Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 119, Friday 4 September 2026

The banquet with Levi included the questions and answers – and the drinking – associated with a Greek symposium … pottery in a shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII, 30 August 2026). The Season of Creation began on Tuesday (1 September 2026), and it continues until 4 October.

Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Birinus (650), Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon) and Apostle of Wessex. 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.

After the symposium … an end-of-term dinner with the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 5: 33-39 (NRSVA):

33 Then they said to him [Jesus], ‘John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.’ 34 Jesus said to them, ‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35 The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.’ 36 He also told them a parable: ‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, “The old is good”.’

‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?’ (Luke 5: 34) … preparing for a wedding in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Jesus has called the tax-collector Levi, and then dines with him in his house that evening (Luke 5: 27-31). Levi celebrates not just with dinner, or even a lavish dinner, but a ‘great banquet’ in his house that is attended by a large crowd.

Banquets were not merely lavish meals but also a setting for teaching and instruction, and the word for banquet here δοχή (dochē) suggests a formal Greek banquet known as a symposium (συμπόσιον, sympósion, from συμπίνειν, sympínein, ‘to drink together’).

In classical Greece, the symposium was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, or conversation. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato’s Symposium and Xenophon’s Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems.

If we read Levi’s banquet as a symposium, then, of course, it is going to be associated, culturally, in those days with drinking, and with questions and answers.

Some people ask why Jesus eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners. Now, in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 5: 33-39), the same people ask why, unlike John’s disciples or the disciples of the Pharisees, who frequently fast and pray, the disciples of Jesus eat and drink.

Similar complaints were made about Socrates. In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades claims that Socrates, despite allegedly drinking heavily just like the others, never got drunk and that alcohol never has any effect on Socrates: ‘Observe, my friends, said Alcibiades, that this ingenious trick of mine will have no effect on Socrates, for he can drink any quantity of wine and not be at all nearer being drunk.’

Christ responds to his detractors by comparing the invitation into the Kingdom with an invitation to a wedding, and speaks of his followers as guests at a wedding banquet. The feast is in progress, so this is a time for joy, while after his death it will be a time for fasting.

He insists that the old way of being and the new way he brings are separate, even if both are to be valued. New material stretches more than old. When wine ferments, it expands. Soft new wineskins expand with the wine, but old ones do not.

And so, in a way, I find myself thinking this morning of two other banquets where the wine must have been flowing freely.

The first of these is the Wedding at Cana, the banquet before Christ’s ministry begins. There the wine runs out, and then the wine runs freely.

The second banquet is at the end of Christ’s ministry, the meal at the Last Supper. Not only must the wine have been flowing freely at that meal, it is the meal of the New Covenant, in which bread and wine are freely given, just as Christ gives himself freely, body and blood.

In this in-between time, this Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, ordinary meals offer a promise of what the heavenly banquet is like. And constantly, as in this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus uses the image of the wedding banquet to convey how sacred, how loving, how caring, how beautiful, how full of promise, is the heavenly banquet.

Just as the wedding banquet is not the wedding itself, but a celebration of the wedding and the promise of the wedding, the meals in the Gospel in the in-between times are foretastes of, promises of, the great heavenly banquet.

And, at those banquets, Christ dines with tax-collectors like tax-collectors like Levi, Pharisees like Simon, those who are rejected by polite society like Zacchaeus, just as he is going to dine at the Last Supper with those who are going to betray him like Judas, those who are going to deny him like Peter, just as he is going to insist on dining with those who fail to recognise him after the Resurrection, like the disciples at Emmaus.

No matter how wayward others may think we are, no matter how wayward we may think we have been, Christ calls us back to dine with him, to have a new and intimate relationship with, wants to dine with us, so that, as we say in the Prayer of Humble Access, so that ‘that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.’

Levi’s banquet has parallels with the symposia associated with Socrates, including the drinking and the questions … Socrates bar in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 4 September 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 30 August to 5 September 2026 (pp 34-35), is ‘Anglican Youth Tackle Waste in Madagascar’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Ialy Tongasoa, Community Development Lead, Diocese of Toliara, Madagascar.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 4 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, thank you for the skills young people are gaining and for how even small acts of recycling and composting are big signs of caring for your creation.

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:

Almighty God,
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 reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment’ (Luke 5: 36) … colourful new fabrics in a shop in Seville (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

Socrates is regarded as the founder of western philosophy … a street name in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 113, Saturday 29 August 2026

The Execution of Saint John the Baptist … an early 18th century icon from the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Anopolis, in the Museum of Christian Art in the Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai in Iraklion in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the beginning of the August bank holiday weekend here. We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII, 30 August 2026). The Church Calendar today remembers the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (29 August 2026), a lesser festival in the calendar of the Church of England.

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 daughter of Herodias dances for the head of Saint John the Baptist … a fresco in the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 14:1-12 (NRSVA):

1 At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2 and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3 For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7 so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9 The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10 he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

The beheading of Saint John the Baptist … a fresco in the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

It is about six or seventh months since the Gospel reading told the story of the execution of Saint John the Baptist (Mark 6: 14-29, 6 February 2026) and little more than two months since we commemorated the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (24 June 2026). Now, the Church Calendar again marks his Beheading today with a lesser festival.

Today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 14:1-12) is full of stark, cruel, violent reality. To achieve this dramatic effect, it is told with recall, flashback or with the use of the devise modern movie-makers call ‘back story.’

Cruel Herod has already executed Saint John the Baptist – long ago. Now he hears about the miracles and signs being worked by Jesus and his disciples.

Some people think that Saint John the Baptist has returned, even though John has been executed by Herod. Others think Jesus is Elijah – and popular belief at the time expected Elijah to return at Judgment Day (Malachi 4: 5).

On the other hand, Herod, the deranged Herod who has already had John beheaded, wonders whether John is back again. And we are presented with a flashback to the story of Saint John the Baptist, how he was executed in a moment of passion, how Herod grieved, and how John was buried.

When I was reflecting on this story in Saint Mark’s Gospel earlier this year (6 February 2026) I asked: Did you ever get mistaken for someone else? Or, do you ever wonder whether the people you work with, or who are your neighbours, really know who you are?

I was thinking then of two examples. Anthony Hope Hawkins was the son of the Vicar of Saint Bride’s in Fleet Street, the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins. He was walking home to his father’s vicarage in London one dusky evening when he came face-to-face with a man who looked like his mirror image.

He wondered what would happen if they swapped places, if this double went back to Saint Bride’s vicarage, while he headed off instead to the suburbs. Would anyone notice? It inspired him, under the penname of Anthony Hope, to write his best-selling novel, The Prisoner of Zenda.

The other example I think of is the way I often hear people put themselves down with sayings such as: ‘If they only knew what I’m really like … if they only knew what I’m truly like …’

What are you truly like?

And would you honestly want to swap your life for someone else’s?

Would you take on all their woes, and angsts and burdens, along with their way of life?

It is a recurring theme for poets, writers and philosophers over the centuries. It was the theme in John Boorman’s movie The Tiger’s Tail (2006). Brendan Gleeson plays both the main character and his protagonist. Is he his doppelgänger, a forerunner warning of doom, destruction and death? Or is he the lost twin brother who envies his achievements and lifestyle?

The doppelgänger was regarded as a harbinger of doom and death. There is a way in which Saint John the Baptist is seen as the harbinger of the death of his own cousin, Christ.

The account of Saint John’s execution anticipates the future facing Christ and some of the disciples, and Christ’s own burial (see Mark 15: 45-47). The idea that John might be raised from the dead anticipates Christ’s resurrection.

As well as attracting similar followers and having similar messages, did these two cousins, in fact, look so like one another physically?

But Herod had known John the Baptist, he knew him as a righteous and a holy man, and he protected him. Why, he even liked to listen to John.

Do you think Herod was confused about the identities of Christ and of Saint John the Baptist?

Is Herod so truly deranged that he can believe someone he has executed, whose severed head he has seen, could come back to life in such a short period?

Or is Herod’s reaction merely one of exasperation and exhaustion: ‘Oh no! Not that John, back again!’

We too are forerunners, sent out to be signs of the Kingdom of God. To be a disciple is to follow a risky calling – or at least it ought to be so.

To be a disciple is to follow a risky calling – or at least it ought to be so.

I once had a poster with a grumpy looking judge and the words, ‘If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?’

Herod’s maniacal and capricious way of making decisions makes discipleship a risk-filled commitment.

But Herod’s horrid banquet runs right into the next story in Saint Mark’s Gospel where Christ feeds the 5,000, a sacramental sign of the invitation to all to the heavenly banquet – more than we can imagine can be fed in any human undertaking.

The invitation to Herod’s banquet, for the privileged and the prejudiced, is laden with the smell of death.

The invitation to Christ’s banquet, for the marginalised and the rejected, is laden with the promise of life.

Herod feeds the prejudices of his own family and a closed group of courtiers. Christ shows that, despite the initial prejudices of the disciples, all are welcome to his banquet.

Herod is in a lavish palace in his city, but is isolated and deserted. Christ withdraws to an open but deserted place to be alone, but a great crowd follows him.

Herod fears the crowd beyond his palace gates. Christ rebukes the disciples for wanting to keep the crowds away.

Herod offers his daughter half his kingdom. Christ offers us all, as God’s children, the fullness of the kingdom of God.

Herod’s daughter asks for John’s head on a platter. On the mountainside, Christ feeds all.

Our lives are filled with choices.

Herod chooses loyalty to his inner circle and their greed. Christ tells his disciples to make a choice in favour of those who need food and shelter.

Herod’s banquet leads to destruction and death. Christ’s banquet is an invitation to building the kingdom and to new life.

Would I rather be at Herod’s Banquet for the few in the palace or with Christ as he feeds the masses in the wilderness?

Who would you invite to the banquet?

And who do you think feels excluded from the banquet?

We may never get the chance to be like Herod when it comes to lavish banqueting and decadent partying. But we have an opportunity to be party to inviting the many to the banquet that really matters.

Who feels turned away from the banquet by the Church today, abandoned and left to fend for themselves?

And, in our response to their needs, when we become signs of the Kingdom of God, we provide evidence enough to convict us when we are accused of being Christians.

An icon of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in a church in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 29 August 2026, the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist):


In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 23 to 29 August 2026 (pp 32-33), has been ‘Legacies of History’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Dr Rachele Evie Vernon O’Brien, a Jamaican-born theologian and advocate.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 29 August 2026, the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist) invites us to pray:

God of truth, we pray for the Codrington project. Guide the research, the conversations, and the listening, so that this work may bring understanding, justice, and hope.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who called your servant John the Baptist
to be the forerunner of your Son in birth and death:
strengthen us by your grace
that, as he suffered for the truth,
so we may boldly resist corruption and vice
and receive with him the unfading crown of 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:

Merciful Lord,
whose prophet John the Baptist
proclaimed your Son as the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world:
grant that we who in this sacrament
have known your forgiveness and your life–giving love
may ever tell of your mercy and your peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XIII:

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.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Father Irenaeus, a monk in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Natrun in Egypt, shows me the relics in the crypt of Saint John the Baptist below the northern wall of the church (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 110, Wednesday 26 August 2026

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the rock face in the cliffs above Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII).

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.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the ‘King’s Tomb’ has become a symbol of Kaş in southern Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 27-32 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 27 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors.’

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … a damaged sarcophagus by the harbour in Kaş, without any sign or marking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Beatitudes at the beginning of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says eight groups of people are blessed: ‘the poor in spirit … those who mourn … the meek … those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … the merciful … the pure in heart … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness …’ (Matthew 5: 3-10).

Now, as we come close to the end of this Gospel, we have seven groups of people who are condemned as hypocrites and against whom Jesus pronounces seven woes.

In the Gospel reading normally hear on Monday of this week (Matthew 23: 13-22), we hear the first three of these seven woes: woe to you who ‘lock people out of the kingdom of heaven’ (13) … who ‘make the new convert twice as much a child of hell’ (15) … and ‘blind guides’ who swear by the ‘gold of the sanctuary’ (16-22).

There were two further woes yesterday (Matthew 23: 23-26): for those who tithe mint, dill, and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith; and these who care about the details of domestic purity but neglect the cleanliness of their hearts and inner thoughts.

Today we hear the final of the seven woes today (Matthew 23: 27-32): a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but who inside are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

A ‘woe’ is an exclamation of grief, similar to what is expressed by the word alas. In pronouncing woes, Jesus is prophesying judgment on the religious leaders of the day for their hypocrisy. He calls them hypocrites, blind guides, snakes and a ‘brood of vipers’.

Before Jesus condemns the hypocrisy of religious leaders, they have been following him to test him and try to trick him with questions about divorce (Matthew 19: 3), his authority (Matthew 21: 23), paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22: 17), the resurrection (Matthew 22: 23), and the greatest commandment of the law (Matthew 22: 36).

Jesus prefaces his seven woes by explaining to the disciples that they should obey the teachings of the religious leaders – as they teach the law of God – but not to emulate their behaviour because they do not practice what they preach (Matthew 23: 3).

In the third grouping of these woes, which we read today, we hear the final of the seven woes: a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23: 27-32).

In the sixth woe, Jesus compares the religious leader of the day to ‘whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth’ (verse 27).

The rotting corpse inside a tomb is like the hypocrisy and lawlessness in the hearts of these particular scribes and Pharisees. They appear righteous on the outside, but they are just beautified tombs, for inwardly they are spiritually dead.

The phrase ‘whited sepulchres’ (‘whitewashed tombs’ in the NRSV translations) is one of those phrases that have found their way into everyday English to this day through the King James Version. The tombs in Jesus’ time were very different. The caves used for tombs were regularly painted or washed white with lime to look clean on the outside, but the inside was very plain, undecorated, just holding the body of the dead person. Behind the attractive exteriors were rotting corpses, as unclean as anything a faithful Jew could imagine.

The setting for this reading is Passover week. It was customary in the preceding month of Adar to renew the whitewashing on tombs in order to mark them clearly so that pious people who were on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover would not accidentally defile themselves by touching a place where dead bodies were buried. Someone who unwittingly stepped on a grave became ritually unclean. Whitewashing made the tombs more visible, especially in the dark.

In other words, whitewashing was not a mark of beauty; it was a warning of uncleanness – of being dead to humanity and dead before God.

This mention of tombs leads Jesus in the seventh woe to comment on the pride the religious leaders of the day take in the tombs built in memory of the prophets and other holy people.

Jesus accuses them of hypocrisy in erecting these monuments and decorate the tombs of the prophets of old. He says the slain prophets had been killed by the ancestors of the religious leaders, Pharisees, who imagined themselves much better than their fathers. He puts words into their mouths, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets’ (verse 30). But in saying things like that, they acknowledge their own background. Jesus says they have inherited their ancestors’ wickedness and are following in their steps.

Is Jesus implying here that while these religious leaders pretended to revere the prophets of old, they are persecuting the prophetic people of their own day?

We have whole groups of such people who are active in the Church today, offering ‘alternative’ leadership. They claim to know Anglicanism better than the Archbishop of Canterbury and deplore the ‘heresies’ of Anglicans who engaged with the Living in Love and Faith process, forming their own, self-selecting elitist groups and afraid of being contaminated not only by the world, but even by other Anglicans, demanding their own, parallel church structures and ministries.

The seven woes in Matthew 23 are dire warnings to the religious leaders of the day. But they also serve to warn us against religious hypocrisy today, among people who claim they and they alone have access to religious and biblical truth. We are called to true godliness, sincere love, and enduring faith. Pretension, affectation, and hypocrisy only lead to woe.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … a graveyard in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 26 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 23 to 29 August 2026 (pp 32-33), is ‘Legacies of History’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Dr Rachele Evie Vernon O’Brien, a Jamaican-born theologian and advocate.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 26 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, bless places of learning like Codrington College, its leadership team, and students. Raise up a new generation of leaders who are grounded in justice, humility, and faith.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of 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 all mercy,
in this eucharist you have set aside our sins
and given us your healing:
grant that we who are made whole in Christ
may bring that healing to this broken world,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of constant mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the Lycian rock tombs in the cliff faces above Fethiye in Turkey (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 101, Sunday 16 August 2026, Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI)

The Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite Woman … a modern icon by Brother Robert Lentz OFM

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 16 August 2026). Later this morning, I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Crying Women of Sidon … a sarcophagus from Sidon now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

Matthew 15: [10-20] 21-24 (NRSVA):

[10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’ 13 He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ 15 But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ 16 Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.’]

21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

Iokasti, a restaurant in Koutouloufari in Crete … are there comparisons between Iocasta and her daughter in ‘The Phoenician Women’ and the Greek-speaking Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman in Tyre and Sidon? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today comes in two parts: an optional prelude in Matthew 15: 10-20; and then Matthew 15: 21-24. We have read much of both parts in recent weeks: part of Matthew 15: 10-20 when we read Matthew 15: 1-2, 10-14 on 4 August; and Matthew 15: 21-28 as the reading on 5 August.

The second part of today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 15: 21-28) recalls how one of the first decisions of Jesus on his visit to Tyre and Sidon is to hear the cry for mercy from a Canaanite or Syro-Phoenician woman, to heal her daughter, and to commend their faith. The outsiders are counted in, and judgement is experienced as love and mercy, compassion and inclusion.

Can you recall a moment, a place, or an occasion when you felt rejected? To be rejected I do not need to be an outsider. We can be rejected by our own brothers or sisters, by those who live around us, by those who share our religious or cultural values.

We can be rejected because of our lifestyle, our family background, our political and social values, our ethnic or religious backgrounds, our personal habits, our family circumstances, our sexuality, or marital status or lack of marital status … the list is endless.

Can you think of how you feel when you are made to feel rejected, an outsider, sent away?

And, have you found yourself blaming yourself rather than those who reject or marginalise you?

If so, then you know what it is like to become a double victim: a victim of the prejudices of others, and a victim of the perceptions that are projected onto you.

The disciples reject the Canaanite woman who is pleading for mercy, seeing her as unclean and an outsider, and bring judgement down on this woman and her daughter in Tyre and Sidon.

Having heard the Pharisees suggest Jesus should reject them, they now say to Jesus, ‘send her away’ (verse 23).

But there is a paradox in their rejection of her, for they use a word (ἀπόλυσον, apoluson) that also means to set free, to let go, to give liberty to, to release.

The same verb is used to set a debtor free of debts, or to allow a woman to divorce her husband, setting her free from the bonds that tie husband and wife. In wanting to be free from her demanding calls, they – ironically – call for mother and daughter to be freed from their torments.

In our feelings of rejection and marginalisation, how do we find acceptance, liberation, and a place in God’s unfolding plan for his people, for all people, God’s future for us?

The disciples want to turn her away. They see her as a pest, a nuisance, a pushy woman, breaking into their closed space, their private area.

Christ and the Disciples are in the coastal area of Tyre and Sidon, an area of small villages, perhaps looking for a quiet break for a few days. But if they are planning to get away for a few quiet days, those plans are frustrated when this woman arrives with her pressing demands.

This is foreign territory, inhabited by Canaanites or Phoenicians, who were culturally Hellenised and mainly Greek-speaking. It is also the territory associated with Elijah, who raised the widow’s child from death (I Kings 17: 9-24) and who ‘was markedly open to foreigners.’

So, Christ could expect to find himself among a large number of Greek-speaking ‘Gentiles.’ Would the Disciples expect him to behave like Elijah and break all the rules in being open to them, taking miraculous care of a lone mother and her child?

In the classical world, Phoenician women were pushy women. About 400 years earlier, the great Greek playwright Euripides wrote his tragedy The Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι, Phoenissae).

The title of the play, The Phoenician Women, refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi and who are trapped in Thebes by war.

The two key women in the play are Jocasta and her daughter Antigone, who have survived against all odds. They challenge the accepted concepts in Classical times of fate and free-will.

In the face of death, they refuse to accept what others see as their destiny, they refuse to be pushed aside, marginalised and dismissed as the men around then compete for power.

So, in Christ’s time, educated people could expect a Phoenician woman and her daughter to be pushy in the face of what appears to be a cruel fate, even if this involves confronting successful or ambitious men: they are prepared to stand up to kings and rulers, prepared to challenge them, and prepared to risk judgement that means rejection and exile.

Faced with her daughter’s needs, this woman ignores the disciples: she is direct and aggressive in demanding healing and justice. And in demanding justice and healing for her daughter, she is, of course, demanding these for herself too.

Nothing is said about the response of the disciples to the woman. They had been trying to push her away, despite her crying, her tears, her distress, her plight over her daughter.

Perhaps nothing is said about the response of the disciples … because we are the disciples. How do you and I respond to encounters like this?

As a social response, for example, we might consider that the confrontation is an illustration of how we might respond to the needs of strangers and foreigners.

Do we find them pushy and demanding?

How do we respond when the foreign woman in our society wants the same treatment in hospital for her child as a child born here?

How do we respond when foreigners who are more open and joyful in conversation, appear to be encroaching on our privacy on the bus, on the street or in a shop?

Are we like the Disciples, and want to send them away? Or are we like Jesus, and engage in conversation with them?

Do we think we have some privileges that should not be shared with the outsider and the stranger?

How do we respond to people who are pushy and continue to demand care for their children in the face of society’s decision to say no?

The parents who want teaching support for children with learning disabilities, the parents who want to know why children’s hospitals are so badly funded that they have to raise funds with charity events while their children wait for treatment.

But this Gospel story also raises questions at a personal, spiritual level too, when it comes to matters of faith.

How many people do you know who give up when they turn to God in prayer and find those who are supposed to represent Jesus appear to turn them away?

How many times have I dismissed the needs and prayers of others because they appear to be outside the community of faith as I understand it?

This woman is insistent, she is persistent; she refuses to accept what other people regard as her fate and destiny.

In the end, she receives the mercy and help she asks for, and much, much more … she is commended in front of the disciples for her faith, and her daughter is healed instantly.

We do not have to accept misery and rejection, especially when others see them as our fate or our destiny. And, in simple prayers, we may find more in the answer than we ever ask for.

‘What overwhelms us?’

‘What can we do about being overwhelmed?’

These questions were put to us some years ago by Bishop Margaret Vertue of the Diocese of False Bay in South Africa, at the USPG conference in High Leigh.

Bishop Margaret, who was the second woman to become a bishop in Africa, was leading that morning’s Bible study in 2017 on Matthew 11: 20-24.

She challenged us to think of how we respond in love and not in judgement. And, drawing on the wisdom of the Carthusian monks of Grand Chartreuse, she asked: ‘I became human for you, will you become God with me?’

To illustrate how we might respond in love and not in judgement, she shared ‘The Story of a Sign’ by Alonso Alvarez Barreda, with music by Giles Lamb. This short film from Purplefeather illustrates the power of words to radically change our message and our effect upon the world.

She challenged us that morning to consider our own contexts and to discuss: ‘What overwhelms us? What can we do about being overwhelmed?’

And she asked, in the words of the wisdom of the Carthusian monks of Grand Chartreuse: ‘I became human for you, will you become God with me?’

‘The Story of a Sign’ by Alonso Alvarez Barreda / Purplefeather, music by Giles Lamb

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 16 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 16 to 22 August 2026 (pp 30-31), is ‘Hope in the Making’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by Grace Murray, a USPG volunteer:

Last summer was my second time at Greenbelt. Volunteering on the USPG stand felt like a natural extension of the things that already shape my life. In my work at a small social impact consultancy, and at the UK Youth Climate Coalition, I spend a lot of time thinking about justice and how change happens. So, the chance to bring together faith, justice and creativity was a big part of what drew me to volunteer.

Being on the stand was a real gift, giving me the chance to learn more about USPG’s work and to have meaningful conversations with festivalgoers about faith, creativity, justice and mission. Getting to know the brilliant USPG staff was also a lot of fun!

One of the highlights for me was meeting Jocabed Solano, whose work with Memoria Indígena I had followed for some time. Hearing her speak alongside Dr Paulo Ueti in Prophetic Voices from the Earth and its Peoples was both grounding and challenging. They shared wisdom from Indigenous theological traditions, reminding us that we are deeply connected to the Earth and to one another. It was a powerful call to listen more closely - to creation, and to voices too often ignored. Back at the stall, we shared the work of the Diocese of Amazonia and invited festivalgoers to write their own prayers for creation.

I walked away with a deeper appreciation for the conversations USPG is willing to host, and a broader view of social, racial and environmental justice from a faith perspective.

Thanks to the team for bringing me along!

Contact volunteer@uspg.org.uk if you’d like to find out more about volunteering at a summer festival or event.

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 16 August 2026, Trinity XI) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28.

The Collect of the Day:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

The Theatre of Dionysus, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens … plays by the great playwrights, Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles were first performed there (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 90, Wednesday 5 August 2026

Iokasti, a restaurant in Koutouloufari in Crete … are there comparisons between Iocasta and her daughter in ‘The Phoenician Women’ and the Greek-speaking Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman in the Gospels? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IX, 2 August 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Saint Oswald (642), King of Northumbria and Martyr, and tomorrow is the Feast of the Transfiguration (6 August).

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.

Mikis Theodorakis recorded ‘Symphony No 4, of the Choral Odes,’ in Athens in May 1987

Matthew 15: 21-28 (NRSVA):

21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.


Mikis Theodorakis, Symphony No 4, Movement 2, Euripides, ‘Phoenician Women’ (Φοίνισσαι)

Today’s Reflections

Today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 15: 21-28) is set in the district of Tyre and Sidon and tells of the Canaanite or Syro-Phoenician woman and her encounter with Christ.

In Saint Matthew’s account, she is a Canaanite woman (verse 22); in Saint Mark’s account (Mark 7: 27-31), she is a Greek-speaking or Syro-Phoenician woman (verse 26).

In the classical world, Phoenician women were pushy women. About 400 years earlier, the great Greek playwright Euripides wrote his tragic play The Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι, Phoenissae), rewriting a similar story used by Aeschylus in his play, Seven Against Thebes, and dealing with tragic events following the fall of Oedipus.

The title of the play by Euripides, The Phoenician Women, refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi and who are trapped in Thebes by the war.

The two key women in the play by Euripides are Jocasta (Ἰοκάστη) and her daughter Antigone (Ἀντιγόνη), who have survived against all odds. They challenge the accepted concepts in Classical times of fate and free-will.

In the face of death, they refuse to accept what other people regarded as their destiny, they refused to be pushed aside, marginalised and dismissed as the men around then compete for power.

So, in the time of Christ, educated, Greek-speaking people, including those around Tyre and Sidon, would expect a Greek-speaking Phoenician woman and her daughter to be pushy in the face of what appears to be a cruel fate, even if this involves confronting successful or ambitious men: they are prepared to stand up to kings and rulers, prepared to challenge them, and prepared to risk rejection and exile.

Faced with her daughter’s needs, this pushy woman ignores the disciples: she is direct and aggressive in demanding healing and justice. And in demanding justice and healing for her daughter, she is, of course, demanding these for herself too.

The dialogue between this woman and Christ must have sounded crude and aggressive to those who had gathered around to hear what was going on.

This pushy woman forces herself into the house, addresses Jesus in Messianic terms, and demands not that he should heal her daughter, but that he should show mercy. On whom? On her tormented daughter? On the distressed mother? The NRSV translation is clear, where the RSV is not: in the original Greek, she asks for mercy for herself (verse 22).

At times, when I have reading and re-reading this Gospel reading, I have found myself listening yet again to the second movement, ‘The Phoenician Woman,’ in Symphony No 4 (Of the Choral Odes), written in 1986-1987 by the great modern Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021) for soprano, alto, narrator, mixed choir and symphonic orchestra without strings.

Symphony No 4 by Theodorakis contains just two movements based on texts by Aeschylus (Eumenides) and Euripides (The Phoenician Women). The remastered version of this CD was recorded live at Athens at the world premiere of the composition. The booklet includes the completely translated libretto, extensive liner notes and some personal remarks of the composer himself.

In this symphony, Theodorakis provides a setting of Eumenides by Aeschylus and The Phoenician Women by Euripides, brought together in a massive work that conveys classical Greek tragedy through the form of a modern choral symphony.

In his fourth symphony, Theodorakis weaves together three traditions: the symphonic tradition and the integration of vocals into symphonic works; the tradition of great tragic women figures, which he takes up in his operas Medea, Electra and Antigone; and the particularly Greek perception of history.

In his notes written for this symphony, Theodorakis suggests that, because the word symphony is derived from Greek, it is best left to a Greek to define it. He is not concerned with the conventional western sonata form, and this long, two-part work derives its tension and power from its ancient Greek texts, following its own logic rather than abstract rules.

Theodorakis is forceful and direct in his music. There is power in its dark scoring, austere counterpoint, massed unisons, and immense orchestral sonorities.

Admirers of Theodorakis take this work seriously and appreciate his commitment to Greek national culture. But others find it difficult to listen to with its sombre subject matter. Yet this is the very drama, focussed in the desperate plight of one woman and her daughter, that is played out in today’s Gospel reading.

Each time I read today’s Gospel story of this woman and her daughter, they remind me of Jocasta and her daughter Antigone (Ἀντιγόνη). One year, while searching for illustrations and resources for this I came across photographs I had taken of Iokasti, a delightful restaurant in Koutouloufari, east of Iraklion in Crete.

During the Covid Pandemic lockdown earlier that year, in Holy Week, the week before Greek Easter, the people at Iokasti posted on their Facebook page a video clip of ‘Oh my sweet Springtime’ (Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ). This is a song of lamentation sung on Good Friday and imagines the Virgin Mary narrating the Crucifixion and pouring out her pain and grief as the Mother of Christ.

This lament is sung with reverence, emotion and devotion throughout Greece, and it has been performed and recorded by many Greece’s best-loved singers.

The version posted by Iokasti in Koutououfari that year was a recording in Athens by the late Irene Papas (1929-2022) – who played the title roles in Antigone (1961) and Electra (1962) – of the musical arrangement of this hymn by the Greek composer Vangelis:

Αι γενεαί πάσαι, ύμνον τη Ταφή Σου, προσφέρουσι Χριστέ μου.
Καθελών του ξύλου, ο Αριμαθείας, εν τάφω Σε κηδεύει.
Μυροφόροι ήλθον, μύρα σοι, Χριστέ μου, κομίζουσαι προφρόνως.
Δεύρο πάσα κτίσις, ύμνους εξοδίους, προσοίωμεν τω Κτίστη.
Ούς έθρεψε το μάννα, εκίνησαν την πτέρναν, κατά του ευεργέτου.
Ιωσήφ κηδεύει, συν τω Νικοδήμω, νεκροπρεπώς τον Κτίστην.

Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ, γλυκύτατόν μου Τέκνον, πού έδυ σου το κάλλος;

Υιέ Θεού παντάναξ, Θεέ μου πλαστουργέ μου, πώς πάθος κατεδέξω;
Έρραναν τον τάφον αι Μυροφόροι μύρα, λίαν πρωί ελθούσαι.
Ω Τριάς Θεέ μου, Πατήρ Υιός και Πνεύμα, ελέησον τον κόσμον.

Ιδείν την του Υιού σου, Ανάστασιν, Παρθένε, αξίωσον σους δούλους.

All generations offer a hymn at your burial my Christ.
The Arimathean took you down from the cross and buried you in a tomb.
Women came with spices to give you perfume and prepare your burial.
Hither creation was made, let us sing hymns to praise our Creator.
Nourished from above with manna, lifted heels of contempt against their benefactor.
You are being buried by Joseph and Nicodemus, in the grave of the Creator.

Oh, my sweet spring, my sweetest child, where does your beauty fade?
Son of God Almighty, my God and Creator, how can I bear your passion?
Women with spices came very early in the morning to sprinkle the grave with perfume.
O my Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit, have mercy on the world.

Allow us to serve you, O Virgin, to see you son’s resurrection, to be your worthy servants.

In weeping for her daughter, the Syro-Phoenician woman share in the weeping of the Virgin Mary for her son. And in Christ, we find compassion for all our sorrows and all our weeping.


‘Oh my sweet Springtime’ (Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ), a song of lamentation sung on Good Friday, arranged by Vangelis and recorded in Athens by the Irene Papas

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 5 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week (2-8 August 2026, pp 24-25), is ‘Faith Under Pressure in Nicaragua’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Reflection by the Most Revd Juan David Alvarado, Bishop of El Salvador and Primate of the Province of the Anglican Church in Central America.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 5 August 2026) invites us to pray:

God of truth, we pray for those who cannot speak openly about injustice in Nicaragua. Give them courage in silence, and raise up voices beyond their borders to bear witness and seek justice.

The Collect of the Day:

Lord God almighty,
who so kindled the faith of King Oswald with your Spirit
that he set up the sign of the cross in his kingdom
and turned his people to the light of Christ:
grant that we, being fired by the same Spirit,
may always bear our cross before the world
and be found faithful servants of the gospel;
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:

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Oswald:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of The Transfiguration:

Father in heaven,
whose Son Jesus Christ was wonderfully transfigured
before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain,
and spoke of the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem:
give us strength so to hear his voice and bear our cross
that in the world to come we may see him as he is;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

A table for one at Iokasti, a restaurant in the mountain village of Koutouloufari in Crete recalls the play by Euripides (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 86, Saturday 1 August 2026

An icon of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in a church in Koutouloufari in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, we have reached the beginning of a new month today, and tomorrow is the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IX, 2 August 2026).

In many places, in the past, 1 August was known as Lammas, from an Old English word hlāfmæsse, meaning loaf-mass, or as Loaf Mass Day. The name originates from the word ‘loaf’ in reference to bread and ‘Mass’ in reference to the Eucharist. It is a festival to mark the blessing of the First Fruits of harvest, with a loaf of bread being brought to the church for this purpose. Lammastide falls at the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox.

Later today, the Greek community in Stony Stratford is opening its pop-up café at Swinfen Harris Church Hall, London Road. Το Στεκι Μας, Our Place, takes place every first Saturday of the month from 10:30 to 5 pm.

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 Beheading of Saint John the Baptist’ by Caravaggio in the Oratory of Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, Malta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 14: 1-12 (NRSVA):

14 At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2 and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3 For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7 so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9 The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10 he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

Father Irenaeus, a monk in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Natrun, shows me the relics in the crypt of Saint John the Baptist below the north wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

This morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 14: 1-12) is in sequence with our Gospel readings throughout the past week. However, we are going to hear it once again near the end of the month, when 29 August is observed liturgically by most Christian traditions, including most Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches, as a day commemorating the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.

That liturgical commemoration is almost as old as the commemoration of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June. In some Orthodox cultures, the day is one of strict fasting.

Saint John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod Antipas through the vengeful request of his daughter Salome. The story of his beheading is a story that places personal integrity, morality and honour in stark contrast to self-centred arrogance, vengeance, and the tyrannical abuse of power.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, Herod, who was Tetrarch of Judea, had imprisoned Saint John the Baptist after he reproved Herod for divorcing his wife and unlawfully marrying Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip.

On Herod’s birthday, Salome, the daughter of Herodias, danced before him and his guests. The drunken Herod was so pleased that he promised her anything she desired, including half his kingdom. When her mother prompted Salome to ask for the head of Saint John the Baptist on a platter, he was executed in prison. The disciples took his body and buried it, but the Gospel accounts say nothing about what happened to his head (Matthew 14: 1-12; Mark 6: 14-29; see Luke 9: 7-9).

According to some Orthodox traditions, Saint John’s disciples buried his body at Sebaste, near present-day Nablus on the West Bank, but Herodias took his head and buried it in a dung heap. Later, Saint Joanna, the wife of one of Herod’s stewards, secretly recovered the head and buried it on the Mount of Olives, where it remained hidden for centuries. In the fourth century, a monk named Innocent is said to have found the buried head, but hid it again.

Over a century later, in the year 452 CE, when Constantine the Great was Emperor, two monks in Jerusalem on a pilgrimage claimed to have found the head once again, but it fell into the hands of an Arian monk, Eustathius. Eventually, Archimandrite Marcellus brought the head to Emesa in Phoenicia.

Yet other traditions say Herodias had the head buried in Herod’s fortress at Machaerus or in Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. It was found during the reign of Constantine and secretly taken to Emesa, where it was hidden until it was found once again in 453.

From Emesa, the head was brought to Constantinople. Although it was moved to Cappadocia in the early ninth century during the iconoclastic persecution, it was returned later to Constantinople.

According to another tradition, the body of Saint John the Baptist remained in Sebaste. However, his shrine was desecrated under Julian the Apostate ca 362. A portion of the rescued relics was brought first to Jerusalem and then to Alexandria in 395. Today, the former tomb in Nablus is at the Nabi Yahya Mosque or Saint John the Baptist Mosque.

Nowadays, several places claim to have the severed head of Saint John the Baptist, including the Church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome, Amiens Cathedral in France, Antioch in Turkey, the Romanian skete of Saint John Prodromos (Saint John the Baptist) on Mount Athos in Greece, and the former Basilica of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus. Because of the traditions relating the head to the Syrian capital, many Muslims believe that Christ’s second coming will take place in Damascus.

In Egypt, when I visited the Coptic Orthodox Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great at Wadi el-Natrun, about 100 km north-west of Cairo, in the Desert of Sceits, Father Irenaeus, a monk in the monastery, showed me the relics of Saint John the Baptist in the crypt of the main church in the monastery.

The Church of Saint Macarius was restored in recent decades at the request of the late Pope Shenouda III. We were told that during the restoration of the church, the monks unearthed the crypt of Saint John the Baptist and the crypt of the Prophet Elisha below the northern wall . The relics were then gathered into a special reliquary and placed before the sanctuary of Saint John the Baptist in the Church of Saint Macarius.

The monastery has spiritual, academic and fraternal links with several monasteries outside Egypt, including Chevetogne in Belgium, Solesmes Abbey and the Monastery of the Transfiguration in France, Deir el-Harf in Lebanon and the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God at the Convent of the Incarnation at Fairacres in Oxford.

Each day, the monastery receives large numbers of Egyptian and foreign visitors, sometimes as many as 1,000 people a day. The monks give special priority to priests, full-time lay workers and Sunday school teachers as visitors, and during the summer holidays, the monastery offers many young people opportunities to spend a few days on retreat, with spiritual direction and guidance.

The monastery is playing a significant role in the spiritual awakening of the Coptic Church. ‘We receive all our visitors, no matter what their religious conviction, with joy, warmth and graciousness, not out of a mistaken optimism, but in genuine and sincere love for each person,’ says the monastery website.

In his book, Church and State, one of the monks, Father Matta el-Meskeen, declares that politics should be entirely separated from religion. ‘Give therefore to emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Matthew 22: 21). In other writings, such as Sectarianism and Extremism, Father Matta warns against the common tendency of minorities to be wrapped up in themselves and to despise others.

The monks say they live out fully the unity of the Church in spirit and in truth, ‘in anticipation of its visible attainment ecclesiastically. Through our genuine openness of heart and spirit to all men, no matter what their confession, it has become possible for us to see ourselves, or rather Christ, in others. For us, Christian unity is to live together in Christ by love. Then divisions collapse and differences disappear, and there is only the One Christ who gathers us all into his holy person.’

And they add: ‘It is our hope that the desert of Scetis will become once more the birth place of good will, reconciliation and unity between all the peoples on earth in Christ Jesus.’

These monks are an example to us all. Meanwhile, in my prayers this morning I am thinking of those places associated with Saint John the Baptist in the Middle East, including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and Egypt, Syria and Turkey. The people there must be in our prayers this morning, including the victims of war and violence, the people starving in a famine that has created through political and military policies, the missing hostages, children and families being forced to move constantly and in terror, the maimed and the dying, whole communities that have been traumatised, the suffering minorities in the region.

I pray this morning that integrity, morality and honour may triumph over arrogance, vengeance and the tyrannical abuse of power, and pray too for an end to the killing of people at the behest of those with too much power and too many weapons.

The beheading of Saint John the Baptist … a fresco in Analipsi Church or the Church of the Ascension in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 1 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 1 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we pray for USPG and all church partners engaged in eradicating human trafficking and abolishing modern slavery. Guide their advocacy, deepen their compassion, and strengthen their efforts to bring justice, protection, and freedom.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that have taken holy things;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
your Son left the riches of heaven
and became poor for our sake:
when we prosper save us from pride,
when we are needy save us from despair,
that we may trust in you alone;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity IX:

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

An icon of Saint John the Baptist in a small chapel in Georgioupoli in Crete (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