COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
The icon of the Dormition by Alexandra Kaouki in the old town of Rethymnon in Crete
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship lists today simply and plainly as ‘the Blessed Virgin Mary’, without specifying what aspect of her life or death is being commemorated.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
The icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos or the Virgin Mary in the Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Luke 1: 46-55 (NRSVA):
46 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
The Virgin Mary depicted in the Dormition of the Theotokos, an icon in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Reflection:
It was my privilege in Crete some years ago to watch a new icon on this theme in Orthodoxy being shaped and created by Alexandra Kaouki, perhaps the most talented and innovative iconographer in Crete today, as she worked in her studio, then below the Venetian Fortezza in the old town of Rethymnon.
She was creating this new icon for the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, or the Little Church of Our Lady (Mikri Panagia), on a small square in the old town. It was a careful, slow, step-by-step work in progress, based on El Greco’s celebrated icon. But, as her work progressed, Alexandra made what she describes as ‘necessary corrections’ to allow her to ‘entirely follow the Byzantine rules.’
The best-known version of this icon is by El Greco, or Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541-1614), created in Crete probably before 1567. Alexandra and I discussed why El Greco places three candelabra in front of the bier. Perhaps he is using them as a Trinitarian symbol. However, Alexandra has returned to the traditional depiction of only one to remain true to Byzantine traditions.
How many of the Twelve should be depicted?
Should Saint Thomas be shown, or was he too late?
Why did she omit stories from later developments in the tradition, yet introduce women?
Alexandra completed her icon in time for the Feast of the Dormition in Rethymnon on 15 August that year.
The icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos or Virgin Mary usually bears the lettering Η Κοιμησις τησ Θεοτοκου, or ‘the falling asleep of the Theotokos’.
In the Calendar of the Orthodox Church, the Feast of the Dormition (Κοίμησις) or the Falling Asleep of the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary is on 15 August. For Roman Catholics, it is the Feast of the Assumption.
In his guidebook, The Holy Land, the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor points out that two places in Jerusalem are traditionally associated with the end of the Virgin Mary’s earthly life: a monastery on Mount Zion is the traditional site of her death or falling asleep; and the basilica in the Garden of Gethsemane is said to be the site of her tomb.
Since the end of the 19th century, however, Mereyama, 8 km east of Selçuk, near ancient Ephesus and the coastal resort of Kuşadasi, has been venerated by many Roman Catholics as the site of her last earthly home. This tradition is based not on tradition or history, but on the writings of an 18th century German nun and visionary, Sister Catherine Emmerich, who never left her own country, and the interpretation of her visions by some late 19th century French Lazarist priests who were living in Smyrna (Izmir). The pilgrim industry was boosted by a papal visit in 1967.
The Feast of the Dormition is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church. However, this belief has never been formally defined as dogma by the Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Church teaches that the Virgin Mary died a natural death, like any human being; that her soul was received by Christ when she died; and that her body was resurrected on the third day after her burial and was taken up into heaven, so that her tomb was found empty on the third day.
The death or Dormition of Mary is not recorded in the New Testament. Hippolytus of Thebes, writing in the seventh or eighth century, claims in his partially preserved chronology to the New Testament that the Virgin Mary lived for 11 years after the death of Jesus and died in the year 41 CE.
On the other hand, Roman Catholic teaching says she was ‘assumed’ into heaven in bodily form. Some Roman Catholics agree with the Orthodox that this happened after her death, while others hold that she did not experience death. In his dogmatic definition of the Assumption in 1950, Pope Pius XII appears to leave open the question of whether or not she actually underwent death and even alludes to the fact of her death at least five times.
In the Orthodox tradition, Mary died as all people die, for she had a mortal human nature like all of us. The Orthodox Church teaches that Mary was subject to being saved from the trials, sufferings, and death of this world by Christ. Having died truly, she was raised by him and she already takes part in the eternal life that is promised to all who ‘hear the word of God and keep it’ (Luke 11: 27-28). But what happens to Mary happens to all who imitate her holy life of humility, obedience and love.
In the Orthodox tradition, it is said that after the Day of Pentecost, the Theotokos remained in Jerusalem with the infant Church, living in the house of Saint John the Evangelist. That tradition says she was in her 50s at the time of her death. As the early Christians stood around her deathbed, she commended her spirit to God, and tradition says Christ then descended from Heaven, taking up her soul in his arms. The apostles sang funeral hymns in her honour and carried her body to a tomb in Cedron near Gethsemane. When a man tried to interrupt their solemn procession, an angel came and cut off his hands, but he was healed later.
The story says that the Apostle Thomas arrived on the third day and wished to see the Virgin Mary for the last time. The stone was rolled back, and an empty tomb was discovered. Orthodox tradition says that the Theotokos was resurrected bodily and taken to heaven, and teaches that the same reward awaits all the righteous on the Last Day.
Icons of the Dormition date from the 10th century. In traditional icons of the Dormition, the Theotokos is shown on the funeral bier. Christ, who is standing behind her, has come to receive his mother’s soul into heaven. In his left arm, he holds her as an infant in white, symbolising the soul of the Theotokos reborn in her glory in heaven.
Greek icons of the Dormition follow a 1,000-year-old tradition that some say dates back to early texts.
Behind the bier, Christ stands robed in white and – as in icons of the Transfiguration, the Resurrection and the Last Judgment – he appears surrounded by the aureole, or elongated halo, depicting the Light of his Divinity and signifying his heavenly glory.
Christ receives the soul of the Mother of God, but here the imagery reverses the traditional picture of mother and son, as he holds her soul, like a child, in his arms.
The Twelve Apostles are present; sometimes they are shown twice: grouped around the bier, and transported to the scene on clouds accompanied by angels. The Apostles are usually seen on either side of the bier – the group on the left led by Saint Peter, who stands at the head of the bier; the group on the right led by Saint Paul, who stands at the foot of the bier.
Many icons include four early Christian writers, identified by their bishops’ robes decorated with crosses – James, Dionysios the Areopagite, Hierotheos and Timotheos of Ephesus. In the background, mourning women are a reminder of the women who wept when they met Christ carrying his cross to Calvary, or the women who arrived at his tomb early on Easter morning ready to anoint his dead body.
The cherubim in blue, the seraphim in red and the golden stars in these icons refer to the hierarchy of cosmic powers. Archangels are present in the foreground in the lower left and right corners. In the centre foreground, the Archangel Michael threatens the non-believing Jephonias who dared to touch her bier in an attempt to disrupt her funeral. The story is told that his hands were cut off but that later they were miraculously restored when he repented, was converted to Christianity, and was baptised.
In Greece, this celebration is called ‘Little Easter’ or ‘Summer Easter’, indicating the significance of the Dormition in Orthodox faith and in the church calendar. The day is marked with many festivals in villages and towns throughout the country, and this is the name day for many, including Maria, Mario, Panagiotis, Panagiota, Despina, Parthena, Miriam and Mariam. A common greeting today is Καλή Παναγία
In the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship, 15 August is marked simply as ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary’, without any indication of any event in her life or any commemoration.
A reflection in the parish leaflet in Stony Stratford and Calverton last year described the Assumption as ‘a powerful reminder that like her we have all been promised a share in the Resurrection of the Lord.’ It added that our celebration ‘is a sign of hope for us as we face death which seems to be the end of everything that is good in our lives.’
Καλή Παναγία
A detail in the icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos or the Virgin Mary in the Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 15 August 2025, the Blessed Virgin Mary):
The theme this week (10 to 16 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Serving God in the Gulf’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections from Joyaline Rajamani, Administrator at the Church of the Epiphany, Doha, Anglican Church in Qatar.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (15 August 2025, the Blessed Virgin Mary) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:
Pray in light of Luke 1: 45 ‘Blessed is she who had faith that the Lord's promises would be fulfilled.’ All generations shall call her blessed.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who looked upon the lowliness of the Blessed Virgin Mary
and chose her to be the mother of your only Son:
grant that we who are redeemed by his blood
may share with her in the glory of your eternal kingdom;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God most high,
whose handmaid bore the Word made flesh:
we thank you that in this sacrament of our redemption
you visit us with your Holy Spirit
and overshadow us by your power;
strengthen us to walk with Mary the joyful path of obedience
and so to bring forth the fruits of holiness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
In my prayers this morning I am also remembering Father Louis Brennan, who died last Tuesday (12 August) at the age of 95, and whose funeral takes place alter this morning in the Franciscan Church, Merchants’ Quay, Dublin, followed by burial at Shanganagh Cemetery. He was my most outstanding and inspiring teacher when I was at school in Gormanston College, Co Meath, in the 1960s.
He became the Rector of Gormanston, and was later Minister Provincial of the Franciscan Province of Ireland, Definitor General of the Order, and Secretary General of the Order, and later he was the Provincial Definitor, then Vicar Provincial and Secretary of the Province. He moved to Collegio San Isidoro in Rome in 2005. Louis returned to Ireland in 2020, and later lived in Cork and in Dalkey.
He encouraged me to write, stimulated my interest in poetry and literature, and got me involved in drama, choirs and charity work. His parting advice to our year included to value respect over popularity, and to read Strumpet City. His Franciscan values were one of the greatest gifts he could give me, yet he let me know later in life how he was proud of my achievements as a journalist. I am sure the year of 1969 will be well represented at his Funeral Mass later this morning.
Christ holding his mother’s soul wrapped like a new-born baby … a detail from Alexandra Kaouki’s icon of the Dormition as it neared completion in Rethymnon
Jesus Unrolls the Book in the Synagogue (Jésus dans la synagogue déroule le livre), James Tissot (1831-1902), Brooklyn Museum (see Matthew 13: 54)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and the week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). We have reached the beginning of a new month today.
In many places, in the past, 1 August was known as Lammas, from an Old English word hlāfmæsse, meaning loaf-mass, or as Loaf Mass Day. The name originates from the word ‘loaf’ in reference to bread and ‘Mass’ in reference to the Eucharist. It is a festival to mark the blessing of the First Fruits of harvest, with a loaf of bread being brought to the church for this purpose. Lammastide falls at the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox.
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.
Jesus in the Synagogue, as imagined by the Northern Ireland-born artist Greg Olsen
Matthew 13: 54-58 (NRSVA):
54 He came to his home town and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? 55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?’ 57 And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and in their own house.’ 58 And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.
Stained glass windows in my old school chapel at Gormanston College, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
This morning’s reflection:
Where do you call home, and where do feel most at home?
I have been living for more than three years now in Stony Stratford, on the north-west fringes of Milton Keynes and by the River Ouse, which separates Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.
But I was born on Rathfarnham Road in Dublin, spent parts of my childhood in West Waterford and in Dublin, went to school in Dublin and in Co Meath, began working as a journalist in Lichfield, lived in my early adult years in Wexford, I have lived in different houses in south Dublin from late 1974 until 2017, and I spent five years in parish ministry in west Limerick and north Kerry before moving here.
I have studied in Reading, Dublin, Maynooth, Tokyo, Cambridge and London.
If you were to ask me where I am from, I may look puzzled and sound incoherent as I try to reply. Yet, in my sleep and in my mind’s eye, I still wander easily through the many houses where I have lived and through the classrooms and lecture rooms of the many schools and colleges where I have studied.
I wonder how Jesus would have answered a question like that? He was born in Bethlehem, he spent his early days as a refugee in Egypt, Joseph and Mary seem to have grown up in the small town of Nazareth, they returned there after Jesus’ birth and their exile in Egypt, and he spent his childhood there.
Eventually, though, Jesus moved to the more populated town of Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (see Matthew 9: 1; John 2: 12). He would go on to spend the last period of his ministry in Jerusalem, and was executed outside the city walls.
In this morning’s reading, Jesus returns to visit his ‘home town’, which may have been Nazareth or Capernaum.
In Saint Luke’s Gospel, when he returns to Nazareth, the people try to kill him (see Luke 4: 16-29). This morning’s reading appears to describe a separate occasions.
Both Nazareth and Capernaum, like most towns in that region at that time, had a synagogue. It was common for visiting rabbis to be invited to speak in the synagogue when in town. Jesus did so in Nazareth and Capernaum, and did some miracles there, perhaps of healing, though not do many (Matthew 13: 58).
The reaction to Jesus’ teaching and his miracles was one of astonishment and rejection, and his own people asked where he got this wisdom and the ability to do these mighty works.
If, as an adult, you live far away from home, what do you do when you return home? Do you return home for Christmas, or family events such as weddings and funerals?
Do you visit family members … ageing parents, uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins? Have they changed much since you left? Do they think you have changed much?
Do you walk past the old family home? Do you wonder how the families who now live there have changed the rooms inside? Do you want to see inside your own former bedroom, or regret the front garden has been changed to make way for car parking spaces?
Do you visit your old school? Do you contact old school friends or old teachers? Have they changed much since you left? Do they accept who you have become?
Do you visit the church you knew as a child or teenager, or your old school chapel? Has it changed much – not just in the clergy who are there, but in its layout and design, in its style of worship and the ways in which it emphasises its teachings?
My school year from Gormanston in 1969 meet up every now and then, and met again for lunch in Dublin last September. We shared memories of members of our year who have died since we left, including Tom Lappin and John McCarthy who died last year. It was not only yet another opportunity to meet each other but also to find out how we had been getting on over the previous 55 years, and to affirm one another and renew friendships.
But so often, sadly, we want to tie people to the memories we have of them in the past, memories that may have been distorted over the years, and that can no longer be placed back in their original contexts.
And too often, we know from our life experiences, that assumptions and prejudices can blind us to truth. When we think we know something, or someone, we tend to favour those expectations over new information.
Many, many people in the world think they already know all about Jesus. Many, however – including those who claim to be closest to often – often know very little about him, continue in their assumptions and prejudices, and are offended when they are presented with the truth (Matthew 13: 57).
My old school at Gormanston College, Co Meath … has your old school changed since you left? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 1 August 2025):
The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG prayer diary today (Friday 1 August 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, just like the landlord and AHT team, please bless those who step forward to help. Grant courage to act against injustice.
The Collect:
Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
God of our pilgrimage,
you have led us to the living water:
refresh and sustain us
as we go forward on our journey,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Creator God,
you made us all in your image:
may we discern you in all that we see,
and serve you in all that we do;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
At No 18 High Street, Wexford, I had the whole top floor of the house – all two rooms – to myself … in my sleep, I still wander easily through the many houses I have lived in (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The sun sets on 2024 … sunset at the harbour in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
As the sun sets on 2024, and as I look forward to the New Year and the promises of 2025, I find it helpful this evening to look back on the past year, with all its blessings, and at both the new and the missed opportunities.
The year began on a very low note, with two of us feeling sorry for ourselves and isolated with another round of Covid-19, with no opportunity and no inclination to ring in the New Year. Of course, we recovered, and it is good to reflect on what an interesting year this has been.
As well as visiting places throughout Ireland, north and south, and England, my travels this year brought me to France, Greece, the Netherlands, Singapore and Kuching in East Malaysia.
Presenting a church bell to Father Jeffry Renos Nawie, Saint Matthias Chapel and the people of Sinar Baru
We spent almost five weeks in Kuching (15 October to 18 November), staying for the first week in the Marian, a boutique hotel that had once been the diocesan guesthouse, and before that a school boarding house for a girls’ school and the home of the Ong family.
For the rest of our visit, we stayed for four weeks in Charlotte’s flat in Chinatown, in the heart of the old town of Kuching.
In the past, I have had many working visits to Japan, Korea, China and Hong Kong in East Asia, but this was my first time to visit south-east Asia.
We crossed the river on sampans at night, took a river cruise at sunset, ate out with family members and friends, went swimming in the pool at the Marian, and learned about the work in Kuching of the Irish architect Denis Santry from Cork. We also visited many cathedrals, churches, mosques, a Sikh temple and Chinese or Taoist and Buddhist temples, a theological college and graveyards. I even went in search of the Jewish community of Kuching that never existed.
Father Jeffry Renos Nawie of Saint Augustine’s Church, Mambong, brought us on whistle-stop tours of up to 20 churches in the Diocese of Kuching, including the seven churches and chapels in his own mission district.
In a thank-offering to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, Charlotte and I presented a new church bell to Father Jeffry, Saint Matthias Chapel and the people of Sinar Baru.
There were two stopovers in Singapore in October and November. Because of flight cancellations and rerouting, we missed the first opportunity to stay over in Singapore. But on the return journey we stayed in the Chinatown district of Singapore, visited many of the major sites, and, of course, sought out the street art, took a boat trip on the river and sipped a Singapore Sling in Raffles Hotel.
Once again, I went in search of churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques and Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese temples. It was particularly interesting to see the influence of five key Irish figures on the layout, streets and architecture of Singapore: Sir Orfeur Cavenagh from Wexford, George Drumgoole Coleman from Drogheda, and Denis Santry and Denis Lane McSwiney, both from Cork, and William Cuppage from Dublin.
Early morning on Rue Saint Séverin, in the Latin Quarter of Paris, off the Boulevard Saint-Michel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
My optimum definition of visiting somewhere is staying overnight. Using that yardstick, I have slept in 15 different beds in the past 12 months – not counting the sleeps I tried to catch on two overnight flights between Paris and Singapore, but including an unexpected stay in an hotel at Schiphol Airport in October when our flight from Birmingham to Amsterdam was delayed, and we were rerouted through Paris.
My minimum definition of visiting somewhere is if my feet are on the ground and I stop over long enough to have coffee and something to eat. This means we were in Paris three times this year: a delayed honeymoon in Paris in February, and two very brief stop-overs at Charles de Gaulle Airport in October and November on the way to and from Singapore and Kuching.
Our visit to Paris earlier in the year was what in reality was a delayed honeymoon, just two months after our wedding at the end of last year.
It was my first time to travel on the Eurostar, and we stayed in the Hotel Europe-Saint-Séverin on Rue St Séverin. We were in the heart of the Latin Quarter, a few steps away from the Boulevard Saint-Michel and across the river from Notre Dame Cathedral, where the restoration work was still under way but near completion.
The olive groves on the hillsides between Piskopianó and Koutouloufári above Hersonissos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
I returned to Greece in April, spending almost a week between Western Easter and Orthodox Easter in Rethymnon, where I stayed in the Brascos Hotel, overlooking the Municipal Gardens and close to the old town and the Venetian harbour. Since the mid-1980s, Rethymnon has been the nearest I have to any home town in Greece.
There was time for coffee, drinks, and even a long lingering lunch or two with old friends in Rethymnon, Platanias, Koutouloufari, Piskopiano, Iraklion and Panormos.
I had walks on the beaches and harbours in Rethymnon, Platanias, Hersonissos and Panrmos, it was exhilarating to stroll again in the hills and by the olive groves in Koutouloufari and Piskopiano. And I visited some favourite old churches and monasteries, browsed in the bookshops in the narrow streets of the old town, and watched the sunset behind the harbour and the Fortezza.
Looking across Dublin Bay from Blackrock to Howth Head during a summer visit to Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
There were six visits to Ireland this year, including five return visits to Dublin. They included three family visits in June, August and shortly before Christmas this month. I stayed over on those three visits, in the Harcourt Hotel on Harcourt Street (June), the Martello Hotel in Bray, Co Wicklow (August), and the Travelodge in Rathmines (December).
During the visit in August, we had opportunities too to see the Iveagh Gardens in detail and to visit Newman House and the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) on Saint Stephen’s Green.
We were in Belfast for two nights in September, when we were invited to a family celebration near Templepatrick, Co Antrim.
A school reunion in September involved lunch in Peploe’s restaurant on Saint Stephen’s when about 30 or more of us who left school at Gormanston, Co Meath, after the Leaving Certificate exams in 1969. It was surprising to see so many of us still looking hale and hearty in our early-to-mid 70s. But that lunch in September and a business meeting in October were flying visits, literally, flying into Dublin in the morning, and back to Birmingham late in the evening.
My family visit to Dublin shortly before Christmas was also an opportunity to hear about the current campaign to protect Kenilworth Square, Rathgar, from plans by Saint Mary’s College to develop its rugby and cricket facilities in the square.
Walking by the river and through Christchurch Meadows in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I have been living in Stony Stratford, on the northern edges of Milton Keynes, for almost three years, and it offers me many opportunities to explore neighbouring cities, towns and countryside, to return to parts of England I have known for most of my life, and to see some new parts of England that I am only beginning to explore on my ‘escapades’.
I was in Norwich for the first time this year, when we stayed there in March while visiting an old friend. This was also an opportunity to visit Norwich Cathedral, the house and church associated with Julian of Norwich, and some of the places associated with Quaker history.
I was in Oxford for hospital tests towards the end of the year, but there were visits to Oxford throughout the year, to meet an old friend from India who is an Orthodox priest and theologian, to visit the exhibition ‘Kafka, Making of an Icon’ in the Weston Library, for the Corpus Christi procession from the Chapel of Pusey House to Saint Barnabas, Jericho, to see Holman Hunt’s ‘Light of the World’ in the Chapel of Keble College and visit other churches and chapels, to follow parts of the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ trail, for long lingering pub lunches in the King’s Arms with friends, and time to browse in bookshops, especially Blackwells.
I was back in Cambridge three times this year – twice on the way to and from the USPG conference in High Leigh, and again in November for the seminar and celebrations in Westminster College marking the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. During those visits I also had the opportunity drop in again to Sidney Sussex College.
There have been days in London amd short ‘escapades’ to Aston, Beachampton, Bedford, Blisworth, Eaton Socon and Eaton Ford, Hampstead, Handsworth, Hoddesdon, Lamport, Leicester, Loughton, Northampton, Roade, St Neots, and Woughton-on-the-Green, there were forays in search of the traditional coffee houses that give their names to streets in Coffee Hall in Milton Keynes, and there was another visit to the museum at Bletchley Park.
Each time I see Comberford and Comberford Hall between Tamworth and Lichfield I recall old family stories (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I was in Lichfield and Tamworth throughout the year. In Lichfield, I attended the mid-day Eucharist and Choral Evensong in the cathedral, had lunch in the Hedgehog and went for long walks along Cross in Hand Lane, through Beacon Park and by Minster Pool and Stowe Pool.
In Tamworth, there were return visits to the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Collegiate Church and the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street, and I was invited by the Tamworth and District Civic Society to deliver a lecture in April on the Wyatt architectural dynasty.
Each time I pass Comberford and Comberford Hall on the train between Tamworth and Lichfield, I continue to be filled with warm feelings and to recall past family stories.
However, one visit to Lichfield and Tamworth almost became a catastrophe when I lost my phone on the train. I never recovered it, and trying to recover contacts and update passwords and accounts remains a Sisyphean task even months later.
My researches on Comberford and Comerford links continued throughout the year. I was in Aston, near Birmingham, not only to visit the home of Aston Villa at Villa Park, but also to visit Aston Hall and to visit Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church to see an unusual Comberford family monument.
There were Comberford connections to explore closer to home too, at Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire and the neighbouring village of Shutlanger, where the house now known as the Monastery in Shutlanger was the main house on the Parles and Comberford estate in that part of Northamptonshire in the 15th and 16th centuries.
‘The Mother and Child’ sculpture by Glynn Williams in a courtyard in Milton Keynes University Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The year began wrapped up in bed with two of us feeling very sorry for ourselved during yet another attack of Covid-19. But my major health concerns this year included monitoring my continuing recovery from a stroke almost three years ago, and monitoring the symptoms of my pulmonary sarcoidosis and a severe deficiency of Vitamin B-12.
I returned to Milton Keynes University Hospital on 18 March to remember the second anniversary of my stroke in March 2022. There were seven other visits to the hospital in Milton Keynes, in March, June, twice in July, August, October and November, for respiratory and cardiac tests and CT scans, and further tests in the Whitehouse Health Centre near Milton Keynes in October and the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, earlier this month.
I have yet another respiratory or lung test in Milton Keynes Hospital later this week.
I moved from High Street, Wexford, 50 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
This has been a year of milestone anniversaries in my life story, some of which have been a delight and pleasure, but some of which I have not responded to with the grace and generosity that I ought to expect even of myself:
It is 55 years since I finished school at Gormanston College (1969).
It is 50 years since I left Wexford and the Wexford People and moved to Dublin and The Irish Times in 1974 and got married the first time in Dublin.
It has been 45 years since I was student in Japan, based in Tokyo for a full term in 1979 on a fellowship from Journalistes en Europe and Nihon Shimbun Kyokai, and with the support of Douglas Gageby, editor of The Irish Times.
It has been 45 since years since I became involved in re-founding the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and as chair of Irish CND.
It has been 40 years since Mercier Press published my first book, Do You Want to Do for NATO? (1984).
It has been 40 years aince completing a Post-Graduate Diploma in Ecumenical Theology at the Irish School of Ecumenics and Trinity College Dublin in 1984, and beginning the BD course at the Kimmage Manor and the Pontifical University Maynooth.
It is 35 years since my elder son was born in 1989.
It has been 30 years since I was appointed Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times in 1994, and 30 years since I was commissioned in Christ Church Cathedral as a diocesan reader in the Church of Ireland.
It has been 25 years since I began training for ordination at the Church of Ireland Theological College (now CITI) in 1999.
The former Bea House on Pembroke Park … memories of student days at the Irish School of Ecumenics 40 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I am still waiting for Permission to Officiate (PTO) in the Diocese of Oxford. It is a difficult and at times heart-breaking process, and more difficult in the major Church seasons such as Easter and Christmas, and as I look forward to the 25th anniversary of my ordination as deacon in 2000.
But the local clergy in the Milton Keynes deanery have gone out of their way to welcome me to chapter meetings in the past year in local churches and parishes, including Bletchley, Shenley, Shenley Church End, Wavenden and Wolverton.
I continue to sing with the bass line in the parish choir in the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford. We rehearse each Wednesday, sing at the Parish Eucharist most Sundays, and we have also sung in All Saints’ Church, Calverton.
I attended the Cathedral Eucharist in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral each Sunday while we were staying in Kuching. During those five weeks, I visited the two cathedrals in Kuching and countless churches throughout the Diocese of Kuching.
There have been visits to Christ Church, Oxford, Lichfield Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral, Saint Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, St Alban’s Cathedral, Leicester Cathedral, the two cathedrals in Norwich, the cathedrals in Rethymnon and Iraklion in Crete, the two cathedrals in Dublin, Christ Church and Saint Patrick’s, the two cathedrals in Kuching, Saint Thomas’s and Saint Joseph’s, and the two cathedrals in Singapore, Saint Andrew’s and the Good Shepherd.
Although I am no longer a trustee of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), I continue to be involved in its work, and deaw on the USPG prayer diary in my own online prayer diary each morning. I took part in the annual conference of USPG in High Leigh, near Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, in July, when I was invited to lead the intercessions at the Eucharist on the closing day, and attended the annual founders’ day celebrations for USPG and SPCK in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, earlier in the year.
I watched the new iconostasis being put in place in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford, where I have been warmly welcomed at the Good Friday and Easter liturgies and other celebrations, as well as numerous coffee mornings.
As well as churches, cathedrals and synagogues, there have been visits to mosques in England, Kuching and Singapore, and to Buddhist, Chinese or Taoist, Hindu, Jain and Sikh temples.
I took part in the Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration at the MK Rose in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, and the Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Japanese Peace Pagoda by Willen Lake, and attended the Kol Nidre Service at Yom Kippur and the Chanukah party last weekend in our local synagogue.
Sunday afternoon by the beach at Bako in Sarawak looking out at the South China Sea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
During the summer months, Charlotte organised a street party, so we all got to know each other better as neighbours in Church Mews and White Horse Lane.
Living off the High Street in Stony Stratford for almost three years now, I miss being close to the sea, and opportunities to walk on a beach or by the sea. But during one visit to Dublin there were opportunities for walks by the shore in both Blackrock and Bray; there were walks on the beaches in Rethymnon, Platanias and Panormos and by the harbours in Rethymnon and Iraklion in Crete; and walks on the beaches in Sarawak in Bako National Park and by the South China Sea at Damai Beach Resort.
There were walks by the Ouse in Stony Stratford, Bedford and St Neots, the Cam in Cambridge, the Cherwell and the Isis or Thames and the boat clubs in Oxford, the Thames in London, the Liffey in Dublin, the Seine in Paris and by the rivers in Kuching and Singapore; there were strolls by Willen Lake in Milton Keynes and the Balancing Lakes near Wolverton; I had canal-side walks in Great Linford, Stoke Bruerne and Wolverton; there were boat trips on the canal in Stoke Bruerne, on the rivers in Kuching and Singapore and in Bako National Park in Sarawak; and there was time to enjoy the regatta and Dragon Boat races in Kuching.
Although I walk 3-5 km a day, I remain a couch potato when it comes to sports. But I was an enthusiastic television fan of the Irish rugby team, of the Irish and English rowers in the Olympics and the Cambridge crew in the boat race, enjoyed the spectacular opening and closing ceremonies at the Paris Olympics, enjoyed the Euros 2024, and kept up-to-date with results for Aston Villa, the Leinster rugby team and the Wexford hurlers.
A walk by the canal near Great Linford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I continue to contribute to books, write papers and reviews for journals and magazines, and some of my photographs have been published too in books, magazines – and even in one calendar for next year.
My publications in 2024 included the Προλογος (‘Foreword’) in Ελληνικα Δημοτικα Τραγουδια, Greek Folk Songs by Panos Karagiorgos, (Thessaloniki, Εκδοτικος Οικος Κ & Μ Σταμουλη); a paper on ‘The Lamport Crucifix’ and photographs in 50 Years of the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust, edited by Catriona Finlayson (Lamport, 2024); a short description of ‘Bourke’s House’ in Denis O’Shaughnessy’s The Story of Athlunkard Street, 1824-2024 (Limerick, 2024), which has run to three printings and has sold out each time; the ‘Foreword’ and a photograph in Rod Smith’s Clancarty – the high times and humble of a noble Irish family (Tauranga, New Zealand: Eyeglass Press); and a small, six-page pamphlet with Sarah Friedman, Milton Keynes & District Reform Synagogue: an introduction, with six of my photographs.
I wrote a paper on Saint Patrick for Conversations, a new journal edited by Bernard Treacy and published by Dominican Publications in Dublin; and wrote a book review for The Journal of Malankara Orthodox Theological Studies, published by the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kerala, India.
There were features and photographs about Bishop Richard Rawle, a 19th century Vicar of Tamworth and SPG-supported Bishop in Trinidad, and about the stained glass artist William Wailes in Tamworth Heritage Magazine; a photograph of Bryce House illustrating February 2025, in ‘Garnish Island Calendar 2025’ produced for a school, Glengarriff, Co Cork; and a photograph in The Liberty, a local newspaper in Dublin. I also continue to write occasionally for The Irish Times.
We visited Lamport Hall in rural Northamptonshire for the launch of Catriona Finlayson’s lavishly illustrated 50 Years of the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust, and met many of the other contributors to the publication.
I was supposed to launch Rod Smith’s book, Clancarty – the high times and humble of a noble Irish family, on the history of the Trench family in London in October. But, in my haste to get to London on time, I boarded the wrong train at Milton Keynes, and ended up instead in Crewe. A return train was never going to get me back to London on time. My embarrassment was redeemed in part, I hope, by recording what I had planned to say first on the train and later when I got back to Stony Stratford, and posting both recordings on YouTube.
I felt so sorry for Rod Smith, who had travelled all the way from New Zealand for the book launch, and we had met in Hampstead a few days earlier to plan what I was going to say. I could only hope the other book launch in Ballinasloe was less of a disaster.
I continue to blog about twice a day, with a prayer diary each morning and a second posting later in the day.
Thoughts shared for the launch of Rod Smith’s book ‘Clancarty – the high times and humble of a noble Irish family’ in London (Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I continue to serve as a trustee of the Retreat, a local almshouse off the High Street in Stony Stratford, and took part in a training day for almshouse trustees in Birmingham.
Throughout the year I have been involved in the Town Centre Working Group, a committee of Stony Stratford Town Council and successfully completing a commission for a public sculpture for Stony Stratford. In the course of that project, I have visited and photographed public sculptures already in situ in Stony Stratford, Wolverton, the campus of the Open University in Milton Keynes and in the grounds of Tamworth Castle.
It was a duty and a privilege to vote in this year’s local and general elections in May and July. I canvassed on the day of the general election and while I am pleased with the election results, including the results in Milton Keynes and Lichfield, I am concerned about the rise of Farage and Reform as part of the rise of the far-right across Europe and North America.
I was in Dublin to vote in the European elections, but this year’s general election in Ireland is probably the first I have not been able to vote in. From a distance, I was sorry to see my old friend Brendan Howlin retire from politics, I was delighted to see George Lawlor, former Mayor of Wexford, elected to the Dail, and I could breathe a sigh of relief that the expected upsurge in support for Sinn Fein was never realised.
A morning with the orangutans in Semenggoh Wildlife Centre (Patrick Comerford, 2024)
On the overnight flight from Paris to Singapore in October, I found it difficult to sleep and kept my eye on the flight path. It was interesting how many conflict zones had to be avoided: Ukraine, Russia, Syria, Israel, the West Bank, Yemen, many parts of the Gulf, Afghanistan … It made the map more interesting, but may have added up to an extra hour to the flight time, and made me more acutely aware of how fragile the world is.
Of course, I am deeply concerned about the continuing aggressive war Russia is waging in Ukraine and the conflicts being fought on so many fronts in the Middle East – in Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
Of course, I am deeply concerned about the plight of refugees the world seems to have forgotten trying to cross the Mediterranean and the Channel and living in hellish conditions in northern France, on Greek islands, and in so many places across the world.
Of course, I am worried about the real threat Nigel Farage and his party could still pose to democracy in Britain, and about the rise of the far throughout Europe.
Of course, I am worried about the rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and misogyny, remembering that January 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps, and that the coming year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
And, of course, I am worried about the damage that is going to be wreaked not only in the US but across the globe during another four years of a Trump presidency, with Elon Musk pulling the strings as the puppet master, and what this could mean for the world economy, for democracy, for human rights, the climate change, for fundamental justice, decency and honesty in the public sphere.
There is no Planet B, as one campaign slogan reminds us. There is Nowehere else to go.
During our visit to Norwich earlier this year, we had dinner one evening in the small town of Acle on the Norfolk Broads. But it was too late in the evening to think of going to Great Yarmouth 8 or 9 miles to the east for a walk by the sea.
There is a marshy area by the River Bure about three miles from Acle that was once known as Nowhere or No-Where. The villagers of Acle had salt-pans there to produce salt and in 1861 there were four inhabited houses in Nowehere and 16 residents. Originally, Nowhere was an extra-parochial liberty, until it was formally incorporated into Acle parish in 1862.
The name Nowhere no longer appears in maps and gazetteers, so I cannot say that this year I actually visited Nowehere. But then, there’s nowhere in Nowhere to have a coffee, and certainly nowhere there to stay overnight.
Happy New Year
Taking leave of 2024 and looking forward to 2025 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Stephen Edward Comerford (1918-2004) died 20 years ago in December 2004 (Photograph: Comerford family collection)
Patrick Comerford
When death comes at Christmas-tide to a family it has a searing impact that can never be erased or forgotten. The death of my eldest brother, Stephen Comerford, at the age of 24, 54 years ago, just a week before Christmas on 18 December 1970, had an emotional impact on my parents that I can never forget. They had celebated their 25th wedding anniversary just three months earlier.
Steve’s death came just four days after my father’s 52nd birthday, which may have compounded my parents’ grief.
This week has also marked the 20th anniversary of the death of my father, Stephen Edward Comerford (1918-2004), who died shortly after Christmas 20 years ago.
My father was born on 14 December 1918 at 7 Swanville Place, Rathmines, a neat end-of-terrace house off Lower Rathmines Road, behind the Stella Cinema and close to Leinster Square, Leinster Road and Rathmines Town Hall.
Stephen was the youngest in a large family, with a half-sister and two half-brothers (one already deceased) and two older brothers and an older sister. He was named Stephen both because he was born so close to Christmas Day and Saint Stephen’s Day (26 September) and also after his father, Stephen Edward Comerford (1867-1921).
Stephen Edward Comerford was born on 14 December 1918 at 7 Swanville Terrace, Rathmines (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
My grandfather was also born close to Christmas Day and Saint Stephen’s Day, on 28 December 1867, at 7 Redmond’s Hill, between Camden Street, Wexford Street and Aungier Street, Dublin, and he was baptised soon after in Saint Andrew’s Church. Later, he lived on Upper Beechwood Avenue and at Old Mountpleasant in Ranelagh, before moving to Rathmines.
My grandfather was in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers during World War I, but was sent home in May 1916 – in the days immediately after the Easter Rising in Dublin – after contracting malaria in Thessaloniki. That malaria eventually killed him, and he died shortly after my father’s second birthday, on 21 January 1921.
My father grew up without any real memories of his own father, and spent his childhood years first in Rathmines and then in Ashdale Park, Terenure. As he was growing up, he was close to both his mother’s family, the Lynders family in Portrane, north Co Dublin, and to his Comerford cousins in the Clanbrassil Street and ‘Little Jerusalem’ area of Dublin, between Clanbrassil Street and Camden Street.
2 Old Mountpleasant, Ranelagh, where my grandfather lived before moving to Rathmines (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
He went to school in Dublin, and throughout his childhood days was familiar with the narrow streets of ‘Little Jerusalem’. There his childhood friends included the Levitas brothers, who lived on Longwood Avenue and Warren Street in Portobello, and whose family attended the Lennox Street synagogue, one of the many small synagogues in the area.
One Saturday evening in the mid-1920s, the synagogue almost went up in smoke. It was not, however, attempted arson. Four boys had been anxious to bring the Sabbath to a speedy conclusion in order to resume playing on the street. So they came back into the synagogue to hastily say the final prayers, and accidentally knocked over a candle that set a cloth alight. Fortunately, it was quickly extinguished. The ‘culprits’ were three brothers – Max, Maurice and Sol Levitas – and Chaim Herzog. The Levitas brothers later became heroes of the Battle of Cable Street in the East End of London in 1936; the fourth boy was Chaim Herzog – the Chief Rabbi’s son and a future President of Israel.
Other childhood and school friends and contemporaries who he shared memories of with me included Dr Kevin O’Flanagan (191-2006) who played both rugby and soccer for Ireland, Johnny Carey (1919-1995), also an Irish international footballer, the actor Jack MacGowran (1918-1973), the writer Cornelius Ryan (1920-1974), former Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave (1920-2017), and the RAF flying ace and war hero Paddy Finnucane (1920-1942).
During those schooldays, my father also travelled by boat to Italy, in what turned out to be a lengthy odyssey for the Boy Scouts he was part of, and in adulthood he continued to recall how the ship had passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and stopped off in Spain.
When he left school, he began a career in the insurance sector with the London and Lancashire, first working as an insurance clerk at the London and Lancashire office on College Green, Dublin. In those years immediately prior to the outbreak of World War II, he also become actively involved in An Óige, the Irish Youth Hostel Association, founded in 1931 by Thekla Beere, Shane Bodkin and Terry Trench.
The founders of An Óige were inspired by the success of the Youth Hostel Association in England, founded the previous year, and the Jugendherbergen in Germany, and were motivated by inter-war efforts to promote peace among young people on these islands and in Germany. My father had a particular interest in An Óige’s early youth hostels at Lough Dan, near Roundwood, and in Glencree, Co Wicklow. He was also a keen rugby player.
At the outbreak of World War II, the 11 Cavalry Squadron LDF (Local Defence Forces), later the 11 Cavalry (FCA) Regiment, was formed, with Captain JN Farrell forming a Cyclist Squadron based in McKee Barracks with of cyclists from Dublin clubs. Shortly after, my father joinned the 42nd (An Oige) Cyclist Squadron when it was formed. It was led by Aidan Pender, later editor of the Evening Herald and the Irish Independent, and alongside my father the other members included his childhood friend George Kerr, a journalist and later assistant news editor of the Irish Press, Brendan O’Shea, Sean O’Briain, Jim Dillon and Stan O’Grady.
Some of these men had been friends and neighbours since schooldays, many remained lifelong friends, and George Kerr became my ‘uncle’ and ‘foster father’. Their regimental symbol was Pegasus, and a Pegasus trophy remained on my father’s sideboard for many years.
At the end of World War II, all members of the LDF became the new Forsa Cosanta Aituil (FCA), and the new 11 Cyclist Regiment was renamed the 11 Cavalry Regiment FCA. Many of the 11 Cyclists were commissioned almost immediately, and the FCA was integrated into the regular army structures. Stephen was promoted but turned down the offer of a full-time army commission, and continued to work in the insurance sector. In the days immediately after the war, he and my mother Ellen (Murphy), a civil servant from Millstreet, Co Cork, were married in Blackrock, Co Dublin, on 8 September 1945. They had met while she was staying in a bed-sit in the home of his half-brother Arthur Comerford on Rathgar Road.
They first lived on Putland Road, Bray, but spent much of their life in houses on Lower Kimmage Road in Harold’s Cross, and in Rathfarnham Wood, and were the parents of six children. At one time in 1950, he drove to Rome with a group of friends – I think they included George Kerr, his first cousin Patrick ‘Sonny’ Linders, and (perhaps), his brother-in-law Michael Murphy – stopping along the way in Paris, Milan, Bologna and Florence.
Back in Dublin, he continued to work with London and Lancashire, specialising in fire insurance, and becoming an insurance surveyor. London and Lancashire merged in 1960 with Royal Insurance, Britain’s largest insurance group, which became a takeover by Royal Insurance in 1962, and now part of Royal Sun Alliance. His work took him throughout Ireland and regularly to London and Liverpool.
He was also an active trade unionist, becoming a branch chair in the Guild of Insurance Officials (GIO), a union founded in 1919 – both his father and grandfather before him had also been active trade unionists. The union affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Confederation of Insurance Trade Unions, and became the Union of Insurance Staffs in 1969. The following year, it merged with the Association of Scientific, Technical and Management Staffs (ASTMS), and after various mergers and amalgamations was absorbed into Unite.
His colleagues when he was a union activist in the 1960s included Noel Harris, who was also active in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement and who died in 2014; and Clive Jenkins (1926-1999), who once described his recreation in Who’s Who as ‘organising the middle classes’ and who was instrumental in getting Neil Kinnock nominated to the leadership of the Labour Party.
There were union conferences in seaside towns like Scarborough, Blackpool, Skegnesss or Brighton, and on one union or business trip to England he brought me back my first transistor radio so I could listen to Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg. Little could I, his union colleagues or his friends have imagined how my father’s political views would take a different direction in his later years.
He took advantage of his office locations on College Green and Dame Street to give the children in his family prime viewing positions for the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin. Family holidays during summer months involved what seemed like long weeks in Kilcoole, Bettystown and Termonfeckin, on the east coast and close to golf courses – rugby had given way to a passion for golf, and he was active in the Castle Golf Club in Rathfarnham, where he seemed to spend much of his weekends and where he always seemed to win a turkey each Christmas.
My brother Steve and I joked that he had chosen to send us to school in Gormanston in the hope that as adults we would play golf with him – neither of us did. He tried to encourage me to play rugby, and I have memories of him teaching me to row on Lough Ramor in Virginia in 1967. That summer he listened with pride to broadcasts during the Six-Day War featuring his childhood friend Chaim Herzog, who was just two months older than him.
He passed on his enthusiasm for youth hostelling, and I hitch-hiked throughout England Ireland in my late teens. He never managed to persuade me to join the scouts or the FCA, but his GIO was the first union I joined after I left school. I remained an active and committed union member all my working life, in the National Union of Journalists and then the Irish Federation of University Teachers.
Former colleagues told me he paid the price for his union activism when he was denied opportunities for promotion and advancing his career. He was an insurance surveyor with Royal Insurance until he took early retirement at the age of 55 in 1974. But he continued to work as a surveyor with Donal O Buachalla and Company on Merrion Square, Dublin, where he became a director and the company secretary.
Stephen Comerford was a surveyor with Donal O Buachalla and Company on Merrion Square, Dublin, and the company secretary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
He encouraged me to train as a chartered surveyor – although those hopes produced as much fruit as his hopes that I might play golf with him. My relationship with him as a child and as a teenager were difficult and usually fraught, though perhaps I was less than kind when I wrote about these memories a few years ago.
His boyhood voyage by ship through the Mediterranean may have given him a lifelong love of travel, visiting France, Spain, Portugal, Croatia and the US, though I failed to persuade him to visit Greece with me. He found it difficult to understand why I never continued as a chartered surveyor and instead became a journalist, first with the Wexford People and then with The Irish Times. Although his close friends George Kerr and Aidan Pender and other members of his family were journalists too, he regarded journalism as too ‘arty’. He never acknowledged my successes in The Irish Times, even when I was appointed Foreign Desk Editor, and he would constantly ask when I was ever going to get a ‘real day job’.
In a similar vein, he was critical of my high-profile involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s, although that may have been where his sympathies lay in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was hurtful that he never came to my graduations, conferrings or book launches, or to milestone family events. In his final days, there was one glint of acknowledgement when I shared with him my research on Comerford family history and genealogy, and his family gathered to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary in their home in Rathfarnham in 1995.
Many years later, the Royal Insurance building on College Green was acquired by Trinity College Dublin, and in my academic career I had mixed emotions when it came to attending MTh course management meetings in what probably were his offices 40 or 50 years earlier.
Stephen Edward Comerford died suddenly at the age of 86 from a rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurism at his home in Rathfarnham Wood this week 20 years ago, a few days after spending Christmas 2004 in Cork. He is buried in Bohernabreena Cemetery, Co Dublin.
His gravestone says he died on 27 December 2004, but his death notice in The Irish Times says he died on 28 December 2004 – 137 years to the day since the birth of his own father in 1867. He never knew his own father, and 20 years later I wonder whether I really knew him.
My father spent his teenage and early adult years in Ashdale Park, Terenure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
‘… the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth’ (Luke 3: 5) … a rough way made smooth in Comberford, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The Season of Advent – and the real countdown to Christmas – began last Sunday and today is the Second Sunday of Advent (8 December 2024).
Later this morning, the motet at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, is John Rutter’s A Gaelic Blessing. This morning too, the Greek Orthodox parish in Stony Stratford is celebrating the patron saints of the community, Saint Stylianos (26 November) and Saint Ambrose (7 December), and the 35th anniversary of the founding of the community.
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.
‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Luke 3: 4) … a tree-lined pathway in Rathkeale, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 3: 1-6 (NRSVA):
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God”.’
‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Luke 3: 4) … a straight path lined with trees in Kilmore, near Nenagh, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s reflection:
The second candle lit on the Advent Wreath this morning traditionally recalls the Prophets. The first candle last Sunday represented the prophets, and the third candle next Sunday reminds us of Saint John the Baptist. This morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 3: 1-6) provides a link between the Prophets and Saint John the Baptist.
Saint Luke places the events in his Gospel firmly and historically in the time of particular rulers, both political and religious. The ministry of Saint John the Baptist and of Christ are incarnational and take place in real time, in history.
What is to come is a new authority that is inaugurated in very real time and is measured by grace and not power, a challenge to the people of God and to the authorities of the world. It is a time of renewal linked to the past, lived in the present and looking forward to the future.
The words of Saint John the Baptist are not only for a people long ago but words for us today.
Saint John the Baptist is announcing judgment at the end of the era and the beginning of a new pact with God that is available to all. He travels throughout the Jordan Valley, preaching a return to God’s ways and being ethically and spiritually renewed. He quotes from the Prophecy of Isiah we have already heard quoted by Baruch (see Isaiah 40: 3-5).
However, Saint Luke makes one change in the quotation: the word ‘his’ (verse 4) emphasises that it is for Christ that John prepares the way. For Saint Luke, all flesh, all people all people will have the opportunity to be rescued from sin.
The world is a place and we find our home as foreigners in a strange land, longing for the Kingdom of God present, and not yet fully realised. In the wilderness, we long to hear the voice crying out, to hear that we are welcome.
As we hear in the canticle Benedictus, which the lectionary provides in the place of a psalm this morning, Saint John the Baptist is the agent to fulfil the promises of the prophets (see Isaiah 40: 3; Malachi 3: 1, 4: 5).
Christ who is coming at Advent is bringing the Good News of the Kingdom of God, and is the living word who brings the promise of transformation and change.
Saint John makes his proclamation to the whole world. The whole of creation will be remade, the world of authority will be turned upside down, the word of salvation will raise up new children of God, and even the stones will shout as the kingdom message becomes a message of embrace and love, with a new order of family and kinship that embraces all people.
In this season of Advent, how do we connect with the real world which is wilderness for so many people?
How do we encourage people in our churches to take the promise of the Kingdom of God outside the walls of the church building, to take the Gospel of grace into the world around us, proclaiming Christ and the opportunity of hope and joy and transformation that he brings with him at his coming?
‘And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth’ (Luke 3: 5) … the yew tree walk at Gormanston, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 8 December 2024, Advent II):
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 ‘Peace – Advent’. This theme is introduced today with Reflections by the Revd Nitano Muller, Canon for Worship and Welcome, Coventry Cathedral:
Read Luke 3: 1-6
John the Baptist’s voice calls out from the wilderness, urging the people to prepare the way for the Lord by making straight paths and levelling mountains – metaphors for transformation. This passage captures a sense of urgency and hope: a new world is possible, but it requires transformation. It raises a fundamental question: Is peace possible in a world marred by violence?
Coventry Cathedral’s story offers a resounding answer: Yes, peace is possible, even in the ruins of war. When the medieval cathedral was bombed in 1940, it could have become a monument to vengeance and loss. But instead, the ruins were preserved alongside the new building as a symbol of forgiveness, reconciliation, and the transformative power of peace. The decision to rebuild not with a spirit of revenge but with a commitment to reconciliation echoes the prophetic message of John the Baptist: prepare the way, make room for healing and restoration.
Peace-building is not an abstract idea to be envisioned, but requires brave individuals who will cry out. Those who will name the injustices experienced in the world and call others to pay attention and act, too. We are all called to consider our voice and part in the ministry of reconciliation, our contributions to domestic and systemic violence and our own experience of forgiveness.
We must actively choose the way of peace every day, as a way of preparing our hearts, homes, churches and our communities for the arrival of the Prince of Peace who is birthed in every decision and action we take in building a culture of justice and peace.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 8 December 2024, Advent II) invites us to pray:
Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Collect:
O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power
and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness
we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy
may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Father in heaven,
who sent your Son to redeem the world
and will send him again to be our judge:
give us grace so to imitate him
in the humility and purity of his first coming
that, when he comes again,
we may be ready to greet him
with joyful love and firm faith;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
purify our hearts and minds,
that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again
as judge and saviour
we may be ready to receive him,
who is our Lord and our God.
An icon of the Birth of Saint the Baptist from the Monastery of Anopolis in the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
