If you had to squeeze onto a small boat, what essentials would you take with you? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The Season of Advent begins today, the First Sunday of Advent (Sunday 30 November 2025), and this also marks the beginning of the Church Year. Later this morning, I hope to be part of the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.
But, before the day begins, before breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early 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.
What are the essential items you pack for a journey? … bags packed at the end of a USPG conference in High Leigh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 24: 36-44 (NRSVA):
36 [Jesus said:] ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’
The First Sunday of Advent reminds us of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, our fathers and mothers or ancestors in the community or family of faith, a reminder that is repeated when we light the first candle on the Advent Wreath in our churches this morning.
Often these were people who were on the move in times of trouble, upheaval and of danger. Think of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah – often on the move, facing long journeys, but always journeying with God.
It is worth asking: ‘If a fire broke out in your house, what three possessions would you grab?’ Many priest colleagues have asked this question as they prepared their sermons on this morning’s Gospel (Matthew 24: 36-44), and the answers they get are interesting.
People include their laptops, their family photographs, their phones, their keys, their wallets or purses, cash or money, plastic cards, passports ... the family pet?
What would you take?
If you were forced to leave your home, or found yourself suddenly forced to abandon all that gives you security, would they really be worth taking?
Laptops are easily damaged, phones need to be charged and don’t always work in other countries, keys to an abandoned home no longer have any use, photographs fade, cash or money from an unstable country quickly loses value.
What would you take with you?
What do we cling to?
Anyone with an interest in old banknotes knows how it became meaningless to be a millionaire or even a multimillionaire in Weimar Germany, war-time Greece or Ceausescu’s Romania. They were in circulation at times when inflation became rampant in times of crisis in Europe. Had they been spent at the time they were issued they might have bought something of value. Had they been given away in their day, they might have helped the poor and the hungry.
But circumstances saw to it that those who became attached to their wealth on paper would lose all they had. Today’s Gospel reading challenges us to think again about what we cling to and what are our true values.
When our prosperity and wealth disappear, like the fast-fading value of old banknotes, are we in danger of feeling abandoned by God?
How would we grab our faith and take it with us if we rushed to escape a crisis?
What do you take with you on a journey?
Christ reminds those who are listening of the story of Noah. What Noah took with him on the ark is a reminder not only to anticipate our own future and our own needs to ensure that security, but to think of the needs of all life, of all creation.
Seasoned travellers know how to pack their bags.
What are the essential items you pack in your case?
Is it a small bag for an overhead cabin on a budget airline flight and a short overnight stay?
Or is it a large suitcase or two for a two-week holiday, filled with towels, sun cream and swimwear?
The list of essentials grows longer and longer as we think about it: passport, toothbrush, plastic cards, phone chargers, presents for hosts and friends, and changes of clothes and sandals, laptop, more than enough reading … so much more than we ever need or use.
Do you then regret having packed too much when you find there is not enough room for them on the way back because of restrictions on overhead bags?
I was supposed to be in Dublin this day two years ago (30 November 2023) for the launch of a new book,
Christmas and the Irish: a miscellany, edited by my friend and colleague, Professor Salvador Ryan of Maynooth. I was at Luton Airport that morning when I realised I had left my passport back in Stony Stratford, buy by then it was too late to return to retrieve it. I missed my flight, I lost my hotel booking, and I missed the book launch, all because I had failed to take one essential travel item with me on the journey.
What do you think Mary and Joseph took with them for the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem?
Did they have essential and appropriate travelling papers?
Did they have enough cash to cope once they found there was no room for them in the inn?
Did they have enough with them when they made the next journey, from Bethlehem to Egypt?
Who helped them to find the missing necessities in Bethlehem, or in Egypt?
Mass migration is a major problem in the world today. Politicians seem to want us to think it is a problem for us here. But the people who suffer most are the people on the move themselves, children, women and men.
They cannot take with them what they need, never mind what they want.
On the journey, they face many threats and dangers, from exploitation and violence to extortion and human trafficking.
Of course, if they were Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child, we would want to reach out and help to meet their needs.
Do I see the faces of Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child in the people being taken across the channel on small boats or rafts, who are the target night-after-night in loud, baying protests outside cheap hotels and shoddy accommodation, who are vilified by far-right politicians and extremists for the sake of votes from the baying mobs?
Where can they find the Advent Hope and the present of Christ’s presence among his people this Christmas?
Did Mary and Joseph have essential and appropriate travelling papers with them as they travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem or when they fled as refugees from Bethlehem to Egypt? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 30 November 2025, Advent I):
The theme this week (30 to 6 December 2025) in
Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Kingdom is for All’ (pp 6-7). This theme is introduced today with a programme update from the Revd Magela, Vicar of Cristo Redentor Parish in Tocantins, Brazil and coordinator of Casa A+, a place of hope and healing for people living with HIV, who writes:
Read Luke 14: 21-23
Beloved, these words of Jesus are a cry against any policy that excludes, condemns, or silences. When we deny care to those who need it most – people living with HIV/AIDS, homeless populations, sex workers, black youth, trans people, people living in the peripheries – we are denying the Gospel itself.
Our calling as a Church is not to build walls, but to open paths. It is not to feed stigma, but to heal wounds. When laws criminalise the bodies and identities of key populations, the Kingdom is wounded. When funding is cut, Grace is denied. When prejudice decides who lives and who dies, we must rise up with spiritual and pastoral authority.
I have witnessed many people come to Casa A+ after suffering through years of misdiagnoses and severe health deterioration. People like Sinval and Sinair come to us after facing rapid decline in their health, but thankfully we are still able to help them. Our ultimate aim is not just to prevent deaths from AIDS, but also to combat the social stigma and isolation it causes. At Casa A+, we strive to offer life, dignity, and empowerment to those affected – transforming despair into hope.
As Christians in the Global South, we say with faith and courage:
We will not go back. We will not return to indifference.
We will not return to omission.
We will not return to complicit silence.
We will remain steadfast in our mission to proclaim a God who heals, welcomes, and transforms. A God who does not discriminate. A God who is in the trenches of public health, in shelters, in the voices that resist.
Because the Kingdom is for all people. And life is our liturgy.
The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 24: 36-44.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
O Lord our God,
make us watchful and keep us faithful
as we await the coming of your Son our Lord;
that, when he shall appear,
he may not find us sleeping in sin
but active in his service
and joyful in his praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
as your kingdom dawns,
turn us from the darkness of sin
to the light of holiness,
that we may be ready to meet you
in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Collect on the Eve of Saint Andrew:
Almighty God,
who gave such grace to your apostle Saint Andrew
that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ
and brought his brother with him:
call us by your holy word,
and give us grace to follow you without delay
and to tell the good news of your 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.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
The first candle on the Advent wreath is a reminder of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, our ancestors in faith (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
