Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 46, Wednesday 4 June 2025

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … the astrolabe in Pusey House, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday next Sunday (8 June 2025). This week began with the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII), and today the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship recalls Petroc, the sixth century Abbot of Padstow.

Later today, I hope to take part in the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. 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.

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … the Twelve Apostles in the top row of icons in the iconostasis in the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Duke Street, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on image for full-screen view)

John 17: 11-19 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 11 ‘And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.’

‘I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves’ (John 17: 13) … the apse in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

As I was saying in my reflections on Sunday, we are, in some ways, caught in the church calendar in an in-between time, between Ascension Day, last Thursday [29 May 2025], and the Day of Pentecost next Sunday [8 June 2025].

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 17: 11-19) follows Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33), and Christ has just ended his instructions to his disciples, which conclude with the advice, ‘In the world you face persecution But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).

We are now reading from his prayer to the Father (John 17: 1-26), in which he summarises the significance of his life as the time for his glory – his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – has arrived.

This prayer is often referred to as the High Priestly Prayer, as it includes many of the elements of prayer a priest offers when a sacrifice is about to be made: glorification (verses 3-5, 25), remembrance of God’s work (verses 2, 6-8, 22, 23), intercession on behalf of others (verses 9, 11, 15, 20, 21, 24), and a declaration of the offering itself (verses 1, 5).

In the Orthodox Church, this passage is also read on the Seventh Sunday of Easter (1 June 2025), a day remembering the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in the year 325. We are celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of that council this year and its formulation of the Nicene Creed. That council condemned the heresy of Arianism that taught that the Son of God was created by the Father and that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist. Christ’s words here bear witness to his divinity and to his filial relationship with the Father.

In his time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ looks up to heaven. He prays to the Father, asking him to ‘glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.’ Christ waits to be restored to his glory. He has come to earth to provide eternal life to all who believe. Now he prays to the Father for the disciples.

He has made the Father known to those who would believe. To John, the ‘world’, or the cosmos, is notable for its unbelief and hatred. The disciples have been faithful to ‘your word,’ to truth, to God, to Christ’s teachings.

They have come to realise the relationship of the Son to the Father. They know Christ’s origin and mission. This prayer is on behalf of believers, who are God’s, and not on behalf of all people. We hear that belonging to God implies belonging to the Son. Christ’s power and authority have been shown to them.

In his High Priestly Prayer, Christ asks four things of the Father:

• that they may be ‘one,’ as he and the Father are (verse 11)

• that they may have ‘my joy’ (verse 13)

• that they may be protected from the influence of evil (verse 15)

• that they may be able then to fulfil his mission in the world (verses 17-18).

Christ asks the Father to ‘protect them in your name,’ by his authority and as his representatives. The Father has given Christ this authority. He has protected them, except for one: Judas.

In fulfilment of ‘the scripture’, or by God’s will, he asks the Father to set them apart or sanctify them as they are sent out into the world (verses 17-19)… a theme we face again next Sunday, the Day of Pentecost.

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

‘I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world’ (John 17: 11) … the Friendship Globe in a park in Kuching marking Malaysia-China Friendship (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 4 June 2025):

The new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), covers the period from 1 July to 20 November 2025. The theme in the prayer diary this week (1-7 June) is ‘Volunteers’ Week’ and was introduced on Sunday by Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Wednesday 4 June 2025):

Lord, we look outwards and ask for your provision for those who encounter food insecurity in their communities. We look to you, Bread of Life. We commit to generosity.

The Collect:

O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Eternal God, giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom:
confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (John 17: 18) … going out into the world from All Saints’ Church, Calverton (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

Playing party games at Hanukkah becomes a reminder of the long Jewish history in Greece

Chanukiot with a colourful array of candles at the Chanukah party in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Hanukkah this year began on the evening of Christmas Day, 25 December – coinciding in a rare convergence with Christmas Day for the first time in 19 years – and Wednesday night is the last night of Hanukkah, with the eight days of celebration coming to a close on Thursday (2 January 2025).

I was invited to a Hanukkah party in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue yesterday. Each evening, Jewish families everywhere light the Chanukiah or nine-branch Hanukkah menorah, commemorating both the miraculous lasting of a single day's cruse of oil for eight days in the Temple and the triumphant victory of the Hasmoneans over Antiochos Epiphanes and their Greek oppressors.

A variety of chanukiot, with a colourful array of candles, were lit at the end of yesterday’s party. Traditionally, Sephardic Jews light their chanukiot at nightfall, Ashkenazi Jews light their chanukiot about 12 minutes after the sun has set. Sephardic custom calls for the head of the household to light the menorah for everyone, while Ashkenazi tradition has each family member light their own menorah.

Each night follows a traditional order for lighting, from right to left, adding a new candle to the left each evening, to symbolise how light and holiness should always increase, never diminish and the menorah is placed in a visible place, such as a window facing the street. The last candles will be lit in Jewish households this evening.

At the party on Sunday afternoon, we were served traditional Hanukkah foods, including food fried in oil, commemorating the miracle of the oil cruse, variety of sufganiyot or doughnuts with a variety of fillings, latkes and chocolate coins, and we heard traditional Hanukkah songs in Hebrew, English and Ladino (Ocho Kandelikas).

The Cheder children taught us the significance of playing with dreidels, one of the Hanukkah customs. The dreidel has the Hebrew letters נ (nun), ג (gimel), ה (hey), פ (peh) and ש (shin), representing the initials of the Hebrew phrase ‘A Great Miracle Happened There’.

It is interesting how the story of Hanukkah is so often told as throwing off the shackles of an oppressive Greek ruler. Antiochos Epiphanes (Ἀντίοχος ὁ Ἐπιφανής) claimed to be a successor to Alexander the Great, but was seen by many as a usurper.

His eccentric, cruel and capricious rule included outlawing Jewish religious practices, desecrating the Temple in Jerusalem, setting up a statue of Zeus in the holy of holies and sacrificing a pig. The name Antiochos comes from the city of Antioch, while the title Epiphanes (Ἐπιφανής ) means ‘God Manifest’. But his behaviour led to contemporaries, in a wordplay, to call him Epimanes (Ἐπιμανής, ‘The Mad’).

A menorah in the Monasterioton Synagogue, the only surviving, pre-war working synagogue in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But I wonder how the Jewish community in Greece responds to some traditional presentations of Hanukkah as a conflict between Jews and Greeks.

A new short film from the World Jewish Congress released last week shows how the presence of Jews in Greece predates Antiochos Epiphanes and the Maccabean revolt, going back thousands of years to the Babylonian exile, ca 585 to 549 BCE. Alexander the Great's conquest of the ancient Kingdom of Judah and the incorporation of the region into his empire coincided with the founding of a long-term Jewish community in Greece. Under his rule, the Jewish communities flourished and many lived a largely Hellenised lifestyle, speaking Greek rather than Hebrew. The words synagogue, Pentateuch and Pentecost are Greek, for example.

The Hellenised Jews in Greek-speaking cities such as Alexandria and Antioch were known as ‘Romaniote’ communities. They translated Jewish prayers into Greek and the first translation of the Bible was the Septuagint in Greek. Romaniote communities developed throughout the Byzantine era and many Jews completely assimilated into Greek culture.

The Ottoman Turkish capture of Constantinople in 1453 changed the life of Jews and in the Greek-speaking world. But it also marked the beginning of a Sephardic Jewish presence in Greece, and Ladino eventually language became the official language of Greek Jews.

Thessaloniki became the largest Jewish city in the Mediterranean, with about 50 synagogues and Jews making up more than half of the population, so that the city was known as the ‘Mother of Israel’.

The Jewish Holocaust Memorial at Liberty Square … a bronze sculpture by Nandor Glid of a menorah whose flames are wrapped around human bodies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

On the eve of the Shoah, over 70,000 Jews lived in Greece and were part of the country’s everyday life and culture. But the Holocaust devastated the Greek Jewish community, and only 10,000 Jews were left in Greece at the end of World War II: 96.5% of the Jewish community had been murdered in the Nazi death camps in Poland. Fewer than 2,000 of the 50,000 Jews of pre-war Thessaloniki survived; almost all the Jews of Rhodes were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz.

The Greek Jewish community today numbers 4,200 to 6,000 people. The majority of Greek Jews live in Athens, followed by Thessaloniki. Jews are also present in Corfu, Chalkis, Ioannina, Larissa, Rhodes, Trikala, Volos and Crete, and 10 active synagogues. In Athens, there are two functioning synagogues opposite each other on the same street – one Romaniote and the other is Sephardic – Thessaloniki has three active synagogues, and there are several Jewish day schools throughout Greece.

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 4, Saturday 28 December 2024, The Holy Innocents

The Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me … ‘four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree’.

This is the fourth day of Christmas and today the church calendar remembers the Holy Innocents. The eight days of Hanukkah continue, and this is the Sabbath in Hanukkah, known as Shabbat Mikets. 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.

A detail from The Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)


Matthew 2: 13-18 (NRSVA):

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

A detail from the Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Christian interpretation of the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ often sees the four colly birds as figurative representations of the four evangelists or Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

It is theologically important to remind ourselves in the days after Christmas Day of the important link between the Incarnation and bearing witness to the Resurrection faith.

Saint Stephen’s Day on Friday (26 December), Holy Innocents’ Day today (28 December), and the commemoration of Thomas à Beckett, usually on 29 December, are reminders that Christmas, far from being surrounded by sanitised images of the crib, angels and wise men, is followed by martyrdom and violence. Close on the joy of Christmas comes the cost of following Christ. A popular expression, derived from William Penn, says: ‘No Cross, No Crown.’

The Church Calendar today (28 December) recalls the massacre of the Holy Innocents, who are sometimes revered as the first Christian martyrs. The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the feast on 29 December.

These dates have nothing to do with the chronological order of the event. Instead, the feast is kept within the octave of Christmas because the Holy Innocents gave their lives for the new-born Saviour. Saint Stephen the first martyr (martyr by will, love and blood, 26 December), Saint John the Evangelist (27 December, martyr by will and love), and these first flowers of the Church (martyrs by blood alone) accompany the Christ Child entering this world on Christmas Day.

This commemoration first appears as a feast of the western church at the end of the fifth century, and the earliest commemorations were connected with the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January), bringing together the murder of the Innocents and the visit of the Magi.

The story of the massacre of the Innocents is the biblical narrative of infanticide by King Herod the Great in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 2: 13-18). According to Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem to save him from losing his throne to a new-born king whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi.

In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, the visiting magi from the east arrive in Judea in search of the new-born king of the Jews, having ‘observed his star at its rising’ (Matthew 2: 2). Herod directs them to Bethlehem, and asks them to let him know who this king is when they find him. They find the Christ Child and honour him, but an angel tells them not to alert Herod, and they return home by another way. Meanwhile, Joseph has taken Mary and the child and they have escaped to Egypt.

Saint Matthew’s Gospel provides the only account of the Massacre. This incident is not mentioned in the other three gospels, nor is it mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus, who records Herod’s murder of his own sons. When the Emperor Augustus heard that Herod had ordered the murder of his own sons, he remarked: ‘It is better to be Herod’s pig, than his son.’

Saint Matthew’s story recalls passages in Hosea referring to the exodus, and in Jeremiah referring to the Babylonian exile, and the accounts in Exodus of the birth of Moses and the slaying of the first-born children by Pharaoh.

Estimates of the number of infants at the time in Bethlehem, a town with a total population of about 1,000, would be about 20. But Byzantine liturgy estimated 14,000 Holy Innocents were murdered, while an early Syrian list of saints put the number at 64,000. Coptic sources raise the number to 144,000 and place the event on 29 December.

This morning, as I reflect on the day ahead, my heart is weighed down by the plight of the children caught in war and violence in Gaza, Isreal and Palestine, in Syria and Lebanon, and in Ukraine and Russia, the forgotten child refugees on Greek islands, in Lampedusa and in Calais, in cheap hotels across this land and across Europe, and the child refugees and innocent children soon to be the victims of the appalling decisions about to be made by the incoming Trump regime.

It was distressing, to say the least, to read a report by my former colleague Helena Smith from Athens in the Guardian on Christmas Eve of a refugee ‘children’s emergency’ facing Greece, where the number of unaccompanied minors reaching the country rises and concern grows over a lack of ‘safe zones’ to host them.

Large numbers of children arrived this year (2024) along a new trafficking route from Libya to Crete, prompting NGOs to urge Greek authorities to take emergency measures that would allow children to be transferred to protected shelters or other EU member states.

‘What we are seeing amounts to a children’s emergency of the kind that we haven’t witnessed in years,’ said Sofia Kouvelaki, who heads the Home Project, an organisation that supports refugee and migrant children in Athens.

Ten years after Greece was at the centre of a refugee crisis, when nearly a million EU-bound asylum seekers crossed its borders, child arrivals have doubled this year, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. More than 13,000 minors arrived in Greece by sea in the first 11 months of this year. Landings by unaccompanied and separated children have also risen sharply, from 1,490 in 2023 to approximately 3,000 so far this year.

‘There are a huge number of kids turning up on boats every day and an urgent need for the creation of more safe spaces to house them,’ Sofia Kouvelaki said. Recent arrivals referred to the Home Project included exceptionally young children from Syria and Egypt.

Greece’s migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, predicted last week that pressure on east Mediterranean migration routes to Greece was likely to continue in 2025. By the end of the year, 60,000 people are expected to have entered Greece. Camps on Aegean islands are at full capacity, he said.

Aid groups report hundreds of children on the frontline isles of Samos, Leros and Kos without clothes or shoes and little or no access to essential services. Spending cuts by the Greek government have resulted in fewer protective shelters and about 1,500 unaccompanied children have been forced to fend for themselves throughout Greece. Incidents of violence and abuse have proliferated in overcrowded state-run reception facilities that frequently host children and adults together.

There were shocking reports this month of a teenager from Egypt being gang-raped, beaten and burned at the Malakasa refugee camp outside Athens.

Save the Children and other aid organisations report critical failures in Greece’s reception system, overcrowding in camps and asylum seeker facilities, shortages in basic services, placing children at risk as their asylum requests are put on EU funding is blocked from reaching shelters.

The Greek Council for Refugees and Save the Children report alarming living conditions that minors continue to face in the camps. ‘It is unacceptable that, even now, when so much money has been invested in Greece and we are no longer in crisis mode, that we should be discussing such basic issues,’ says Lefteris Papagiannakis, the director of the Greek Council for Refugees.

Christian CND and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship are coming together this evening to mark Holy Innocents’ Day to pray for peace with an online, half-hour vigil on Zoom at 7 pm with prayers, readings, singing and reflections on all the innocent victims of war and violence, especially children.

‘Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt’ (Matthew 2: 14) … a window in Saint Peter’s Church, Kuching, which opened on Christmas Eve (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 28 December 2024, The Holy Innocents):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Love – Advent’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Lopa Mudra Mistry, Presbyter in the Diocese of Calcutta, the Church of North India (CNI).

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 28 December 2024, The Holy Innocents) invites us to pray:

Lord, heal all who are hurt by injustice – mend spirits, wipe tears, comfort with divine love, bring assurance that justice will prevail.

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose children suffered at the hands of Herod,
though they had done no wrong:
by the suffering of your Son
and by the innocence of our lives
frustrate all evil designs
and establish your reign of justice 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:

Lord Jesus Christ,
in your humility you have stooped to share our human life
with the most defenceless of your children:
may we who have received these gifts of your passion
rejoice in celebrating the witness of the Holy Innocents
to the purity of your sacrifice
made once for all upon the cross;
for you are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Collect on the Eve of Christmas I:

Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
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

‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879) by Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920) … a reminder of the stark reality of the hardship and deprivation suffered by a family on the run (Museum of Fine Arts Boston)

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

Christmas reading with some Christmas, Byzantine and Greek thoughts and flavours

Manuel II Palaiologos on the cover of the Christmas edition of ‘History Today’ … his visit to England at Christmas 1400 ‘offers a window into a time when divisions between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism’

Patrick Comerford

Books and journals are always welcome Christmas presents. And I have had extra time to catch up on my reading in recent weeks, with some long train journeys, a hospital visit and flights to Dublin since we got back from Kuching.

Over the next few days, I hope to become engrossed in some of those books, some other books I picked up in Oxford and Cambridge or have been asked to review, and on the bumper editions of favourite magazines, including New Statesman and Private Eye.

In recent days, I have been engrossed too in some papers and reviews published in the latest edition of History Today (volume 74 issue, December 2024). which, as you might expect, has some interesting Christmas reading, but also has papers with important findings in Greek and Byzantine studies.

Dr Katherine Kelaidis is a research fellow at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge and he Director of Research and Content at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago. Her paper in the Christmas edition of History Today, ‘A Christmas to Save the Byzantine Empire’ (pp 28-39), recounts how the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos was a guest of Henry IV in England at Christmas dinner at Eltham Palace, near Greenwich on Christmas Day 1400.

Although they were united by their Christian faith, these two monarchs were on separate sides of the East-West schism. So, she asks, ‘How did they celebrate?’

The embattled Byzantine emperor was on the final leg of a desperate tour across Europe in a last-ditch effort to encourage the powers of Western Christendom to come to the aid of his empire against the real threat of an Ottoman assault.

His father, John V, had visited Naples and Rome in 1369 in a failed attempt to end the schism between Western and Eastern Christianity. Otherwise, no Byzantine emperor had ever left the borders of his empire.

The mutual excommunications of Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael I in 1054 came to be viewed as the moment of final division between what would later become the Catholic west and the Orthodox west. However, as Dr Kelaidis points out, the idea of a ‘schism’ or even the use of the term did not appear with any regularity until the Reformation in the 16th century, and how the emperor and the king celebrated Christmas matters.

The division deepened in the 350 years between the initial schism in 1054 and Manuel’s tour in 1400. It seemed so deep as to be unbridgeable to the generations who came after the Ottoman conquest that Manuel had sought to prevent.

‘In reality, however, this was not the case’, she argues. ‘Indeed, the state of Eastern-Western ecclesiastical relations remained much more fluid than is commonly assumed.’ Manuel’s European tour and his Christmas in England reveals something often missed by historians: ‘the divisions and differences which split Christianity in the late medieval era were less real for those who lived through them.’

Manuel II Palaiologos meeting Henry IV, from the St Albans Chronicle, late 15th century (Lambeth Palace Library/Bridgeman Images)

Manuel’s entourage included a number of Orthodox priests, providing the emperor with spiritual and sacramental support. In Paris, they celebrated a public liturgy, perhaps at Sainte-Chapelle. A contemporary account says the Eastern rites were ‘unusual’ but that ‘everyone could attend’.

‘Differences in custom – perhaps even in theology – did not appear to stop a shared celebration of the Eucharist, the ultimate symbol of Christian unity,’ Dr Kelaidis notes.

She points out that while late mediaeval Christians, regardless of their divisions and loyalties, would have celebrated Easter in a largely similar fashion. However, the series of winter feast days between Christmas Day on 25 December and the Epiphany (or Theophany) on 6 January was a different story.

Christians had always celebrated the Resurrection, and Easter had been the central feast day in the Christian calendar from the earliest days. Christmas, however, was another matter, and celebrations associated with the winter solstice in northern Europe were transformed into the celebration of Christ’s birth. She argues, ‘It is for this reason that the Feast of the Nativity, the first of the 12 days of Christmas, celebrated on 25 December, is the only major Christian feast to have moved from West to East.’

She goes on to ask what Henry IV and Manuel II’s priests did regarding the celebration of the religious services that Christmas in 1400, including multiple Eucharistic services. There were significant differences between East and West in celebrating the Eucharist, including the Eastern use of leavened bread mixed into the chalice, and the Western use of unleavened bread and separate distribution of the wine and bread.

Dr Kelaidis notes how ‘later descriptions of the events – most of which are from the centuries after the Reformation, when the divisions within Christianity, and particularly divisions over the Eucharist and its proper form, were much more pronounced – tend to declare unquestioningly that neither the two rulers nor their priests would have celebrated together. This certainty is anachronistic at best.’

The Archangel Michael with Manuel II Palaiologos, 15th-century embroidery on silk (Bridgeman Images)

It is unclear whether there was a co-celebration or not, particularly since the English Church maintained a self-appointed autonomy from Rome, she argues. Both the English and the Byzantines saw the English Church as being semi-independent, and so not necessarily party to the growing division between Rome and Constantinople.

She notes, moreover, how there are plenty of instances, many well into the 18th century, of Eastern and Western priests co-celebrating the Eucharist when practical or political concerns were at play. English diplomats often received communion in Orthodox churches, both in Russia and in the Ottoman Empire, while Greek sailors aboard Spanish ships were communed by Catholic priests.

‘In the case of Christmas 1400, the question was not just of ceremonial importance. There were serious, worldly, concerns at stake. At the heart of Manuel’s pilgrimage to the West was a central premise: that the Christian Church, whatever conflicts or disagreements there might be, was still united and that Christian brothers ought to unite with one another against a common enemy. For this premise to hold, Manuel and his priests would have needed to emphasise the ways in which the Church of Christ remained united – or rather that they were still members of the One, Holy, True and Apostolic Church.’

Of course, she admits, ‘one might say that had such a momentous event as a co-celebration of the Eucharist occurred – had priests from Canterbury and priests from Constantinople celebrated the Eucharist together – there would most certainly have been some sort of record. But what if it was not as remarkable an occurrence as we, from our vantage point of 600 years, might think? In the four centuries between the so-called ‘Great Schism’ and Manuel’s arrival in England, relations between the Eastern and Western halves of the Christian world had ebbed and flowed. And co-celebration, if not common, was not unheard of. There is reason to think that it was possible – maybe even likely – that the priests of Henry’s court and those of Manuel’s celebrated together that Christmas.’

Beyond the immediate political concerns, she says, ‘this curious episode at Eltham Palace in 1400 offers a window into a time when divisions between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, though certainly present, had not yet hardened into the later, unbridgeable schisms that have come to define the received views of modern religious history.’

And that is food for ecumenical thinking at Christmas time.

Charles VI of France and Manuel II Palaiologos with delegations, from ‘The Travels of John Mandeville’, early 15th century (British Library/Bridgeman Images)

There are other Christmas and Greek themes in this delightful feast of history in the Christmas 2024 edition of History Today

The Greek themes are continued by Phiroze Vasunia, Professor of Greek at University College London, who looks at ‘How Ancient Greece Shaped the British Raj’ (pp 40-53). ‘British agents of empire saw their actions in India through the texts of their classical educations. They looked for Alexander, cast themselves as Aeneas and hoped to emulate Augustus.’

The Christmas themes continue with Matthew Lyons who questions the claims of William Strickland to have introduced the turkey to England. Strickland applied to have a turkey on his coat-of-arms in 1550. But his claim remains a puzzle to ponder over the Christmas dinner as the truth followed him to his grave when he died on 8 December 1598.

And, if you are enjoying the carols, the choirs and the church organs this Christmas, you might consider how the organ was a controversial instrument in many churches after the Reformation.

Anna Steppler is a junior research fellow in music at Peterhouse in Cambridge. In ‘Listen like a Lutheran’ (pp 62-71), she recalls that for much of the 200 years between Luther’s Reformation and Johann Sebastian Bach’s appointment to the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723 ‘the instrument’s spiritual role was far from assured’ and in the debates between Calvinists and Lutherans, ‘the use of music in church was a particularly sensitive topic.’

Manuel II Palaiologos and Empress Helena crowned by the Virgin and Child with their sons, from a manuscript made in Constantinople, 1403-1405, presented by the emperor to the Abbey of St Denis following his tour (RMN-Grand Palais / Daniel Arnaudet/ Dist. Photo SCALA, Florence)

After 60 years, ‘Zorba the Greek’ continues to challenge some myths

Zorba the Greek … the film was released 60 years ago in December 1964

Patrick Comerford

I was back in Crete earlier this year, staying in Rethymnon, an old Venetian town on the north coast that for years is as close as I get to being at home in Greece.

There was time for walks on the beach and by the sea, long lingering meals with friends, visits to galleries and exhibitions, trips into the mountains, time for prayer in churches and monasteries, and time to listen to some old but favourite stories.

The best-known storyteller in modern Crete was Nikos Kazantzakis, author of the book that gave birth to Zorba the Greek, perhaps the best-loved Greek film. The book was first published in Greek in 1946 as Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas (Βίος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά).

The Oscar-winning film was produced in 1964 and this month marks the sixtieth anniversary of the release of the joint British-Greek production in Greece on 14 December 1964 and in New York on 17 December 1964. It was one of my earliest introductions to Greek culture, music and literature.

A week in Rethymnon earlier this year brought back memories of Zorba (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Zorba the Greek was directed by the Cypriot-born Michael Cacoyannis and the cast includes Anthony Quinn as Zorba, Alan Bates, Irene Papas and Lila Kedrova.

The film was shot in black and white on location in Crete, including Chania, the village of Kokkino Chorio in the Apokoronas region and Stavros Beach in the Akrotiri peninsula. The scene in which Quinn's character dances the Sirtaki was filmed on the beach at Stavros.

Six decades later, most people today know syrtáki as a typical Greek folkdance. But on one of my many visits to Crete in recent years, as I was crossing the mountains to visit the Monastery of Preveli and some remote beaches on the south coast, I was told that syrtáki was invented by Anthony Quinn as the dance scene was being filmed on a beach near Chania. And, while Zorba has become a stereotype of hardy Cretan men, Anthony Quinn had no Greek family connections but was from a mixed Irish and Mexican background.

Those two old myths have been shattered, but I return time and again to reading the original novel by Kazantzakis.

Traditional Greek musical instruments in a shop window in Rethymnon … Zorba is a gruff but boisterous peasant and musician (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Basil (Alan Bates) is a half-English, half-Greek writer raised in England who returns to his father’s village in Crete to inherit some land and to restart an old mine. On the way, he meets Zorba, a gruff but boisterous peasant and musician.

When they arrive in Crete, they stay with Madame Hortense (Lila Kedrova), a French war widow, in her self-styled Hotel Ritz. Zorba wants to log trees in the local forest to fuel the mine, but the land is owned by a nearby monastery. He visits the monks and gets them drunk. Later, on the beach, he begins to dance in a way that mesmerises Basil. Meanwhile, they also get to know a young widow (Irene Papas).

Basil sends Zorba to buy cables and supplies in Chania – in the book the town is Iraklion or Candia, where Kazantzakis was born and is buried. There, Zorba squanders the money on drink and women. When he returns, he rows with Basil and a local man who overhears the content of their conversation drowns himself in the sea. At the funeral, the villagers blame the young widow for his death, and despite the best efforts of Basil and Zorba, she is murdered by the young man’s father.

When Madame Hortense contracts pneumonia, word spreads that ‘the foreigner’ is dying. The poor villagers crowd around her hotel, planning to steal her few possessions, and when she dies the house is ransacked and stripped bare. But she is refused a funeral because of her religion: ‘There will be no funeral. She was a Frank, she crossed herself with four fingers. The priest will not bury her like everybody else.’

Zorba eventually builds his machine to take timber down the hill and it is blessed by the priests. But all his efforts to make it work turn to disaster and everything is wrecked.

Zorba and Basil dance syrtáki on the beach … but the dance is Anthony Quinn’s own invention

The film ends with the spine-tingling ‘teach me to dance’ sequence, the two men alone together on the beach, realising that although life’s dance can be learned along many different paths, sometimes the destination is the same, no matter what route is chosen. And they dance syrtaki together on the beach.

Zorba the Greek was filmed on location in Crete, mainly in Chania and the surrounding area. The score, written by the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis who was buried in Chania in 2021, has remained popular ever since.

The film was made on a tight budget of $783,000, but grossed up to $23.5 million worldwide, making it a commercial success and one of the top earning films of 1964. It won three Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Lila Kedrova), Best Art Direction, Black-and-White (Vassilis Photopoulos) and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Walter Lassally).

On one of those trips across the mountains from Rethymnon to Preveli on the south coast, I was told the story of syrtaki (συρτάκι), the dance Giorgos Provias choreographed for the film. Many think it is the archetypal Greek folkdance, and it is danced in countless restaurants, tavernas and resorts during the holiday season. But it is not a traditional Greek folkdance, and instead is a mixture of the slow and fast versions of a dance known as hasapiko.

The music was composed by Milis Theodorakis, but the movements were contrived on location by Anthony Quinn. Superstitious actors wish each other well on stage with the greeting, ‘Break a leg.’ Quinn had actually broken a bone in his foot on location, yet remained determined to continue filming. He improvised unexpectedly by mixing the slow and fast versions of hasapiko.

When he was asked by the production team what he was dancing, he replied: ‘Syrtáki’. His reply played on a Greek word for dragging, for Quinn should have been hopping when he was dragging his leg. No-one imagined that two generations later, syrtáki would be a popular Greek dance.

Syrtáki is danced in a line or circle, with dancers holding their hands on the neighbours’ shoulders. The dance begins with slower, smoother actions, gradually transforming into faster, vivid ones, often including hops and leaps. The Guinness World Record was set in 2012 by 5,614 people dancing syrtáki for five minutes in Volos.

Dancing Syrtáki in the mountains above the south coast of Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As for Anthony Quinn (1915-2001), he was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca in Chihuahua, Mexico, and denied being the son of an ‘Irish adventurer.’ He said his mother Nellie had Aztec ancestors, while his father, Frank Quinn, was the Mexican-born son of an Irish immigrant and once rode with Pancho Villa.

A year after Zorba was released, at the height of the film’s success, Anthony Quinn divorced his wife Katherine Lester DeMille in 1965. They had been married in All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Beverly Hills, in 1937, and they were the parents of five children. But that marriage provides a link with Stony Stratford.

Katherine Lester DeMille was born Katherine Paula Lester in Vancouver on 29 June 1911. She played 25 credited film roles from the mid-1930s to the late 1940s. She was considered Hollywood royalty and was noted for her dark beauty. Her father Edward Gabriel Lester (1887-1917), was a son of the Revd John Moore Lester (1851-1884), Vicar of Stony Stratford in 1880-1884, and of Amy (Hunt) Lester (1850-1895), who is commemorated in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. Katherine Lester DeMille died in Tucson, Arizona, in 1995.

Olive groves in the mountains in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The adventurous Zorba is the antithesis of the bookish Basil. Zorba is a potential symbol of freedom in Basil’s quest to find freedom. In Zorba’s view, only people who want to be free are truly human.

In many ways, the conflicts that unfold in the book provide a way for Kazantzakis to work through his own inner conflicts. At one time he had rejected Christianity and sought fulfilment in Buddhism and other philosophies. But he returned to Christianity and later wrote powerful novels about the sufferings of persecuted Christians in Asia Minor and about the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.

For Zorba, the journey is more important than the destination. He claims to be an atheist, yet realises that Christianity is central to the villagers’ way of life. He tells Basil: ‘The highest point a man can attain is … Sacred Awe!’

As Basil sets out for Crete, he wants to rid himself of the Buddha and abstract thinking. He finishes writing a book or paper on Buddha only to realise that he has exorcised the Buddha within. Kazantzakis eventually abandoned his own experiments with Buddhism, and despite strong criticism of his writings, he received an Orthodox funeral in Crete, where was buried on the bastion above Iraklion, looking out to the sea. The simple epitaph on his grave reads: Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα, δεν φοβούμαι τίποτα, είμαι ελεύθερος, ‘I hope for nothing, I fear for nothing, I am free.’

Kazantzakis prefaces his autobiographical novel Report to Greco with a prayer: ‘Three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers: 1, I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me lest I rot. 2, Do not overdraw me, Lord, I shall break. 3, Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!’

The grave of Nikos Kazantzakis in Crete has a simple epitaph: ‘I hope for nothing, I fear for nothing, I am free’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 14, Thursday 14 November 2024

‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed … in fact, the kingdom of God is among you’ (Luke 17: 20-21) … a November setting sun at Burano in the Venetian Lagoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent, and this week began with the Third Sunday before Advent, which was also Remembrance Sunday.

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (14 November) remembers Samuel Seabury (1729-1796), the first Anglican Bishop in North America.

I am hoping to go for a swim later this morning in the Marian, the boutique hotel on Wayang Street where we stayed during our first week in Kuching last month. Before today begins, however, before having breakfast or that swim, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day’ (Luke 17: 24) … lightning on the Parthenon in Athens (Photograph: courtesy Tripadvisor)

Luke 17: 20-25 (NRSVA):

20 Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21 nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’

22 Then he said to the disciples, ‘The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 They will say to you, “Look there!” or “Look here!” Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25 But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation.’

The chapel in Magdalen College, Oxford … waiting for the son of God? John Betjeman was an undergraduate, and CS Lewis was his tutor (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Today’s reflection:

The English Poet Laureate John Betjeman loved to tell the story of a Japanese prince who arrived at Magdalen College, Oxford, as an undergraduate in 1925, the same year as Betjeman came up.

The President of Magdalen, Sir Thomas Herbert Warren (1853-1930), was known as a poet too, albeit a bad poet although he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford. He was also an insufferable snob, and Jeremy Paxman says he ‘was perhaps the greatest snob in England.’

When Prince Chichibu arrived at Magdalen in 1925, Warren hoped he would soon be followed by his elder brother, the future Emperor Hirohito. The prince told Warren he was a direct descendant of the sun goddess Ametarasu, and let him know: ‘At home I am called the son of God.’

Warren took a deep breath, coughed and put the prince in his place: ‘You will find, your highness, that we have the sons of many famous fathers here.’

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 17: 20-25) is one of the stories about preparing for the kingdom of God and the arrival of the Son of God on earth, not only as the incarnate Christ Child at Christmas in nativity story or in a decorative crib, but also as Christ the King.

As we prepare for the Feast of Christ the King in ten days’ time (Sunday 24 November) and for Advent, we should expect many of our readings to have apocalyptic themes, looking forward to that Coming of Christ the King at his second coming.

The apocalyptic images in today’s reading anticipate some of these themes. But, perhaps surprisingly, today’s reading cautions us against looking for too many portents or for inappropriate signs, telling us instead to live in the real world: ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed … For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you’ (Luke 17: 20-21).

But, as we prepare for the coming of Christ, are we trapped?

Are we trapped in the commercialism of Christmas?

There are 12 days of Christmas. But not one of them is in November. Yet for many weeks now, we have been inundated with Christmas catalogues and advertising. Already, here in Kuching, the Christmas trees are up and lit in the main shopping centres and many of the shops are displaying bright Christmas decorations.

Does the decoration of our shops, even of our churches, lead our eyes to the coming Christ or away from him?

To return to John Betjeman: he spent time in Dublin during World War II as the British press attaché, and was an active parishioner in Saint John’s, Clondalkin. In a lecture to Church of Ireland clergy in 1943, he said the ‘fabric of the church is very much concerned with worship. The decoration of a church can lead the eye to God or away from him.’

Betjeman’s poems are often humorous, with a wry, comic verse often marked by satire. He is one of the most significant literary figures of our time and was a practising Anglican, and his beliefs and piety inform many of his poems.

It is appropriate then, this morning, to re-read Betjeman’s poem ‘Christmas.’ In the first few verses, he describes the frivolous ways we prepare for Christmas:

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And then, In the last three stanzas of this poem, Betjeman proclaims the wonder of Christ’s birth in the form of a question: ‘And is it true …?’

And is it true, This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

‘God was man in Palestine / And lives today in Bread and Wine’ (John Betjeman) … communion vessels at the Eucharist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 14 November 2024):

Samuel Seabury, who is remembered in the church calendar in Common Worship today (14 November), was born in Connecticut in 1729 and, after graduating from Yale, was ordained priest in England and assigned by SPG (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, now USPG) to a church in New Brunswick, in New Jersey.

During the American War of Independence, he was a chaplain in the British army. After the war, at a meeting of the clergy in Connecticut, he was chosen to seek consecration as bishop. However, after a year of fruitless negotiations with the Church of England, he was ordained bishop by the nonjuring bishops in the Scottish Episcopal Church 240 years ago, on 14 November 1784.

Returning to America, he held his first Convention in Connecticut in August 1785 and the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1789. The church adopted a version of the Scottish Eucharist. Samuel Seabury died on 25 February 1796.

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 ‘A Look at Education in the Church of the Province of Myanmar’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Nadia Sanchez, Regional Programme Coordinator, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 14 November 2024) invites us to pray:

Lord, we commit to you, programmes across the world that seek to educate and support children so that they can stay in school instead of having to work.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of all:
govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,
and bring the families of the nations,
divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,
to be subject to his just and gentle rule;
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 peace,
whose Son Jesus Christ proclaimed the kingdom
and restored the broken to wholeness of life:
look with compassion on the anguish of the world,
and by your healing power
make whole both people and nations;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Additional Collect:

God, our refuge and strength,
bring near the day when wars shall cease
and poverty and pain shall end,
that earth may know the peace of heaven
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Samuel Seabury in a stained-glass window in Saint Giles Church, Cambridge … he is remembered in Common Worship on 14 November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 10, Sunday 10 November 2024, Remembrance Sunday, Third Sunday before Advent

Wilting poppies in Comberford, between Lichfield and Tamworth in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. In the Church Calendar today is both the Third Sunday before Advent and Remembrance Sunday.

Later this morning, I hope to be at the Cathedral Eucharist in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, at 8:30, when the Precentor, Canon Roannie Cannidy is presiding, and the preacher is Bishop Bolly Lapok, retired Bishop of Kuching and former Archbishop of South-East Asia. But, before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Poppies in a small garden in Beacon Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 1: 14-20 (NRSVA):

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake – for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

Poppies by the side of the road in Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

The fear of the potential consequences of Trump’s election victory have not abated in the past few days. I truly fear for world peace and stability, about global change and about the course of world democracy over the next few years. I can only imagine an upsurge in violence, racism and antisemitism in the years to come, and worry that political violence is going to become increasingly acceptable in many places.

So, I am finding comfort this morning in the words of the Collects and the Post-Communion Prayer, as they ask God to ‘govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,’ seek God’s ‘just and gentle rule’, ask God to ‘look with compassion on the anguish of the world’ and to ‘bring near the day when wars shall cease and poverty and pain shall end’.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, the proclamation of the kingdom of God and the good news are linked to the call of the first disciples, Peter, Andrew, James and John.

The disciples are called but not compelled to follow Jesus. On this Remembrance Sunday, I remind myself that those who fought and died in wars included both conscripts and volunteers. In hindsight, we often say they saw their war as the war to end all wars. But many had no choice, whether they were conscripts or volunteers. Many signed up because of the social pressures they faced, others hoped that by enlisting their wives and families would be looked after. Some in Ireland believed enlisting during World War I would advance the cause of Home Rule.

During a recent visit to Dublin, I picked up a copy of Bryan Cooper’s The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli in ‘The Last Bookshop’ on Camden Street. Cooper, who was a minor poet and an admirer of WB Yeats, was posted to Gallipoli and then to Thessaloniki.

Cooper’s book includes the poem ‘The Irish in Gallipoli’ by Francis Ledwidge and recalls many of the experiences my grandfather, Stephen Edward Comerford (1867-1921), must have shared in Gallipoli, the Balkans and then in Thessaloniki with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

Both Francis Ledwidge and my grandfather fought at Gallipoli, were later in Thessaloniki, and found themselves back in Dublin in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in 1916.

Cooper’s book reminds me too that had my grandfather not been stricken with malaria in Thessaloniki, he might have been sent back to the front, and like Ledwidge been killed on the western front or in the trenches in France or Belgium. Instead, my grandfather remained invalided in Dublin, my father was born in 1918, and so I am alive today.

Francis Ledwidge was born near Slane, Co Meath, in 1887. Family poverty forced him to leave school at 13. He became an active trade unionist, and began writing poetry in the Drogheda Independent. Lord Dunsany became his patron, he was admired by many leading figures in the literary revival, and was soon recognised as an important poet and writer.

Ledwidge was an early member of the Irish Volunteers in 1913. When the Volunteers split at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, he was initially sceptical of John Redmond’s support for the war. But in October 1914 he joined the 5th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 10th (Irish) Division.

He later said: ‘I joined the British army because England stood between Ireland and an enemy common to our civilisation, and I would not have had it said that she defended us while we did nothing at home but pass resolutions.’

Ledwidge became a lance-corporal, landed at Gallipoli in July 1915, and took part in the allied attack on Suvla Bay in August. The allied forces were attacked by the Turks, the 5th Battalion were trapped not far from the beach, and a stalemate ensued.

Ledwidge and the 10th (Irish) Division were withdrawn from Gallipoli in October 1915, and then found himself in Serbia during a harsh winter. They came under heavy attack from a larger Bulgarian force on 9 December and suffered 1,500 casualties. Ledwidge survived, but damaged his back during the retreat to Thessaloniki, and was sent to hospital first in Cairo and then in Manchester. At the same time, my grandfather was sent back to Dublin and never returned to war.

Ledwidge returned to the front in France late in 1916. He fought at the Battle of Arras in 1917, and was then sent north to Belgium in preparation for the Third Battle of Ypres. He was stationed near the village of Boezinghe on 31 July when he a long-range German shell exploded next to him. Ledwidge was killed instantly alongside five other soldiers in his regiment. The battalion’s Jesuit chaplain, Father Francis Charles Devas (1875-1951), had given Holy Communion to Ledwidge that morning. He wrote in his diary, ‘Ledwidge killed, blown to bits’.

Ledwidge was buried close to where he died at Carrefour de Rose, and was eventually reinterred at the Artillery Wood Military Cemetery.

‘The Irish in Gallipoli’ by Francis Ledwidge

Where Aegean cliffs with bristling menace front
The treacherous splendour of that isley sea,
Lighted by Troy’s last shadow; where the first
Hero kept watch and the last Mystery
Shook with dark thunder. Hark! The battle brunt!
A nation speaks, old Silences are burst.

’Tis not for lust of glory, no new throne
This thunder and this lightning of our power
Wakens up frantic echoes, not for these
Our Cross with England’s mingle, to be blown
At Mammon’s threshold. We but war when war
Serves Liberty and Keeps a world at peace.

Who said that such an emprise could be vain?
Were they not one with Christ, who fought and died?
Let Ireland weep: but not for sorrow, weep
That by her sons a land is sanctified,
For Christ arisen, and angels once again
Come back, like exile birds, and watch their sleep.

Poppies in the War Memorial Park at Islandbridge in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 10 November 2024 (Remembrance Sunday, Third Sunday before Advent):

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 ‘A Look at Education in the Church of the Province of Myanmar’. This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Nadia Sanchez, Regional Programme Coordinator, USPG:

Despite being rich in resources, Myanmar remains designated as one of the least developed countries in the world. Access to education was severely affected by Covid-19 and the civil disobedience movement which led to teachers and medical professionals leaving their jobs. This in turn has led to much of the population being left without adequate public services.

The Church of Province of Myanmar’s Provincial Education Development Initiative is a holistically developed integrated education programme. It aims to facilitate school-aged children to receive continuous education by upskilling teachers and providing access to materials, uniforms, teaching aids, classroom facilities and safe boarding houses. It will also provide theological education activities for students so they can learn how to effectively take care of the Church and be promoted for leadership in the diocese. Finally, it will seek to improve health awareness through training on things such as Covid-19 and personal hygiene so that communities can look after themselves better and share knowledge with their peers.

This programme will strengthen and improve secular education, theological education and health education for an estimated 3,000 people across the nine dioceses of the Church of the Province of Myanmar.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 10 November 2024, Remembrance Sunday, Third Sunday before Advent) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

Peaceful God,
Teach us to forsake division and violence.
Let us serve each other in peace,
And live side by side in harmony.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of all:
govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,
and bring the families of the nations,
divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,
to be subject to his just and gentle rule;
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 peace,
whose Son Jesus Christ proclaimed the kingdom
and restored the broken to wholeness of life:
look with compassion on the anguish of the world,
and by your healing power
make whole both people and nations;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Additional Collect:

God, our refuge and strength,
bring near the day when wars shall cease
and poverty and pain shall end,
that earth may know the peace of heaven
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Poppies by the side of the road in Stony Stratford (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

Poppies on my grandfather’s grave in Saint Catherine’s Churchyard, Portrane, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)