Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 133, Friday 18 September 2026

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘The Holy Women’ (‘Les femmes saintes’), 1886-1896 (Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 13 September 2026).

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 Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first Anglican woman priest, was ordained priest in 1944

Luke 8: 1-3 (NRSVA)

1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Inside Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, where the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi was ordained deacon in 1941 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the three short verses in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 8: 1-3), Saint Luke describes the team of men and women who travel with Jesus, accompanying him in his ministry. They are men and women: the Twelve (verse 1), and a group of women, including three named women, and ‘many others, who provided for them out of their resources’ (verses 2-3).

The women and men are referred to in a way that implies that their ministry is equal. The three named women are Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Cuza, and Susanna. But, in addition, there are ‘many others.’

These women are women of independent means and are supporting Jesus ‘out of their resources’ or ‘out of their own means’ (Luke 8: 3b). The original text in Greek says αἵτινες διηκόνουν αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐταῖς, meaning they served, provided or ministered using their own resources.

The Greek verb here is διακονέω (diakoneō), which throughout the New Testament means to minister to, to fill the office of διάκονος (diakonos, deacon), to perform the duties of deacon, to serve. In this verse, it is found in the imperfect tense, meaning continual and habitual activity in the past. They supply Jesus’ financial needs again and again.

These women are the first supporters of Jesus’ mission, and they generously met the needs of Jesus and his band out of their own personal wealth. The Greek word is the substantive of ὑπάρχω (hyparchō), ‘what belongs to someone, someone’s property, possession, means’.

If being a true disciple means putting everything that one has at the disposal of Jesus and his ministry, then these three women are, indeed, role models for ministry.

There were celebration two years ago (2024) marking the 80th anniversary of the ordination as priest of the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi (1907-1992) in Hong Kong on 25 January 1944. She was the first woman to be ordained a priest in a Church in the Anglican Communion.

Florence Li Tim-Oi was born in a fishing village in Hong Kong on 5 May 1907. Her father, a doctor turned headmaster, called her ‘Much Beloved’ because he valued her as a daughter even if other parents preferred sons. When she was baptised as a student, Tim-Oi chose the name Florence after Florence Nightingale, the 19th century ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who felt she had a vocation that was ignored by the Church.

At the ordination of a deaconess in Hong Kong Cathedral in 1931, Florence heard and responded to the call to ministry. She took a four-year course at the theological college in Guangzhou (Canton), she was ordained deacon in 1941, and she was given charge of the Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao, which was thronged with refugees from war-torn China.

When a priest could no longer travel from Japanese-occupied territory to preside at the Eucharist, for three years Florence Tim-Oi was licensed to preside as a deacon. Bishop Ronald Owen Hall of Hong Kong then asked her to meet him in Free China, where on 25 January 1944 he ordained her ‘a priest in the Church of God.’

Bishop Hall knew that this was as momentous a step as when the Apostle Peter baptised the Gentile Cornelius. As Saint Peter recognised that God had already given Cornelius the baptismal gift of the Spirit, so Bishop Hall thought he was merely confirming that God had already given Florence the gift of priestly ministry – although he resisted the temptation to rename her Cornelia.

Although Bishop Hall’s action was well received in his diocese, it caused a storm of protest throughout the wider Anglican Communion, and pressure was brought on the bishop to have her relinquish the title and role of a priest.

When she became aware of the concern of the wider Church and of the pressure on her bishop, Florence did not get angry and leave the Church. Instead, she decided in 1946 to surrender her priest’s licence, but not her Holy Orders. For the next 39 years, she served faithfully under very difficult circumstances, when the knowledge that she had been ordained priest later helped to carry her through the worst excesses of the Maoist era in China.

She moved to the far south of China, near the Vietnamese border, where she ran a maternity home to protect female babies. The Communist Government closed down all churches in China from 1958 to 1974 and Tim-Oi was designated as a counter-revolutionary, persecuted by the Red Guards. Forced to work on a chicken farm, and then in a factory, she was unable to openly practice her Christian faith or meet people she knew were Christians, lest she got them into trouble.

While she was officially recognised as a priest in the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau in 1971, she was not allowed to retire from her factory work until 1974. At the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1979, she resumed her ministry in the Church in China.

Arrangements were made for her to move to Canada in 1983, and she was appointed an honorary assistant at Saint John’s Chinese congregation and Saint Matthew’s parish in Toronto. By then, the Anglican Church in Canada had approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and in 1984, and on the 40th anniversary of her ordination, with great joy and thanksgiving, she was reinstated as a priest.

The anniversary was also celebrated at Westminster Abbey and at Sheffield Cathedral, although the Church of England had not yet approved the ordination of women.

She was invited to Lambeth Palace that year to meet Archbishop Robert Runcie. Until then, he had not been convinced about women’s ordination, but their meeting changed his thinking: ‘Who am I to say whom God can or cannot call?’

She returned briefly to China in 1987, when Bob Brown made a film about her, Return to Hepu: Li Tim-Oi Goes Home.

Until she died in 1992, she exercised her priesthood with such faithfulness and quiet dignity that she won tremendous respect for herself and gathered increasing support for other women seeking ordination. The very quality of her ministry in China and in Canada and the grace with which she exercised her priesthood helped convince many throughout the Anglican Communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the Church far exceeded the expectations of those involved in her ordination in 1944.

She was awarded Doctorates of Divinity by the General Theological Seminary, New York, and Trinity College, Toronto. She died in her sleep on 26 February 1992, reportedly after phoning several elderly people who were confined to home, praying with them and offering them pastoral counsel. She is buried in Toronto.

The Anglican Church of Canada agreed in 2004 to include Florence Li Tim-Oi in the Calendar of Holy Persons in the Book of Alternative Services – on the anniversary of her death, 26 February. She was made a permanent part of the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints in 2018.

Her name continues in the Li Tim-Oi Foundation, which helps women in the Two-Thirds World train for ministry and vocational work in their communities.

Her story is told by Ted Harrison in Much Beloved Daughter (1985) and in her own memoir, Raindrops of My Life (1996).

The Revd Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok Sau Tseng, her father, and Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as deacon in Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, on Ascension Day 22 May 1941

Today’s Prayers (Friday 18 September 2026):

The theme this week (13 -19 September 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Witness as With-ness’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Canon Dr Peniel Rajkumar, Director of Global Mission and Theologian, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 18 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Holy God, unsettle my comfort when it keeps me distant from those who struggle. Make me an instrument of your presence in places of exclusion and hardship.

The Collect of the Day:

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
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:

Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
defend your Church from all false teaching
and give to your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow


The story about Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion, and how she drew her strength from her faith in God

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

56 million for frequent fliers, 56 million people in England, 56 million library books, and 56 million readers to date

Flying over Singapore … a small group of frequent flyers who travel 56,000 km (56 million metres) a year are responsible for more than half the global climate emissions from aviation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This month continues to be an exceptionally busy time on this blog. There is a continuing, steady and overwhelming rise in figures for viewing and reading. These figures reached 56 million by mid-afternoon today (15 September), passing the million mark for the eighth time since the end of last month. The figures reached 55 million three days ago (12 September), 54 million two nights before that (10 September 2026), 53 million hits the day before that (9 September 2026), 52 million hits two days previously (7 September), 51 million on 5 September, 50 million on 4 September and 49 million on 31 August.

These viewing and readership figures are still overpowering, and this blog continues to reach volumes of readers I never expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 35 million hits or visitors in 2026 alone.

This means half of all hits or reader figures have been within the past six months, with 28 million hits since 20 March 2026. I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. Throughout this year, the daily figures have often been overwhelming. Although we are just half way through September, this is already the busiest month for traffic on this blog, with over 7 million hits by late this afternoon.

Of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog, seven of them were in this month alone (1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 September), two were in May (1 and 14 May) and one was in April (29 April):

• 1,124,925 (1 May 2026)
• 671,341 (10 September 2026)
• 647,187 (5 September 2026)
• 618,234 (8 September 2026)
• 583,320 (11 September 2026)

• 563,301 (9 September 2026)
• 557,448 (12 September 2026)
• 525,719 (14 May 2026)
• 513,725 (7 September 2026)
• 509,644 (29 April 2026)

The daily average so far this month is 470,000-500,000 hits a day. Yet, I recall how 10 years ago, back in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000, or 30,000 a month.

England’s population is more than 56 million people, according to census and official statistics (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some curious though random statistics help to put this new figure of 56 million into perspective:

England has a population of about 56.5 million people, according to census and official statistics. The 56,490,048 residents of England make up about 84 per cent of the total population of the United Kingdom.

The Open Library digital collection managed by the Internet Archive lists over 56 million books and texts, while the New York Public Library has about 56 million items in its extensive cultural collections.

A mere 1% of the world’s population is responsible for more than half the global climate emissions from aviation. This comes about through a small group of wealthy frequent flyers who travel about 56,000 km a year.

EBay and three former top executives agreed in July to pay almost $56 million ($55.7 million) to resolve a lawsuit by a Massachusetts couple who fell victim to a bizarre stalking and harassment campaign carried out by several of its employees in retaliation for their coverage of the e-commerce company in a newsletter they publish.

The settlement brings an end to a case brought by David and Ina Steiner after several former eBay employees were prosecuted for targeting them in a cyber-stalking campaign that involved sending them cockroaches, fly larvae and a bloody Halloween pig mask. As part of the settlement, eBay agreed to pay $46.15 million to the couple; fund $6 million in charitable contributions to nonprofit organisations; and issue a ‘strongly-worded’ statement about the conduct of the three former executives.

When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they caused so much death and disease that it changed the global climate, a new study finds. European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London (UCL) have found.

56 million metres in 56,000 km and 56 million sq m is 56,000 sq km. The total land area of Croatia is approximately 56,594 sq km, making it the 127th largest country in the world. The Greater Bay Area of China, comprising Hong Kong, Macao and nine cities in Guangdong Province, has a total area of around 56,000 sq km.

56 million minutes equals 106 years, 6 months and 10 days. This means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back in March 1920.

I retired from active parish ministry about 4½ years ago, on 31 March 2022. These days, though, about 150 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning, or more than 1,000 people each week. As this blog moves beyond 56 million hits, I am truly grateful to the real readers among that 56 million. In particular, I am thankful for the faithful core group of people who join me in prayer, scripture reading and reflections each day.

Hong Kong is part of the Greater Bay Area of China, which includes Macao and nine cities in Guangdong Province, and has a total area of around 56 million sq metres or 56,000 sq km (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Three Governors in the Straits Settlements who had immediate family links with Lichfield

The Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield … as Lyncroft House, it was the home of the composer Muzio Clementi, direct ancestor of two governors of the Straits Settlements (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I arrived at Kuala Lumpur from Kuching early this afternoon today, hoping to catch a seven-hour flight to Muscat in Oman tonight and then a third, eight-hour flight in the early hours tomorrow to London. But the Trump regime’s decision to wage war on Iran has created mayhem in the Gulf, and all my travel plans are now shrouded in great uncertainty.

I am in Kuala Lumpur with no idea when I am going to get home, or how to get home at this stage. With all this uncertainty, I decided to spend the day in the airport and to forego any ideas of spending a few hours in Kuala Lumpur. Those postponed hopes have have become the least of my woes at the moment.

When I was in Singapore on a previous journey to and from Kuching, I had taken the opportunity to learn a little more about colonial administrators there who had Irish connections, including Major General Sir William Orfeur Cavenagh (1820-1891), who was the Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1859-1867 and who had strong family connections with Co Wexford, and Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson (1834-1897) from Co Westmeath, who was the Governor in 1877-1879.

This time, I was hoping to learn a little more about three Governors of the Straits Settlements who had strong family connection with Lichfield: Major General Sir Edward Archibald Harbord Anson (1826-1925) was the last Governor of Penang and as the acting governor of the Straits Settlements on four occasions: in 1871-1872, for one day in 1873, for four months in 1877, and for a fourth time in 1879-1880; Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (1840-1916) was the governor in 1887-1893; and his nephew Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947), was governor in 1930-1934.

Anson was related to the Earls of Lichfield, while Clementi Smith and Clementi were direct descendant of the composer Muzio Clementi who lived in his later years at Lyncroft House, now the Hedgehog Vintage Inn.

Major-General Sir Archibald Edward Harbord Anson (1826-1925) was acting governor of the Straits Settlements on four occasions between 1871 and 1880

Major-General Sir Archibald Edward Harbord Anson (1826-1925) was a member of the Anson family of Shughborough Hall and of Lichfield. He was born at 32 Devonshire Place, London, on 16 April 1826, the youngest son of Major-General Sir William Anson, the first baronet, who grew up in Shugborough Hall, and he was also a first cousin of Thomas Anson (1795-1854), who became the first Earl of Lichfield in 1831.

Archibald Anson’s military career began in 1844, and he had postings in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Crimea. After the Crimean War, Anson returned to Ireland where was married Limerick on 9 January 1851 to Elizabeth Mary Bourchier, daughter of Richard Bourchier. One of the best-known members of her family was the journalist James David Bourchier (1850-1920), from Baggotstown, near Bruff, Co Limerick, an advocate of both Crete’s unification with Greece and Bulgarian interests in early 20thc century European political diplomacy.

After his marriage in Limerick, Anson had a career in colonial administration that brought him to Mauritius, Madagascar and India before he was appointed the last Lieutenant Governor of Penang, a post he held from 1867 to 1882.

In his memoirs, About Others and Myself (1920), Anson describes the feeling of depression upon his appointment as Penang’s Resident Councillor. His time there was marked by the Penang Riots. When the riots ended, Anson negotiated a peace agreement between the contending parties: Red Flag and Tua Pek Kong members against the White Flag and the Ghee Hin.

While Anson was in Penang, he was also the acting Governor of the Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements on four occasions: 4 March 1871 to 22 March 1872; 3 November 1873 to 4 November 1873; 3 April 1877 to 29 October 1877; and 10 February 1879 to 16 May 1880. When he retired from the army, he was appointed as an honorary major-general. He was knighted (KCMG) in 1882 when he retired from Penang and returned to England.

Elizabeth (Bouchier) and Archibald Anson retired to Hastings. There he was a magistrate and they gave the name Penang to their house on Markwick Gardens. They were the parents of two sons and a daughter, and Elizabeth Mary (Bourchier) Anson died on 23 September 1891. Anson married again on 15 May 1906; his second wife Isabelle Jane Armistead was from Dunscar, Lancashire. Isabel Anson died on died 11 May 1923; Sir Archibald Anson died at the of 98 on 26 February 1925 and is buried in Hastings.

Anson gives his name to Anson Road or Jalan Anson (安顺路), Anson Bridge and Anson Bay in Penang and Anson Road in Singapore. The Chinese call these road it ann-soon-lor (安顺路), derived from the English name. To the local Chinese, the name Anson is a good name, because Anson, pronounced as An-soon in Chinese, means peace (安) and stability with smooth sailing (顺).

Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (1840-1916) was the Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1887-1893

Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (1840-1916), who was the governor of the Straits Settlements in 1887-1893, was a grandson of the composer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), who had lived at Lyncroft House in Lichfield, now the Hedgehog Vintage Inn. Muzio Clementi rented the house from the Earl of Lichfield’s Estate from 1828.

Cecil Clementi Smith’s father, the Revd John Smith, was an Essex rector, while his mother, Cecilia Susanna Clementi, was a daughter of Muzio Clementi. Smith was educated at Saint Paul’s School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

He began his civil service career as an interpreter in Hong Kong in 1864, learning about Chinese culture and becoming the Colonial Treasurer of Hong Kong. He moved to Singapore in 1878 as a Colonial Secretary in the Straits Settlements. There his knowledge of Chinese culture and language proved useful and he was involved in quelling Chinese secret societies in Singapore.

Clementi Smith was knighted (KCMG) in 1886 and was appointed Governor of the Straits Settlements and High Commissioner to Malaya in 1887. He was a popular governor, and the local Chinese community petitioned for a continuation of his appointment when he left Singapore in 1893.

Clementi Smith married Teresa Alice Newcomen; they were the parents of three sons and four daughters. He died in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, on 6 February 1916, at the age of 75.

Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947), was the Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1930-1934

Clementi Smith’s nephew Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947), who was also Governor of the Straits Settlements and held other colonial postings in Hong Kong and Singapore, was a great-grandson of the musician Muzio Clementi.

Clementi, who was the Governor of Hong Kong in 1925-1930, and Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements in 1930-1934, was born in Cawnpore (Kanpur), where his father, Colonel Montagu Clementi, was Judge Advocate General in India. He was educated at Saint Paul’s School and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Clementi joined the civil service in 1889, and was sent to Hong Kong and Canton at the time of the Boxer Rebellion. He was seconded to India in 1902, but he returned to China a year later to join famine relief work in Kwangsi (Guangxi). A year after that, Clementi was appointed a member of the Land Court, an Assistant Land Officer and a Police Magistrate in the New Territories, Hong Kong, a position he served in until 1906.

Clementi was promoted to Assistant Colonial Secretary and Clerk of Council in 1907. He represented the Hong Kong government at the International Opium Conference in Shanghai in 1909. A year later, he became the Private Secretary to the Administrator, Sir Francis Henry May. Clementi eventually became Acting Colonial Secretary and Member of both the Executive and Legislative Councils of Hong Kong, and remained there until 1912. He also played a part in the founding of the University of Hong Kong.

From 1913, Clementi had colonial postings to British Guiana(Guyana) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), but returned to Hong Kong as Governor in 1925, and held that post until 1930. He organised the opening of Kai Tak Airport which continued to operate as the main airport in 1998, and is remembered for ending Mui Tsai, the traditional Chinese ‘female maid servitude’ that meant the abuse of young servant girls.

To counter the growing radicalisation of the Chinese intelligentsia against colonialism and imperialism after the May Fourth Movement, he proposed a revised school curriculum in Chinese language that stressed loyalty and traditional Chinese values, and he advocated training more teachers in the Chinese language and setting up a Chinese Department at the University of Hong Kong.

From Hong Kong, Clementi went on to become the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements, which included Singapore, and High Commissioner for the Malay States, from 5 February 1930 to 17 February 1934, when he left for England due to illness. Clementi married Marie Penelope Rose Eyres, daughter of Admiral Cresswell John Eyres (1862-1949), in 1912, and they were the parents of one son and three daughters. Clementi died in High Wycombe on 5 April 1947.

I have no idea of how or when I am going to get from Kuala Lumpur to Oman later this evening. Searching for Anson, the Clementis and links between Lichfield with this part of the world are going to have to wait for another visit to Malaysia and Singapore on my way to and from Kuching.

The composer Muzio Clementi, who lived in Lichfield, was the grandfather and great-grandfather of two governors of the Straits Settlements

20.5 million visitors to Hong Kong, 20.5 million boxes of oranges, 20.5 million metres from Madrid, and 20.5 million blog readers

Florida produces 20.5 million boxes of oranges a year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Once again, this blog continues to reach more and more readers, reaching yet another overwhelming landmark, with 20.5 million hits late last night (25 December 2025), with more than 5000,000 readers in the past week alone and almost 2 million visitors to this blog so far this month with over 1.95 million by mid-afternoon today, an average of about 75,000-80,000 hits each day so far in December.

This is the fourth time this month alone that this site has passed the half million mark, having hit the 20 million mark last week (18 December 2025), 19.5 million readers the previous Sunday (14 December 2025), and the 19 million mark less than three weeks ago (9 December).

I began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It more than another year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. This blog reached the 10 million mark earlier this year (12 January), almost 15 years later.

So far this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Eight of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were this month alone and four were in January:

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 166,155 (15 December 2025)
• 146,944 (14 December 2025)
• 140,417 (16 December 2025)

• 122,398 (17 December 2025)
• 112,221 (13 December 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 94,824 (12 December 2025)
• 93,584 (25 December 2025)
• 93,575 (11 December 2025)

The latest figure of 20.5 million is all the more staggering as more than half of those hits (10.5 million) have been within this year, since 12 January 2025. The rise in the number of readers has continued to be phenomenal throughout this year, and the daily figures have been overwhelming at times. With this latest landmark figure of 20.5 million readers, I once again find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 20.5 million people look like?

• Where do we find 20.5 million people?

• What does £20.5 million, €20.5 million or $20.5 million mean?

• What would it buy, how far would it stretch, how much of a difference would that much make to people’s lives?

Madrid is about 20.5 million metres from Wellington by air, the greatest distance between any two capitals … Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on a monument in Madrid to Cervantes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Globally, 20.5 million people die each year from Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD), making it the leading cause of death.

Coronavirus wiped out more than 20.5 million years of human life worldwide, according to a findings published in the journal Scientific Reports.

An estimated 20.5 million (17.2%) Americans aged 40 years and older have cataracts in one or both eyes.

Nine million fewer viewers tuned in for Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony than for Joe Biden’s in 2021. According to the audience measurement company Nielsen, 24.6 million people watched Trump take office, compared with 33.8 million who saw Biden’s inauguration. That number was significantly down on the 30.6 million Americans who watched coverage of Trump’s first inauguration. Trump’s viewing figures are the lowest since Barack Obama’s second inauguration, in 2013, which drew 20.5 million viewers.

Delhi, the capital of India, has a population of about 20.5 million in its metropolitan area, while the metropolitan area of Mumbai also has a population of about 20.5 million. The metropolitan area of São Paulo, Brazil, with a population of about 20.5 million people, is the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Israeli Ministry of Settlements and National Mission, which is headed by a far-right settler leader, budgeted $20.5 million (75 million shekels) last year for security equipment for ‘young settlements’ – the term it uses for unauthorised Jewish farms and outposts in the West Bank. The money was quietly authorised last December while Israelis were focused on the war in Gaza.

20.5 million metres is 20,500 km or 12,700 miles, which is close to the greatest distance between any two capital cities, the air distance between Madrid in Spain and Wellington in New Zealand (20,350 km, 12,645 miles).

New Zealand has a coastline of about 20,500 km (12,700 miles) if its offshore islands and the Chatham Islands are included.

Limerick City and County Council Active Travel team has been allocated €20.5 million by the National Transport Authority (NTA)for the design, planning and construction of walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure.

The number of animals farmed for their fur has plummeted from 140 million in 2014 to 20.5 million in 2024.

Greggs shared a record £20.5 million with some long-serving staff members earlier this year after recording a jump in sales and profits in 2024.

Hong Kong welcomed 20.5 million visitors last year, the world’s fourth most visited city, following Bangkok (32.4 million), Istanbul (23 million) and London (21.7 million).

Florida produces 20.5 million boxes of oranges a year, along with 1.9 million boxes of grapefruit, and 500,000 boxes of tangerines.

20.5 million people die each year from Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD), making it the leading cause of death worldwide … street art in Porto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

And 20.5 million minutes is approximately 38.99 years or 341,666.67 hours. If this blog was getting one hit a minute, it would have taken almost 39 years to reach this 20.5 million mark.

So, yet again, this blog has reached another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

A continuing and warming figure in the midst of all these statistics continues to be the one that shows my morning prayer diary continues to reach up to 90-100 people each day, with similar figures for my daily Advent Calendar postings and Christmas Card postings at noon throughout this month.

It is almost four years now since I retired from active parish ministry, but I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 600 to 700 people twice a week.

Today, I am very grateful to all the 20.5 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I am grateful for the small and faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

The busy side streets off Nathan Road in Hong Kong … Hong Kong welcomed 20.5 million visitors last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Father Gregory Wellington and the Greek Orthodox community in Stony Stratford had much to celebrate with Archbishop Nikitas

With Archbishop Nikitas at Matins and the Divine Liturgy in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford on Sunday morning

Patrick Comerford

I was honoured to be a special guest yesterday (7 December 2025) at Matins and the Divine Liturgy in the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Ambrose and Saint Sylianos in Stony Stratford, celebrated by Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain.

This was a patronal festival liturgy, celebrating the two patron saints of the church. But it was a joyful morning additionally because Archbishop Nikitas had decided to elevate the priest in the parish, Father Gregory Wellington, to the rank of archimandrite within the monastic priesthood.

After the Divine Liturgy, Archbishop Nikitas led us in some impromptu carol singing, and Charlotte and I were special guests at a celebratory lunch afterwards in the Swinfen Harris Church Hall seated alongside Archbishop Nikitas and Father Gregory. It was very much a Greek community event for Greek and Cypriot families in the greater Milton Keynes area, but the church celebrates its diversity, with Romanians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Russians, Slovakians, and many other backgrounds, including English-born people too.

This was an opportunity too to renew old friendships with people like Marina Robb, who had been a student with me on a number of summer courses at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

Archbishop Nikitas presiding at Matins and the Divine Liturgy in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford on Sunday morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Archbishop Nikitas is the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain, part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, since he was elected at the Ecumenical Patriarchate six years ago (12 June 2019). It is a large diocese with more than 100 churches and monasteries in England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

Before his election as archbishop, he was the Metropolitan of the Dardanelles and director of the Patriarchal Institute of Orthodox Theology in Berkeley, California, and before that, from 1996, he was the first Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Hong Kong and South-East Asia.

Archbishop Nikitas and I first met at San’Anselmo, the Benedictine abbey and university in Rome, when I was chair of the Dublin University Far Eastern Mission and took part in a conference in Rome in September 2005 on the Church in China. We met again when I accompanied the then Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, on a visit to China and Hong Kong in 2006 to meet Church leaders, visit theological colleges and to build links between the Church of Ireland and the Church in China.

In Hong Kong, Archbishop Nikitas presented me with a scroll that says in rich Chinese calligraphy:

The Apolytikion of the Chinese Saints Martyred 11 June 1900 at the Boxer Uprising, Tone Three:

Let us, the flock of Christ, with love and piety now glorify with hymns and truly joyous odes the faithful Martyrs of the truth who suffered for Christ in China. For having confessed the Faith, they all bravely went unto death as lambs which were sacrificed for our Shepherd and Master Christ. And therefore to the Martyrs we cry out: Remember us all, who sing your praises!

Father Gregory Wellington (front, left) was raised to the rank of archimandrite by Archbishop Nikitas (centre) in Stony Stratford on Sunday morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Archbishop Nikitas Lulias was born in Tampa, Florida, in 1955. He studied at the University of Florida, where he received a BA degree in religion (1976). He then attended Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston, where he graduated with the degree of Master of Divinity in 1980. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Theological School in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1982). He later he studied Russian at the St Petersburg Theological Academy in Russia (1992-1993).

He was ordained a deacon in 1985 by Archbishop Jacob of America and was ordained priest later that year. After working in diocese in the US, he was elected the first Metropolitan of Hong Kong and South-East Asia in 1996, and he was ordained bishop at the Patriarchal Church of Saint George in the Phanar in Istanbul. His new diocese included churches in South East Asia, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.

When he moved to California in 2007 as Director of the Patriarchal Orthodox Institute in Berkeley, California, he was also appointed Metropolitan of the Dardanelles Metropolis.

Archbishop Nikitas has spearheaded the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Committee on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery since 2017, meeting with various leaders and organizing three international forums on the issue in Istanbul (2017), Buenos Aires (2018) and Istanbul (2019).

He was elected Archbishop of Great Britain in 2019 and was enthroned in the Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom in London on 27 July 2019. He is a patron of the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius, and he took part in the coronation of King Charles III in May 2003.

With Archbishop Nikitas after the Divine Liturgy in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford on Sunday morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 130, Friday 19 September 2025

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘The Holy Women’ (‘Les femmes saintes’), 1886-1896 (Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII, 14 September 2025), which was also Holy Cross Day.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Theodore of Tarsus (690), Archbishop of Canterbury.

Later this evening, I am speaking in the Swinfen Harris Church Hall, beside the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford, about the work of the architect Edward Swinfen, as part of the Heritage Days programmes in Milton Keynes. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first Anglican woman priest, was ordained priest in 1944

a Luke 8: 1-3 (NRSVA)

1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Inside Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, where the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi was ordained deacon in 1941 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the three short verses in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 8: 1-3), Saint Luke describes the team of men and women who travel with Jesus, accompanying him in his ministry. They are men and women: the Twelve (verse 1), and a group of women, including three named women, and ‘many others, who provided for them out of their resources’ (verses 2-3).

The women and men are referred to in a way that implies that their ministry is equal. The three named women are Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Cuza, and Susanna. But, in addition, there are ‘many others.’

These women are women of independent means and are supporting Jesus ‘out of their resources’ or ‘out of their own means’ (Luke 8: 3b). The original text in Greek says αἵτινες διηκόνουν αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐταῖς, meaning they served, provided or ministered using their own resources.

The Greek verb here is διακονέω (diakoneō), which throughout the New Testament means to minister to, to fill the office of διάκονος (diakonos, deacon), to perform the duties of deacon, to serve. In this verse, it is found in the imperfect tense, meaning continual and habitual activity in the past. They supply Jesus’ financial needs again and again.

These women are his first supporters of Jesus’ mission, and they generously met the needs of Jesus and his band out of their own personal wealth. The Greek word is the substantive of ὑπάρχω (hyparchō), ‘what belongs to someone, someone’s property, possession, means’.

If being a true disciple means putting everything that one has at the disposal of Jesus and his ministry, then these three women are, indeed, role models for ministry.

There were celebration throughout last year (2024), marking the 80th anniversary of the ordination as priest of the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi (1907-1992) in Hong Kong on 25 January 1944. She was the first woman to be ordained a priest in a church in the Anglican Communion.

Florence Li Tim-Oi was born in a fishing village in Hong Kong on 5 May 1907. Her father, a doctor turned headmaster, called her ‘Much Beloved’ because he valued her as a daughter even if other parents preferred sons. When she was baptised as a student, Tim-Oi chose the name Florence after Florence Nightingale, the 19th century ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who felt she had a vocation that was ignored by the Church.

At the ordination of a deaconess in Hong Kong Cathedral in 1931, Florence heard and responded to the call to ministry. She took a four-year course at the theological college in Guangzhou (Canton), was ordained deacon in 1941, and was given charge of the Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao, which was thronged with refugees from war-torn China.

When a priest could no longer travel from Japanese-occupied territory to preside at the Eucharist, for three years Florence Tim-Oi was licensed to preside as a deacon. Bishop Ronald Owen Hall of Hong Kong then asked her to meet him in Free China, where on 25 January 1944 he ordained her ‘a priest in the Church of God.’

Bishop Hall knew that this was as momentous a step as when the Apostle Peter baptised the Gentile Cornelius. As Saint Peter recognised that God had already given Cornelius the baptismal gift of the Spirit, so Bishop Hall thought he was merely confirming that God had already given Florence the gift of priestly ministry – although he resisted the temptation to rename her Cornelia.

Although Bishop Hall’s action was well received in his diocese, it caused a storm of protest throughout the wider Anglican Communion, and pressure was brought on the bishop to have her relinquish the title and role of a priest.

When she became aware of the concern of the wider Church and of the pressure on her bishop, Florence did not get angry and leave the Church. Instead, she decided in 1946 to surrender her priest’s licence, but not her Holy Orders. For the next 39 years, she served faithfully under very difficult circumstances, when the knowledge that she had been ordained priest later helped to carry her through the worst excesses of the Maoist era in China.

She moved to the far south of China, near the Vietnamese border, where she ran a maternity home to protect female babies. The Communist Government closed down all churches in China from 1958 to 1974 and Tim-Oi was designated as a counter-revolutionary, persecuted by the Red Guards. Forced to work on a chicken farm, and then in a factory, she was unable to openly practice her Christian faith or meet people she knew were Christians, lest she got them into trouble.

While she was officially recognised as a priest in the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau in 1971, she was not allowed to retire from her factory work until 1974. At the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1979, she resumed her ministry in the Church in China.

Arrangements were made for her to move to Canada in 1983, and she was appointed an honorary assistant at Saint John’s Chinese congregation and Saint Matthew’s parish in Toronto. By then, the Anglican Church in Canada had approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and in 1984, on the 40th anniversary of her ordination, with great joy and thanksgiving, she was reinstated as a priest.

The anniversary was also celebrated at Westminster Abbey and at Sheffield Cathedral, although the Church of England had not yet approved the ordination of women.

She was invited to Lambeth Palace that year to meet Archbishop Robert Runcie. Until then, he had not been convinced about women’s ordination, but their meeting changed his thinking: ‘Who am I to say whom God can or cannot call?’

She returned briefly to China in 1987, when Bob Brown made a film about her, Return to Hepu: Li Tim-Oi Goes Home.

Until she died in 1992, she exercised her priesthood with such faithfulness and quiet dignity that won tremendous respect for herself and gathered increasing support for other women seeking ordination. The very quality of her ministry in China and in Canada and the grace with which she exercised her priesthood helped convince many throughout the Anglican Communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the Church far exceeded the expectations of those involved in her ordination in 1944.

She was awarded Doctorates of Divinity by the General Theological Seminary, New York, and Trinity College, Toronto. She died in her sleep on 26 February 1992, reportedly after phoning several elderly people who were confined to home, praying with them and offering them pastoral counsel. She is buried in Toronto.

The Anglican Church of Canada agreed in 2004 to include Florence Li Tim-Oi in the Calendar of Holy Persons in the Book of Alternative Services – on the anniversary of her death, 26 February. She was made a permanent part of the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints in 2018.

The Li Tim-Oi Foundation which helps women in the Two-Thirds World train for ministry and vocational work in their communities.

Her story is told by Ted Harrison in Much Beloved Daughter (1985) and in her own memoir, Raindrops of My Life (1996).

The Revd Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok Sau Tseng, her father, and Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as deacon in Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, on Ascension Day 22 May 1941

Today’s Prayers (Friday 19 September 2025):

The theme this week (14 to 20 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Standing in Solidarity with the Church in Myanmar’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update from Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 19 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Father God, bring peace to your Church in Myanmar. Protect displaced believers, provide for their needs, and heal their wounds.

The Collect:

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

The Post Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The story about Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion, and how she drew her strength from her faith in God

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

Seven members of the extended Comerford family remembered on VJ Day, 80 years after war

Gerald Francis Commerford of the Australian Army Medical Corps was a Japanese prisoner of war and is named on Panel 26 on the Labuan Memorial in Borneo

Patrick Comerford

Commemorations are taking across the land marking VJ Day and the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japan and the end of World War II in Asia and Pacific on 15 August 1945.

It is only a week or since I was involved in commemorations marking the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945.

Being a pacifist has not stopped me from wanting to remember both VE Day (7 May) and VJ Day and to honour the sacrifices so many people made so that we would have democracy, freedom and justice 80 years later.

The wars in Ukraine and Russia, in Gaza, Israel and Palestine, and the meeting at an air force base in Alaska later today of two bellicose presidents, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, should remind us all that there are no victors in war, that there is no glory in war, and when politicians get it wrong the principal victims of war are ordinary, every day civilians, men, women and children.

Ironically, today’s talks between Trump and Putin, which are unlikely to bring any hope of peace in the world, take in Pacific region as we remember the end of World War II in the Pacific.

This afternoon, to mark VJ Day, I am recalling members of the Comerford, Commerford and Cumberford families who died in the Pacific region during World War II and whose names are recorded on memorials and graves by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The 19 members of this extended family I have found to date on Commonwealth War Graves include prisoners of war of the Japanese in Borneo, Burma (Myanmar), Hong Kong and Japan.

Seven Comerfords fought in the Asia and Pacific regions and five were Prisoners of War of the Japanese. They are remembered in the Sat Wan Memorial in Hong Kong, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery and the Rangoon Memorial in Burma (Myanmar), Yokohama War Cemetery in Japan, and the Labuan Memorial on Labuan Island off the coast of Sabah in Borneo, Malaysia.

They were the members of the ‘Forgotten Army’, but they should not be forgotten, nor should the threat and dangers of war be forgotten. These seven people I am remembering today on VJ Day are:

Ernest Edward Comerford: Australian; Lieutenant, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 3 Rec. Trg. Bn. Age: 28. Date of death: 18 July 1945. Service number: QX.35506. Family information: Son of John Edward and Rosina Comerford, of Townsville, Queensland. Grave/memorial reference: 2W. D. 8, Sydney War Cemetery.

Gerald Francis Commerford was born on 8 July 1919 in Maclean, Clarence Valley Council, New South Wales. He was a son of Denis and Margaret Sarah Commerford of Lower Lawrence, New South Wales. His family was originally from Ireland, and they were related to Denis Comerford, who gives his name to Comerford Way in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, near Milton Keynes.

Gerald was a private in a field ambulance unit in the Australian Army Medical Corps during World War II. He was one of over 2,000 Allied POWs held in the Sandakan camp in North Borneo. He was transferred there from Singapore as a part of B Force. The 1,494 POWs that made up B Force, were transported from Changi on 7 July 1942 on board the tramp ship Ubi Maru, arriving in Sandakan Harbour on 18 July 1942.

Gerald Commerford was 25 when he died of starvation while he was a prisoner of the Japanese in Borneo on 9 February 1945. He has no known grave, and is commemorated on Panel 26 on the Labuan Memorial on Labuan Island off the coast of Sabah in North Borneo, Malaysia.

James Matthew Comerford, Australian; Corporal, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/26 Bn. Age: 26. Date of death: 25 May 1943. Service number: QX17117. Family information: son of Edward Tobias and Ellen Cecelia Comerford, of Paddington, Queensland, Australia. Grave/memorial reference: A1. B. 19, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Burma (Myanmar).

John Commerford, United Kingdom; Lance Corporal, Middlesex Regiment, 1st Bn. Age: 27. Date of death: between 1 and 2 October 1942. Service number: 6010413. Family information: son of Serjeant TJ Commerford, The Royal Fusiliers, and of Mary Commerford, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, England. Grave/memorial reference: Column 14, Sat Wan Memorial, Hong Kong.

Noel Patrick Commerford, South African; Able Seaman, South African Naval Forces, HMS Cornwall. Age: ?. Date of death: 5 April 1942 (off the coast of Ceylon/Sri Lanka). Service number: 66493. Family information: son of Mrs P Commerford, of Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa; brother of Terence Commerford (see below), who died five months later. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 74, Column 1, Plymouth Naval Memorial.

Thomas Michael Comerford, Australian; Private, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/20 Bn. Age: 39. Date of death: 26 October 1943. Service number: NX55519. Family information: son of John and Bridget Ann Comerford. Grave/memorial reference: Aust. Sec. A.B.1, Yokohama War Cemetery, Japan.

William Comerford, United Kingdom; Fusilier, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 1st Bn. Age: 22. Date of death: 18 January 1943 (POW). Service number: 6981836. Family information: son of Edward William Comerford and Harriet Comerford, of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Grave/memorial reference: Face 11, Rangoon Memorial, Burma (Myanmar).

Behind each of these names and numbers are real-life stories … but more of these stories tomorrow evening.

Gerald Francis Commerford was a Japanese prisoner of war in Changi in Singapore and Sandakan camp in North Borneo

Commemorating VE Day in Crete and Stony Stratford, and remembering Comerfordswho died in World War II

The Suda Bay Commonwealth War Cemetery in Crete, near Chania and Chania Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

At 6:30 tomorrow evening (8 May 2025) the church bells at Saint Mary and Saint Giles are ringing across Stony Stratford, like church bells and cathedral bells across the land, marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe Day.

The fragile peace we have had in Europe for the past 80 years has been marred and broken constantly, and even shattered on many occasions, with the civil war in Greece (1946-1949), the false stability and tensions of the Cold War, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in former Yugoslavia’, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Every town and village in Crete has monuments and memorials that are reminders of how every family on the island suffered during World War II. As I passed the Souda Bay War Cemetery on my way from Rethymnon to Chania Airport, I was reminded of the horrors of war, that peace in Europe has been bought with a heavy price, and how all too often we take our liberties, rights and systems of justice for granted.

The road to the airport climbs high above a horseshoe bay, the busy port and the cemetery at Souda Bay in a peaceful setting in an olive grove and surrounded by eucalyptus trees, about 5 km east from the centre of Chania. There are 1,500 Commonwealth war graves from World War II in the cemetery, along with 60 or so other graves. These graves bring home with force the calamity that was the Battle of Crete in 1941.

In May 1941, the Commonwealth force in Crete was organised in five widely separated defence areas along the north coast – around the three airfields at Iraklion, Rethymnon and Máleme, and at Souda Bay and the port of Chania.

The Germans launched their attack on Crete on 20 May with airborne troops. The airfield at Máleme was quickly captured and used for landing German reinforcements. The remainder of the Máleme position was given up on 23 May and its defenders fell back to Chania. The Allied line west of Chania was broken on 26 May, Suda Bay became indefensible and the troops from these two positions, with the remainder of the Maleme garrison, withdrew across the island to Hora Sfakion, where many of them were evacuated by sea on the nights of the 28-31 May.

The airborne attacks on the Iraklion and Rethymnon positions on 20 May were repulsed. Iraklion was defended until the night of 29 May when the garrison was evacuated by sea. Orders for the garrison in Rethymnon to fight its way southward for evacuation did not arrive, and it was overwhelmed on 31 May. Of the total Commonwealth land force of 32,000 in Crete, 18,000 were evacuated, 12,000 were taken prisoner and 2,000 were killed.

Among the graves at Soudha is that of John Pendlebury, the archaeologist who took over at Knossos after Arthur Evans retired.

Being a pacifist does not stop me from wanting to remember on VE Day and to honour the sacrifices so many people made so that we would have democracy, freedom and justice 80 years later. For example, without the extraordinary work at Bletchley Park, would World War II have dragged on for another six years? Would Britain and Ireland have been invaded? Would six million more have been murdered in the Holocaust?

Patrick Comerford, Dungulph, Co Wexford, Derek Comerford, West Hartlepool, Hugh Brown Cumberford, Glasgow, and Patrick Comerford, Arklow, are named on the Merchant Sailors’ Memorial on Tower Hill, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This evening, in anticipation of the VE Day commemorations tomorrow, I am recalling all those names of the dead from World War II from the Comerford, Commerford and Cumberford families that I have found recorded on memorials and graves by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The 19 members of this extended family I have found to date on Commonwealth War Graves are from many parts of Ireland and Britain, including Wexford and Arklow, from Glasgow, Hartlepool, Hastings, London, Manchester, Mansfield in Nottinghamshire and Shrewsbury, and also from Australia, Canada and South Africa.

They include soldiers and officers, with ambulance units in the medical corps, drivers, able seamen, civilian casualties, soldiers in the D-Day landings, merchant seamen torpedoed in Atlantic convoys, brothers and sisters, and prisoners of war of the Japanese in Borneo, Burma (Myanmar), Hong Kong and Japan.

They are buried or commemorated in the Phaleron War Cemetery near Athens, in Normandy, Borneo, Burma, Japan, Nottinghamshire, London, Sydney, Durban and Montreal.

Five Comerfords who were Prisoners of War of the Japanese are remembered in the Sat Wan Memorial in I am recalling all those names of the dead from World War II from the Comerford, Commerford and Cumberford families that I have found recorded on memorials and graves by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The 19 members of this extended family I have found to date on Commonwealth War Graves are from many parts of Ireland and Britain, including Wexford and Arklow, from Glasgow, Hartlepool, Hastings, London, Manchester, Mansfield in Nottinghamshire and Shrewsbury, and also from Australia, Canada and South Africa.

They include soldiers and officers, with ambulance units in the medical corps, drivers, able seamen, civilian casualties, soldiers in the D-Day landings, merchant seamen torpedoed in Atlantic convoys, brothers and sisters, and prisoners of war of the Japanese in Borneo, Burma (Myanmar), Hong Kong and Japan.

They are buried or commemorated in the Phaleron War Cemetery near Athens, in Normandy, Hong Kong, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery and the Rangoon Memorial in Burma (Myanmar), Yokohama War Cemetery in Japan, and the Labuan Memorial on Labuan Island off the coast of Sabah in Borneo, Malaysia. Four Comerfords are named on the Merchant Seamen’s Memorial on Tower Hill in London and two are named on the Plymouth War Memorial.

Michael John Comerford from Manchester is buried at Phaleron War Cemetery, near Athens

These 19 people from World War II are:

Derek Comerford: United Kingdom; Ordinary Seaman, Merchant Navy, S.S. Empire Engineer (West Hartlepool). Age: 17. Date of death: 2 February 1941. Family information: son of Peter and Mary Hannah Comerford, of North Shields, Northumberland. His father, Peter Comerford, was born in Glasgow, and his father was from Ireland. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 40, Tower Hill Memorial.

Edward William Commerford, United Kingdom; Private, Home Guard, 18th County of London Bn. Age: 39. Date of death: 4 February 1944. Family information: son of Edward and Matilda Commerford; husband of Minnie Commerford, of Dulwich. Grave/memorial reference: Sec. 86. Grave 39695, West Norwood Cemetery and Crematorium.

Ernest Edward Comerford: Australian; Lieutenant, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 3 Rec. Trg. Bn. Age: 28. Date of death: 18 July 1945. Service number: QX.35506. Family information: Son of John Edward and Rosina Comerford, of Townsville, Queensland. Grave/memorial reference: 2W. D. 8, Sydney War Cemetery.

Frank Comerford: United Kingdom; Company Quartermaster Serjeant, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Age: 40. Date of death: 3 April 1944. Service number: 3514928. Family information: son of William and Margaret Comerford; husband of Doris Mary Comerford, of Frankwell, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Grave/memorial reference: Sec. A 2 D. Grave 1. Beeston and Stapleford (Chilwell) Cemetery.

Gerald Francis Commerford, Australian; Private, Australian Army Medical Corps, A.I.F. 2/10 Field Ambulance. Age: 25. Date of death: 9 February 1945. Service number: NX33246. Family information: son of Denis and Margaret Sarah Commerford, of Lower Lawrence, New South Wales. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 26, Labuan Memorial, Malaysia.

Hugh Brown Cumberford, United Kingdom; Radio Officer, Merchant Navy, SS Kellwyn (Swansea). Age: 19. Date of death: 27 July 1941. Family information: son of John Brown Cumberford and Agnes Cumberford, of Dalmarnock, Glasgow. Grave/memorial reference: Tower Hill Memorial.

James Matthew Comerford, Australian; Corporal, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/26 Bn. Age: 26. Date of death: 25 May 1943. Service number: QX17117. Family information: son of Edward Tobias and Ellen Cecelia Comerford, of Paddington, Queensland, Australia. Grave/memorial reference: A1. B. 19, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Burma (Myanmar).

John Commerford, United Kingdom; Lance Corporal, Middlesex Regiment, 1st Bn. Age: 27. Date of death: between 1 and 2 October 1942. Service number: 6010413. Family information: son of Serjeant TJ Commerford, The Royal Fusiliers, and of Mary Commerford, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, England. Grave/memorial reference: Column 14, Sat Wan Memorial, Hong Kong.

Lilian Rose Comerford, United Kingdom; civilian casualty. Age: 62. Date of death: 30 September 1940. Family information: of Rose Cottage, The Ridge, Hastings; daughter of Francis Thomas and Charlotte Comerford. Died at Robertson Street. Reporting authority: Hastings County Borough.

Mary Agnes Comerford, United Kingdom; civilian casualty. Age: 17. Date of death: 16 December 1940. Family information: daughter of Thomas and Mary Agnes Comerford, of 26 New Allen Street, Collyhurst, Manchester; died at Ancoats Hospital, New Cross, Manchester; her brother, Michael John Comerford (see below), died in 1944, and is buried near Athens. Reporting authority: Manchester County Borough.

Michael John Comerford, United Kingdom; Gunner, Royal Artillery, 165 Field Regt. Age: 22. Date of death: 5 December 1944. Service number: 1144779. Family information: son of Thomas and Mary Agnes Comerford, of Manchester; husband of Sabina Comerford, of Manchester; his sister, Mary Agnes Comerford (see above), was a civilian casualty in 1940. Grave/memorial reference: 16. E. 12, Phaleron War Cemetery, near Athens.

Noel Patrick Commerford, South African; Able Seaman, South African Naval Forces, HMS Cornwall. Age: ?. Date of death: 5 April 1942 (off the coast of Ceylon/Sri Lanka). Service number: 66493. Family information: son of Mrs P Commerford, of Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa; brother of Terence Commerford (see below), who died five months later. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 74, Column 1, Plymouth Naval Memorial.

Patrick Comerford, United Kingdom (Ireland); Able Seaman, Merchant Navy, SS Clune Park (Greenock). Age: 52. Date of death: 12 February 1941 (200 miles south-east of the Azores, in Convoy SLS-64 from Freetown to Liverpool). Family information: husband of Catherine Comerford, of Dungulph, Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford. His brother, Laurence Comerford, was a casualty in World War I. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 31, Tower Hill Memorial.

Patrick Comerton (Comerford), United Kingdom (Ireland); Able Seaman, Merchant Navy, SS Newbury (London). Age: 49. Date of death: 15 September 1941 (torpedoed by U-94 and sunk 800 miles south-east of Cape Farewell, carrying coal from Cardiff to Buenos Aires). Family information: son of James and Mary Comerton (Comerford); husband of Mary Ellen Comerton (Comerford), of Arklow, Co Wicklow. Memorial: Panel 72, Tower Hill Memorial, London,

Terence Commerford, South African; Ordinary Seaman, South African Naval Forces, HMS Express. Age: 21. Date of death: 19 September 1942. Service number: 330258. Family information: son of Pierce and Wilhelmina Commerford of Cape Town; brother of Noel Patrick Commerford (see above), who died five months earlier. Grave/memorial reference: Block F. Grave 275, Durban (Stellawood) Cemetery.

Thomas Matthew Commerford, United Kingdom; Trooper, Royal Armoured Corps, 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars. Age: 36. Date of death: 19 August 1944 (Normandy Landings). Service number: 7927353. Family information: son of Thomas James Commerford and Mary Commerford; husband of Phyllis Ettie Mary Commerford, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex. Grave/memorial reference: III. F. 13, Banneville-la-Campagne War Cemetery.

Thomas Michael Comerford, Australian; Private, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/20 Bn. Age: 39. Date of death: 26 October 1943. Service number: NX55519. Family information: son of John and Bridget Ann Comerford. Grave/memorial reference: Aust. Sec. A.B.1, Yokohama War Cemetery, Japan.

William Comerford, United Kingdom; Fusilier, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 1st Bn. Age: 22. Date of death: 18 January 1943 (POW). Service number: 6981836. Family information: son of Edward William Comerford and Harriet Comerford, of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Grave/memorial reference: Face 11, Rangoon Memorial, Burma (Myanmar).

William Michael Commerford, Canadian; Private, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps. Age: 36. Date of death: 30 November 1944. Service number: D/142978. Family information: husband of Muriel Commerford, of Montreal. Grave/memorial reference: Sec. I. Lot 1498. Grave 5957, Montreal (Notre Dame des Neiges) Cemetery, Canada.

Behind each of these names and numbers are real-life stories … but more of these stories tomorrow evening.

Patrick Comerford of Dungulph, Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexfor, named with members of the SS Clune Park crew on Panel 31 on the Tower Hill Memorial in London

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 133, Friday 20 September 2024

James Tissot (1836-1902), The Holy Women (Les femmes saintes), 1886-1896 (Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (15 September 2024). Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers John Coleridge Patteson (1871), First Bishop of Melanesia, and his Companions, Martyrs.

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 Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first Anglican woman priest, was ordained priest 80 years ago on 25 January 1944

Luke 8: 1-3 (NRSVA)

1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

A notice board in Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, London, remembers the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi, who was ordained 80 years ago in 1944 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

In the three short verses in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist, Saint Luke describes the team of men and women who travel with Jesus, accompanying him in his ministry. They are men and women: the Twelve (verse 1), and a group of women, including three named women, and ‘many others, who provided for them out of their resources’ (verses 2-3).

The women and men are referred to in a way that implies that their ministry is equal. The three named women are Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Cuza, and Susanna, but there are ‘many others.’

These women are women of independent means and are supporting Jesus ‘out of their resources’ or ‘out of their own means’ (Luke 8: 3b). The original text in Greek says αἵτινες διηκόνουν αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐταῖς, they served, provided or ministered using their own resources.

The Greek verb here is διακονέω (diakoneō), which throughout the New Testament means to minister to, to fill the office of διάκονος (diakonos, deacon), to perform the duties of deacon, to serve. In this verse, it is found in the imperfect tense, meaning continual and habitual activity in the past. They supply Jesus’ financial needs again and again.

These women are his first supporters of Jesus’ mission, and they generously met the needs of Jesus and his band out of their own personal wealth. The Greek word is the substantive of ὑπάρχω (hyparchō), ‘what belongs to someone, someone’s property, possession, means’.

If being a true disciple means putting everything that one has at the disposal of Jesus and his ministry, then these three women are, indeed, role models for ministry.

Throughout this year (2024), there have been celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the ordination as priest of the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi (1907-1992) in Hong Kong on 25 January 1944. She was the first woman to be ordained a priest in a church in the Anglican Communion.

Florence Li Tim-Oi was born in a fishing village in Hong Kong on 5 May 1907. Her father, a doctor turned headmaster, called her ‘Much Beloved’ because he valued her as a daughter even if other parents preferred sons. When she was baptised as a student, Tim-Oi chose the name Florence after Florence Nightingale, the 19th century ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who felt she had a vocation that was ignored by the Church.

At the ordination of a deaconess in Hong Kong Cathedral in 1931, Florence heard and responded to the call to ministry. She took a four-year course at the theological college in Guangzhou (Canton), was ordained deacon in 1941, and was given charge of the Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao, which was thronged with refugees from war-torn China.

When a priest could no longer travel from Japanese-occupied territory to preside at the Eucharist, for three years Florence Tim-Oi was licensed to preside as a deacon. Bishop Ronald Owen Hall of Hong Kong then asked her to meet him in Free China, where on 25 January 1944 he ordained her ‘a priest in the Church of God.’ He knew that this was as momentous a step as when the Apostle Peter baptised the Gentile Cornelius. As Saint Peter recognised that God had already given Cornelius the baptismal gift of the Spirit, so Bishop Hall thought he was merely confirming that God had already given Florence the gift of priestly ministry – although he resisted the temptation to rename her Cornelia.

Although Bishop Hall’s action was well received in his diocese, it caused a storm of protest throughout the wider Anglican Communion, and pressure was brought on the bishop to have her relinquish the title and role of a priest.

When she became aware of the concern of the wider church and of the pressure on her bishop, Florence did not get angry and leave the Church. Instead, she decided in 1946 to surrender her priest’s licence, but not her Holy Orders. For the next 39 years, she served faithfully under very difficult circumstances, when the knowledge that she had been ordained priest later helped to carry her through the worst excesses of the Maoist era in China.

She moved to the far south of China, near the Vietnamese border, where she ran a maternity home to protect female babies. The Communist Government closed down all churches in China from 1958-74 and Tim-Oi was designated as a counter-revolutionary, persecuted by the Red Guards. Forced to work on a chicken farm, and then in a factory, she was unable to openly practice her Christian faith or meet people she knew were Christians, lest she got them into trouble.

While she was officially recognised as a priest in the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau in 1971, she was not allowed to retire from her factory work until 1974. At the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1979, she resumed her ministry in the Church in China.

Arrangements were made for her to move to Canada in 1983, and she was appointed an honorary assistant at Saint John’s Chinese congregation and Saint Matthew’s parish in Toronto. By then, the Anglican Church in Canada had approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and in 1984, on the 40th anniversary of her ordination, with great joy and thanksgiving, she was reinstated as a priest.

The anniversary was also celebrated at Westminster Abbey and at Sheffield Cathedral, although the Church of England had not yet approved the ordination of women.

She was invited to Lambeth Palace that year to meet Archbishop Robert Runcie. Until then, he had not been convinced about women’s ordination, but their meeting changed his thinking: ‘Who am I to say whom God can or cannot call?’

She returned briefly to China in 1987, when Bob Brown made a film about her, Return to Hepu: Li Tim-Oi Goes Home.

Until she died in 1992, she exercised her priesthood with such faithfulness and quiet dignity that won tremendous respect for herself and gathered increasing support for other women seeking ordination. The very quality of her ministry in China and in Canada and the grace with which she exercised her priesthood helped convince many throughout the Anglican Communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the Church far exceeded the expectations of those involved in her ordination in 1944.

She was awarded Doctorates of Divinity by the General Theological Seminary, New York, and Trinity College, Toronto. She died in her sleep on 26 February 1992, reportedly after phoning several elderly people who were confined to home, praying with them and offering them pastoral counsel. She is buried in Toronto.

The Anglican Church of Canada agreed in 2004 to include Florence Li Tim-Oi in the Calendar of Holy Persons in the Book of Alternative Services – on the anniversary of her death, 26 February. She was made a permanent part of the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints in 2018.

The Li Tim-Oi Foundation which helps women in the Two-Thirds World train for ministry and vocational work in their communities.

Her story is told by Ted Harrison in Much Beloved Daughter (1985) and in her own memoir, Raindrops of My Life (1996).

The Revd Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok, her father, and Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as deacon in Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, on Ascension Day 22 May 1941

Today’s Prayers (Friday 20 September 2024):

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 ‘The 5-finger prayer from the Diocese of Kuching, Malaysia.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday in reflections as told to Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 20 September 2024) invites us to pray:

Little Finger (yourself): Thank you Father that you know what I need before I ask you. Please help me to grow in mind, body, and spirit.

The Collect:

God of all tribes and peoples and tongues,
who called your servant John Coleridge Patteson
to witness in life and death to the gospel of Christ
amongst the peoples of Melanesia:
grant us to hear your call to service
and to respond trustfully and joyfully
to Jesus Christ our redeemer,
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 our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr John Coleridge Patteson:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Matthew:

O Almighty God, whose blessed Son called Matthew the tax collector
to be an apostle and evangelist:
give us grace to forsake the selfish pursuit of gain
and the possessive love of riches
that we may follow in the way of your Son Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The story about Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion, and how she drew her strength from her faith in God

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

The Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi with Archbishop Robert Runcie during a visit to Lambeth Palace 40 years ago in 1984