025). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Reflection by Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 12 February 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, teach us to honour truth, and lead us in writing new stories of justice, humility, and reconciliation.

The Collect:

O God,
you know us to be set
in the midst of so many and great dangers,
that by reason of the frailty of our nature
we cannot always stand upright:
grant to us such strength and protection
as may support us in all dangers
and carry us through all temptations;
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:

Go before us, Lord, in all we do
with your most gracious favour,
and guide us with your continual help,
that in all our works
begun, continued and ended in you,
we may glorify your holy name,
and finally by your mercy receive everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:
Lord of the hosts of heaven,
our salvation and our strength,
without you we are lost:
guard us from all that harms or hurts
and raise us when we fall;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come’ (Mark 7: 21) … street art in Porto (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

My Garnish Island photograph illustrates February 2025 ina calendar from Glengarriff

Bryce House at the east end of Garnish Island … my illustration for February in the 2025 calendar produced in Glengarriff, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

February began today, and at the beginning of the month, as I turned the pages of a calendar, I was reminded of my visit to Garnish Island in June 2021. It was a road trip or ‘staycation’ as the Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions were being eased, and it included three stopovers: two nights each in Dingle, Co Kerry, the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen and Casey’s Hotel Glengarriff on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork.

It was also a three-island road holiday, with visits to the Great Blasket Island, Cape Clear Island, and then, from Glengarriff, to Garinish Island.

Glengarriff is about 20 km west of Bantry and 30 km east of Castletownbere, and the economy is heavily dependent on tourism. It is the gateway to the Beara Peninsula, connecting Bantry and Kenmare and there is a variety of shops, galleries, hotels, restaurants and pubs.

During that stay in Glengarriff, I took the Harbour Queen ferry from Glengarriff Pier on 18 June 2021 to visit Garnish Island in Bantry Bay. Garnish Island extends to 15 hectares (37 acres) and is also known by the alternative names of Garinish Island, Ilnacullin and Illaunacullin (‘island of holly’).

The island is renowned for its gardens, laid out in beautiful walks and it has specimen plants that are rare in this climate. The ferry trip came close to seal island, with its tame seal colony, and offered a sighting of an eagle’s nest.

It was my first and – so far – my only visit to the island. But now, four years later, one of my photographs on the island has been used to illustrate the month of February in a calendar for 2025 produced in Glengarriff by Deirdre Goyvaerts as a fundraiser, with the proceeds going to a local school, Scoil Fhiachna National School.

Garnish Island owes its present attractive presentation to John Annan Bryce (1841-1923), a Belfast-born Scottish politician who bought the island from the War Office in 1910, and his wife Violet L’Estrange. John Bryce and the architect and garden designer Harold Peto (1854-1933) were a creative partnership, and left us with an island that is now renowned for its gardens and buildings and the richness of plant form and colour that changes continuously with the seasons.

Bryce House, the gardens and the island have been open to the public since 2015 and are cared for the Office of Public Works.

The Goyvaerts family came to Glengarriff almost 60 years ago when Deirdre’s grandparents, Theo and Maria Goyvaerts moved from Belgium with their 11 children in 1965. Now, 60 years later, Deirdre Goyvaerts has assembled a collection of 12 photographs by seven photographers for her Garnish Island Calendar 2025, which also tells the story of Bryace House and the island.

My photograph of Bryce House is her chosen image for this month (February 2025), and also appears in the collage of photographs on the back of the calendar. The other photographs are by: Chris Hill (January, April, June, July and December), Robert Harding (March), Katharina Scnitzer (May, August), Lyne Media (September), Eoin Fealy (October) and Tim Squire (November).

The Garnish Calendar 2025 is produced by Deirdre Goyvaerts and sells at €10. It is available in most shops in Glengarriff.

Belfast’s oldest surviving purpose-built synagogue is in need of immediate rescue

The former synagogue on Annesley Street, near Carlisle Circus, Belfast … a working synagogue from 1904 to 1965 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

In my recent walk about the streets of Belfast, in search of Jewish history, sites and memories, I visited both the site of the former synagogue on Great Victoria Street and its successor, the former synagogue on Annesley Street, near Carlisle Circus.

The synagogue on Annesley Street, at the Crumlin Road end of Antrim Road, was built in 1904 and continued in use for 60 years until 1965. Since the disastrous demolition of the earlier synagogue on Great Victoria Street in the 1990s, the former synagogue on Annesley Street is the oldest purpose-built synagogue in Northern Ireland. But it has been derelict and abandoned for many years now, and severe intervention is needed to ensure its survival as part of Jewish heritage and as part of the architectural heritage of Belfast.

The foundation stone of the new synagogue was laid on 26 February 1904 by Lady Jaffé, wife of Sir Otto Jaffé, Lord Mayor of Belfast, who paid for its construction, and the new synagogue was consecrated on 31 August 1904.

The synagogue was designed by the Belfast-based architectural partnership of Young and Mackenzie, with Benjamin Septimus Jacobs of Hull as the consulting architect. Young and Mackenzie was formed by Robert Young and his former pupil John Mackenzie in the 1860s. Young’s only son, Robert Magill Young, became a third partner in 1880.

By the early 20th century, Young and Mackenzie was the most successful architectural practice in Belfast. They were the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east, including the Assembly Hall on Fisherwick Place, as well as more than a dozen Presbyterian churches in Belfast and Magee College, Derry. Their work in Belfast included the Northern Bank, Ocean, Robinson and Cleaver and Scottish Provident buildings on Donegall Square, the Linen Hall Library and Victoria College, as well as the Italianate villas on Lennoxvale, including Edgehill.

Young and Mackenzie also designed Bryce House on Garinish Island, off Glengarriff, Co Cork, for the island’s owner, John Annan Bryce (1841-1923), a Belfast-born Scottish politician. Young retired in 1912 at the age of 90 and both he and John Mackenzie died in 1917. The partnership continues in Belfast.

The consulting architect for the synagogue on Annesley Street was Benjamin Septimus Jacobs (1851-1931) of Hull, who designed the mikvah and baths. Jacobs also designed the mikvah or ritual baths at the Adelaide Road synagogue in Dublin, and the Western Synagogue in Hull. He designed many prominent buildings in Hull and was also the first Mayor of Keighley.

The new synagogue was built in the Rundbogenstil style, a 19th-century historic revival style of architecture once popular in Germany and in the German diaspora. It is a German expression of Romanesque Revival architecture that combines elements of Byzantine, Romanesque and Renaissance architecture with particular stylistic motifs. The Annesley Street synagogue is a unique example of this style in Belfast.

The brick and stucco synagogue was built by James Henry and Sons. The internal features are said to be largely unchanged. The small single-storey projection was used as the mikvah. Small extensions in 1928 provided additional facilities.

A Star of David above the door of the former synagogue on Annesley Street, near Carlisle Circus, Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The ministers and rabbis during the six decades the synagogue was served the Jewish community in Belfast have been traced in recent years in research by the Belfast Jewish historian Steven Jaffe, by Stuart Rosenblatt in his work on Jewish genealogy in Ireland, in the work of JCR-UK (Jewish Communities and Records), an online project on Jewish communities in Britain and Ireland, and through listings, reports and entries in the Jewish Year Book and the Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History.

The Revd (later Rabbi) Jacob Rosenzweig (1875-1956), later known as John Ross, was the minister, reader, teacher and secretary of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation in 1905-1914. He was born in Ravah in Poland and was the brother and son-in-law of rabbis. He was in Wales from the 1890s as the minister of Bangor Hebrew Congregation (1894-1905), and lectured in Hebrew at Bangor University College and the University of Wales.

While he was in Belfast, he returned to Poland in 1911 for his semicha or rabbinical ordination. He resigned in 1914 and became involved in the linen trade in Belfast and twice served as President of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation (1924-1928 and 1936-1938). He died in in 1956 and left a large library of Jewish books to Queen’s University Belfast, the Ross-Rosenzweig collection.

An early contemporary of Jacob Rosenzweig or John Ross was Rabbi Gedalia (George) Silverstone (1871-1944) who was in Belfast from 1901 to 1906. He was born Gedaliah Zylbersztejn in Jasionowka, now in north-east Poland but then in the Russian Empire. His father and grandfather were also rabbis, and when he was a child his family moved to Liverpool. He was a rabbi in Belfast in 1901-1906, working mainly with the immigrant community in North Belfast. He then moved to the US, where he was the first Orthodox rabbi in Washington DC. He died in Jerusalem and is buried on the Mount of Olives.

Rabbi Zusman Hodes (1868-1961) was the rabbi in Belfast from 1906 to 1916. He was born in Lithuania and lived in Baltimore, Maryland (1889-1896), before moving to Dublin, where he lived from 1901 to 1906. He was the rabbi of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation (1906-1916), principally serving the immigrant community in north Belfast, until he moved to Birmingham in 1916 as rabbi of the Birmingham Beth Hamidrash, later Birmingham Central Synagogue.

No 33 Bloomfield Avenue in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ was the home to successive Chief Rabbis of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Undoubtedly, the most famous rabbi in Belfast was Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog (1888-1959), although he was only in Belfast for three years (1916-1919). He was born in Lomza, Poland, the son of Rabbi Joel Leib Herzog, and his family moved to Leeds in 1898. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and University College London, where he was awarded a doctorate (DLitt).

Rabbi Herzog was minister of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation in 1916-1919, and then moved to Dublin in 1919 as chief rabbi of Dublin, including six congregations in the city. He was appointed the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland in 1922. During his time in Dublin, he lived at No 33 Bloomfield Avenue, off the South Circular Road, in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ area in Portobello.

He moved to British Mandated in Palestine in 1936 as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine. The story is often told that after World War II, Rabbi Isaac Herzog set out on a mission to bring lost children back to Jewish homes. As he went from orphanage to orphanage and convent to convent across Europe, he had no documentation to prove children were Jewish. Yet he had heard the stories and deep down knew there had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of missing children still in orphanages and convents.

One day, he devised a plan. He walked into orphanages and spoke out loud, Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad. Instinctively, many of the children raised their right hands to cover their eyes, showing their undoubted Jewish origins. And so, Rabbi Herzog saved 500 children and brought them home.

Following Israel’s independence, he became the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel in 1948. He died in office in Jerusalem in 1959. His Belfast-born and Dublin-educated son, Chaim Herzog (1918-1997), was the President of Israel in 1983-1993; his grandson, Isaac Herzog, has been the President of Israel since 2021.

Rabbi Jacob Shachter (1886-1971) was in Belfast from 1926 to 1954. He was born in Romania, where he obtained semicha in 1911. He was a rabbi in Galatz before moving in 1920 to become the rabbi of the New Romanian Synagogue in Manchester. He was appointed the rabbi of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation in 1926, and became the longest serving rabbi in Belfast (1926-1954).

He was an army chaplain in Northern Ireland during World War II, and also had responsibility for the welfare of the Jewish community evacuated from Gibraltar to Saintfield, Co Down. When he retired in 1954, he moved to Jerusalem, where he died.

Rabbi Dr Alexander Carlebach (1908-1992) was in Belfast from 1954 to 1965. He was born in Cologne and studied at a yeshiva in Lithuania and at universities in Cologne, Leipzig, Paris and Strasbourg, and from 1933 at Jews’ College, London. He served in Golders Green and after World War II was with the Jewish Relief Unit in Germany. He was minister of the North Hendon Adath Yisroel Synagogue in London when he was invited to become the rabbi in Belfast (1954-1965).

Rabbi Carlebach was awarded a doctorate by the University of Strasbourg in 1955. He retired in 1965, moved to Israel, and died in Jerusalem in 1992.

The synagogue on Annesley Street continued in use until 1965, when it was replaced by a new synagogue built at 49 Somerton Road. The new synagogue was designed by the architect Eugene Rosenberg, assisted by Karl Kapolka. The foundation stone was laid on 3 May 1964 and the synagogue was consecrated on 25 October 1964. The synagogue on Somerton Road was designated a Listed Historic Building in 2015.

Meanwhile, the building on Annesley Street was acquired by the Mater Hospital and was used by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust as a physiotherapy gym and storage facility. It has been empty for many years but remains the oldest purpose-built synagogue Northern Ireland.

The former synagogue was designated an historic building in 2002. The proposals for its future have included a centre for participative democracy and a semi-permanent exhibition on Belfast’s Jewish community. But it looks sad and lonely today and continues to deteriorate, covered in graffiti and subjected to vandalism, and without intervention in the immediate future it is in danger of being lost to future generations.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום

The former synagogue on Annesley Street, Belfast, is covered in graffiti and its condition is deteriorating (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 114, Sunday 1 September 2024 Trinity XIV, Creationtide

‘Why do your disciples … eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) … preparing to dine at the Sunset Taverna in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 1 September 2024). Today also marks the beginning of Autumn. In the calendar of the Orthodox Church, today is the beginning of a new church year, also known as the beginning of the Indiction.

John Keats in his poem ‘To Autumn’ described this time of year as the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. Creationtide also begins today (1 September) and continues until 4 October. This is the period in the church calendar dedicated to God as Creator and Sustainer of all life.

Later this morning, I hope to lead the intercession at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford … 1 September is also Saint Giles Day. The parish fete takes place at All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this afternoon (2 to 4 pm).

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.

‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) … a statue with a bowl in her hand at Vergina restaurant in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NRSVA):

1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand:

15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.

21 ‘For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) … pots and pans in the kitchen in Bryce House on Garinish Island, Glengarriff, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Do you remember how not too long ago we were all sanitising our hands every time we went into a shop, a church, an enclosed public space? The Covid-19 pandemic meant we all got used to wearing masks not only in those places but also outdoors and on the street.

We all got used to it very quickly, and most of us have forgotten about it all, all too quickly it seems.

The arguments about sanitising our hands and wearing facemasks just a few years ago are a very different order of argument to the arguments in today’s Gospel reading about washing my hands before I prepare food, and about presenting that food with clean cups and plates and knives and forks.

It is so easy for me to look at the people I do not like and then to find passages in the Bible that shore up, that support, that justify that prejudice, and make me feel good because I now feel a little more smug, a little more superior.

And that is precisely the moment when the Jesus of this morning’s Gospel reading steps in and upbraids me, and calls me a hypocrite.

In Greek, the word hypocrite (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who masked or hid his face. It came to mean someone who plays a part on stage. Because these people did not speak their own words, this label came to mean a pretender, what we call today a hypocrite.

When I speak words taken at random, or taken out of context in the Bible, I need to be careful I am not using them out of context, or to condemn people for a fault that is not necessarily theirs, something I project onto them.

Some time ago, I came across this piece of doggerel inside a church porch in Ardmore, Co Waterford:

I was shocked, confused bewildered
as I entered heaven’s door,
not by the beauty of it all,
nor the lights or its décor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp –
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from sixth class
who swiped my lunch box twice.
Next to him was my old neighbour
who never said something nice.

Bob, who I always thought
would rot away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking oh so well.

I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take.
How come these sinners get up here?
God must have made a mistake.

‘And why is everyone so quiet,
so sombre – give me a clue?’
‘Hush child,’ he said ‘they’re all in shock.
They weren’t expecting you.’

If I saw myself the way others see me, I would be less reluctant to open my mouth so often.

But the Church is full of people who continue to judge others – even other members of the Church – and justify their judgmentalism with passages of Scripture they quote out of context, sometimes even claiming passages of Scripture that simply do not exist.

And it’s not just about washing hands and pots and pans. If it was only that, it might be funny.

There are people who condemn people for their sexuality, they look down on people because of who they fall in love with or marry, they even claim to uphold Biblical standards of marriage.

Yet David offered no Biblical standards of marriage, and Solomon, who provides the first reading this morning (Song of Solomon 2: 8-13), had 700 wives and 300 concubines – once again, hardly a Biblical standard of marriage.

I find it quite shocking, yet it seems inevitable, that many people in the Church use arguments about sexuality, bolstered with phrases such as ‘Biblical standards of marriage,’ to express prejudices about sexuality. Some even remain opposed to women being ordained priests and bishops.

This is using another voice, another set of words, Biblical quotations to express what is not in the Bible; the very origins of the word ‘hypocrite’ in the classical Greek and in this reading readily come to mind.

The Song of Songs, which we are reading from this morning, is not afraid to affirm healthy sexuality, and in a creative and poetic way it compares the pleasure two lovers find in each other with the love of God for God’s people.

Here the voice of God is poetically represented by the voice of the shepherd; and the voice of the people is expressed by the woman. This woman is the voice of the people who love God and she also speaks back to the people on behalf of God: ‘My beloved speaks and says to me …’

In the Church, there can be no discrimination against people in ministry based on gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity or language, for God knows no such discrimination.

I too easily become a hypocrite when I use the words or behaviour of others to condemn them, without having the courage to say exactly where I stand.

Father Tikhon (Murtazov), who died in 2018, was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide. A nun, Sister Olga (Schemanun of Snetogorsk Monastery), recalled how he welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.

Amazed at his kindness, she asked him one day: ‘Why don’t you refuse anyone? You bless whatever they ask of you.’

‘We’re in difficult times now,’ he said. ‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’

We should worry as much about making careless wounding remarks as much as we would worry about preparing food unhygienically.

Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put into seeing we have sanitised our hands, are wearing colourful facemasks, seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church on Sunday morning – or even as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) … a cup of coffee at Taverna Garden in Platanias (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 1 September 2024, Trinity XIV):

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 ‘To Hope and Act with Creation.’ This theme is introduced today with a reflection on Creationtide:

Creationtide is the period in the annual church calendar, from 1 September to 4 October, dedicated to God as Creator and Sustainer of all life. Many churches choose to use this time of year to hold special services and events to give thanks for God’s gift of creation, and to renew their commitment to caring for our one-planet-home.

The theme for 2024 is: to hope and act with creation and the symbol ‘The first fruits of hope’, inspired by Romans 8: 19-25, is the guiding inspiration.

In the letter of Paul the apostle to the Romans, the biblical image pictures the earth as a mother, groaning as in childbirth (Romans 8: 22). Francis of Assisi understood this when he referred to the earth as our sister and our mother in his Canticle of Creatures. The times we live in show that we are not relating to the earth as a gift from our Creator, but rather as a resource to be used.

And yet, there is hope and the expectation for a better future. To hope in a biblical context does not mean to stand still and quiet, but rather groaning, crying, and actively striving for new life amidst the struggles. Just as in childbirth, we go through a period of intense pain, but new life springs forth.

Find out more at seasonofcreation.org.

‘The first fruits of hope’, inspired by Romans 8: 19-25, is the guiding inspiration for Creationtide this year … apples in a garden in the small village of Shutlanger near Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 1 September 2024, Trinity XIV, Creation Day) invites us to pray:

You made the goodness of the land,
the riches of the sea
and the rhythm of the seasons;
as we thank you for your gracious provision
may we cherish and respect
this planet and its people.

The Collect:

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.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God, the source of truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
your Son came to save us
and bore our sins on the cross:
may we trust in your mercy
and know your love,
rejoicing in the righteousness
that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness’ … Father Tikhon Murtazov

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

An island photograph illustrates February in a calendar from Glengarriff for 2025

Bryce House at the east end of Garnish Island … my illustration for February 2025 in a new calendar produced in Glengarriff, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

It is three years since I visited Garnish Island in 2021 during a road trip or ‘staycation’ that included three stopovers: two nights each in Dingle, Co Kerry, the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen and Casey’s Hotel Glengarriff on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork.

It was also a three-island road holiday, with visits to the Great Blasket Island, Cape Clear Island, and then, from Glengarriff, to Garinish Island.

Glengarriff is about 20 km west of Bantry and 30 km east of Castletownbere, and the economy is heavily dependent on tourism. It is the gateway to the Beara Peninsula, connecting Bantry and Kenmare and there is a variety of shops, galleries, hotels, restaurants and pubs.

During that stay in Glengarriff, I took the Harbour Queen ferry from Glengarriff Pier on 18 June 2021 to visit Garnish Island in Bantry Bay. Garnish Island extends to 15 hectares (37 acres) and is also known by the alternative names of Garinish Island, Ilnacullin and Illaunacullin (‘island of holly’).

The island is renowned for its gardens, laid out in beautiful walks and it has specimen plants that are rare in this climate. The ferry trip came close to seal island, with its tame seal colony, and offered a sighting of an eagle’s nest.

It was my first and – so far – my only visit to the island. But now, three years later, in June 2024, one of my photographs on the island has been used in a calendar for 2025 produced in Glengarriff by Deirdre Goyvaerts as a fundraiser, with the proceeds going to a local school, Scoil Fhiachna National School.

Garnish Island owes its present attractive presentation to John Annan Bryce, (1841-1923) a Belfast-born Scottish politician who bought the island from the War Office in 1910, and his wife Violet L’Estrange. John Bryce and the architect and garden designer Harold Peto (1854-1933) were a creative partnership, and left us with an island that is now renowned for its gardens and buildings and the richness of plant form and colour that changes continuously with the seasons.

Bryce House, the gardens and the island have been open to the public since 2015 and are cared for the Office of Public Works.

The Goyvaerts family came to Glengarriff almost 60 years ago when Deirdre’s grandparents, Theo and Maria Goyvaerts moved from Belgium with their 11 children in 1965. Deirdre Goyvaerts has assembled a collection of 12 photographs by seven photographers for her Garnish Island Calendar 2025, which also tells the story of Bryace House and the island.

My photograph of Bryce House is her chosen image for February 2025, and also appears in the collage of photographs on the back of the calendar. The other photographs are by: Chris Hill (January, April, June, July and December), Robert Harding (March), Katharina Scnitzer (May, August), Lyne Media (September), Eoin Fealy (October) and Tim Squire (November).

The Garnish Calendar 2025 is produced by Deirdre Goyvaerts and sells at €10. It is available in most shops in Glengarriff.

Island hopping in Aegean-like summer sunshine in Ireland

A sculptor’s workshop close to Saint John’s Church in Knightstown on Valentia Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

It is two years since I have been in Greece. But now that the vaccine has been rolled out and – despite the forest fires and soaring temperatures in August – Greece appears to be as safe a place to be as Ireland.

I hope to be back in Crete later in September, returning to an island that has been almost like a second home since the 1980s.

But the warm sunshine earlier this summer in Ireland offered opportunities for some ‘island hopping’ in Cork and Kerry that was almost as inviting as ‘island hopping’ in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

Over a number of weeks, two of us found the opportunities – more by accident than design – to visit Valentia Island and the Blasket Islands off the coast of Co Kerry, and Cape Clear Island and Garinish Island off the coast of Co Cork.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist, Valentia … is this ‘the most westerly Protestant Church in Europe’? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Returning to Valentia
by accident

As the first promises of summer arrived, we spent a day at Kells Bay House and Gardens and Kells Bay Beach on the north loop of the Ring of Kerry, and as the day, drew to a close we visited Cahersiveen.

Cahersiveen’s place in church history includes the story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty (1898-1963), who is known as the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican,’ for his daring exploits and the rescue of over 4,000 people, including Jews and Allied soldiers, in Nazi-occupied Rome.

The town’s Roman Catholic parish church is named the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church, in honour of the monumental figure in Irish politics in the early 19th century. Saint Finian’s, the former Church of Ireland parish church in the town, has housed the Oratory Pizza and Wine Bar since 2016.

As the early summer sunshine continued to linger, we found ourselves on the ferry to Valentia Island once again, and visiting the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Knightstown, which claims to be ‘the most westerly Protestant Church in Europe.’

Previous Rectors of Valentia include John Godfrey Day (1830-1847), later Dean of Ardfert (1861-1879), father of Bishop Maurice Day of Clogher and grandfather of Archbishop Godfrey Day, Abraham Isaac, later Dean of Ardfert (1894-1905); the Revd Alexander Delap, father of the marine biologist, Maude Delap (1866-1953); and George Lill Swain, later Dean of Limerick (1929-1954).

The Sensory Garden was designed by Arthur Shackleton to cater for people with disabilities and was opened by Bishop Michael Mayes in 2005.

A sign outside the church claims it is ‘the most westerly Protestant Church in Europe.’ But, of course, that depends on how you draw the maps and boundaries of Europe. No doubt, churches in Iceland could make similar claims, but is Greenland part of Europe of part of the North American continent?

The Blasket Islands in summer sunshine … an invitation to a Mediterranean experience – but only in summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The literary legacy of
the Blasket Islands

The Great Blasket Island is one of the most remote parts of the Gaeltacht or Irish-speaking area of Co Kerry. It has been deserted since 1954, but remains a part of Irish literature and cultural identity because of the disproportionate number of islanders whose books were part of the school curriculum for generations of Irish schoolchildren.

Their books continue to be read, and most Irish people are still familiar with the names of Peig Sayers (1873-1958), no matter how negative their memories are of her book, and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin and Tomás Ó Criomhthain.

I am typical of my generation when I say I still resent having to read through Peig, and it helped to create many long-lasting negative images of how the Irish language was taught at schools in the 1960s.

But my schoolboy experiences of the Kerry Gaeltacht in Ballinskelligs have left me with a life-long affection for this part of Ireland, and a day-long guided tour of the Blasket Islands seemed inevitable during a summer visit to the Dingle Peninsula.

The Church of Ireland school on the Great Blasket set up by Mrs Thompson from Ventry lasted a mere two or three decades (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Great Blasket covers over 1,100 acres of largely mountainous terrain, and is about 4 miles long and half a mile wide.

A number of books were written in the early 20th century by islanders, recording island traditions and way of life. These include Peig or Machnamh Seanamhná (An Old Woman’s Reflections) by Peig Sayers (1939), An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain (1929), and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years a-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin (1933).

During my visit, I began to feel sorry for Peig, with her arranged marriage, her sorrows, her hardships, the children who died without the joys of childhood, the reproaches for her grief and mourning, and the bodies falling out of coffins.

They were stories that should never have been imposed on young teenagers in the 1960s. My new-fond sympathy for Peig was complimented during that visit by comparisons of Tomás Ó Criomhthain with his Russian contemporary Maxim Gorky, placing him within the corpus of European literature of the day.

Cape Clear Island off the coast of Co Cork is intimately linked with the legends surrounding the life Saint Ciarán (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Ciaran’s legacy
on Cape Clear Island

Clear Island or Cape Clear Island (Cléire or Oileán Chléire), 8 miles off the south-west coast of Co Cork, is the most southerly inhabited part of Ireland. Cape Clear is 3 miles long by 1 mile wide. Most of the 147 residents are bilingual in Irish and English, making this Ireland’s southern-most inhabited Gaeltacht island.

Mizen Head, the mainland’s most southerly point, is to the north-west. The nearest neighbouring island is Sherkin Island, 2 km to the east, and the solitary Fastnet Rock, with its lighthouse, is three miles west of the island. The boat trip from Baltimore this summer took only 40 minutes, with views of the rugged coastline West Cork and occasional sightings of dolphins.

Ferries from Schull and Baltimore arrive into the North Harbour, while the South Harbour is often a berth for yachts and pleasure boats.

Arriving on the ferry from Baltimore into the North Harbour, the first archaeological and ecclesiastical site the visitor sees are the ruins of a 12th-century church, close to the main pier, with Saint Ciaran’s Well beside it.

Saint Ciarán of Saighir gives his name to the ruined church and holy well at the North Harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Ciarán, the island’s patron, is allegedly one of Ireland’s four, early pre-Patrician saints. He is said to have been born on the shoreline beside the harbour, Trá Chiaráin, in front of the well, and the islanders gather there to mark his feast on 5 March each year.

Saint Ciarán of Saighir was one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’ and was the founding Bishop of Saighir (Seir-Kieran). He remains the patron saint of the Diocese of Ossory. Sometimes he is called Saint Ciarán the Elder to distinguish him from Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise.

The reverence for Saint Ciarán is reflected in the proliferation of his name on Cape Clear Island, from beaches to holy wells, from churches to graveyards. Indeed, almost every family includes someone with the name Ciarán.

The ruins of Saint Ciaran’s Church, a 12th century rectangular church surrounded by a graveyard, face the North Harbour. A steep climb from the harbour and a 15-minute walk lead up to Saint Ciarán’s Roman Catholic Church, built in 1839. It is the southern-most church still in use in Ireland.

The Italian Garden is the outstanding feature on Garinish Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Mediterranean gardens
on Garinish Island

The Harbour Queen ferry from Glengarriff Pier brought us to Garinish Island at the mouth of Bantry Bay. Garinish is renowned for its gardens, laid out in beautiful walks and it has specimen plants that are rare in this climate.

Garinish Island extends to 15 hectares (37 acres). The gardens on Garnish Island flourish in the mild humid micro-climate of Glengarriff Harbour. This is an island garden of rare beauty, assisted by a mainly pine shelter belt, and known to horticulturists and lovers of trees and shrubs around the world.

The gardens were designed by the architect and garden designer Harold Peto (1854-1933) for the island’s owners, John Annan Bryce (1841-1923), a Belfast-born Scottish politician who bought the island from the War Office in 1910, and his wife Violet (L’Estrange).

Peto and Bryce were a creative partnership, so the island is still renowned for its richness of plant form and colour, changing continuously with the seasons.

The Italian Garden is, perhaps, the outstanding feature of Garinish. Here, Peto’s genius, combined with Bryce’s ideas and resources, resulted in the creation of a formal architectural garden that blends with its natural setting.

The Martello tower on the island dates from the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Plans were drawn up for a mansion incorporating the Martello Tower, but it was never built. Instead, Bryce House, an extensive cottage, became the home of the Bryce family.

Among the guests were the writers George Bernard Shaw, who stayed on the island in 1923 while writing his play, Saint Joan, the poet Æ George Russell, and Agatha Christie.

Bryce House is presented as it would have appeared when the Bryce family lived there. A selection from their vast collection of important paintings, prints, drawings, and books is on display.

A theme throughout the house is the winged lion of Saint Mark, the symbol of Venice – yet another reminder of the Mediterranean during an island-hopping expedition in Ireland this summer.

This two-page feature was first published in the September 2021 edition of ‘The Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough), pp 14-15

Keeping my hands and face clean, but still behaving like a hypocrite

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 29 August 2021,

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII)

11 a.m.: Parish Group Eucharist, Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick

The Readings: Song of Solomon 2: 8-13; Psalm 45: 1-2, 6-9; Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23.

There is a link to the readings HERE

‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone’ (Song of Solomon 2: 10-11) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Are you still sanitising your hands every time you go into a shop, a church, an enclosed public space?

Are you still wearing a mask in those places?

Indeed, are you still wearing masks outdoors and on the street?

The arguments about sanitising our hands and wearing facemasks are a very different order of argument to the arguments in this morning’s Gospel reading about washing my hands before I prepare food, and about presenting that food with clean cups and plates and knives and forks.

It is so easy for me to look at the people I don’t like and then to find passages in the Bible that shore up, that support, that justify that prejudice, and make me feel good because I now feel a little more smug, a little more superior.

And that is precisely the moment when the Jesus of this morning’s Gospel reading steps in and upbraids me, and calls me a hypocrite.

In Greek, the word hypocrite (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who masked or hid his face. It came to mean someone who plays a part on stage. Because these people did not speak their own words, this label came to mean a pretender, what we call today a hypocrite.

When I speak words taken at random, or taken out of context in the Bible, I need to be careful I am not using them out of context, or to condemn people for a fault that is not necessarily theirs, something I project onto them.

Some time ago, I came across this piece of doggerel inside a church porch in Ardmore, Co Waterford:

I was shocked, confused bewildered
as I entered heaven’s door,
not by the beauty of it all,
nor the lights or its décor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp –
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from sixth class
who swiped my lunch box twice.
Next to him was my old neighbour
who never said something nice.

Bob, who I always thought
would rot away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking oh so well.

I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear your take.
How come these sinners get up here?
God must have made a mistake.

‘And why is everyone so quiet,
so sombre – give me a clue?’
‘Hush child,’ he said ‘they’re all in shock.
They weren’t expecting you.’

If I saw myself the way others see me, I would be less reluctant to open my mouth so often.

But the Church is full of people who continue to judge others – even other members of the Church – and justify their judgmentalism with passages of Scripture they quote out of context, sometimes even claiming passages of Scripture that simply do not exist.

And it’s not just about washing hands and pots and pans. If it was only that, it might be funny.

There are people who condemn people for their sexuality, they look down on people because of who they fall in love with or marry, they even claim to uphold Biblical standards of marriage.

But David, who we have been reading about at length in recent weeks, offered no Biblical standards of marriage. Solomon, who provides our first reading this morning, had 700 wives and 300 concubines – once again, hardly a Biblical standard of marriage.

I find it quite shocking, yet it seems inevitable, that many people in the Church of Ireland – not in these dioceses, as far as I know – use arguments about sexuality, bolstered with phrases such as ‘Biblical standards of marriage,’ to express prejudices about sexuality. Some even remain opposed to women being ordained priests and bishops.

This is using another voice, another set of words, Biblical quotations to express what is not in the Bible; the very origins of the word ‘hypocrite’ in the classical Greek and in this reading readily come to mind.

The Song of Songs, which we have been reading from this morning, is not afraid to affirm healthy sexuality, and in a creative and poetic way it compares the pleasure two lovers find in each other with the love of God for God’s people.

Here the voice of God is poetically represented by the voice of the shepherd; and the voice of the people is expressed by the woman. This woman is the voice of the people who love God and she also speaks back to the people on behalf of God: ‘My beloved speaks and says to me …’

In the Church, there can be no discrimination against people in ministry based on gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity or language, for God knows no such discrimination.

I too easily become a hypocrite when I use the words or behaviour of others to condemn them, without having the courage to say exactly where I stand.

Father Tikhon (Murtazov), who died some years ago [9 June 2018], was a much-loved Russian spiritual guide. A nun, Sister Olga (Schemanun of Snetogorsk Monastery), recalled how he welcomed everyone who came to visit him and who asked for his guidance and prayers.

Amazed at his kindness, she asked him one day: ‘Why don’t you refuse anyone? You bless whatever they ask of you.’

‘We’re in difficult times now,’ he said. ‘It’s better to sin by love than by strictness.’

We should worry as much about making careless wounding remarks as much as we would worry about preparing food unhygienically.

Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put into seeing we have sanitised our hands, are wearing colourful facemasks, seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church on Sunday morning – or even as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?

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

Classical masks from the theatre in Athens on display in the Acropolis Museum … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NRSVA):

1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) … pots and pans in the kitchen in Bryce House on Garinish Island, Glengarriff, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Time, Year B).

The Collect:

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

Collect of the Word:

Cleanse our consciences, O Lord,
and enlighten our hearts
through the daily presence of your Son Jesus Christ,
that when he comes in glory to be our judge
we may be found undefiled and acceptable in his sight;
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post-Communion Prayer:

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

‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

597, Take my life, and let it be (CD 34)
630, Blessed are the pure in heart (CD 36)

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

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