Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 28, Tuesday 17 March 2026, Saint Patrick’s Day

Saint Patrick depicted in a wall painting by Enid Chadwiick in the Shrine Chapel in Walsingham … 17 March is Saint Patrick’s Day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV) and Mothering Sunday. Today is Saint Patrick’s Day (17 March 2026), and it offers Irish people a respite in the rigours and disciplines of Lent.

I hope to say a little more about Saint Patrick and Saint Patrick’s Day later today in the context of Enid Chadwick’s work in the Shrine Chapel in Walsingham and my visit to Walsingham last week. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

A window depicting Christ the healer in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, depicts Christ healing the man at the pool (see John 5: 1-16) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 5: 1-3, 5-16 (NRSVA):

1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralysed.

5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ 7 The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ 8 Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ 11 But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.”’ 12 They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14 Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

The healing of the man by the pool … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading in the lectionary for Saint Patrick’s Day is Matthew 10: 16-23, and I may say a little more about Saint Patrick and Saint Patrick’s Day in a blog posting later today. Meanwhile, in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (John 5: 1-3, 5-16) in the Lenten cycle of readings, Jesus goes to Jerusalem for a feast. At the Pool of Betheseda, he heals a paralysed man. Jesus tells him to ‘Pick up your mat and walk!’ This takes place on the sabbath. Many people see the man carrying his mat and tell him this is against the law. He tells them the man who healed him told him to do so, and they ask who that was. He tries to point to Jesus, but Jesus has slipped away into the crowd. Jesus comes to him later and tells him: ‘Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.’ The man then tells people it was Jesus who healed him.

This story is very similar to a story in the synoptic Gospels (see Mark 2, Matthew 9 and Luke 5), but the paralysed man comes to Jesus at his home in Capernaum, and Jesus at first says the sins of the man are forgiven and only when people question his ability to forgive sins does Christ say that he could have said to the man pick up your mat and walk.

People begin to persecute Jesus because he is working on the sabbath. But there is more stirring under the waters.

Once again, we are introduced to a story in Saint John’s Gospel with a water setting. They include the Baptism of Christ by John in the River Jordan, the Wedding at Cana, where water is turned into wine, and the conversation with the Samaritan women at the well, where Jesus talks of himself as the living water that bring eternal life.

Like the waters of the Jordan, there is also a comparison with the waters of creation. Although verse 3, with the introduction of the angel who hovers over the water, is now questioned by scholars, nevertheless it points to the way this story was linked by the early church with the story of creation and the story of Christ’s baptism.

What do you think is the symbolism of the five porticos? Whether archaeologists have found these porticos is another question. But there is the cross-reference to the story of the Samaritan woman, for example. Once again, by choosing his setting, the writer of the Fourth Gospel is building up our expectations. There is a promise here not only of healing and wholeness but also of eternal life.

Bethesda is the name of a series of pools in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, on the path of the Beth Zeta Valley. In Greek Biblical manuscripts its name is often mistaken for the name of the town of Bethsaida. Its name may be derived from the Aramaic beth hesda, meaning either ‘house of mercy’ or ‘house of grace.’

Since the 4th century CE, it has also been called the Sheep Pool, but this is now thought to be a translation error. It is associated with healing. The Fourth Gospel describes the pool’s location using the Greek word προβατικῇ (probatike), which literally means ‘pertaining to sheep.’ In the early 4th century, Eusebius interpreted this as the sheep-pool, and later Church Fathers repeated this suggestion, so that it also appears in some translations. However, it is now thought that the term προβατικῇ (probatike) refers to Bethesda being located near to the Sheep-gate, a gate in the former city wall, near the Lion Gate in the present city wall.

The history of the pool dates back to the 8th century BCE, when a dam was built across the short Beth Zeta valley. Around 200 BCE, when Simon II was the High Priest, the channel was enclosed, and a second pool was added on the south side of the dam. Although there is a popular legend that claims that this pool was used for washing sheep, this is very unlikely due to the pool’s use as a water supply, and its depth of 13 metres.

In the 1st century BCE, natural caves to the east of the two pools were turned into small baths, as part of an ασκληπιεῖον (asklepieion) or healing temple. However, the Mishnah implies that at least one of these new pools was sacred to Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, rather than Asclepius (Ἀσκληπιός), the god of healing. According to the Fourth Gospel, this pool was a swimming bath (κολυμβήθρα, kolumbethra) with five porticos – although this was translated as porches in older translations – close to the probatike or Sheep-Gate. Archaeologically, the reference to five porticos is not yet fully understood, as the only applicable structure found in the pools themselves has three porticos rather than five. The closest alternative match is to the five colonnades of the asklepieion itself.

Saint John’s Gospel describes the porticos as a place in which large numbers of infirm people were waiting, which corresponds with the site’s use in the 1st century as an asklepieion.

Some scholars suggest the narrative is actually part of a deliberate polemic against the cult of Asclepius, an antagonism possibly brought on partly by the fact that Asclepius was worshipped as Saviour (Σωτήρ, Soter) because of his healing attributes.

The narrative uses the Greek phrase ὑγιὴς γενέσθαι; (hygies genesthai? Do you want to be made well?), which is not used anywhere in the three Synoptic Gospels.

It is not clear what feast provides the setting for this event. Some think it is the Feast of Pentecost, which comes 50 days after the Passover. Others suggest the Feast of the Spring Harvest. By the time of Christ, Pentecost had become the feast of renewing the Sinai Covenant, since Moses arrived at Sinai 50 days after the Passover in Egypt. Later in this chapter, the references to Jesus the judge (verses 22 and 30) and to Moses’ witness to Jesus (verses 46-47) appear to echo the themes of the Sinai law and covenant associated with the feast of Pentecost.

After the word ‘paralysed’ in verse 3, later manuscripts add, wholly or in part, an explanatory statement: ‘waiting for the stirring of the water; 4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.’

These words have become part of popular tradition, but are missing from the best manuscripts, and modern scholarship thinks these extra details are unlikely to have been part of the original text, and many modern translations do not include the troubling of the water or the angel tradition.

But some ancient manuscripts say these people were waiting for the troubling of the water. A few manuscripts also move the setting away from Roman rituals into something more appropriate to Judaism, by adding that an angel would occasionally stir the waters, which would then cure the first person to enter.

Verse 9 introduces the fact this healing took place on a sabbath. The problem for the authorities is not that the man was healed, or that he was healed on the Sabbath, but that he breached a prohibition on lifting and carrying a mat on the Sabbath, which amounts to work. They ask him who has healed him, who has told him to break the Sabbath law. But the man does not know.

Although God rested after six days of creation, it does not mean that God ceased to care for creation or to take an interest in its affairs. God continues to work on the Sabbath, giving life, rewarding good and punishing evil.

How would you make the connections between the waters of creation, Christ as the living water, and the waters of baptism?

What do you mean when you pray for healing for yourself or others?

How do you respond when those prayers appear not to have been answered?

The Angel at the Pool of Bethesda (Robert Bateman)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 17 March 2026, Saint Patrick’s Day):

The theme this week (15-21 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Lament and Hope’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Kennedy Jones, Church Engagement and Fundraising Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 17 March 2026, Saint Patrick’s Day) invites us to pray:

We pray for communities bearing the weight of inherited trauma and systemic inequality. May they experience God’s comfort, strength, and hope in every aspect of life.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who in your providence chose your servant Patrick
to be the apostle of the Irish people:
keep alive in us the fire of the faith he kindled
and strengthen us in our pilgrimage
towards the light of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Patrick and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Blind Boy … a sculpture in the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin (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 Lent 2026: 14, Tuesday 3 March 2026

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … in Tai Tai Restaurant in Kuching, Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began almost two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026), and this week began with the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). In the Jewish calendar, today is the holiday of Purim, and the Chinese New Year celebrations here in Kuching come to a dramatic finale today with Chap Goh Mei.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time in Kuching 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.

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … tables waiting for diners in the old town in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 1-12 (NRSVA):

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … in Le Procope in Paris, one of the oldest cafés in the world (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading in the lectionary at the Eucharist today (Matthew 23: 1-12), we are in the Temple with Christ in Holy Week, the week leading up to his Passion, Death and Resurrection. There in the Temple, Christ has silenced his critics among the Sadducees and the Pharisees, showing their lack of understanding of the core messages of the Prophets and the Law in the Bible.

In today’s Gospel reading, Christ turns to speak ‘to the crowds and to his disciples’ about the scribes and the Pharisees, and their attitude to and teaching of the Law and the Bible.

Christ tells the people in the Temple that the Pharisees have authority to teach the Law, and he concedes that they are in an unbroken chain that goes back to Moses, for they ‘sit on Moses’ seat’ (verse 2).

But while honouring their teachings, the people should be wary of their practices. In their interpretation of the Law, they impose heavy burdens on others, yet do not follow the Law themselves.

Externally, they appear pious. They wear teffelin or phylacteries, small, black, leather boxes, on their left arms and foreheads with four Biblical passages as a ‘sign’ and ‘remembrance’ that God liberated their ancestors from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 13: 1-10; Exodus 13: 11-16; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; and Deuteronomy 11: 13-21). They also have lengthy fringes or tassels on their prayer shawls (tallitot, singular talit), as visible reminders of the 613 commandments in the Law (see Numbers 15: 38, Deuteronomy 22: 12).

Christ gives four examples of vanity (verse 6-7): they love places of honour at banquets, the best seats in the synagogues, being greeted with respect publicly, and being called ‘Rabbi,’ which means master and later becomes a title for the leaders in the synagogues.

We are warned about the dangers built into loving honorific titles, such as ‘teacher,’ ‘father’ and instructor (see verses 8-10) – perhaps for me that means canon and professor – because, of course, we are all students, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all disciples and children of God.

Yet I too am a father and have been a teacher and a tutor. Is Christ warning against the position? Or is he warning against seeking honours that have not been earned? I think immediately of Donald Trump’s petulant that he ought to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and have the Kennedy Centre named after him, without ever ending an actual war or having any gravitas or earned respect in the arts world.

It is a truism that politicians must earn the trust of their voters and that parents must earn the respect of their children, not seek or demand it. Most parents have, at one time or another, said to their children: ‘Do what I tell you, not what I do.’ Needless to say, children never listen to parents when we say something so silly.

All parents know, on the other hand, that actions speak louder than words.

Perhaps this reading reflects later tensions between the Jewish synagogue and the new Christian community. But, in Christ’s own days, people expected a Pharisee to be a careful observer of the Law.

Unlike the Temple priests and village elders, the Pharisees did not have a high social status. Before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the Pharisees were a relatively modest group of people without political power and they tried to live out Jewish tradition and the Torah seriously and conscientiously in their daily lives. The Pharisees saw the Law as applying not only to every aspect of public life, but to every aspect of private, domestic, daily life too.

There is another well-worn statement: ‘It’s not where you start out but where you end up.’ The Pharisees started out with good intentions, but some of them ended by seeking to be great, seeking to be exalted (verses 11-12). They started out being concerned for holiness, but some ended at exclusion. They started out seeking to recognise God in all aspects of life, but some of them ended by seeking recognition at banquets and in the synagogue (verses 6-7).

Christ calls us to live in such a way that we can say to the world: ‘Do as we say and do as we do.’

The problem here may not so much be a conflict between words and actions, but the need to make the connection between words and actions. Words must mean what they point to, and the actions must be capable of being described in words.

Most of us, as children, learned by watching how adults behave, we learn as members of the human community. As a child, when I needed to learn how to use a fork, I did not need a lecture on the hygienic and sanitary contributions that forks have made to the benefit of European lifestyles since the introduction of the fork through Byzantium and Venice to mediaeval Europe; I did not need an engineering lecture on the practicalities and difficulties of balancing the prongs and the handle; I would have been too young to read a delightful chapter by Judith Herrin in one of her books on how the fork-using Byzantines were much more sophisticated than their western allies or rivals who ate with their hands (Judith Herrin, Byzantium – the Surprising Life of a Mediaeval Empire, London: Allen Lane, 2007, Chapter 19).

The same principle applies to everything else, as is pointed out by Andrew Davison, now Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. In Imaginative Apologetics (London: SCM Press, 2011), he points out how the same principle applies to how we learn about everything else in life – cups, books, bicycles and so on. He might have added love – the love of God and the love of one another.

Over the years, I have often visited the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin. There, in the Great Palm House, are the steps on which the great German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly sat in contemplation and thought while he was living in Dublin in the late 1940s.

Even if we find Wittgenstein difficult to read, we can find useful insights in his writings.

Wittgenstein teaches us that thinking and language must be inter-connected. ‘Words have meaning only in the stream of life,’ he says. Thinking requires language, language is a communal experience, and, as Davison points out, we learn language as members of a human community and through induction into common human practices.

We can talk to others about prayer, forgiveness, and most of all about love itself. But if it only remains talk and has no application, then the words have no meaning.

In the verses before this reading (Matthew 22: 34-46), Christ tells the lawyer sent by the Pharisees and the Sadducees that the greatest commandments are to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ and to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ And, he adds: ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

If the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the young lawyer were teaching and acting in conformity with these laws, if their words and actions were inter-connected, then there would have been an unassailable ring of authenticity to their teaching.

We may say we believe in the two great commandments, but we only show we believe in them with credibility when we live them out in our lives. There must be no gap that separates what we teach and how we live out what we teach in our lives.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 3 March 2026):

The theme this week (1-7 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Saint David’s Day’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Sarah Rosser, Team Vicar in the Netherwent Ministry Area, Diocese of Monmouth, Church in Wales.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 3 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We pray for the people of Wales and the Church in Wales. May the Church serve local communities with compassion. Lord, open our eyes to the needs around us and fill us with love for all your children.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord 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 God,
you see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:
keep us both outwardly in our bodies,
and inwardly in our souls;
that we may be defended from all adversities
which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
by the prayer and discipline of Lent
may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings,
and by following in his Way
come to share in his glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The table remains bare if our words and our actions are not inter-connected … the Long Gallery or Dining Hall in the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street, Tamworth (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 Christmas 2025-2026: 35, Wednesday 28 January 2026

‘And these are the ones sown on the good soil’ (Mark 4: 20) … a glimpse of a garden in the cloisters in Arkadi Monastery in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation next Monday (2 February 2026). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 25 January 2026), and today the Church Calendar remembers Thomas Aquinas (1274), priest, philosopher and teacher of the faith.

Later this evening, I hope to be part of the choir rehearsals for Candlemas 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, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 4: 1-20 (NRSVA):

1 Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. 2 He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ 9 And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’

10 When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12 in order that

“they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven”.’

13 And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. 20 And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’

‘These are the ones on the path where the word is sown’ (Mark 4: 14) … spring growth on the pathway to the beach at Platanias in suburban Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflections:

Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of his Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2), and in this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 1-20), he describe the ‘kingdom of God’ using images of a sower scattering seed on the ground in the hope and expectation of growth and the harvest.

I am not good at sowing, not good at growing plants or trees, and certainly not good at growing them from seed.

I like to explain this away by excuses such as heavy hay fever since childhood or claiming I do not have green fingers. But to tell the truth it may be because of a combination of faults: because I expect quick results and because I expect perfection.

I enjoy sitting in the garden, reading, eating in the open, listening to the fountain, but not wedding the flower beds, tending the plants or mowing the lawn. In short, I don’t do gardening, I don’t do garden centres.

But some years ago visiting both the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin and the Lavender Field at Avoca in Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow, on the same weekend I found myself unexpectedly appreciating gardens and growing and growth. In both cases, these are places where people with vision did not expect immediate results.

The Botanic Gardens were founded in Glasnevin in 1795 by people with vision such as the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, John Foster. But it was another 40 years or more before the basic shape of the gardens was established by 1838.

David Moore, who was appointed curator that year, had the vision to develop the glasshouse accommodation, and he commissioned Richard Turner, the great Dublin ironmaster, to provide an iron house to replace the previous wooden house.

Work on the main curvilinear glasshouse started in 1843. It was a vision for the future and a gift to the future. Those who planned it and devoted their energy to building those glasshouses in Glasnevin had no idea of the pleasure they were bequeathing to future generations, and today the glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens stand as a great achievement of Victorian engineering, planning and vision.

In many ways, the buildings they planned and the seeds sown in them have brought forth not just thirtyfold, but sixtyfold, a hundredfold, and perhaps even more. Today, the living collections at the National Botanic Gardens include over 300 endangered species from around the world, and six species already extinct in the wild. These are a vital resource, and the staff there speak of them like a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for the future.

In those glasshouses, Victorian architecture, engineering, art and science come together. Without careful, measured, timing and proper planning we would not see the results today.

The Lavender Field in Kilmacanogue, outside Bray, is a more recent example of planning carefully and reaping the benefits in measured ways over the years.

The Lavender Farm owes its origins to Brian Cox and Donald Pratt, who had the idea in 1983 of starting an Irish perfume company, and moved to Kilmacangoue in 1987. Some of their fragrances are sourced from lavender from their own field, across the road from their offices in Kilmacanogue.

Forty years or so later, this ‘field of dreams,’ nestling between the two Sugarloaf mountains, is producing top quality lavender oil and provides the inspiration for many of the company’s ideas. The lavender is harvested every summer and the Lavender Harvest Party celebrates nature’s amazing gift of the golden oil from the lavender.

Some of the lavender is actually growing along the roadside, even on the rocky waste left on the margins of the motorway. But without the seed that had fallen by the roadside and the rocky places, I might never have noticed the lavender that is growing on the deep, rich soil, and producing this abundant harvest.

Nonetheless, this lavender field has taken a generation to reach the maturity that is its glory today.

Too often we expect immediate results. And too often we judge whether a project is a success or a failure by asking whether it is producing immediate, measurable, visible apparent results. If not, we dismiss that project as an immediate failure.

Just because something works now does not mean it is right for the future. Just because something does not work now does not mean it is wrong for the future. Like the Victorian engineers who had vision in Glasnevin almost two centuries ago, we may not see the growth that follows our work today. Like a sower scattering seed, I sometimes think of God sowing seeds in the minds of many people that eventually grow into full bloom.

In one of his less well-known poems, ‘The Last Laugh’ (1974), John Betjeman wrote:

I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold.

The Victorian glasshouses in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, are a visible lesson in planting seeds with hope for the future (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 28 January 2026):

The theme this week (25-31 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Connections That Last’ (pp 22-23). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Paula de Mello Alves, a Brazilian lawyer and theologian, Executive Secretary of the Southern Diocese, and former co-leader of the Anglican Communion Youth Network (ACYN).

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 28 January 2026) invites us to pray:

Father, we thank you for the space ACYN provides for young Anglicans to feel seen, supported, and inspired to grow in faith.

The Collect:

Eternal God,
who enriched your Church with the learning and holiness
of your servant Thomas Aquinas:
give to all who seek you
a humble mind and a pure heart
that they may know your Son Jesus Christ
as the way, the truth and the life;
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 Thomas Aquinas to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Spring growth and spring colours on Tsouderon Street in Rethymnon (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 Lavender Field, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow … an example of planning carefully and reaping the benefits over the years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As President Michael D Higgins steps down after 14 years, he has earned the nation’s gratitude

With President Michael D Higgins and Brendan Howlin during the 2011 Presidential election campaign at the Wexford Ambassadors initiative in Iveagh House, Dublin

Patrick Comerford

President Michael D Higgins formally relinquishes office as President of Ireland at midnight tonight (Monday 10 November 2025), and Catherine Connolly becomes president at an inauguration ceremony in Dublin Castle tomorrow (Tuesday 11 November 2025).

In her inauguration speech, she is expected to indicate some of the themes and priorities of her presidency and the projects she hopes to undertake. After her election victory, she spoke in Dublin Castle of a new-style Republic, so tomorrow she may touch on that and on her plans to revisit communities across the country she visited during her campaign.

As President Michael D Higgins prepares to step down tonight, I find it appropriate to look back on my memories of his commitment to peace and social justice, and some of the many achievements of this president, poet, politician, academic and campaigner.

I first got to know Michael Higgins over 50 years ago. We were both delegates at the Labour Party conference in Cork in 1973, when he slept on the floor in the rooms I was sharing with Philip orish, another Wexford constituency delegate in Moore’s Hotel.

Both as a senator (1973-1977, 1983-1987) and as a TD (1981-1982, 1987-2011), he was an active supporter of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), took part in the protests against President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Ireland in 1984 and later against the war in Iraq, and was also deeply committed to campaign groups focussed on Latin American issues, particularly in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

In those years, we took part together in many protests outside the US Embassy in Dublin. I was among his guests in the Mansion House in Dublin in 1992 when he was presented with the Sean MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Prize – Sean MacBride had been president of both Irish CND and the IPB.

The measure of the man’s international acclaim as a poet, a key figure in shaping cultural policies across Europe and his reputation internationally was edident when I was writing regularly for The Irish Times on Greek politics and culture in the 1990s. Once when I was interviewing the Greek Minister of Culture, Professor Evangelos Venizelos, in Athens, the first person he asked about was Michael D Higgins, and he asked me to convey much he appreciated both his poetry and his standing among politicians in Pasok and other European socialist parties.

With President Michael D Higgins at a Pax Christi seminar on cluster munitions in Dublin in 2008

I was invited, unexpectedly, in 2008 to chair a seminar organised by Pax Christi, the International Catholic Peace Movement, on the topic: ‘Towards a Comprehensive Ban on Cluster Bombs.’ The seminar also saw the launch of Pax Christi’s campaign, ‘Make Cluster Bombs History.’

The speakers included Michael D Higgins, then President of the Labour Party and Labour spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, the President of Pax Christi Ireland, Bishop Raymond Field, and Joe Little of RTÉ, who spoke on the effects of cluster munitions in Lebanon.

When Mr Higgins was elected President in 2011, peace and anti-war groups, including PANA, the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM), Shannonwatch and Galway Alliance Against War (GAAW), expressed the hope that his time as President would further the cause of peace and bring a renewed focus on the importance of Irish neutrality, causes he has passionately defended throughout his political career.

He consistently opposed the use of Shannon, a civilian airport, for the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. He was critical of the apparent Irish collusion with the US government in relation to suspected rendition flights through Shannon, and he once called on the government to withdraw Irish military personnel from Afghanistan. Hundreds of armed US troops passed through Shannon Airport each day without any oversight or inspection of planes suspected of carrying illegally kidnapped prisoners, CIA assassination crews or dangerous munitions.

President McAleese opened the doors of Áras an Uachtaráin to people working for peace, development and human rights

When his presidential election campaign began in June 2011, Michael D Higgins was one of the speakers at the launch of the Wexford Ambassadors programme in Iveagh House, Dublin. The programme was launched by the Minister for Public Expenditure, Brendan Howlin, Labour TD for Wexford, and the chair of Wexford County Council, Councillor Michael Kavangh. The first four appointed Wexford Ambassadors that evening were the writers Colm Tóibín and Eoin Colfer, the rugby international Gordon D’Arcy and the soccer international Kevin Doyle. His predecessor as President, President Mary McAleese, opened the doors of Áras an Uachtaráin to those she encouraged in work for peace, development, human rights and interfaith dialogue.

She warmly welcomed me to Áras an Uachtaráin on Sean MacBride’s 100th birthday; when she publicly thanked and affirmed Development and Mission workers and agencies for work in Africa; and when an interfaith group of Christians and Muslims from Egypt were visiting Ireland in 2006.

President Higgins was in office during the difficult ‘decade of centenaries’, including those of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant, the 1913 Lock-Out, World War I and its many battles, the 1916 Rising, the First Dail and the Irish War of Independence, and he lived up to his pledge that in office he would continue President McAleese’s work to help heal the wounds of the Troubles in Ireland.

His first official engagement as President of Ireland was attending the Remembrance Sunday service in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and he was there again as President for the last time yesterday. His second inauguration ceremony in 2018 was held in the evening so that he could attend the Armistice Day commemorations in the morning – two opportunities that President-elect Connolly should not miss when she is in office and seeks to demonstrate that she is the President for all the people.

Bruce Kent and President Michael D Higgins at the presentation of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize medals in All Hallows College, Drumcondra in 2012 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A year after his inauguration, and 20 years after he received the Sean MacBride Peace Prize, President Higgins was invited by the International Peace Bureau to present the 2012 Sean MacBride Peace Prize to two Arab activists, Dr Lina Ben Mhenni from Tunisia and Dr Nawal El-Sadaawi from Egypt, for their courage and contributions to the ‘Arab Spring.’ I was present as President of Irish CND at the ceremony and his address in All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra, that evening.

The ceremony marked the opening of the annual conference of the International Peace Bureau, and it was the first time the IPB council ever met in Ireland in over 100 years of its history. Old friends and fellow campaigners who were there that night included Caitriona Lawlor, who worked for many years with Sean MacBride, Brendan Butler, a long-time activist on Central American rights, David Hutchinson-Edgar of Irish CND, Roger Cole of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, Joe Murray of Afri, Tony D’Souza of Pax Christi, and Rob Farmichael, the nonviolence activist.

The evening ended in conversation with President Higgins and the veteran international peace activist, the late Bruce Kent, who had been a personal friend since the mid-1970s.

Canon Patrick Comerford speaking at the National Famine Commemoration in Glasnevin Cemetery with President Michael D Higgins in 2016 (Photograph: Church Review)

President Higgins and I both spoke at the annual National Famine Commemoration in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, in 2016, when he accused European nations failing to respond to their humanitarian obligations to refugees and said they should learn the lessons of the Great Famine in Ireland. He compared some of the rhetoric used today about people crossing the Mediterranean ‘marine grave’ to media reports during the worst period of Ireland’s 19th century catastrophe. Between 1845 and 1849, over a million people died of hunger and related diseases, and two million fled a country ‘with no hope.’ Many who emigrated faced fresh marginalisation on arrival on foreign shores.

President Higgins asked: ‘Is there not a lesson for all of us, as we are faced in our own time with the largest number of displaced people since World War II, as the Mediterranean becomes, for many, a marine grave, as European nations fail to respond to their humanitarian obligations?’

I was at that commemorative service on behalf of the Church of Ireland and said in my prayers: ‘As we remember those who were driven from this land in their hunger, in their thirst, and in their quest for justice and mercy, and how they left on the high seas, let us pray for those who are driven from their own lands as they hungered and thirsted for justice and mercy.’

I added: ‘Let us pray in particular for the people of Syria, for those who are on the high seas in the Aegean and the Mediterranean, and those who flee places where climate change and our inaction deprives them of justice and forces them to choose between, on the one hand, hunger and thirst at home, and short measures of justice and mercy in the countries they reach.’

Another speaker that Sunday was the then Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Ms Heather Humphreys, the other candidate in last month’s Presidential election.

Ireland has been well served by Michael D Higgins as President of Ireland, and he has used the office to keep reminding everyone of important values both at home and internationally.

President Michael D Higgins at the presentation of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize in All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra, in 2012

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 105, Saturday 23 August 2025

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … dinner by the beach in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X, 24 August 2025) and the feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle.

Today begins the August summer bank holiday weekend in England. 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.

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … a restaurant in Bettystown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 1-12 (NRSVA):

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

Rabbi Zalman Lent in the synagogue on Rathfarnham Road, Dublin, with tallit and teffilin, signs of keeping God’s word before us (Photograph: Orla Ryan)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday (Matthew 22: 34-06), we learned how all the Law and the Prophets – everything taught by Moses and Prophets – depends on, hangs on, the two great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour.

His summary of those guidelines for living came in a conversation Jesus had with a lawyer in the Temple, in front of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the two groups most concerned with teaching what is meant by the Law and the Prophets.

In this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 23: 1-12), we are still in the Temple with Christ in Holy Week, the week leading up to his Passion, Death and Resurrection. There in the Temple, Christ has silenced his critics among the Sadducees and the Pharisees, showing their lack of understanding of the core messages of the Prophets and the Law in the Bible.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, he turns to speak ‘to the crowds and to his disciples’ about the scribes and the Pharisees, and their attitude to and teaching of the Law and the Bible.

Christ tells the people in the Temple that the Pharisees have authority to teach the Law, and he concedes that they are in an unbroken chain that goes back to Moses, for they ‘sit on Moses’ seat’ (verse 2).

But while honouring their teachings, the people should be wary of their practices. In their interpretation of the Law, they impose heavy burdens on others, yet do not follow the Law themselves.

Externally, they appear pious. They wear teffelin or phylacteries, small, black, leather boxes, on their left arms and foreheads with four Biblical passages as a ‘sign’ and ‘remembrance’ that God liberated their ancestors from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 13: 1-10; Exodus 13: 11-16; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; and Deuteronomy 11: 13-21). They also have lengthy fringes or tassels on their prayer shawls (tallitot, singular talit), as visible reminders of the 613 commandments in the Law (see Numbers 15: 38, Deuteronomy 22: 12).

Christ gives four examples of vanity (verse 6-7): they love places of honour at banquets, the best seats in the synagogues, being greeted with respect publicly, and being called ‘Rabbi,’ which means master and later becomes a title for the leader in a synagogue.

We are warned about the dangers built into loving honorific titles, such as ‘teacher,’ ‘father’ and instructor (see verses 8-10) – perhaps for me that means Canon and Professor – because, of course, we are all students, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all disciples, and we are all children of God.

Yet I too am a father and have been a teacher and a tutor. Is Christ warning against the position; or against seeking honours that have not been earned?

It is a truism that parents must earn the respect of their children, not seek or demand it. Most parents have, at one time or another, said to their children: ‘Do what I tell you, not what I do.’ Needless to say, children never listen to parents when we say something so silly.

All parents know, on the other hand, that actions speak louder than words.

Perhaps this morning’s reading reflects later tensions between the Jewish synagogue and the new Christian community. But, in Christ’s own days, people expected a Pharisee to be a careful observer of the Law. Unlike the Temple priests and village elders, the Pharisees did not have a high social status.

Before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 CE, the Pharisees were a relatively modest group of people without political power and they tried to live out Jewish tradition and the Torah seriously and conscientiously in their daily lives. The Pharisees saw the Law as applying not only to every aspect of public life, but to every aspect of private, domestic, daily life too.

There is another well-worn statement: ‘It’s not where you start out but where you end up.’ The Pharisees started out with good intentions, but some of them ended by seeking to be great, seeking to be exalted (verses 11-12). They started out being concerned for holiness, but some ended at exclusion. They started out seeking to recognise God in all aspects of life, but some of them ended by seeking recognition at banquets and in the synagogue (verses 6-7).

Christ calls us to live in such a way that we can say to the world: ‘Do as we say and do as we do.’

The problem here may not so much be a conflict between words and actions, but the need to make the connection between words and actions. Words must mean what they point to, and the actions must be capable of being described in words.

Most of us, as children, learned by watching how adults behave, we learn as members of the human community. As a child, when I needed to learn how to use a fork, I did not need a lecture on the hygienic and sanitary contributions that forks have made to the benefit European lifestyles since the introduction of the fork through Byzantium and Venice to mediaeval Europe; I did not need an engineering lecture on the practicalities and difficulties of balancing the prongs and the handle; I would have been too young to read a delightful chapter by Judith Herrin in one of her books on how the fork-using Byzantines were much more sophisticated than their western allies or rivals who ate with their hands (Judith Herrin, Byzantium – the Surprising Life of a Mediaeval Empire, London: Allen Lane, 2007).

The same principle applies to everything else, as Andrew Davison, Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford, points out in his contribution to Imaginative Apologetics (London: SCM Press, 2011), the same principle applies to how we learn about everything else in life – cups, books, bicycles and so on. He might have added love – the love of God and the love of one another.

On a number of occasions, I have visited the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin. There, in the Great Palm House, are the steps on which the great 20th century German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly sat in contemplation and thought while he was living in Dublin in the late 1940s.

Even for those who find Wittgenstein difficult to read, he offers useful insights in his writings.

Wittgenstein teaches us that thinking and language must be inter-connected. ‘Words have meaning only in the stream of life,’ he says. Thinking requires language, language is a communal experience, and, as Davison points out, we learn language as members of a human community and through induction into common human practices.

We can talk about prayer, forgiveness, and most of all about love itself, to others. But if it only remains talk and has no application, then the words have no meaning.

Saint Paul reminds the members of the Church in Thessaloniki (I Thessalonians 2: 9-13) that they are witnesses to Christ not only in their beliefs but in the way they live their lives and in their conduct towards the new Church members.

Like a father teaching his children, he urges and encourages them, and pleads with them to walk in God’s ways, so that God’s word becomes made active in those who believe. In All Saints-tide, this is good advice on how to live as saints, as part of the Communion of Saints.

We might remind ourselves that when Christ tells the lawyer sent by the Pharisees and the Sadducees that the greatest commandments are to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ and to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ And, he adds: ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’ (see Matthew 22: 34-46),

If the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the young lawyer were teaching and acting in conformity with these laws, if their words and actions were inter-connected, then there would have been an unassailable ring of authenticity to their teaching.

We may say we believe in the two great commandments, but we only show we believe in them with credibility when we live them out in our lives. There must be no gap that separates what we teach and how we live out what we teach in our lives.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 23 August 2025):

The theme this week (17 to 23 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Tell the Full Story’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections from Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 23 August 2025, International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition) invites us to pray:

Father, today we honour the lives lost to the slave trade and the struggles of all who fought for its abolition. May we never forget the past, and may we be inspired to work towards a future of justice, equality, and freedom for all.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
revive your Church in our day,
and make her holy, strong and faithful,
for your glory’s sake
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity X:

Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions
make them to ask such things as shall please you;
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.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Bartholomew:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace
truly to believe and to preach your word:
grant that your Church
may love that word which he believed
and may faithfully preach and receive the same;
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.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The table remains bare if our words and our actions are not inter-connected … tables at a restaurant in Baker Street, London, this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

Daily prayer in Lent 2025: 28, Tuesday 1 April 2025

A window depicting Christ the healer in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, depicts Christ healing the man at the pool (see John 5: 1-16) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV) and Mothering Sunday, and we have arrived at the beginning of a new month. Today (1 April), the Church Calendar in the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), priest, teacher of the faith.

Later this evening, I have been invited to speak in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, at an event at 7 pm in the Comberford Chapel organised by Dr David Biggs and the Tamworth and District Civic Society to mark the 300th anniversary of a Comberford family memorial in 1725.

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

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The healing of the man by the pool … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 5: 1-3, 5-16 (NRSVA):

1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralysed.

5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ 7 The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ 8 Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ 11 But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.”’ 12 They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14 Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

Jerusalem … the site of the Pool of Bethesda

Today’s Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (John 5: 1-3, 5-16), Jesus goes to Jerusalem for a feast. At the Pool of Betheseda, he heals a paralysed man. Jesus tells him to ‘Pick up your mat and walk!’ This takes place on the sabbath. Many people see the man carrying his mat and tell him this is against the law. He tells them the man who healed him told him to do so, and they ask who that was. He tries to point to Jesus, but Jesus has slipped away into the crowd. Jesus comes to him later and tells him: ‘Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.’ The man then tells people it was Jesus who healed him.

This story is very similar to a story in the synoptic Gospels (see Mark 2, Matthew 9 and Luke 5), but the paralysed man comes to Jesus at his home in Capernaum, and Jesus at first says the sins of the man are forgiven and only when people question his ability to forgive sins does Christ say that he could have said to the man pick up your mat and walk.

People begin to persecute Jesus because he is working on the sabbath. But there is more stirring under the waters.

Once again, we are introduced to a story in Saint John’s Gospel with a water setting. They include the Baptism of Christ by John in the River Jordan, the Wedding at Cana, where water is turned into wine, and the conversation with the Samaritan women at the well, where Jesus talks of himself as the living water that bring eternal life.

Like the waters of the Jordan, there is also a comparison with the waters of creation. Although verse 3, with the introduction of the angel who hovers over the water, is now questioned by scholars, nevertheless it points to the way this story was linked by the early church with the story of creation and the story of Christ’s baptism.

What do you think is the symbolism of the five porticos? Whether archaeologists have found these porticos is another question. But there is the cross-reference to the story of the Samaritan woman, for example. Once again, by choosing his setting, the writer of the Fourth Gospel is building up our expectations. There is a promise here not only of healing and wholeness but also of eternal life.

Bethesda is the name of a series of pools in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, on the path of the Beth Zeta Valley. In Greek Biblical manuscripts its name is often mistaken for the name of the town of Bethsaida. Its name may be derived from the Aramaic beth hesda, meaning either ‘house of mercy’ or ‘house of grace.’

Since the 4th century CE it has also been called the Sheep Pool, but this is now thought to be a translation error. It is associated with healing. The Fourth Gospel describes the pool’s location using the Greek word προβατικῇ (probatike), which literally means ‘pertaining to sheep.’ In the early 4th century, Eusebius interpreted this as the sheep-pool, and later Church Fathers repeated this suggestion, so that it also appears in some translations. However, it is now thought that the term προβατικῇ (probatike) refers to Bethesda being located near to the Sheep-gate, a gate in the former city wall, near the Lion Gate in the present city wall.

The history of the pool dates back to the 8th century BCE, when a dam was built across the short Beth Zeta valley. Around 200 BCE, when Simon II was the High Priest, the channel was enclosed, and a second pool was added on the south side of the dam. Although there is a popular legend that claims that this pool was used for washing sheep, this is very unlikely due to the pool’s use as a water supply, and its depth of 13 metres.

In the 1st century BCE, natural caves to the east of the two pools were turned into small baths, as part of an ασκληπιεῖον (asklepieion) or healing temple. However, the Mishnah implies that at least one of these new pools was sacred to Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, rather than Asclepius (Ἀσκληπιός), the god of healing. According to the Fourth Gospel, this pool was a swimming bath (κολυμβήθρα, kolumbethra) with five porticos – although this was translated as porches in older translations – close to the probatike or Sheep-Gate. Archaeologically, the reference to five porticos is not yet fully understood, as the only applicable structure found in the pools themselves has three porticos rather than five. The closest alternative match is to the five colonnades of the asklepieion itself.

Saint John’s Gospel describes the porticos as a place in which large numbers of infirm people were waiting, which corresponds with the site’s use in the 1st century as an asklepieion.

Some scholars suggest the narrative is actually part of a deliberate polemic against the cult of Asclepius, an antagonism possibly brought on partly by the fact that Asclepius was worshipped as Saviour (Σωτήρ, Soter) because of his healing attributes.

The narrative uses the Greek phrase ὑγιὴς γενέσθαι; (hygies genesthai? Do you want to be made well?), which is not used anywhere in the three Synoptic Gospels.

It is not clear what feast provides the setting for this event. Some think it is the Feast of Pentecost, which comes 50 days after the Passover. Others suggest the Feast of the Spring Harvest. By the time of Christ, Pentecost had become the feast of renewing the Sinai Covenant, since Moses arrived at Sinai 50 days after the Passover in Egypt. Later in this chapter, the references to Jesus the judge (verses 22 and 30) and to Moses’ witness to Jesus (verses 46-47) appear to echo the themes of the Sinai law and covenant associated with the feast of Pentecost.

After the word ‘paralysed’ in verse 3, later manuscripts add, wholly or in part, an explanatory statement: ‘waiting for the stirring of the water; 4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.’

These words have become part of popular tradition, but are missing from the best manuscripts, and modern scholarship thinks these extra details are unlikely to have been part of the original text, and many modern translations do not include the troubling of the water or the angel tradition.

But some ancient manuscripts say these people were waiting for the troubling of the water. A few manuscripts also move the setting away from Roman rituals into something more appropriate to Judaism, by adding that an angel would occasionally stir the waters, which would then cure the first person to enter.

Verse 9 introduces the fact this healing took place on a sabbath. The problem for the authorities is not that the man was healed, or that he was healed on the Sabbath, but that he breached a prohibition on lifting and carrying a mat on the Sabbath, which amounts to work. They ask him who has healed him, who has told him to break the Sabbath law. But the man does not know.

Although God rested after six days of creation, it does not mean that God ceased to care for creation or to take an interest in its affairs. God continues to work on the Sabbath, giving life, rewarding good and punishing evil.

How would you make the connections between the waters of creation, Christ as the living water, and the waters of baptism?

What do you mean when you pray for healing for yourself or others?

How do you respond when those prayers appear not to have been answered?

The Angel at the Pool of Bethesda (Robert Bateman)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 1 April 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 ‘Inspiration of the Holy Spirit.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Rock Higgins, Rector of Saint James the Less Episcopal Church, Ashland, Virginia, and the Triangle of Hope Youth Pilgrimage Lead for the Diocese of Virginia.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 1 April 2025) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the work of the Triangle of Hope and all their corresponding dioceses.

The Collect:

Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
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,
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The Blind Boy … a sculpture in the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin (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