COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
‘Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight’ (Luke 12: 6) … a mural in the Old Bath House, Wolverton, by Timothy B Layden and Luke McDonnell shows Ella Jones-Seal creating music for the birds (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX, 11 October 2025). Today the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, Reformation Martyrs (1555).
Before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free’ (Leonard Cohen) … birds on the wires in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 12: 1-7 (NRSVA):
1 Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered in thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. 2 Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.
4 ‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. 7 But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’
The portrait of Mao Zedong overlooking the entrance to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing … Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign when it was too late (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflections:
There is story from China in the 1950s of how Mao ordered the extermination of several pests, including sparrows. But it was a campaign that led to an environmental disaster.
It all seems to have started off with what looked like a good idea. Mao argued that nature should be fully exploited for production, and building up industry would not only modernise China but also build up an urban proletariat that would provide a solid support base for the Chinese Communist Party.
The Eurasian Tree Sparrow was singled out in particular because in was eating grain seeds. Chinese scientists calculated that for every million sparrows killed, there would be enough food to feed 60,000 people.
Chinese people took to the streets in great numbers, clanging their pots and pans or beating drums to terrorise the birds and prevent them from landing. Nests were torn down from trees, eggs were smashed, chicks were killed, and sparrows were shot down from the branches.
School children, civil servants, factory workers, farmers and soldiers were all mobilised in the campaign, along with hundreds of thousands of scarecrows and colourful, fluttering flags.
Young people trapped, poisoned and attacked the sparrows, children and old people kept watch, and free-fire zones were set up for shooting the sparrows.
Hundreds of millions of sparrows were killed in this campaign of destruction, and the sparrow almost became extinct in China.
But as well as eating grain, the sparrows also ate insects in great numbers. Without the sparrows to eat the insects, the insects gobbled the crops that the sparrows had nibbled at. Crop yields dropped to an all-time low and rice growing faced a disaster.
When Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign, it was too late. The situation got progressively worse, locusts swarmed the countryside, and the loss of the sparrow contributed to widespread famine from 1958 to 1961, when 30 million people or more died of hunger.
It still remains a chilling reminder of the dangers that can be created by any changes to an ecosystem.
The sparrow in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 12: 1-7), is, in the original Greek, στρουθίον (strouthíon), any small bird, especially a sparrow (verses 6, 7; see also Matthew 10: 29). The Hebrew word צִפּוֹר (tzippor) comes from a root signifying to chirp or twitter, a phonetic representation of the call-note of any passerine or sparrow-like bird.
This word occurs more than 40 times in the Hebrew Bible. In English translations, it is often rendered as ‘bird’ or ‘fowl’ and denotes any small bird, both of the sparrow-like species and such as the starling, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet, goldfinch, corn-bunting, pipits, blackbird and song-thrush.
However the name is translated from the Hebrew or the Greek, these birds are found in great numbers in the East Mediterranean and are of very little value, selling for the merest trifle.
The blue thrush is probably the bird to which the psalmist alludes to – ‘I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop’ (Psalm 102: 7) – is a solitary bird, setting itself apart from the company of its own species, and rarely more than a pair are seen together. The English tree-sparrow is also very common, and may be seen in numbers on Mount Olivet and about the sacred enclosure of the Mosque of Omar.
There are great numbers of house sparrows and field sparrows who make their nests just where people do not want them: they block stoves and water-pipes with their rubbish, and build in the windows and under the beams of roofs.
The sparrow mentioned several times in the Bible often symbolises insignificance and the providential care of God. The sparrow represents the humble and the lowly. Despite their perceived insignificance, their nuisance value, and the cheap price they sell for, the Bible uses sparrows to illustrate God’s attentive care for all his creation. And without them, without each and every one of us, the whole ecosystem of God’s beautiful creation is severely threatened and endangered.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God (Psalm 84: 3).
Watching a mother bird feed her chick at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 16 October 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, 11-17 October 2026 (pp 46-47), is ‘The Lord Has Done Great Things’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Guilherme Moura Bejo, candidate for Holy Orders in the Anglican Diocese of São Paulo, and co-ordinator of the Diocesan Youth Group.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 16 October 2026) invites us to pray:
Heavenly Father, we pray that participants on the ELA (Emerging Leaders Academy) will go forth renewed, empowered, and inspired to transform their communities and serve your mission with courage and faithfulness.
The Collect of the Day:
O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts ;
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:
Holy and blessed God,
you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son
and filled us with your Holy Spirit:
may we honour you,
not only with our lips
but in lives dedicated to the service
of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Faithful Lord,
whose steadfast love never ceases
and whose mercies never come to an end:
grant us the grace to trust you
and to receive the gifts of your love,
new every morning,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 21 September). Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in this week in the Church Calendar are also known as Ember Days.
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester and spiritual writer; and Saint Sergei of Radonezh (1314-1392), Russian monastic reformer, teacher of the faith.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and 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.
When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence
Luke 9: 18-22 (NRSVA):
18 Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ 19 They answered, ‘John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.’ 20 He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Messiah of God.’
21 He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, 22 saying, ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’
When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence
Today’s Reflection:
In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 9: 18-22), after his profound confession of faith, Saint Peter is ‘sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone.’ This is in sharp contrast to the response to this confession of faith in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, when Christ tells Saint Peter: ‘I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church …’ (Matthew 16: 18, NRSVA).
When is it appropriate to be silent and not speak out?
In Saint Mark’s Gospel, when Bartimaeus the blind beggar realises he is in the presence of Christ outside the gates of Jericho, ‘many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly’ (Mark 10: 48).
But are there times when words are not enough, when words are simply not appropriate?
In the midst of the unsettling and shocking turn events in the US in recent weeks, many people who speak out against racism, hatred and oppression, are being silenced by people who once claimed they defended free speech, while the name of Christianity is being misappropriated, hijacked and politically manipulated by people whose values and lifestyles show no commitment to living according to principles and values.
I am reminded of a saying attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: ‘Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.’
There are moments when actions speak louder than words, and when our lifestyle and discipleship offer far better sermons than anything we may say in a sermon.
There are moments to cry out loudly in the presence of God, and there are moments when silence is so appropriate.
So, in my prayers and silent reflections this morning, as the Church remembers Saint Sergei of Radonezh, regarded as the greatest of the Russian saints, my thoughts are turning to the icon of Christ the Blessed Silence, an icon found in some traditions in the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, but that is not so well known outside Orthodoxy.
In this icon, Christ is portrayed as a youthful figure looking like a winged angel, his hands crossed against his chest, sometimes wearing a bishop’s mitre and dressed in a sakkos (σάκκος), the vestment worn by Orthodox bishops. In most of these icons, Christ is shown with an eight-pointed, shining nimbus.
The icon of Christ the Blessed Silence represents his sacrifice, through his young face and crossed hands, and his ecclesiastic mission in his attire. His angel-like face and the wings point to his ministry. In some of these icons, Christ is bare-headed, in others he wears the crown of a bishop, to show that he is both the Great High Priest and the King of Kings. In some icons of Christ the Blessed Silence, Christ holds the cross, spear and sponge of the Crucifixion.
The tradition of icons of Christ the Blessed Silence developed in the 14th and 15th centuries on Mount Athos, in Greece and in the Balkans. In Greece it was associated in Greece with the tradition of Hesychia. This Blessed Silence of Christ associates this icon with the hesychasts in the Eastern Orthodox tradition – the Greek ἡσυχία (hesychia) is a word for silence or quiet.
This icon is known in Russian as Spas Blagoe Molchanie or the Saviour of the Blessed Silence, and even as the Angel of Great Counsel. The earliest icon in this tradition in mediaeval Rus dates from the late 15th century. Christ is portrayed on the iconostasis or icon screen in the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin in Moscow, above the entrance to the sanctuary and dates from ca 1482 or perhaps later (1514-1515).
This image was widespread in the 17th century, and it is found special reverence in the 18th and 19th centuries among the Old Believers in Russia. Many of these icons were confiscated from the Old Believers and kept in archives in St Petersburg.
The icon of Christ the Blessed Silence Saviour is one of the few types in which Christ is represented in the form of an angel. In these icons, Christ is young and without a beard, looking like an angel or messenger, the angel of the blessed silence.
The sacred silence of Christ in this icon is also associated with the Christ who was born in time to be the Suffering Servant who died in Silence. In the traditional interpretations of Isaiah, the Suffering Servant passages are associated with the crucifixion of Jesus:
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53: 7)
So, the suffering Christ was silent, and Christ the Angel of Great Counsel is the Son of God begotten in the Silence of Eternity.
Isaiah also says:
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street (Isaiah 42: 2).
These icons often also bear inscriptions from another passage in Isaiah:
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11: 2)
Sometimes Christ holds in his hand a scroll that reads: ‘You are the God of Peace, Father of Mercies, the Angel of Great Counsel.’ These words are in Irmos 5 in the Liturgy of the Nativity:
O God of peace and Father of mercies
Thou has sent to us the Angel of Great Counsel who grants us peace.
So we are guided to the light of the knowledge of God.
Waking early from the night we praise Thee, O Lover of men.
Traditionally, the words of Isaiah 9: 6 are associated with the birth of Christ and the Nativity narratives. They are best known in the English-speaking world because of their use in the libretto by Charles Jennens for Handel’s oratorio Messiah:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Jennens was drawing on the text of the Authorised Version or King James Version of the Bible, which reflects the Hebrew text of the Bible as it was known in the 17th century. However, early Christians knew the Biblical texts not in Hebrew, but in the Greek of the Septuagint. In Greek, Isaiah 9: 6 reads somewhat differently:
The ‘Messenger of Great Counsel’ (Ο Μεγάλης Βουλής Άγγελος) in the Septuagint may also be understood as the ‘Angel of Great Counsel.’ Greek versions of the icon of the Angel of Great Counsel sometimes include the inscription:
For I came from God and now I am here.
I did not come on my own, but he sent me (John 8: 42).
As I think of the icon of Christ the Blessed Silence, I think too of the Logos begotten from God in Eternity and of the birth of the Christ Child in time. He is the one who was, who is and who is to come, the one to cry out loud to and the one in whose presence we should be silent too.
I have said with humour and full sincerity that when my coffin is being taken into the church at my funeral (later than sooner, I hope), that I want to hear Leonard Cohen’s ‘If it be your will’ … and when my coffin is being carried out I want to hear his ‘Dance me to the end of love.’
So often I want to be in control. I want to control the agenda, I want to control conversations, I want to control discussions. And I particularly want to control the words I use, the words others are going to hear me say.
And so, I am humbled at times when I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, ‘If it be your will.’
Leonard Cohen ended many of those concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit:
Leonard Cohen sings of his nearly complete subjection to the divine will.
If he is told to be silent, he will be silent; if he is told to sing, he will sing.
If he is allowed to express his true voice (‘if a voice be true’), he will sing in praise of God from ‘this broken hill’ … from Calvary?
The mercy of God, the compassion of God, the love of God, redeems the burning hearts in hell … if it is God’s will.
Leonard Cohen’s great hope in this will leads to prayer, to the one who can ‘make us well’ if we devote ourselves to God, pray to God, sing to God. But he still prays to God to act on behalf of the suffering.
Cajoling God in song and poetry, Cohen says God has the power to ‘end this night’ of the darkness of the human condition, in which people are dressed in only dirty ‘rags of light’ that are fragmented, that are not fully whole and illuminated.
In this song, I imagine Christ on the cross as he speaks to God the Father as his agony comes to its close:
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before.
The broken hill is Golgotha where he has been crucified, the rugged and rocky Mount of Calvary.
‘Let the rivers fill’ may refer to the water of his thirst, the water of his sweat, the water that streams from his side, the waters of baptism, the Living Water that will never leave us to thirst.
If it be your will
To make us well
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell.
Lancelot Andrewes, who is remembered in the calendar of the Church of England today, repeatedly emphasises that the ultimate heights of Christian mystery – particularly Christ's incarnation and his suffering on the cross – transcend what human words can articulate. In his 1604 Good Friday Passion Sermon, based on Lamentations 1: 12, Andrewes contemplates the unmatched, incomparable sorrow (non sicut) of Christ: ‘It is a non sicut this, it cannot be expressed as it should, and as other things may; in silence we may admire it, but all our words will not reach it.’
For Andrewes, trying to stretch words to encapsulate the depth of divine suffering borders on hubris. Instead, true devotion requires us to halt our speech and allow adoring silence to take over where vocabulary fails. He echoes Saint Augustine in his writings, noting that ‘even they that are full of words are but dumb’ when attempting to fully describe God, concluding that the highest form of praise ‘hath rather silence than words.’
He routinely returns to the intense cosmic paradox of Christmas: the Verbum infans, the ‘infant Word’ or the ‘Word without a word’. He marvels that the eternal Word of God, who commands the vastness of the oceans and the cosmos, would enter the world wrapped in swaddling clothes, entirely unable to speak. In Andrewes’s theology, God’s own choice to embrace the silence of infancy demands a mirroring, humbled silence from humanity as we approach the manger.
The Dominican theologian Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe of Oxford says: ‘We must wait for the resurrection to break the silence of the tomb.’ We must speak up when it is necessary, and to have the courage to speak is ‘ultimately founded upon the courage to listen.’
Leonard Cohen, If it be your will:
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
If it be your will.
When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence
Today’s Prayers (Friday 25 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 20 to 26 September 2026 (pp 40-41), is ‘For God and Country’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Rosie Dawson, USPG Trustee and freelance journalist.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 25 September 2026) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray that the Gospel may be spoken, sung, and embodied in every tongue and context. Free us from silencing voices that we falsely claim do not belong.
The Collect of the Day:
Lord God,
who gave to Lancelot Andrewes many gifts of your Holy Spirit,
making him a man of prayer and a pastor of your people:
perfect in us that which is lacking in your gifts,
of faith, to increase it,
of hope, to establish it,
of love, to kindle it,
that we may live in the light of your grace and 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.
Collect (for the ministry of all Christian people):
Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
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:
God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Lancelot Andrewes revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer (Ember Days):
Heavenly Father,
whose ascended Son gave gifts of leadership and service to the Church:
strengthen us who have received this holy food
to be good stewards of your manifold grace,
through him who came not to be served but to serve,
and give his life as a ransom for many,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers at a kiosk in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and the week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers William Wilberforce (1833), Olaudah Equiano (1797) and Thomas Clarkson (1846).
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 kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind’ (Matthew 13: 47) … fishing boats and nets by the harbour in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 13: 47-53 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52 And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’ 53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.
‘When [the net] was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good [fish] into baskets’ (Matthew 13: 48) … a sign outside a fish shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
This morning’s reflection:
We have more weeping and gnashing of teeth in this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 47-53), more separating of the righteous and the evil, and more people being thrown into the furnace of fire.
But we also have some more images of what the kingdom of heaven is like:
• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);
• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);
• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);
• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).
So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.
And we hear that ‘every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52).
When the Revd Stephen Hilliard was leaving The Irish Times to enter full-time parish ministry, the then deputy editor, Ken Gray, joked that he was moving from being a ‘column of the Times’ to being a ‘pillar of the Church.’
Later, when I asked Stephen to define the different challenges of journalism and parish ministry, I was told: ‘In many ways they’re the same. We’re supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.’
Nadine Gordimer, in a lecture in London, once argued that a writer’s highest calling is to bear witness to the evils of conflicts and injustice. But that is the calling of a priest too.
When I was moving from journalism in The Irish Times, another colleague asked me, in a tongue-in-cheek way, whether I was moving from being one of the Scribes to being one of the Pharisees.
In my 30 or more years as a full-time journalist and writer, I had tried to work at the point where faith meets the major concerns of the world.
Since leaving The Irish Times back in 2002, I continue to write regularly in other formats too. My daily blog has been a daily exercise: I continue to write occasionally for The Irish Times, the Wexford People, and for local and church-based newspapers and magazines, as well as contributing regularly to books and journals.
But, just as ministry is never exercised as a personal right but always in communion with the Church, so too journalists and writers never write for themselves, but need to heed the needs of editors and readers.
There is a time to be silent in ministry, and there is a time to be silent as a writer. I am humbled whenever I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, If it be your will. He ended many of his concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit. It is a song that I hope is heard at my funeral (later rather than sooner):
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
If it be your will.
Until then, I shall continue to write.
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … catching up with the news in ‘The Irish Times’
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 30 July 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 on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 30 July 2026, World Day Against Trafficking in Persons) invites us to pray:
God of freedom and justice, we pray for all who are trapped in trafficking and modern slavery. Bring an end to systems and practices that exploit the vulnerable, strengthen those who work to rescue and protect, and lead your Church to act with courage and compassion.
The Collect of the Day:
God our deliverer,
who sent your Son Jesus Christ
to set your people free from the slavery of sin:
grant that, as your servants William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson
toiled against the sin of slavery,
so we may bring compassion to all
and work for the freedom of all the children of God;
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 our redeemer,
who inspired William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers on sale in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
‘You can hear the boats go by … and she feeds you tea and oranges’ … ‘Tea and Oranges’ on the canal below Hawkesyard Hall in Armitage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)
Patrick Comerford
As I was walking one day last week by the canal towpath between Rugeley and Armitage in the April sunshine, I noticed that one of the boats I saw below the pinnacles and turrets of Hawkesyard Hall is called ‘Tea and Oranges’.
I found myself singing the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’, with its images of lovers walking hand-in-hand by boats and the water and of ‘tea and oranges that come all the way from China’:
Suzanne takes you down
To her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she’s half-crazy
But that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you’ve always been her lover
‘Suzanne’ is a haunting composition and over the years it has become one of the best known works by the Canadian poet singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen, who died almost ten years ago on 7 November 2016.
Like many of Cohen’s songs, ‘Suzanne’ began as poem. He published his first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956) at the age of 22. This was followed by The Spice-Box of Earth (1961), Flowers for Hitler (1964), and his novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966).
‘Suzanne’ was first published 60 years ago in 1966 as the poem ‘Suzanne Takes You Down’ in his third poetry collection, Parasites of Heaven (1966). Judy Collins recorded ‘Suzanne’ for her album In My Life, released in November 1966. A year later, Cohen included the song as the first track on Side A of his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, released on 27 December 1967.
The album’s front cover depicts a sepia tint photo of Leonard Cohen. The back cover is a Mexican religious picture of the Anima Sola depicted as a woman breaking free of her chains surrounded by flames and gazing towards heaven. In a Rolling Stone interview, he described the image as ‘the triumph of the spirit over matter. The spirit being that beautiful woman breaking out of the chains and the fire and prison’.
‘Suzanne’ was released as a single in 1968, but only reached the charts after Cohen died in 2016.
‘You can hear the boats go by’ … 90 seconds on the canal between Armitage and Rugeley (Patrick Comerford, 2026)
Suzanne has become one of the most covered songs in Cohen’s catalogue. Far Out and American Songwriter ranked the song No 4 and No 2, respectively, on their lists of the ten greatest Leonard Cohen songs. In 2021, it was ranked at No 284 on Rolling Stone’s ‘Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.’
Leonard Cohen had a lengthy relationship with the Los Angeles artist Suzanne Elrod in the 1970s. But he later said ‘cowardice’ and ‘fear’ prevented him from ever marrying her. They had two children, a son Adam (born 1972) and a daughter Lorca (born 1974) named after the poet Federico García Lorca.
Leonard Cohen and Suzanne Elrod had split up by 1979. But, contrary to popular belief, ‘Suzanne’ in the song is not Suzanne Elrod, but the dancer Suzanne Verdal, the former wife of his friend, the Québécois sculptor Armand Vaillancourt.
The song’s brilliance lies in its pairing of a spare, hypnotic melody with evocative lyrics:
Now Suzanne takes you down
To her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know she’s half crazy.
In Cohen’s version first recorded in 1968, the mood is underscored by a lilting female chorus and Cohen’s own subtle, insistent guitar playing. Cohen recalls ‘Suzanne,’ the enigmatic title figure, who wears ‘rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters.’
‘Suzanne’ was inspired by Cohen’s platonic relationship with Suzanne Verdal and the lyrics describe the rituals that they enjoyed when they met. She would invite him to visit her apartment by the harbour in Montreal, where she would serve him Constant Comment tea, and feed him ‘oranges that come all the way from China’.
Together, they savoured the beautiful view of the St Lawrence River from her waterfront apartment in Montreal, and they would walk around Old Montreal past the Church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, where sailors were blessed before heading out to sea.
Other details speak of a romantic longing that, seemingly, remained unfulfilled:
And you want to travel with her
and you want to travel blind …
for you’ve touched her perfect body
with your mind.
The hunger these two gifted people had for one another illuminates the lyrics, giving them a spark that seems to resonate from the inside. On a human level, the song is about the mysterious forces that bring people together and, then, just as inexplicably, move them apart. ‘Suzanne’ can be heard or read as a statement of human frailty, representing a special moment in time, created by two people whose mutual attraction was not fulfilled in a physical sense, but still fulfilled in an emotional, deeper, way.
Verdal went on to travel the world, going from Montreal to France to Texas, and, finally, by the early 1990s, to Los Angeles, where she worked as a choreographer. Cohen said in a BBC interview in 1994 that he only imagined having sex with her, as there was neither the opportunity nor inclination to actually go through with it.
A fall and injury ended her career as a dancer. By 2006, she was living in a converted truck in Venice Beach, California. That year she told a CBC interview that she had ‘put the boundaries’ on the relationship with Cohen. She said then that they never had a sexual relationship, contrary to what some interpretations of the song suggest: ‘Somehow, I didn’t want to spoil that preciousness, that infinite respect that I had for him … I felt that a sexual encounter might demean it somehow.’
‘She is wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters’ … the Salvation Army shop on Market Street in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Despite beginning as a story of love and infatuation, Suzanne turns to a religious theme in the second verse:
And Jesus was a sailor
when he walked upon the water …
His ‘lonely wooden tower’ is, of course, the cross. Cohen is so fascinated by Jesus that he writes:
And you want to travel with him
you want to travel blind
and you think maybe you’ll trust him
for he’s touched your perfect body
with his mind.
The stanza ends in the most tragic and cryptic lines of the poem, as the voice returns to a third person of Jesus:
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
This must refer to the crucifixion and the burial. He was ‘forsaken almost human.’ Despite being divine he is also human.
‘And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China’ … oranges in the Tua Pek Kong Chinese temple in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford,)
Leonard Cohen, Suzanne:
Suzanne takes you down
To her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she’s half-crazy
But that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you’ve always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said ‘All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them’
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind
Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know you can trust her
For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.
‘If it be your will / If there is a choice / Let the rivers fill / Let the hills rejoice’ (Leonard Cohen) … winter in Regent's Park, London, yesterday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)
Patrick Comerford
The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the First Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany I, 11 January 2026), with readings that focus on the Baptism of Christ.
We were at a funeral in Seer Green, near Beaconsfield, yesterday afternoon, and from there we travelled through London and have been staying overnight within view of Norwich Cathedral. We are attending a second funeral later this morning of a priest-friend in Lingwood, a small Norfolk village. Meanwhile, 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.
Leonard Cohen on stage in Dublin at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 1: 40-45 (NRSVA):
40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ 41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ 42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44 saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ 45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.
Abandoned houses on Spinalónga, off the coast of Crete, Europe’s last ‘leper colony’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflections:
This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 1: 40-45) follows yesterday’s story of Christ healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law with another healing story, the healing of a man with leprosy. Jesus stretches out his hand and touches the man, who is made clean and restored to health and his place in his community, socially, economically and religiously.
In today’s reading, and in a similar healing story in Saint Luke’s Gospel (see Luke 5: 12-16), Jesus tells the man to stay quiet, to ‘say nothing to anyone’ (Mark 1: 43), ‘to tell no one’ (Luke 5: 14). But why?
I have often said with humour, but with full sincerity, that when my coffin is being taken into the church at my funeral (later than sooner, I hope), that I want to hear Leonard Cohen’s ‘If it be your will’ … and when my coffin is being carried out I want to hear his ‘Dance me to the end of love.’
So often I want to be in control. I want to control the agenda, I want to control conversations, I want to control discussions. And I particularly want to control the words I use, the words others are going to hear me say.
And so, I am humbled at times when I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, ‘If it be your will.’
I was at most of Leonard Cohen’s concerts in Ireland. He ended many of those concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit:
Leonard Cohen sings of his nearly complete subjection to the divine will.
If he is told to be silent, he will be silent; if he is told to sing, he will sing.
If he is allowed to express his true voice (‘if a voice be true’), he will sing in praise of God from ‘this broken hill’ … from Calvary?
The mercy of God, the compassion of God, the love of God, redeems the burning hearts in hell … if it is God’s will.
Leonard Cohen’s great hope in this will leads to prayer, to the one who can ‘make us well’ if we devote ourselves to God, pray to God, sing to God.
But he still prays to God to act on behalf of the suffering.
Cajoling God in song and poetry, Cohen says God has the power to ‘end this night’ of the darkness of the human condition, in which people are dressed in only dirty ‘rags of light’ that are fragmented, that are not fully whole and illuminated.
In this song, I imagine Christ on the cross as he speaks to God the Father as his agony comes to its close:
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before.
The broken hill is Golgotha where he has been crucified, the rugged and rocky Mount of Calvary.
‘Let the rivers fill’ may refer to the water of his thirst, the water of his sweat, the water that streams from his side, the waters of baptism, the Living Water that will never leave us to thirst.
If it be your will
To make us well
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell.
Advent is a time of waiting. The Dominican theologian Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe says: ‘We must wait for the resurrection to break the silence of the tomb.’ We must speak up when it is necessary, and to have the courage to speak is ‘ultimately founded upon the courage to listen.’
But at the grave, at times of desolation, at times when there is no answer, we may also be called to be silent.
Leonard Cohen, If it be your will:
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
If it be your will.
‘From this broken hill / All your praises they shall ring / If it be your will’ (Leonard Cohen) … in the mountains in Siburan, near Kuching in Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 15 January 2026):
The theme this week (11-17 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Gaza Crisis Response’ (pp 18-19). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from the Diocese of Jerusalem.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 15 January 2026) invites us to pray:
Lord, we thank you for the Church and Christians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Strengthen them and draw them closer to you in prayer and dependence, reassured by the hope in your Word.
The Collect:
Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit:
grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit,
that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children;
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 time and eternity,
you opened the heavens and revealed yourself as Father
in the baptism of Jesus your beloved Son:
by the power of your Spirit
complete the heavenly work of our rebirth
through the waters of the new creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Heavenly Father,
at the Jordan you revealed Jesus as your Son:
may we recognize him as our Lord
and know ourselves to be your beloved children;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
‘Last Year’s Man’ is the second track on Leonard Cohen’s album, ‘Songs of Love and Hate,’ released in 1971
Patrick Comerford
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day have come and gone. But on these days, two poems I turn to unfailingly at this time are TS Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ , and one of the songs of Leonard Cohen, ‘Last Year’s Man’.
‘Little Gidding’ is the last poem in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets. Moving from last year’s words and language to the voice of this new year provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of time, the past, the present and the future. In ‘Little Gidding’, he writes:
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
…
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
‘… in the stillness / Between two waves of the sea’ (TS Eliot, Little Gidding’) … by the waves at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Leonard Cohen’s ‘Last Year’s Man’ is a poem and a song that is a reminder that whatever we did last year, good or bad, is already in the past. That was then and this is now.
Leonard Cohen released his third studio album, Songs of Love and Hate, 55 years ago on 19 March 1971. He recorded the album the previous September, and all eight songs are written by Cohen: Avalanche, Last Year’s Man, Dress Rehearsal Rag, Diamonds in the Mine, Love Calls You by Your Name, Famous Blue Raincoat, Sing Another Song, Boys, and Joan of Arc. There is a bonus track on the 2007 remastered edition: Dress Rehearsal Rag.
I had already become an avid reader of Leonard Cohen’s poems by my late teens, and I listened to this album throughout the summer of 1971. It was a summer that became nothing less than life-changing in terms of my spiritual growth and maturity.
In my Friday evening reflections this evening, I find myself listening once again to the album Songs of Love and Hate, especially the second track, ‘Last Year’s Man.’
This song has remained on the periphery of Cohen’s classic songs, and is often interpreted as a song about an obsessive love that Cohen has experienced, still seeking this unrequited love.
But the song is filled with Biblical images, and like many of Cohen’s songs it can has its parallels with the songs of many of the Biblical prophets, who see God as faithful to the people, keeps on loving them, and yearns for their return, and see the people as a wayward, unfaithful spouse or lover.
‘Last Year’s Man’ is no-one less than God, who is the great architect, the Creator, who is dismissed too easily in today’s, modern culture as no longer relevant or credible.
In our wars, violence and lifestyles today, that spill over from one year into the next, year after year, we frustrate God’s plans, we spoil and sully his plans for humanity, and we dismiss him as ‘last year’s man.’
We make new gods of power, wealth and war, we invent our own new superstitions. But God still has plans and hopes for his wayward people, and waits like a faithful husband for the return of the lover who has turned away.
There is an echo here of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah and other prophets in the promise:
And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin
that the wilderness is gathering
all its children back again.
The relevant passages include Isaiah 64 and 65, Jeremiah 31, Hosea 1 and 2, and Micah 7.
At first hearing, there may be a Jewish reference in the description of ‘a Jew’s harp on the table.’ But a Jew’s harp is not Jewish at all, and we have to search deeper in this song to draw water from the well of Jewish mysticism in which Cohen so often found refreshment.
In Jewish mysticism, it is God the Creator who breaks through the cracks – whether they are in skylights or in unmended drums – to pour his light into the world. ‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in,’ as Leonard Cohen sings in his song ‘Anthem’ (The Future, 1992).
Through their writings, both Leonard Cohen and the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks have introduced me to the writings of the 16th century Jewish mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572), whose teachings are known as Lurianic Kabbalah.
According to Isaac Luria, God created vessels into which he poured his holy light. These vessels were not strong enough to contain such a powerful force and they shattered. The sparks of divine light were carried down to earth along with the broken shards.
The Kabbalah of Rav Yitzhak Luria had a notably strong effect on Cohen, and his key ideas are reflected in that line, ‘There is a crack in everything, it’s how the light gets in.’
This divine brokenness is a key to many of Cohen’s poems and songs, according to his rabbi, Mordecai Finley, who says Lurianic Kabbalah gives voice to the impossible brokenness of the human condition. ‘The pain of the Divine breakage permeates reality. We inherit it; it inhabits us. We can deny it. Or we can study and teach it, write it and sing its mournful songs.’
Cohen hints in his songs that redemption – the tikkun olam (תִּיקּוּן עוֹלָם) that will repair the broken world – remains possible.
He returns to the Judaism of his childhood and youth, wraps the tefillin around his upper arm, and finds new insights in the Torah: ‘And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin.’
Cohen regularly ended his concerts with the Priestly Blessing (ברכת כהנים; birkat Cohanim). It is also known in rabbinic literature as raising the hands or rising to the platform because the blessing is given from a raised rostrum.
The Jewish Sages stressed that although the Cohanim or priests pronounce the blessing, it is not them or the ceremonial practice of raising their hands that results in the blessing, but rather it is God’s desire that his blessing should be symbolised by the hands of the Cohanim.
Lord Sacks says the Torah explicitly says that though the Cohanim say the words, it is God who sends the blessing: ‘When the Cohanim bless the people, they are not doing anything in and of themselves. Instead, they are acting as channels through which God’s blessing flows into the world and into our lives.’
In many communities, it is customary for men in the congregation to spread their tallitot or prayer shawls over their own heads during the blessing and not look at the Cohanim. If a man has children, they come under his tallit to be blessed.
A tradition among Ashkenazim says that during this blessing, the Shekhinah becomes present where the Cohanim have their hands in the shin (ש) gesture, so that gazing there would be harmful.
An understanding of how the God’s light is thought to be present through the outstretched fingers of the Cohanim may lie behind Leonard Cohen’s lines in ‘Anthem’:
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
The light of God breaks through in the crack in the skylight, and the rains fall like a blessing on all God’s creation.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
Last Year’s Man by Leonard Cohen:
The rain falls down on last year’s man,
That’s a Jew’s harp on the table,
That’s a crayon in his hand.
And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled
Far past the stems of thumbtacks
That still throw shadows on the wood.
And the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend
And all the rain falls down Amen
On the works of last year’s man.
I met a lady, she was playing with her soldiers in the dark
Oh one by one she had to tell them
That her name was Joan of Arc.
I was in that army, yes I stayed a little while;
I want to thank you, Joan of Arc,
For treating me so well.
And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight;
All these wounded boys you lie beside,
Goodnight, my friends, goodnight.
I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived;
Bethlehem the bridegroom,
Babylon the bride.
Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me,
And Bethlehem inflamed us both
Like the shy one at some orgy.
And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil
That I had to draw aside to see
The serpent eat its tail.
Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain,
So I hang upon my altar
And I hoist my axe again.
And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began,
When Jesus was the honeymoon
And Cain was just the man.
And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin
That the wilderness is gathering
All its children back again.
The rain falls down on last year’s man,
An hour has gone by
And he has not moved his hand.
But everything will happen if he only gives the word;
The lovers will rise up
And the mountains touch the ground.
But the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend
And all the rain falls down Amen
On the works of last year’s man.
‘Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight’ (Luke 12: 6) … a mural in the Old Bath House, Wolverton, by Timothy B Layden and Luke McDonnell shows Ella Jones-Seal creating music for the birds (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Today the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Saint Ignatius (ca 107), Bishop of Antioch, Martyr.
Before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free’ (Leonard Cohen) … birds on the wires in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 12: 1-7 (NRSVA):
1 Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered in thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. 2 Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.
4 ‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. 7 But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’
The portrait of Mao Zedong overlooking the entrance to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing … Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign when it was too late (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflections:
There is story from China in the 1950s of how Mao ordered the extermination of several pests, including sparrows. But it was a campaign that led to an environmental disaster.
It all seems to have started off with what looked like a good idea. Mao argued that nature should be fully exploited for production, and building up industry would not only modernise China but also build up an urban proletariat that would provide a solid support base for the Chinese Communist Party.
The Eurasian Tree Sparrow was singled out in particular because in was eating grain seeds. Chinese scientists calculated that for every million sparrows killed, there would be enough food to feed 60,000 people.
Chinese people took to the streets in great numbers, clanging their pots and pans or beating drums to terrorise the birds and prevent them from landing. Nests were torn down from trees, eggs were smashed, chicks were killed, and sparrows were shot down from the branches.
School children, civil servants, factory workers, farmers and soldiers were all mobilised in the campaign, along with hundreds of thousands of scarecrows and colourful, fluttering flags.
Young people trapped, poisoned and attacked the sparrows, children and old people kept watch, and free-fire zones were set up for shooting the sparrows.
Hundreds of millions of sparrows were killed in this campaign of destruction, and the sparrow almost became extinct in China.
But as well as eating grain, the sparrows also ate insects in great numbers. Without the sparrows to eat the insects, the insects gobbled the crops that the sparrows had nibbled at. Crop yields dropped to an all-time low and rice growing faced a disaster.
When Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign, it was too late. The situation got progressively worse, locusts swarmed the countryside, and the loss of the sparrow contributed to widespread famine from 1958 to 1961, when 30 million people or more died of hunger.
It still remains a chilling reminder of the dangers that can be created by any changes to an ecosystem.
The sparrow in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 12: 1-7), is, in the original Greek, στρουθίον (strouthíon), any small bird, especially a sparrow (verses 6, 7; see also Matthew 10: 29). The Hebrew word צִפּוֹר (tzippor) comes from a root signifying to chirp or twitter, a phonetic representation of the call-note of any passerine or sparrow-like bird.
This word occurs more than 40 times in the Hebrew Bible. In English translations, it is often rendered as ‘bird’ or ‘fowl’ and denotes any small bird, both of the sparrow-like species and such as the starling, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet, goldfinch, corn-bunting, pipits, blackbird and song-thrush.
However the name is translated from the Hebrew or the Greek, these birds are found in great numbers in the East Mediterranean and are of very little value, selling for the merest trifle.
The blue thrush is probably the bird to which the psalmist alludes to – ‘I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop’ (Psalm 102: 7) – is a solitary bird, setting itself apart from the company of its own species, and rarely more than a pair are seen together. The English tree-sparrow is also very common, and may be seen in numbers on Mount Olivet and about the sacred enclosure of the Mosque of Omar.
There are great numbers of house-sparrows and field-sparrows who make their nests just where people do not want them: they block stoves and water-pipes with their rubbish, and build in the windows and under the beams of roofs.
The sparrow mentioned several times in the Bible often symbolises insignificance and the providential care of God. The sparrow represents the humble and the lowly. Despite their perceived insignificance, their nuisance value, and the cheap price they sell for, the Bible uses sparrows to illustrate God’s attentive care for all his creation. And without them, without each and every one of us, the whole ecosystem of God’s beautiful creation is severely threatened and endangered.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God (Psalm 84: 3).
Watching a mother bird feed her chick at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 17 October 2025):
The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 17 October 2025, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty) invites us to pray:
Lord God, poverty is not your plan. We pray for an end to poverty in all its forms, that every person may live with dignity and hope.
The Collect of the Day:
Feed us, O Lord, with the living bread
and make us drink deep of the cup of salvation
that, following the teaching of your bishop Ignatius
and rejoicing in the faith
with which he embraced a martyr’s death,
we may be nourished for that eternal life
for which he longed;
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 our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Ignatius:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Saint Luke:
Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
by the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
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.
