Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 27, Monday 20 January 2025

Feasting and fasting are important topics in all three Abrahamic faiths (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II), with readings that focussed on the Wedding at Cana, the third great Epiphany theme, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ.

Today is the Third Day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Richard Rolle of Hampole (1349), Spiritual Writer.

Two of us are on our way back to Stony Stratford from York this morning on an overnight/early morning coach, after a weekend that included a family celebration in Harrogate on Saturday night. 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.

‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak’ … the HIV+ Women’s Group Quilt at Open Heart House at an exhibition in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 18-22 (NRSVA):

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ 19 Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

21 ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’

Ramadan bread on sale as sunset draws in Kuşadasi (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading yesterday, the story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), one of the three great Epiphany themes, along with the Visit of the Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12, 6 January 2025, The Epiphany), and the previous Sunday’s story of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist (Luke 3: 17-17, 21-22, 12 January 2025). These three themes at Epiphany tell us who Christ truly is: truly God and truly human.

That wedding theme in yesterday’s Gospel reading is continued today, with a wedding feast used to illustrate a debate about feasting and fasting.

Richard Rolle from Thornton, Yorkshire, who is remembered in the church calendar today, lived close to the Cistercian nuns at Hampole, where he wrote prolifically on mysticism and asceticism. He believed fasting and other ascetic practices were important for simplifying the self and eliminating vices.

However, he also warned against ascetic fasts that were too extreme, and in his Form of Living he advises moderation – moderation in fasting, prayer, sleep, and clothing.

Feasting and fasting are important themes in the three Abrahamic faith – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

For many Jews, the central act of worship and prayer is not what happens in a synagogue on a Saturday morning, but the shared family meal in the home on Friday evening, when the candles are lit and blessings are said over the shared wine and bread.

Passover or Pesach begins this year on the evening of Saturday 12 April 2025, and ends after nightfall on 20 April. Passover involves elements of both feasting and fasting, with the Seder meals but removing all leavened foods or chametz and abstaining from all food and drink that includes anything leavened or fermented, such as bread, crackers, cookies, pretzels and pasta, and most brands of beer, whiskey, vodka and gin.

The Eucharist is the central act of worship for Christians. The Church of Ireland, for example, teaches that ‘Holy Communion is the central act of worship’ and ‘warmly’ invites ‘all communicant members of Christian churches to join us at the Lord’s Table.’

The Iftar meals are shared, communal and spiritual experiences for Muslims.

Fasting is not only a Christian tradition, but is a form of spiritual discipline in all the great religious traditions: think of Yom Kippur, the great Jewish fast, or of Ramadan, a whole month of fasting for Muslims.

The association between feasting and fasting and the quest for justice are emphasised by Orthodox Christians in the prayers and readings on Clean Monday (Καθαρή Δευτέρα), which marks the beginning of Lent and which falls on 3 March this year (2025).

Greeks traditionally mark Clean Monday (Καθαρή Δευτέρα) by gathering for a traditional κούλουμα (koulouma) celebration, flying kites and eating halva. A special kind of azyme bread (λαγάνα, lagana) is baked only on this day. Some Orthodox Christians abstain from eating meat, eggs and dairy products throughout Lent, eating fish only on major feast days.

Liturgically, Clean Monday – and Lent itself – begins with a special service called Forgiveness Vespers, which ends with the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, when those present bow down before each other and ask for forgiveness. In this way, they begin Lent with a clean conscience, with forgiveness, and with renewed Christian love.

The theme of Clean Monday is set by the reading appointed for the Sixth Hour (Isaiah 1: 1-20), which says in part:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool (verses 16-18).

In the first week of Lent, the Orthodox Church celebrates the hope that, as the Vespers that Wednesday say, ‘the springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to open.’

Ramadan this year starts on Friday 28 February and concludes on the evening of Sunday 30 March. I have visited in Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey during the month of Ramadan, or Ramazan as it is known in Turkey, and I have found it is a very spiritual time to be in a country with a predominantly Muslim population.

In Kuşadasi, a resort town on the Aegean coast, I have noticed how among tourists no-one is affected by Ramadan – the cafés, bars and restaurants are open, and life goes on as normal. But during Ramadan, practising Muslims are taught not to eat, drink, or have sexual relations between dawn and sunset. I realised there how it must be tough on the cooks and waiters in hotels, restaurants and bars as they cook and serve food and watch the tourists eating and drinking throughout the day.

One tradition in many places in Turkey is the ‘Ramazan Drummer,’ a ‘human alarm clock’ who starts to stroll and beat his drum in the streets around 3 am to wake up those who are fasting so that they can rise and prepare the Sahur, the morning meal before sunrise.

The fast of Ramadan is broken each evening with Itfar, which is a celebration and a sharing with the community. In the evening, a cannon booms out to announce the end of the fast and the beginning of darkness.

Stewed fruits are indispensable foods at both iftar dinners and sahur breakfasts. Stuffed bagels are associated with sahur, while Turkish bread is preferred at the evening meal.

But, before the evening meal, the fast is traditionally broken with olives and water firstly, with the main meal following later. It is unhealthy to fill empty stomachs with heavy foods, and – in any case – for centuries the olive has been considered a holy food by every religious tradition in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Once the sun goes down, many restaurants become busy with local people who come out to eat with their family members. Or people rush home to be with their families to enjoy the Iftar, or the breaking of the fast.

Many young people use those evenings to meet and visit their friends, and there is often a party atmosphere … although most of this passes unnoticed by the many young Turks in Kuşadasi working until well into the night in the hotels, tourist shops and bars, and the young tourists who know little about the spiritual values of feasting and fasting and of tolerance and justice, and how they are intertwined.

I find it interesting that there is going to be a partial overlap this year between Lent and Easter, Passover and Ramadan.

‘The springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to Open’ … an image in the journal Koinonia, Lent 2011, Vol 4, Issue 13, Kansas City, MO

Today’s Prayers (Monday 20 January 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Whom Shall I Send?’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 20 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, help these young people to carry the spirit of unity and cross-cultural understanding into their communities, that they may be your instruments of reconciliation in a divided world.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Sunset in the Aegean at Ladies Beach in Kuşadasi … practising Muslims are expected to fast from sunrise to sunset each day during Ramadan (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

Patrick Comerford, publications: books, chapters, pamphlets reports, reviews and features

Visiting Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth, in rural Staffordshire

2025:

‘Diversity in Sarawak’, pp 20-21 in Pray with the World Church: Prayers And Reflections from The Anglican Communion, 1 June 2025 – 29 November 2025 (London: USPG, 2025, 64 pp)

Book review: Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles, by Andrew Ziminski (London, Profile Books, 2024), in the Irish Theological Quarterly (Maynooth), Volume 90 Issue 2, April 2025, pp 239-240.

Nine photographs (pp 7, 26, 36, 38, 38, 46, 47, 49, 49) in Co. Clare Visitor Guide, ed Sally Davies (Smarttraveller365, 2025), 64 pp.

One photograph (p 42) in County Kerry Visitor Guide, ed Sally Davies (Smarttraveller365, 2025), 76 pp.

Photograph of Saint Peter's Church, Kuching, in Herald Malaysia (1 July 2025).

2024:

Προλογος / Foreword, pp 5-8 in Panos Karagiorgos, Ελληνικα Δημοτικα Τραγουδια, Greek Folk Songs (Thessaloniki, Εκδοτικος Οικος Κ & Μ Σταμουλη, 2024, 203 pp ISBN: 978-960-656-200-6).

‘The Lamport Crucifix’, in: Catriona Finlayson (ed), 50 Years of the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust (Lamport, Northamptonshire, 2024, 100 pp), pp 54-57, with photographs

‘Bourke’s House’, in: Denis O’Shaughnessy (ed), The Story of Athlunkard Street, 1824-2024 (Limerick, 2024, 206 pp), pp 10-13.

‘Foreword’ (pp iv-v) and photograph (p 181) in: Rod Smith, Clancarty – the high times and humble of a noble Irish family (Tauranga, New Zealand: Eyeglass Press, 2024, xviii + 341 pp, ISBN 978-0-473-70863-4)

Patrick Comerford and Sarah Friedman, Milton Keynes & District Reform Synagogue: an introduction (6 pp pamphlet, with six photographs, Milton Keynes, 17 November 2024)

‘Did St Patrick Bring Christianity to Ireland’, Conversations (Dublin: Dominican Publications, ed Bernard Treacy), Vol 1 No 2, March/April 2024, pp 77-80, ISSN 2990-8388.

Book Review: Towards a Theology of Liturgy: A Collection of Essays on West Syrian Liturgical Theology, Fr Dr KM Koshy Vaidyan, Kottayam: Mashikkoottu, 2023, 232 pp, ISBN 978-81-966011-5-7, in The Journal of Malankara Orthodox Theological Studies (Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kerala, India), Vol viii No 2 (July-December 2023), pp 113-115 (published February 2024).

‘Richard Rawle, the Vicar of Tamworth who became a Bishop in Trinidad’, Tamworth Heritage Magazine, Vol 2 No 1, Winter 2024 (January 2024), ed Chris Hills (ISSN 2753-4162 9772 7534 16209), pp 11-14 (with photographs)

‘William Wailes, stained glass artist’, Tamworth Heritage Magazine, Vol 2 No 1, Winter 2024 (January 2024), ed Chris Hills (ISSN 2753-4162 9772 7534 16209), pp 17-18 (with four photographs)

Photograph, ‘Forgiveness and love in the face of death and mass murder … a fading rose on the fence at Birkenau’, p 202 in Frank Callery, Ceangailte Tied Appendixes of Pain (Kilkenny: O’Mega Publications), 250 pp, forthcoming poetry collection

Photograph (Bryce House, February 2025) in ‘Garnish Island Calendar 2025’ (produced by Deirdre Goyvaerts for Scoil Fhiachna National School, Glengarriff, Co Cork, 2024)

Photograph, ‘The Liberties College’, illustrating feature by Mary Phelan in The Liberty (local newspaper, Dublin), 2 November 2024.

2023:

‘The Sephardic family roots and heritage of John Desmond Bernal, Limerick scientist’, pp 60-66 in The Old Limerick Journal, ed Tom Donovan (Limerick: Limerick Museum, ISBN: 9781916294394, 72 pp), No 58, Winter 2023, with nine photographs, 1 December 2023.

‘Church-goers in Limerick During War and Revolution’, Chapter 6, pp 83-89, in Histories of Protestant Limerick, 1912-1923, ed Seán William Gannon and Brian Hughes (Limerick: Limerick City & County Council, 2023, ISBN 978-1-999-6911-6, 132 pp); with three photographs, pp 70-71.

‘The ‘Wexford Carol’ and the mystery surrounding some old and popular Christmas carols’, pp 72-77 in Christmas and the Irish: a miscellany, ed Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-913934-93-4, 403 pp, €25), with photograph on p 71.

‘Molly Bloom’s Christmas Card: where Joycean fiction meets a real-life family’ is published in Christmas and the Irish: a miscellany, ed Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-913934-93-4, 403 pp, €25), pp 151-155, including a photograph on p 155.

‘‘We Three Kings of Orient are’: an Epiphany carol with Irish links’, pp 103-107 in Christmas and the Irish: a miscellany, ed Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-913934-93-4, 403 pp, €25).

<< Ο Sir Richard Church και οι Ιρλανδοι Φιλελληνες στον Πολεμο των Ελληνων για την Ανεξαρτησια >>, pp 53-75, in Πανος Καραγιώργος και Patrick Comerford, Ο Φιλελληνισμος και η Ελληνικη Επανασταση του 1821 (Θεσσαλονικη: Εκδοτικος Οικος Κ κ Σταμουλη, 2023, 78 pp), ISBN: 978-960-656-115-9.

Who is Our Neighbour? (London: USPG, 2023, ISBN: 2631-4995, 48 pp), editor and Introduction, pp 5-6; a six-session study course for Lent 2023.

Daily reading (26 March 2023), ‘Mercy: Be merciful … do not judge …’, Christian Aid online resources

Photograph (p 137) in: Jack Kavanagh, Always Ireland, An Insider’s Tour of the Emerald Isle (Washington DC: National Geographic, 2023), 336 pp, hb, ISBN 978-1-4262-2216-0, $35 in the US (March 2023).

Cover photograph: Tim Vivian, A Doorway into Thanks: Further Reflections on Scripture (Austin Macauley Publishers, London, Cambridge, New York, Sharjah), ISBN: 9781685620004, $14.95 in the US (April 2023)

Three photographs (pp 78, 165, 355) in: Hellgard Leckebusch, Singing our Song, the Memoirs of Hellgard Leckebusch (1944-2023), eds, Silke Püttmann and Kenneth Ferguson (Mettmann, NRW, Germany: Silke Püttmann, May 2023, e-book).

2022:

‘Barbara Heck and Philip Embury: Founders of American Methodism’, pp 109-111, in David Bracken, ed, Of Limerick Saints and Sinners (Dublin: Veritas, 2022, ISBN: 9781800970311), 266 pp.

‘Mother Mary Whitty: Sign of the Cross in Korea’, pp 213-215, in David Bracken, ed, Of Limerick Saints and Sinners (Dublin: Veritas, 2022, ISBN: 9781800970311, 266 pp).

‘Lichfield’s Hidden Writers’ (with Jono Oates), CityLife in Lichfield, August 2022, p 34.

‘For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church’ Studies in Christian Ethics, 35 (2), May 2022 (SAGE: Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC, Melbourne, ISBN 0953-9468), pp 342-359.

‘Saint Patrick: the myths, the legends and his relevance to Ireland today,’ Reality (Redemptorist Communications), March 2022 (Vol 88 No 2 ISSN 0034-0960), pp 12-16.

‘Study 4: Celtic Spirituality: A View from the Church of Ireland’, Living Stones, Living Hope, USPG Lent Study Course 2022 (London: USPG, 2022, ISBN: 2631-4995), pp 29-34.

Book Review: Fifty Catholic Churches to See Before You Die. By Elena Curti. Leominster: Gracewing, 2000. Pp 280. Price £14.99 (pbk). ISBN 978-0-85244-962-2, in The Irish Theological Quarterly (Pontifical University Maynooth), Vol 87 No 1 (February 2022), pp 78-80.

2021:

‘The Meade dynasty in Victorian Dublin and their family roots in Kilbreedy, Co Limerick’, pp 30-32 in ABC News (2021), annual magazine of Askeaton/Ballysteen Community Council Muinitir na Tíre, ed Geraldine O’Brien and Teresa Wallace.

‘Returning to a place of spiritual sanctuary in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield’ Koinonia (Kansas City MO, December 2021), pp 22-25.

‘Albert Grant, the Victorian Fraudster Born in Poverty in Dublin’ (Chapter 23, pp 104-107), Birth and the Irish: a miscellany, Salvador Ryan, ed (Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2021, 288 pp, ISBN: 978-1-913934-61-3).

‘Six Boys from Ballaghadereen with the Same Parents … but who was Born the Legitimate Heir?’ (Chapter 32, pp 144-148), Birth and the Irish: a miscellany, Salvador Ryan, ed (Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2021, 288 pp, ISBN: 978-1-913934-61-3).

‘A Reflection on the Crises in Afghanistan following the Fall of Kabul’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review (Vol 110, No 440, Winter 2021, pp 458-469).

Book Review: The Churchwardens’ Accounts of the Parishes of St Bride, St Michael Le Pole and St Stephen, Dublin, 1663-1702. Edited by WJR Wallace. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2020. Pp. 208. Price €50.00 (hbk). ISBN 978-1-84682-835-5, in The Irish Theological Quarterly, (Pontifical University Maynooth) Vol 86 No 2 (May 2021), pp 213-215.

Photographs in: Michael Christopher Keane, The Crosbies of Cork, Kerry, Laois and Leinster (2021, viii + 321 pp), ISBN: 9781527297418.

Photograph, illustrating Dr Dani Scarratt and Alison Woof, ‘Coming to our senses’ (pp 21-27), Case Quarterly No 60 (2021), pp 21-27 (Centre for Christian Apologetics, Scholarship and Education, New College, University of New South Wales, Sydney).

Photograph: Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, cover photograph, Old Limerick Journal (No 56, Winter 2021), ed Tom Donovan, published by the Limerick Museum.

2020:

‘The banking heir who claimed a title and whose father was Vicar of Askeaton’, ABC News 2020, annual magazine of the Askeaton/Ballysteen Community Council Muintir na Tíre (Askeaton, December 2020), pp 72-74.

‘Saint Mary’s, The Parish Church that Looks Like Part of the College’, We Remember Maynooth: A College across Four Centuries, eds Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan (Dublin: Messenger Publishing, 2020, 512 pp), ISBN 9781788122634, pp 36-38.

‘A Day in the Sun in mid-November 1987 with RTÉ and the Cardinal’, We Remember Maynooth: A College across Four Centuries, eds Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan (Dublin: Messenger Publishing, 2020, 512 pp), ISBN 9781788122634, pp 366-370.

Book Review, The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts, Karen Armstrong, London: The Bodley Head, 2019, pp 549 pp, £25, ISBN 978-1-847-92431-5, in Search, A Church of Ireland Journal, Vol 43, No 3 Autumn 2020 (October 2020), pp 231-232.

Book Review, Irish Theological Quarterly, Vol 85, No 3 (Pontifical University Maynooth, August 2020), pp 323-325: Irish Anglicanism, 1969-2009: Essays to mark the 150th anniversary of the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, Edited by Kenneth Milne and Paul Harron. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2019. Pp. 304. Price €35.00 (hbk). ISBN 978-1-84682-819-5.

‘Are ‘conservative evangelicals’ really conservative and evangelical?’ Search, a Church of Ireland journal, Vol 43 No 1 (Spring 2020), pp 5-13.

2019:

‘Chichester Phillips: the MP for Askeaton who gave Ireland its first Jewish Cemetery’, ABC News 2019 (pp 61-63), the annual magazine of Askeaton/Ballysteen Community Council Muintir na Tíre (December 2019)

‘Wellington: the Irish hero at Waterloo who introduced Catholic Emancipation’, Hugh Baker and John McCullen (eds), Drogheda Grammar School, 1669-2019 (Drogheda: Drogheda Grammar School, 2019, xii + 236 pp), pp 31-37.

‘John Leslie, the ‘oldest bishop in Christendom’, Chapter 15, pp 50-52, Salvador Ryan (ed), Marriage and the Irish (Dublin: Wordwell, 2019).

‘Four Victorian weddings and a funeral’ Chapter 47, pp 163-165, Salvador Ryan (ed), Marriage and the Irish (Dublin: Wordwell, 2019).

Book Review, The Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East, John Eibner (ed), Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2018, pp 276. ISBN 978-14985-6196-9, in Search: A Church of Ireland Journal Vol 42.2, Summer 2019 (June 2019), pp 151-152.

2018:

‘Once in Royal David’s City’: celebrating two anniversaries of a favourite Christmas carol’ Reality Vol 83, No 10 (December 2018), (Dublin: Redemptorist Communications, ed Brendan McConvery CSsR) pp 24-27.

‘A curious link between Askeaton and a plot to kill two kings,’ in ABC News 2018 (December 2018), the annual magazine of Askeaton/Ballysteen Community Council Munitir na Tíre, pp 14-15.

‘Introduction,’ in Robert Wyse Jackson, Life in the Church of Ireland, 1600-1800, ed John Wyse Jackson (Whitegate, Co Clare: Ballinakella Press, 2018), 256 pp, ISBN 10: 0946538557 ISBN 13: 9780946538553.

‘Pilgrimage visit to Lichfield Cathedral’, Koinonia, Vol 11, No 36, Trinity I (Kansas City, Missouri, July 2018), pp 20-23.

‘F.J.A. Hort (1828–92), the Dublin-born member of the Cambridge triumvirate and translating the Revised Version of the Bible’, Salvador Ryan and Liam M Tracey (eds), The Cultural Reception of the Bible: explorations in theology, literature and the arts (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018, ISBN: 978-1-84682-725-9), pp 189-198.

‘Preaching and Celebrating, Word and Sacrament: Inseparable Signs of the Church’, pp 77-90, in Perspectives on Preaching: A Witness of the Irish Church, ed Maurice Elliott, Patrick McGlinchey (Dublin: Church of Ireland Publishing, 2018), 242 pp.

‘Ballyragget Castle: A ‘sleeping giant’ with hidden potential’, illustrated feature in From Tullabarry to Béal Átha Raghdad (Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny: Ballyragget Heritage Festival, 2018), pp 5-8.

2017:

Book reviews: Jesus: A Very Brief History, Helen K Bond, London, SPCK, 2017, pp 88, ISBN 9780281075997; Thomas Aquinas: A Very Brief History, Brian Davies, London, SPCK, 2017, pp 137, ISBN 9780281076116; Florence Nightingale: A Very Brief History, Lynn McDonald, London, SPCK, 2017, pp 127, ISBN 9780281076451; in Search, A Church of Ireland Journal, Vol 40.3, Autumn 2017 (October 2017), pp 234-236.

‘To praise eternity in time and place … searching for a spirituality of place’, Ruach No 4 (Michaelmas 2017, Weeford, ed Revd Dr Jason Philips, Ms Lynne Mills), pp 50-56.

‘Marking the Reformation: 500 years on – an Irish Anglican perspective’, in the Methodist Newsletter, Vol 45, No 487 (Senior Editor, Lynda Neilands; Editor, Peter Mercer), June 2017, pp 24-25.

‘Going to the movies with Harry Potter and Noah’, Ruach No 3 (Trinity 2017, Weeford, ed Revd Dr Jason Philips, Ms Lynne Mills) pp 28-31.

‘Thomas Cranmer: the Cambridge reformer who shaped the Anglican Reformation’, Reality, May 2017, pp 38-40 (Dublin: Redemptorist Communications), ed Brendan McConvery CSsR.

‘In the Harrowing of Hell, Christ reaches down and lifts us up with him in his Risen Glory’, Koinonia (Kansas City MO) vol 10 no 33, Easter 2017 (April 2017), pp 10-13.

2016:

‘Abide with me’: the funeral hymn of a former curate in Co Wexford, Chapter 28 in Death and the Irish: a miscellany, ed Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell, 2016, ISBN-13 978-0993351822), pp 108-111.

‘Bringing the bodies home: JJ Murphy and the ‘Pickled Earl’,’ Chapter 40 in Death and the Irish: a miscellany, ed Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell, 2016, ISBN-13 978-0993351822), pp 151-154.

‘500 years after Wittenberg, what was Luther’s impact on the Anglican Reformation?’ Koinonia (Kansas MO), Vol 10, No 32 (December 2016), pp 12-16.

‘The Orthodox Church as experienced by an Anglican visitor to Greece,’ Search: A Church of Ireland journal, Vol 39.3 (Autumn 2016), pp 210-218.

‘Remembering World War I’: an introuction (pp 1-3) to ‘A Service of the Word for a Commemoration of the First World War in a local church’, on-line liturgical resource (Dublin: Church of Ireland, 2016, 16 pp).

Book review: Ethics at the Beginning of Life, A phenomenological critique, James Mumford, Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics series) 2015. 212 pages. ISBN 978-0-19874505-1; in Search, A Church of Ireland Journal, Vol 39.3, Autumn 2016 (October 2016), pp 233-235.

Photograph in: Mairéad Carew, Tara, The Guidebook (Dublin: Discovery Programme, Royal Irish Academy, 2016), p 88.

‘John Alcock’ in David Wallington (ed), Friends of Lichfield Cathedral, 79th Annual Report (Lichfield, 2016), pp 28-31.

‘O Come All Ye Faithful – the Christmas carol with forgotten links with Lichfield Cathedral’, in David Wallington (ed), Friends of Lichfield Cathedral, 79th Annual Report (Lichfield, 2016), pp 42-48.

‘Samuel Johnson: a literary giant and a pious Anglican layman’, Koinonia, vol 9 no 30, Lent/Easter 2016 (March 2016), pp 22-26.

Book Review: The God We Worship, an exploration of liturgical theology, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Cambridge, Eerdmans, 2015, pb, xi + 192 pp, ISBN: 978-0-8028-7249-4, in Search, A Church of Ireland Journal Vol 39.1, Spring 2016 (March 2016), pp 68-69.

‘The Eucharist or Holy Communion in the Church of Ireland and Anglicanism’, Reality Vol 81, No 1, January/February 2016, pp 14-17 (Dublin: Redemptorist Communications), ed Brendan McConvery CSsR.

Photograph in: Peaks Postings, vol 10, issue 1, the magazine of the Presbytery of the Peaks, Virginia (January 2016).

2015:

‘Why are faith groups so concerned about civil legislation?’, pp 48-50 in Yes We Do, ed Denis Staunton (ebook, Dublin: Irish Times Books, 2015)

‘O come, all ye faithful’: the story of the most popular Christmas carol, Koinonia, Vol 9 No 29, Advent/Christmas 2015 (Kansas City MO, December 2015), pp 24-27.

‘Henry Bate Dudley (1745-1824): the ‘fighting parson’ who retained an affection for his County Wexford parish’, Journal of the Wexford Historical Society, No 25, 2014-2015 (Wexford, 2015), pp 44-62.

Photograph in: Professor M Harunur Rashid, Cambridge: Look Back in Love (Dhaka, Bangladesh: MetaKave Publications, 2015).

Hooker’s understanding of justification – finding the Anglican ‘middle way’, Koinonia, vol 8, no 28, Trinity I and II 2015 (Kansas City MO, September 2015), pp 5-7.

‘Why are faith groups so concerned about civil legislation?’ pp 48-50 in Yes We Do, ed Denis Staunton (Dublin: Irish Times Books, 2015, eBook).

‘Richard Church (1784-1873): An Irish Anglican in the Greek Struggle for Independence’ Treasures of Ireland, Vol III, To the Ends of the Earth, Salvador Ryan (ed), (Dublin: Veritas, 2015), pp 117-120.

‘The Dublin Family Who Became Missionary Martyrs in China,’ Treasures of Ireland, Vol III, To the Ends of the Earth, Salvador Ryan (ed), (Dublin: Veritas, 2015), pp 142-145.

‘Introducing Spirituality and Cinema … Who are these like stars appearing?’ Koinonia, Lent/Easter 2015, Vol 8, No 27 (Kansas City MO, April 2015), pp 14-18.

‘I do not like thee, Doctor Fell … but you are a child of Lichfield Cathedral,’ Friends of Lichfield Cathedral, 78th Annual Report, 2015 (ed, David Wallington), pp 42-47.

2014:

‘Half a century after his death, TS Eliot remains the greatest Anglo-Catholic poet’, Koinonia, Christmas/Epiphany 2014-2015, Vol 8, No 27 (Kansas City MO, December 2014), pp 13-17.

‘Seeing ‘the glory of the Lord’ in Kempe’s carvings on the triptych in the Lady Chapel’, Spring Edition of Three Spires (Lichfield) and Friends of Lichfield Cathedral, 77th Annual Report, 2014 (ed, David Wallington), pp 31-36.

‘Mid-Lent is passed and Easter’s near, The greatest day of all the year’ … John Betjeman, an Anglo-Catholic Poet, Koinonia, Vol 7, No 25, Lent/Easter 2014 (Kansas City MO, April 2014), pp 12-16.

‘A one-name study that disentangles myths about the origins of the Comerford family’, Ireland Region Newsletter, Guild of One-Name Studies, pp 1-5, April 2014.

Book review: The Lion’s World: a journey into the heart of Narnia, Rowan Williams, London, SPCK, 2012, xiii + 152 pp, paperback, £8.99, ISBN 978-0-281-06895-1; in Search, A Church of Ireland Journal Vol 37, No 1, Spring 2014 (March 2014), pp 71-72.

‘The corner kiosk: An essential part of the Greek way of life,’ Neos Kosmos / Νέος Κόσμος (Melbourne, 3 January 2014).

2013:

‘Josiah Hort (1674?-1751), Bishop of Ferns: ‘A Rake, a Bully, a Pimp, or Spy’ and ‘Bp Judas’,’ Journal of the Wexford Historical Society, No 24, 2012-2013 (Wexford, 2013), pp 94-114, ISSN 0790-1828.

‘An Anglican apologist and a literary giant: recalling CS Lewis 50 years after his death’, Koinonia, vol 7 No 24, Christmas, 2013 (Kansas, Missouri, December 2013), pp 5-9.

‘The Centenary of the Anglican Church, Bucharest: 1913-2013’, Romanian Studies (Bucharest: Centre for Romanian Studies, 10 December 2013), https://www.romanianstudies.org/2013/12/10/the-rev-canon-patrick-comerford-on-the-centenary-of-the-anglican-church-bucharest-1913-2013/#more-5581

‘Crete’s icon writers: a living tradition offering new opportunities for mission’ Koinonia, vol 7 No 24, (Christmas 2013 (Kansas, Missouri, December 2013), pp 20-21.

‘Agia Irini: a newly-restored Byzantine monastery in Crete’, Koinonia vol 6 no 23, Trinity II, 2013 (Kansas, Missouri, October 2013), pp 12-13.

‘Comerford Monuments in Callan and the Search for a Family’s Origins’, Chapter 2 (pp 23-39) in Callan 800 (1207-2007) History & Heritage, Companion Volume, ed Joseph Kennedy (Callan: Callan Heritage Society), 2013.

‘Bale’s Books and Bedell’s Bible: Early Anglican Translations of Word and Liturgy into Irish’, Salvador Ryan and Brendan Leahy (eds), Treasures of Irish Christianity, Volume II, A People of the Word (Dublin: Veritas, 2013, ISBN 978–1–84730–431–5), pp 124-128.

‘Thou my high tower’: The Celtic Revival and Hymn Writers in the Church of Ireland,’ in Salvador Ryan and Brendan Leahy (eds), Treasures of Irish Christianity, Volume II, A People of the Word (Dublin: Veritas, 2013, ISBN 978–1–84730–431–5), pp 203-206.

'Deacons, the Diaconate and Diakonia: The Church of Ireland experience,’ pp 6-11 in ‘Companion Papers to Truly Called … Two’ (Edinburgh: Scottish Episcopal Church), April 2013.

‘Being an Anglican in a pluralist and suffering world’, Oscailt (Dublin, vol 9, no 3, March 2013), pp 2-7.

‘The Finest Expressions of Anglican Piety at its Best: Lent and Easter with George Herbert’, Koinonia, vol 6, no 21, Lent 2013 (Kansas, Missouri, March 2013), pp 14-18.

‘An Irish Anglican Response to Vatican II,’ Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol 101, no 404, Winter 2012/2013 (Dublin, February 2013), pp 441-448.

Photograph in: ‘Serbian Theological Seminarians in Great Britain: Cuddesdon Theological College 1917–1919: Appendices and Supplements I’, in Serbian Theology in the Twentieth Century: Research Problems and Results, vol 14, Proceedings of the Scientific Conference (PBF/FOT Belgrade, 24 May 2013), ed B Šijaković, Belgrade: Faculty of Orthodox Theology 2013, 52-127: 111.

2012:

Two photographs in: Maurice Curtis, Portobello (Dublin: The History Press, 2012), 128 pp, ISBN: 9781845887377, p. 25.

‘Anglo-Catholicism’, Koinonia, Vol 5, No 19, Trinity 2, 2012 (Kansas, Missouri, January 2012), p 3.

‘Finding hope in Greece in the midst of economic and financial crises’, Koinonia, Vol 5, No 19, Trinity 2, 2012 (Kansas, Missouri, January 2012), pp 3-6.

‘In Retrospect: Gonville Aubie ffrench-Beytagh’, Search, a Church of Ireland Journal, 35/1, Spring 2012 (February 2012), pp 47-54.

Book Review: The Works of Love: incarnation, ecology and poetry, John F Deane, Dublin, Columba Press, Paperback, 416 pp, €19.99 / £16.99, ISBN 9781856077095), in Search – a Church Ireland Journal Vol 35, No 1, Spring 2012 (February 2012), pp 63-65.

Book review: Letters from Abroad: The Grand Tour Correspondence of Richard Pococke & Jeremiah Milles, Vol. 1: Letters from the Continent (1733-1734), edited by Rachel Finnegan. Piltown, Co Kilkenny, Pococke Press, 2011. Pb, 336 pp, ISBN: 978-0-9569058-0-2), €18; in Astene Bulletin, Notes and Queries, No 50, Winter 2011-12 (London: Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East, February 2012).

2011:

‘Advent, a time of preparation for the coming of Christ’, Koinonia, Vol 5, No 13, Advent 2011 (Kansas, Missouri, December 2011), pp 3-6.

‘James Comerford (1817–1902): rediscovering a Wexford–born Victorian stuccodore’s art’, Journal of the Wexford Historical Society, No 23 (2011-2012), pp 4-32 (Wexford, November 2011).

‘The springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to Open’, Koinonia, Vol 4, No 13, Lent 2011 (Kansas, Missouri, March 2011) pp 10-13.

Photographs of Saint Edan’s Cathedral, Ferns, Co Wexford, in: Madoc 24/1, illustrating René Broens, ‘Madoc in Madoc’ (pp 13-21); specialist journal on the Middle Ages, edited in Utrecht and published in Hilversum by Uitgeverij Verlorem.

2010:

‘Anglo–Catholicism: Relevant after 175 years?’, Koinonia, vol 4, No 12, Christmas 2010 (Kansas City, Missouri, December 2010), pp 13-23.

Photograph and text: ‘Memorial plaque to … Henry Wallop …’, Enniscorthy, A History, ed Colm Tóibín (Wexford: Wexford County Council Public Library Services, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9560574-7-1), pp 122-123.

‘Bishop Joseph Stock (ca 1740-1813) and the Clergy of the Diocese of Killala and Achonry during the 1798 Rising’, Victory or Glorious Defeat?: Biographies of Participants in the Great Rebellion of 1798 (Westport: Carrowbaun Press, Dublin: Original Writing, 2010, ISBN: 978–1–907179–75–4), pp 113-145.

‘Heroism and Zeal’: Pioneers of the Irish Christian Missions to China, China and the Irish (Mandarin translation, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2010, ISBN 978–7–01–009194–5), pp 77-92.

Photographs in: René Broens, ‘Madoc in Madoc, Madoc 24/1 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verlorem, August 2010), pp 13-21, specialist journal on the Middle Ages.

2009:

A Romantic Myth? Kilcronaghan’s link to ‘Zorba the Greek’ (Tobermore: Kilcronaghan Community Association, in association with Magherafelt Arts Trust, January 2009), pamphlet.

‘Celebrating the Oxford Movement’, Chapter 1 (pp 7-34) in Celebrating the Oxford Movement (Belfast: Affirming Catholicism Ireland, 2009), ACI Occasional Papers 1.

Contributor to: Health Services Intercultural Guide: Responding to the needs of diverse religious communities and cultures in healthcare settings (Dublin: Health Service Executive, 2009, 226 pp, ISBN: 978-1-906218-21-8), April 2009.

2008:

Book Review (‘House of Gold’): St Paul’s Ephesus: Texts and Archaeology, by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier, 289 pp, $29.95, ISBN 978-0814652596, Dublin Review of Books, December 2008.

The Anglo–Catholic Movement: more relevant today than ever? (Dublin: Saint Bartholomew’s Parish, 2008), 24 pp pamphlet.

Reflections of the Bible in the Quran: a comparison of Scriptural Traditions in Christianity and Islam (Dublin: National Bible Society of Ireland, 2008), ISBN: 978 0 9548 6723. (Bedell–Boyle lecture series, Bedell-Boyle lecture in the Milltown Institute for Philosophy and Theology, Dublin, 2006).

‘Foreword’, Mainland Chinese Students and Immigrants and their Engagement with Christianity, Churches and Irish Society (Dublin: Agraphon Press for Dublin University Far Eastern Mission and China Education and Cultural Liaison Committee, 2008).

‘Matching prayer life and spirituality with temperament and personality’, Search 31/1 (January 2008), pp 37-45.

‘The Fifth Sunday of Epiphany’, A Year of Sermons at Saint Patrick’s Dublin, ed, Robert MacCarthy (Dublin: Typemasters, 2008), pp 19-22.

‘The Spirituality of Icons’, in Panhellenic Society of Iconographers and Dimitris Kolioussis, ed Richard Gordon (Derry: Gordonart Publications, 2008), exhibition catalogue, January 2008 (Exhibition catalogue, in collaboration with the Hellenic Foundation for Culture and Christ Church Cathedral Dublin).

2007:

Embracing Difference: The Church of Ireland in a Plural Society (Dublin: Church of Ireland Publishing, 2007), 88 pp, ISBN-10: 190488413X, ISBN-13: ‎978-1904884132.

(Anonymously): Guidelines for Interfaith Events and Dialogue, the Committee for Christian Unity and the Bishops of the Church of Ireland, 32 pp pamphlet (Dublin: Church of Ireland Publishing, 2007).

‘Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: open door or distant object?’, Search 30/2 (Dublin, 2007) pp 141-152.

‘Prayer, spirituality and liturgy in the Orthodox tradition’, Affirming Catholicism Ireland Newsletter, Epiphany 2007 (January 2007).

‘Sir Richard Church and the Irish Philhellenes in the Greek War of Independence’, opening chapter in The Lure of Greece, eds JV Luce, C Morris, C Souyoudzoglou-Haywood (Dublin and Athens: Hinds/Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies, Athens, in association with the Department of Classics, TCD, 2007), pp 1-18.

‘The Hon Percy Jocelyn (1764–1843): Bishop of Ferns and the “most idle of all reverend idlers”,’ chapter in The Wexford Man: Essays in Honour of Nicky Furlong (ed Bernard Browne), festschrift to Nicky Furlong (Dublin: Geography Publications, 2007), pp 39-47.

2006:

From Mission to Independence: Four Irish bishops in China (Dublin and Shanghai: Dublin University Far Eastern Mission, 2006), 24 pp pamphlet.

‘Pastoral issues in Muslim-Christian relations’, Search 29/2 (Dublin, 2006), pp 152-157.

‘The Reconstruction of Theological Thinking – what are the implications for the Church in China?’, Search 29/1 (Dublin, 2006), pp 13-22.

(Anonymously) The Hand of History (Dublin and Belfast: CMS Ireland, 2006), study pack on Christian-Muslim dialogue.

2005:

‘Edmund Comerford (d. 1509) and William Comerford (ca 1486–1539): the last pre-Reformation Bishop of Ferns and his ‘nephew’, the Dean of Ossory’,Journal of the Wexford Historical Society, Vol 20 (Wexford, 2005), pp 156-172.

‘The Bishop of Meath and the Ratoath impostor: Thomas Lewis O’Beirne (1748–1823) and Laurence Hynes Halloran (1765–1831)’, Ríocht na Midhe, Journal of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, vol 16 (Navan, 2005), pp 69-82.

2003:

‘Cead Mile Failte to Repentance and Reconciliation’, chapter in Untold Stories: Protestants in the Republic of Ireland 1922–2002, eds C Murphy, L Adair (Dublin: Liffey Press, 2003).

‘Just war and jihad: whose holy war in Iraq?’, Search 26/2 (Dublin, 2003), pp 65-73.

‘The Fethard Boycott’, The Encyclopaedia of Ireland, ed Brian Lalor (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan / New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003). Encyclopaedia entry on the Fethard-on-Sea boycott in Co Wexford.

2002:

‘A Schism or a Tradition? The Church of Ireland and the Nonjurors’, Search 25/2 (Dublin, 2002), pp 100-111.

‘An innovative people: the laity, 1780–1830’, chapter in The laity and the Church of Ireland, 1000–2000: All Sorts and Conditions, eds. R Gillespie, WG Neely (Dublin: Four Courts, 2002).

‘Understanding Islam – A Year after 11 September’, Doctrine and Life 52/2 (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 2002), pp 396-404.

‘Vienna plays pivotal role in promoting dialogue with Islamic world’, Euro–Med dialogue between Cultures and Civilizations: the Role of the Media, eds E Brix, M Weiss (Vienna: Diplomatic Academy, Favorita Papers, special ed, 2002), pp 32-34.

2001:

‘A Brief History of Christianity’, Part 2 of Christianity, ed Patsy McGarry (Dublin: Veritas, 2001); co–authors Hans Küng, Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, &c.

‘Bishop Ricards and Dean Croghan: The contrasting tale of two Wexford missionaries in South Africa’, Journal of the Wexford Historical Society (Wexford, 2001), pp 21-44.

‘Pilgrimage to Patmos: Jerusalem of the Aegean and Mount Athos of the islands’, Spirituality 7/37 (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 2001), pp 210-213.

2000:

‘Apartheid, Myth and Reality’, Tribute to Nelson Mandela, ed Louise Asmal (Dublin: IAAM, 2000), pp 11-13.

‘Defining Greek and Turk: Uncertainties in the Search for European and Muslim identities’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 13/2 (Cambridge: Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, 2000), pp 240-253.
.
‘Genealogies, Myth-making, and Christmas, Doctrine and Life 50/11 (Dublin: Domincan Publications, 2000), pp 552–556.

‘Simon Butler and the forgotten role of the Church of Ireland during the 1798 Rising’, Journal of the Butler Society (Kilkenny, 2000), pp 271-279.

1999:

‘Edward Nangle (1799–1883): the Achill Missionary in a New Light’, Search 22/2 (Dublin, 1999), pp 123-136.

‘Edward Nangle (1799–1883): the Achill Missionary in a new light, Part II’, Cathar na Mairt, Journal of the Westport Historical Society, 19 (Westport, 1999), pp 8-22.

‘From India to Brazil: Nicholas Comerford, a seventeenth-century Kilkenny cartographer’, Old Kilkenny Review, Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (Kilkenny, 1999), pp 92-102.

‘Star Wars: new age theology or exploiting the children?’, Doctrine and Life 49/8 (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1999), pp 494-498.

‘The other Christian traditions’, chapter in Memory & Mission: Christianity in Wexford 600 to 2000 AD, ed Walter Forde (Wexford: Diocese of Ferns, 1999).

1998:

‘1798: Learning from the Commemorations’, Doctrine and Life 48/7 (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1998), pp 405-412.

‘Edward Nangle (1799-1883): the Achill Missionary in a New Light, Part I’, Cathar na Mairt, Journal of the Westport Historical Society, 18 (Westport, 1998), pp 21-29.

‘Not Forgive and Forget, but Remember and be Reconciled’, Chapter in From Heritage to Hope: Christian Perspectives on the 1798 Bicentenary, ed Walter Forde (Gorey: Byrne-Perry, 1998).

‘Remembering can unite’, chapter in From Heritage to Hope: Christian Perspectives on the 1798 Bicentenary, ed Walter Forde (Gorey: Byrne-Perry, 1998).

‘The Church of Ireland in County Kilkenny and the Diocese of Ossory during the 1798 rising’, Old Kilkenny Review, Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (Kilkenny, 1998), pp 144-182.

1997:

‘Church of Ireland Clergy and the 1798 Rising’, chapter in Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter: The Clergy and 1798, ed Liam Swords (Dublin: Columba, 1997).

‘Co Wexford in 1798: Understanding the role of Church of Ireland clergy and laity’, Search 20/1 (Dublin, 1997), pp 32-41.

‘Euseby Cleaver, Bishop of Ferns, and the clergy of the Church of Ireland in the 1798 Rising in Co Wexford’, Journal of the Wexford Historical Society (Wexford, 1997), pp 66-94.

1996:

‘Islam and Muslims in Ireland: Moving from Encounter to Understanding’, Search 19/2 (Dublin, 1996), pp 89-93.

‘A Bitter Legacy?’, chapter in The Great Famine: A Church of Ireland Perspective, ed Kenneth Milne (Dublin: APCK, 1996).

1994:

‘Arafat visit heralds a new era for Palestinians’, paper in Prerequisites for Peace in the Middle East (Elsinore, Denmark: UN Department of Public Information, 1994).

‘John Comerford of Ballybur, 1598-1667: Tracing his later life’, Old Kilkenny Review, Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (Kilkenny, 1994), pp 23-36.

1992:

Saint Maelruain: Tallaght’s Own Saint (Dublin: Tallaght Parish, 1992). Pamphlet marking parish commemoration of Saint Maelruain.

1991:

‘Compassionate and Passionate – Colin O’Brien Winter (1928–1981)’, Search 14/2 (Dublin, 1991), pp 34–41.

‘In Prosperity and Adversity’, short story in True to Type, ed Fergus Brogan (Dublin: Sugarloaf/Irish Times Books, 1991); short story in collection of short stories by Irish Times writers in tribute to the Revd Stephen Hilliard.

‘Zephania Kameeta: Namibia’s Black Liberation Theologian’, Doctrine and Life 41/3 (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1991), pp 133-141.

1989:

Desmond Tutu: Black Africa’s Man of Destiny (Hyperion Books, 1989, ISBN: 1853900052), 32 pp.

1988:

Desmond Tutu: Black Africa’s Man of Destiny (Citadel Series 6, 1988).

1987:

Desmond Tutu: Black Africa’s Man of Destiny (Dublin: Veritas; and Athlone: St Paul Publications, 1987, ISBN: 9781853900051), 32 pp Launched by Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Lenihan.

1984:

Do You Want To Die for NATO? (Dublin and Cork: Mercier Press, 1984). Launched by Senator Brendan Ryan.

1983:

‘The Storm that Threatens: A comment’, The Furrow (Maynooth) 34/10 (1983), pp 620-625.

‘ML King’, Dawn Train (Dublin, an Irish journal of nonviolence), No 2, Spring 1983 (special edition, ‘Parents of Nonviolence’), pp 3-5.

‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer’, Dawn Train (Dublin, an Irish journal of nonviolence), No 2, Spring 1983 (special edition, ‘Parents of Nonviolence’), pp 6-7.

1981:

‘Political theology, theological politics: Nuclear Insanity’, Springs (Birmingham and Dublin: Student Christian Movement) 1981.

1976:

Paper and illustration in Eamon de Valera, ed PT O’Mahony (Dublin: Irish Times Books 1976).

1973:

‘The Early Society of Friends … in Kilkenny’ Old Kilkenny Review (Kilkenny, 1973).

Journalism:

The Irish Times: Staff journalist, 1974-2002; Foreign Desk Editor, 1994-2002; continuing to contribute as occasional feature writer and leader writer.

The Wexford People: Staff journalist, 1972-1974; Contributor to Wexford People, Enniscorthy Guardian, Gorey Guardian, New Ross Standard, Wicklow People, Ireland’s Own. Latest contributions, 2022 (news and features).

Lichfield Mercury: freelance journalist, 1970-1973.

Rugeley Mercury: freelance journalist, 1970-1973.

Tamworth Herald: freelance journalist, 1970-1973.

Editor, What’s On In Wexford (Wexford Junior Chamber), 1973-1974.

Editor, Unity, quarterly magazine, Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, in the 1990s.

Features and reports in:

Athens News; CityLife Lichfield; Church of Ireland Gazette, features and editorial writer; Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough), monthly feature; Church Times; Diocesan Magazine (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory), monthly feature; EnetEnglish, an online news service from Eleftherotypia; Horse and Hound; Ireland’s Own; Lichfield Gazette; Newslink (Limerick and Killaloe); MultiKulti.gr; Neos Kosmos (Real Corfu); photographs in Limerick Leader (2018, 2020, 2022) and Clare Echo (2022).

Last updated: 1 July 2025

Returning to a place of spiritual sanctuary in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield

‘Christ in Majesty,’ the East Window by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens, was installed in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, in 1984 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford returns to his spiritual home in the English cathedral city of Lichfield

For 50 years now, I have found spiritual sanctuary and spiritual rest in Lichfield in the Chapel of the Hospital of Saint John Baptist without the Barrs. Fifty years ago, by happenchance, I walked into this chapel late on a summer afternoon, and felt filled with the light and love of God.

I was only 19, it was 1971, and it was a foundational moment in my life, changing my values and priorities, challenging my social, political and personal values, offering me a new focus and new directions in life, and eventually leading me along the path to ordination.

Ever since, I have made efforts to return each year to the Chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, to give thanks for the gift of the light and love of God’s in my life. The Covid-19 pandemic restrictions throughout 2020 and 2021 interrupted these regular visits. Otherwise, I have returned to this chapel two or three times a year, and it was a special privilege to be invited to preach at the Festal Eucharist in Saint John’s on Saint John’s Day, 24 June 2015.

Welcome to the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield … my ‘spiritual home’ for more than half a century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

It was natural, then, that the chapel in Saint John’s was one of the first places I returned to when the travel restrictions in Europe eased in Autumn 2021, allowing me to spend a few days on my own, personally-tailored retreat in Lichfield.

I was interviewed in the chapel some years ago by the local historian David Moore for a series of five short YouTube films, talking about my life, my connections with Lichfield, and the links between Lichfield and the Comberford family. Inspired by this, I recorded a short video clip for a school assembly in the chapel, and two others outside Lichfield Cathedral and inside the ruins of Coventry Cathedral.

However, this latest visit to Lichfield was – first and last – about prayer, thankfulness and gratitude.

Saint John’s Hospital and its chapel date back to 1135. Saint John’s Hospital now provides sheltered housing for retired people, and it is one of the finest 15th century brick buildings in England. The chapel and the east range facing Saint John Street are part of the original mediaeval foundation, but ancient and modern come together with John Piper’s magnificent interpretation of ‘Christ in Majesty’ in stained glass, which was installed in the East Window in 1984.

It is interesting to see, as the years pass, the changes that take place in Saint John’s. Simon Manby’s sculpture of ‘Noah and the Dove’ was commissioned by the trustees in 2006 and stands in the quadrangle. Saint John’s was extended extensively in recent years, and the new almshouses were opened by the Duke of Gloucester on 25 July 2017.

John Piper’s East Window, ‘Christ in Majesty,’ was installed in 1984. It was probably inspired by Graham Sutherland’s large tapestry in Coventry Cathedral, and since its installation it has become an integral part of my own spirituality and prayer life.

John Piper (1903-1992) is best-known for his Baptistry window in Coventry Cathedral, and throughout his working life, he collaborated regularly with the artist Patrick Reyntiens (1925-2021), who died earlier this year. Working closely with Patrick Reyntiens, John Piper designed the stained-glass windows for the new Coventry Cathedral as well as the East Window in Saint John’s, Lichfield. This window is Piper’s last major undertaking, and it was executed by Patrick Reyntiens in 1984.

Piper’s inspiration for the window came from his drawings and paintings of Romanesque sculptures during his many visits to French from 1955 to 1975. The window shows ‘Christ in Majesty,’ dressed in royal purple and flanked by angels within a mandorla surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Matthew (angel), Mark (lion), Luke (ox) and John (eagle). They appear aged, perhaps because Piper was thinking of the elderly residents of Saint John’s Hospital who pray daily in the chapel.

The window provides a splash of deep, vibrant colour above the altar in the chapel. But it is also a window of great solemnity power. The cross behind Christ is in the shape of the Mercian cross, the cross that also features on the coat-of-arms of the Diocese of Lichfield.

While Piper occasionally painted and etched, discussed or supervised some of the painting and etching of some of the glass used in his windows, he did not make the windows himself. The majority of the work was done by artist craftsmen, most particularly Patrick Reyntiens.

Piper wrote in Stained Glass: Art or Anti-Art?: ‘The great windows of modern times are all the work of artists working with collaborative craftsmen.’ Sometimes he did not see the glass from delivering the cartoons until a window was near completion, before the leading process, as he trusted the interpreters. This was mostly the case with the Saint John’s window.

Patrick Reyntiens, who translated Piper’s design, moved to a new workshop in Dorset before he began making the window. Penelope Betjeman (1910-1986), writer and wife of the Poet Laureate John Betjeman, had first introduced them in 1954, and for over 35 years Piper collaborated with Reyntiens, who was 22 years younger and soon became one of the leading 20th century stained-glass artists in Britain.

Piper’s faith has been described as middle-of-the-road, traditionalist Anglican; Reyntiens was committed to his Roman Catholic faith, which he interpreted liberally but regarded as a central aspect of his life; in both cases, their faith added profundly to their projects.

The Reyntiens family was of Flemish and Russian descent. Patrick was born in at 63 Cadogan Square, London, on 11 December 1925, and was educated at Ampleforth, Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art, and Edinburgh College of Art, where the life models included Sean Connery, the future Bond actor, and where Patrick met his future wife, the painter Anne Bruce (1927–2006).

He soon focused on stained glass and received the Andrew Grant Fellowship, a two-year travelling fellowship in 1954-1955. When he returned to England, he became assistant to the master Arts-and-Crafts stained-glass maker Joseph Edward (Eddie) Nuttgens (1892–1982), a neighbour and friend of Eric Gill.

From Eric Gill’s ideas, Reyntiens inherited the concept of the need for integrity in one’s craftsmanship and a belief that to be a craftsperson was a ‘holy’ pursuit and a spiritual calling. Eventually, Patrick became Head of Fine Art at Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design in London.

The 81 feet high Baptistry Window in Coventry Cathedral was designed by John Piper and contains 195 lights of stained glass in bright primary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

After Penelope and John Betjeman introduced John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens, Patrick contributed much to John’s glass designs. He had suggested the theme behind the Coventry Cathedral window: the architect Basil Spence had originally conceived the Baptistry window to be of ‘pale, almost white glass with a slight tint of pink and pale blue.’ When John was stuck for inspiration, Patrick suggested that he should imagine a bomb or burst of glory, symbolising the power of the Holy Spirit at the centre of the Baptistry window and design a huge explosion of light around it, similar to the aureole of light around the dove above Saint Peter’s throne in the basilica in Rome.

Reyntiens also contributed to the inspiration of the Corona in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. He recalled a description in Dante’s Divine Comedy of the Trinity as three great eyes of different colours communicating with each other. The spectrum of colour in the corona was arranged around three intense bursts of white light, which relate to each other across the lantern yet focus different colours into the interior liturgical space as the day progresses.

Encouraged by John Piper, Patrick and Anne began a school teaching design and manufacture at Burleighfield House, Loudwater, near High Wycombe, which they ran from 1963 to 1976. They then opened a larger teaching workshop in Beconsfield in 1977.

The glass for Saint John’s Chapel, Lichfield, is more conventional in its creation in leaded glass, although its design is deliberately bold and uses many techniques in painting and etching the glass, as well as creating different intensities of light.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the Lichfield window was commissioned, tensions had arisen between Piper and Reyntiens over the financing of Piper’s projects. However, they continued to work together creating impressive, vibrant and harmonious art.

The tensions between these two great artists is reflected in their correspondence during the process of commissioning and making the window for Saint John’s. The delays in confirming and financing the project meant that Reyntiens suffered financial losses. He had ordered glass, booked studio time for the window and given more focus to the commission because of its significant importance. It proved to be a difficult commission practically and financially. Nevertheless, Patrick was professionally and spiritually committed to making a success of their last major collaboration.

Inside Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The commission may have come about because John Piper had several connections with Lichfield. He was commissioned by the Dean of Lichfield, Frederic Iremonger, in 1947 to design the poster for the cathedral’s 750th Anniversary celebrations. He also designed a textile cover for the chancel reredos, and John and his wife were close friends of the photographer Janet Woods (1912-1998), daughter of Edward Sydney Woods, Bishop of Lichfield, and her husband, the wood engraver Alan Reynolds Stone. Piper also wrote in 1968 about his admiration for the 16th century Herkenrode Glass in Lichfield Cathedral, which has undergone a major restoration in recent years.

The East Window in Saint John’s was commissioned to replace a window of plain quarry glass that had been installed in 1870. It was John Piper’s last major project with Patrick Reyntiens, who created the patterns for the leadwork which, in the blue mandorla of the chapel window especially, adds extra life and radiance to Piper’s design.

In his detailed study of the window, the British painter and art historian Ian McKillop identifies many differences between Piper’s cartoon for the Lichfield window and the finished stained glass are seen in the differences between media and the choice of coloured glass. The blues of the mandorla, reds of the ox, greens of the angels and surround are far richer than in the cartoon. But the greatest difference in colour is found in the yellows of the light radiating from Christ’s face, the Cross and the lion.

The Cross becomes the radiant focus of the whole design. The face in the cartoon is quieter and vaguer than in the glass, and Piper’s original suggests a rather gentler expression; in the glass his face feels more severe. In interpreting Christ’s hands, Reyntiens was more subtle, creating their gentle gesture by simple painted and etched lines on the glass.

The variations of colours in Christ’s robes give his garments an enriched majesty. The blues around the sun and moon are also far more richly varied than in the cartoon. The painting of the angels is not as strong as the rest of the design but are close to Piper’s original.

Patrick Reyntiens’s last commissioned work was completed in 2017, when he was 92. His recent obituary in the Church Times notes that ‘his career had been sustained by his deep faith.’ He died on 25 October 2021. His wife Anne died in 2006; they are survived by two sons and two daughters.

The chapel in Saint John’s remains my place of spiritual sanctuary and spiritual rest in Lichfield.

● (Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is a priest in the Church of Ireland, Canon Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and a retired Adjunct Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin

Saint John’s Hospital and its chapel date back to 1135 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The new almshouses in Saint John’s were opened on 25 July 2017 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

This feature is published in the Christmas 2021 edition of Koinonia (Kansas City MO), pp 22-25

First Belonging – from Sarawak to England and Back

With Charlotte Hunter during a recent visit to Dublin

Patrick Comerford

Some years ago, I wrote a paper for the journal Ruach on belonging in time and space, through family and place. Using words from John Betjeman, ‘To praise eternity in time and place,’ I discussed my own search for ‘a spirituality of place’ (‘To praise eternity in time and place … searching for a spirituality of place’ Ruach, No 4 (Michaelmas 2017), pp 50-56).

I maintain a family history website that connects me with people across the globe who share my surname and its variants, including Comerford, Commerford and Comberford. This website allows many people to develop a shared identity, not only because of a shared family name, but because they believe that they have found an identity that is rooted in time and place.

Many of us feel rootless, both in time and place. We do not know where we are because we do not know where we have come from, and so question where we are going. Despite shared cultures, that have many similar and familiar expressions, identity with place is a feeling that varies from one country to the next.

So, it was with particular personal interest that I read a feature on place and belonging that I could identify with by my dear friend Charlotte Hunter in the current edition of Koinonia (Issue 7, 10/2021, p 22), the magazine of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel):

First Belonging – from Sarawak to England and Back

Charlotte Hunter writes of her time on USPG’s Journey with Us programme

Having been accepted on ‘Journey with Us’ in November 2015, my 12-month placement was with the Anglican Diocese of Kuching in Malaysia. It was no coincidence that I ended up in my mother’s original city. This gave me the chance to connect with the Anglican church and with my family history on a deeper level. Since then, I have chosen to stay in Kuching for several months every year, still in the neighbourhood of my mother’s birth.

My claim to being a member of the Kuching community may seem tenuous. Though a daughter of a Sarawakian-Chinese mother, I am also a product of a Northern Irish father. Though there were extended visits to Kuching as a child I was born and raised in England, and English is my mother tongue. However, in Kuching there exists for me a physical rootedness to my identity in the form of a traditional style shophouse on Carpenter Street, in the heart of the old town, from which my maternal family flows.

You may ask why this is important to me, and the answer may be that because my identity is split along the fault lines of race, culture, and continents, I’ve always felt a need for something physical, something definitive, to help me see in part who I am. This extends to the bricks and mortar of the house in which my mother was born, to the portrait of my late uncle – hung now with the photos of his parents – to my cousin at work in the family trade of watch repair, bent over his microscope as his father had done before him, and our grandfather before him, and our great grandfather before him … ‘The poetry of the everyday’, I believe it’s called.

There’s a continuity present that stretches outwards to the rest of our quarter, in particular to the thin triangle formed between the family shophouse, the temple, and Lau Ya Keng food court. The food court has been a daily part of family life reaching back to my mother's childhood, and during those extended visits, part of mine too. I now feel a deep-seated recognition of the smell of kerosene from the mobile cookers mingled with freshly brewed coffee, while the sound of torrential rain pounds on corrugated metal roofs. It was in here that my uncle and I last spoke before his final illness, where he whispered to me in his failing voice: ‘I used to bring you here for satay when you were a little girl, and now you are bringing me’.

One cousin tells me I have a tendency to romanticise life in these parts, and I fear she is right. After all, for all the familiarity there is the unfamiliarity – what the writer Amin Maalouf describes as ‘being estranged from the very traditions to which I belong’. I think about the metal grille across the front of the shophouse which, when the shop is closed, needs to be pulled back to let anyone in or out. I have never been able to manage it.

Not because it is heavy or stuck, but like a mortice key in a tricky lock, it takes a sleight of hand gained through habitude to make it shift – something I do not possess. On more pensive, introspective days, it becomes a symbol for the alienation I know exists between myself and this society in which I both belong, and cannot one hundred percent belong. I speak none of the local languages, without which no person can ever truly inhabit a society, and for all my extended childhood visits, ultimately, I was socialised in England. The consequence is that there are social and cultural complexities within both my family and the wider community which I might never understand.

Nonetheless, the feeling of belonging is stronger than any sense of non-belonging. Were anyone to ask me where my first point of identity lies, I would say right here, among these narrow streets and dark, dilapidated shophouses, in the chaos and in the heat. I would say I belong to one house in particular – the place where I’ve found the steadfastness I’ve always needed, the wellspring where four generations of my family have lived, worked, married, been born, and died. When the time comes, throw my ashes in the back yard. I’ll be home.

This is an edited version of an article first written for KINO magazine, published March 2020.

Pilgrimage visit to Lichfield Cathedral

The figures on the West Door of Lichfield Cathedral, carved by the Victorian sculptor Mary Grant, link Christmas and Easter, the Incarnation and the Resurrection (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Before Lent began this year, I paid one of my regular visits to Lichfield and Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire, in the English Midlands. I am a life-long regular visitor to Lichfield, which played a formative role in shaping my Anglicanism and my spirituality.

The cathedral dates back to Saint Chad, who had a large following, founded his monastery at Lichfield. There he was abbot and bishop and he was credited with converting the Kingdom of Mercia to Christianity. When he died in AD 672, he was proclaimed a saint, and people reported miracles at his tomb in Lichfield.

The ornate west front of Lichfield Cathedral includes a remarkable number of ornate carved figures of apostles, saints and English kings and queens. It is an almost over-powering statement in art and sculpture that the Communion of Saints is made up of all strands of humanity.

This carved west front was the vision of the Gothic revival architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878). He was influenced and inspired by AWN Pugin, and his pupils included George Edmund Street. Scott restored the west front in the 19th century, 100 years after most of the statues on the west front were removed and the stonework covered with Roman cement.

Working with original materials where possible or creating fine new imitations and additions, Scott’s sculptors replaced almost all the 113 figures on the west front. The architectural historian, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, dates them to 1876-1884, ‘replacing cement or stucco statues of 1820-1822.’ Most of the statues were produced locally from the Bridgeman workshop nearby in Quonian’s Lane. The only exceptions were a likeness of Queen Victoria on the main façade, by her sculptor daughter Princess Louise, and those around the central doorway by Mary Grant (1831-1908). A mediaeval carving of Christ in Glory remains in place in the canopy over the doorway.

The Virgin Mary stands with the Christ Child in the centre of the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Linking Christmas and Easter

Visitors viewing the west front seem to pay less attention to the figures around the central doorway by Mary Grant. These include her sculpture of the Virgin Mary, who supports her lifelike infant gently. The Christ Child has one arm raised in blessing. Behind them stand the two Marys who visit the tomb on Easter morning: on the left is Saint Mary Magdalene, holding ointment; to the right the ‘other Mary’ (Matthew 28: 1) or Mary the Mother of James (Mark 16: 1, Luke 24: 10).

In her composition of the figures at the West Door of Lichfield Cathedral, Mary Grant links the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with the two women who visit the grave at Easter morning; the porch of the West Door becomes symbolic of both the cave of birth at Christmas and the grave of death at Easter; the Incarnation leads us on to the Resurrection, Christmas invites us to move towards Easter.

Mary Magdalene at Easter … a sculpture by Mary Grant at the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mary Grant was once described as ‘one of the busiest of lady-sculptors.’ She was born in 1831 in Kilgraston, Perthshire, into a distinguished family. Her grandfather was Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, who pilfered the Parthenon Marbles from the Acropolis in Athens and sold them to the British Museum in London. Her aunt, Mary Anne Grant, and her uncle, Sir Francis Grant, were artists too. Sir Francis was a successful portrait painter and became President of the Royal Academy and a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

Sculpture was a profession that required a degree of physical strength; on the other hand, her aristocratic and artistic background probably were advantages for a woman seeking to work in what was virtually an all-male preserve in the Victorian era.

Mary Grant studied in Florence, Rome and Paris before she set up a studio in London in the late 1860s. Her work includes a portrait of Queen Victoria for India and a bronze bust of the Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell for the Royal Academy in London. Her other works include the screen of Winchester Cathedral and the marble reredos in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. She never married and died in Chelsea on 20 February 1908.

A place of pilgrimage

Lichfield and Lichfield Cathedral have been a place of pilgrimage and retreat for me since I was a teenager. As a 19-year-old, I found myself – by accident or coincidence – visiting the chapel of the Hospital of Saint John the Baptist without the Barrs.

Saint John’s Hospital was established in 1135 and provided hospitality for mediaeval pilgrims who travelled from far and wide to Lichfield to visit the cathedral and the tomb of Saint Chad. When the city gates of Lichfield were closed at 9 p.m. every night, pilgrims who arrived later had to stay at the Hospital of Saint John Baptist without the Barrs – the ‘barrs’ being the city gates.

Saint John’s Hospital was established in 1135 by Bishop Roger de Clinton (1129-1148). It was built beside to the Culstrubbe Gate, one of the four gates erected on the perimeter of Lichfield, at what is now Saint John Street. Saint John’s provided overnight accommodation for pilgrims for several hundred years while it was a house of the Augustinian Friars.

In many mediaeval towns in England, the friaries, convents and religious foundations often stood side-by-side, providing the surrounding communities with the equivalent of hospitals, hostels, and places of hospitality and welcome.

In the 13th century, the Augustinian community at Saint John’s consisted of a prior, brothers and sisters, with a chapel and community buildings. Travellers and pilgrims ate and slept in a long mediaeval hall, with an undercroft below.

The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral was redesigned by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

For 300 years or more, Saint John’s provided hospitality for travellers and pilgrims, while local people used the chapel as a place of worship. These neighbours were served by a chaplain, and in turn they endowed the hospital and built a chantry chapel. These benefactors included William de Juvenis, still remembered each year with a red rose on the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John Baptist (24 June).

By the mid-15th century, the ditch and ramparts around Lichfield had fallen into disuse and the gates remained open at night for late arriving pilgrims. Times were changing, and when William Smyth became Bishop of Lichfield in 1492, he put Saint John’s to new uses, re-founding the priory in 1495 as a hospital for aged men and as a free grammar school.

New statutes provided for a Master who was a priest appointed by the Bishop of Lichfield. The hospital was to house ‘13 honest poor men upon whom the inconveniences of old age and poverty, without any fault of their own, had fallen.’ They were to receive seven pence a week, they were to be honest and devout, and they were to attend prayers every day.

The canons’ and pilgrims’ hall was enlarged to provide a house for the master and a new wing was added to the old building. This new ‘almshouse,’ with its row of eight chimneys, provided each almsman or resident with his own room and fireplace.

Saints in a row … on the ornate west front of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Many of these religious houses came to an end in the 16th century, with the Reformation and the Dissolution of the monastic houses. The estates often enriched political supporters of the Tudor dynasty, but their loss also deprived many people of access to health care and education. But the changes introduced by Bishop Smyth a generation earlier ensured the survival of Saint John’s as a hospital or almshouse and as a school.

The grammar school was separated from the hospital in 1692, but the school continued to use the chapel, and the schoolboys included literary figures such as Joseph Addison, Elias Ashmole, Samuel Johnson and David Garrick. Edward Maynard rebuilt the Master’s Hall once again in 1720 to keep up with modern Georgian architectural tastes, and the stone tablet above the doorway dates from this period.

By the early 19th century, Saint John’s must have had the character and the problems described by Anthony Trollope in his novels, including The Warden and Barchester Towers. In 1829, a north aisle was added to the chapel and a new three-bay arcade was built. In another major restoration in 1870-1871, the Master, Philip Hayman Dod (1810-1883), repaired and renovated the chapel, raising the walls of the nave, building a new roof, and adding buttresses outside and a stone bell-cote and bell.

In 1929, the almsmen’s rooms at Saint John’s were rearranged to overlook the court or quadrangle, giving them more light and modern heating and sanitation. The Master’s House was renovated in 1958, new flats were added in the mid-1960s, and the inner quadrangle was completed with a new building. In the 1960s too, for the first time, married couples were allowed to take up residence in the hospital.

After Lichfield Theological College in the Cathedral Close closed in 1976, new accommodation was provided in what became the Hospital of Saint John’s within the Close. At the beginning of 21st century, the 1495 east wing of Saint John’s was renovated, enlarged and updated. Recent work on building 18 new apartments was delayed briefly when the skeletal remains of 50 mediaeval pilgrims – adults and children– were found in shallow graves.

Saint John’s Hospital, facing unto Saint John Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Since the Tractarian Revival, the chapel of Saint John’s has stood in the Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, and it has shaped my own Anglicanism and spirituality. When I was a 19-year-old, attracted by the distinctive row of eight Tudor chimneys fronting Saint John Street, I walked into the hospital one summer afternoon in 1971. Accidentally, I stepped into the chapel and soon felt filled with the light and the love of God.

At the time, I had no idea of how to respond, and so found myself sitting in the choir stalls at Choral Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral. Later, a residentiary canon asked whether a young man like me was considering coming to church because I was thinking of ordination.

That afternoon is a sensation that remains a living, daily experience. I often refer to it as my ‘self-defining existential moment.’ On my regular return visits to Lichfield, I continue to visit both the chapel and the cathedral.

The chapel continues to provide daily and weekly services, and regularly draws a congregation of residents and visitors, and the grounds offer an oasis of peace and calm in the heart of the cathedral city.

The Choir Stalls in Lichfield Cathedral after Choral Evensong on a recent evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

John Piper’s magnificent stained glass depicting ‘Christ in Majesty,’ was placed in the east window of the chapel in 1984. It too provides an appropriate focus for Lent and Easter. Christ has his arms outstretched, as if he is the Crucified Christ, with the cross of the Diocese of Lichfield behind his shoulder. But this is the Risen Christ, his eyes are opened, he is surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists, and the two angels with trumpets are proclaiming the joy and triumph of the Resurrection.

When morning light streams this window, it reminds us that not only Lent but our whole life is lived in the joyful hope and expectation of the Resurrection.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Priest in Charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes in the Church of Ireland, and Canon Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick

The colourful triptych that forms the reredos in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral tells the full Christmas story (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This four-page feature is published in Koinonia, Vol 11, No 36, Trinity I (Kansas City, Missouri, July 2018), pp 20-23.