Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 130, Tuesday 15 September 2026

The Widow of Nain … a window by Hardman at the west end of the south aisle in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (15 September 2026) remembers Saint Cyprian (258), Bishop of Carthage and Martyr.

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 resurrection of the young man of Nain, by Lucas Cranach (1569)

Luke 7: 11-17 (NRSVA)

11 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12 As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13 When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ 14 Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ 15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus[b] gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ 17 This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Jesus Raising the Widow’s Son at Nain (James Tissot, ca 1890)

Today’s Reflection:s

Funeral stories and the stories of children being raised to life, like the story in the Gospel reading this morning, are not always the most cheerful Bible readings. This reading was particularly difficult when I was preaching one Sunday morning many years ago in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, north Co Dublin, when I was baptising a little baby boy.

But at the moment in the lectionary each weekday morning we are working our way through Saint Luke’s Gospel. It is full of stories about healing and wholeness. And I found myself that morning asking who does Jesus bring healing and wholeness to in this reading.

When we look at any Gospel story it is always good to ask a few basic questions, like who, what, where, when and why.

If you want to watch a movie on Netflix this evening, you would probably ask a few basic questions before making your choice:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the principal characters, the main actors?

• In other words, is there anything in this for me?

In a similar way, if we are to find anything in a Gospel story that not only makes it interesting but makes it relevant for me, then I suppose I could approach a Gospel reading with the same questions:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the main characters?

• Where’s the action?

In today’s Gospel story, there is a lot of action, and a lot of people. In fact, there are two large crowds, and the drama is created in the way they meet each other, in an unexpected and unplanned way.

The first crowd is made up of those following Jesus, who have just arrived after a long, 20-mile walk with him from Capernaum.

This group includes not just those who are his disciples. But a lot of other people too – people are there to see what he is doing, what’s going on. Like Netflix viewers after a hard day’s work, they are looking for the entertainment, looking for the drama, perhaps even hoping for a miracle or too … after all, at Capernaum they have seen him heal the centurion’s servant.

And we ought not to be too dismissive of this crowd following Jesus, or their motives. After all, that is the way a lot of people end up coming to church. They go with the flow, they like what is on offer for their children, it gives them a sense of identity. And, in coming along, they find out who Jesus really is, why it matters to follow him.

Perhaps they were expecting nothing. Perhaps they were just tired, and after a 20-mile walk are anxious about whether there are enough beds in the tiny village of Nain for them all to stay overnight.

And, unexpectedly – in a way that no-one could have planned – this large crowd bumps into another, second large crowd. Nain is called a town here, but it was more like a village, about nine or ten miles south of Nazareth. Until the mid-20th century, it had a population of less than 100 or 200, so we can imagine a tiny place in the days of Jesus.

So, one large crowd bumps into another large crowd. And it is bad news for the large crowd that has been following Jesus.

In a tiny place like Nain, to have a large crowd they must have been drawn from every house and dwelling place, every family in the village. If they are all in mourning, not only are they unlikely to be able to offer anyone bed and breakfast for the night, they probably are ritually unable to do so: a dead body, a corpse, a funeral, a burial, all make a practising, observant Jew ritually unclean.

The disciples and the other people who are following Jesus on the road from Capernaum to Nain must have taken pity on themselves. Where are they going to go tonight? What can they do? Where can they stay?

Perhaps the appeal of following Jesus, waiting for the miracle to happen, suddenly evaporated as this reality dawned on them.

Perhaps they even thought that Jesus should have pity on them, pity on their plight.

But instead, Jesus takes pity, not on them, and not even on the poor young lad who has died either. Instead, he takes pity on the boy’s widowed mother. He has compassion for her, he tells her not to weep.

However, having compassion and doing something about it make two separate sets of demands.

The love of a mother for her young son is incomparable, as people knew too that Sunday morning at the baptism in Donabate, Co Dublin.

Jesus recognises, Jesus identifies with, Jesus is consumed with, the love of this widowed, probably young widowed, mother. As a widow, left financially ruined, her only hope of survival in this world may have been in the livelihood her son would eventually attain.

She has already been widowed, now her son has died. She faces not only emotional devastation, but financial destruction and social ruin … she will have no-one to work her fields, no-one to provide an income, no-one to guarantee her safety and security.

Jesus recognises her plight … and he does something about it. First he does something that is shocking in his day, shocking behaviour for a rabbi in those days. He touches the bier, he touches the dead body. It is no wonder the bearers stood still. He has identified so much with the widow’s plight that he too becomes ritually unclean. In Christ, God’s identification with our humanity is so complete that he takes on everything about us. God so identifies with us in Christ that he even identifies with us in birth, in life, and in death.

The miracle is amazing. The fact that God identifies so much with us is even more amazing. God’s compassion should be more amazing than God’s miracles. It is because of his love and compassion in the first place that there are miracles.

No wonder the crowds, the two large crowds, all of them, are seized with fear. It is awesome.

And yet, in telling this story, Luke rises to some of his most poetic language in this Gospel.

He looks back to the words of the pregnant Mary and ageing Zechariah in the canticles Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, when Saint Luke says they glorified God (7: 16, cf Luke 1: 47-48), when they realised a great prophet had risen among them (cf Luke 1: 69-70), when they said God has looked favourably on his people (cf Luke 1: 48), when they realised a new day had dawned. She has been shown mercy, she has been saved from the hands of her enemies, she has received the tender mercy of God.

Saint Luke looks forward to that moment when the suffering Christ meets the weeping women outside the gates of Jerusalem (Luke 23: 28-29). And he looks forward to that moment on the Cross, in Saint John’s Gospel, when the dying Jesus takes pity on his widowed mother and entrusts her and the Beloved Disciple to the mutual care of each other (John 19: 26-27).

What we are invited to be witnesses to is not some old-fashioned miracle show. That’s what the large crowd was hanging around Jesus for what the large crowd was hanging around the funeral procession for.

What we are being invited to is the realisation that in his compassion, in his actions, in his caring, Jesus shows us that God loves us, each of us individually, as a mother loves her only and precious child.

If you imagine for one moment the love that little boy who was being baptised in Donabate that morning could expect from his parents, then you can catch, just catch, a glimpse of the love that God has for each of us, individually. God loves you and God loves me as if were the only child in the world that matters … and even more than that.

This is a new dawn. That is what the promise of Baptism is: it is about dying to sin, to the old ways, rising to new life in Christ, and continuing for ever.

The raising of the son of the widow of Nain … a modern icon in a Greek Orthodox church

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 15 September 2026):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 15 September 2026) invites us to pray:

God of the margins, open my eyes to the many ‘Simons’ around me who feel unseen and unwanted. Help me to walk beside them with humility and compassion.

The Collect:

Holy God, who brought Cyprian to faith in Christ,
made him a bishop in the Church
and crowned his witness with a martyr’s death:
grant that, after his example,
we may love the Church and her teachings,
find your forgiveness within her fellowship
and so come to share the heavenly banquet
you have prepared for us;
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 Cyprian:
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.

or

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Cyprian:
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.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Saint Cyprian’s Church on Glentworth Street, Marylebone … the Church calendar remembers Saint Cyprian (258), Bishop of Carthage and Martyr, on 15 September (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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: 67, Monday 13 July 2026

‘Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me’ (Matthew 10: 38) … an icon by Hanna-Leena Ward in her recent exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 12 July 2026). Later this evening, I hope to be involved in the service in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church welcoming the Revd Dr David Jarratt as the new Rector of Stony Stratford.

Before today begins, though, 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.

‘I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’ (Matthew 10: 34) … the Sword of State of James Brooke, first Rajah of Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 10: 34 to 11: 1 (NRSVA):

Jesus said:

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth;
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

37 ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

39 Those who find their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

40 ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,
and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward;
and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person
will receive the reward of the righteous;

42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple –
truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

11 Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities.

‘Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones’ (Matthew 10: 42) … ‘Christ the Beggar’, a sculpture by Timothy Schmalz on the steps of Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the weekday Gospel readings at the Eucharist in recent days, we have been reading in Saint Matthew’s Gospel how Christ calls the Twelve together and prepares them for their ministry and mission. In today’s reading, he concludes that preparation of the Twelve for this mission, as both their teacher and their master.

It is a wonderful piece of drama and poetry. Most English-language versions of this passage present it as prose narrative. But the original Biblical Greek is drama and poetry, so that its impact is powerful.

At the Last Day, Christ will speak out on behalf of those who are his faithful witnesses faithfully, but will deny those who deny him. The smallest act of kindness to those who marginalised and despised is the same as taking up my cross and following Christ.

To re-present that poetic and dramatic impact, I have presented the Greek text in poetic form at the end of this reflection.

In verses 34-36, Christ gives a new interpretation to the apocalyptic vision in Micah 7: 6, a verse thought to foretell the breakdown of society as the end-times approach (see also Ezekiel 38: 21). Spreading the gospel will have unfortunate consequences. There will be tension and division, even within families, between those who accept Christ’s message and the demands it makes, and those who oppose it.

Christians must put loyalty to Christ above family loyalties (verse 37). Following Christ involves the risk of death, and involves taking up the cross, a sure and certain death for those who rebel against the rulers of the day (verse 38). We are then presented with a paradox: those who try to save their own earthly lives will lose all, but those who die for Christ will find eternal life (verse 39).

Many years ago (2008), I was reading through some insightful essays submitted as part of an adult education course in theology. I was excited so many thinking people were engaging with their faith in a challenging, questioning way, seeking to explore and deepen their understanding of how relevant Christianity and the Church are to the world and its problems.

These were not raw, naïve students. They displayed a wide variety of age and background, and came with a variety of experiences that challenge our stereotypical image of the Church. Yes, there were suburban housewives and businessmen, immigrants, truck drivers and young people from rectory families. And they brought amazing, often unconventional, questions and insights to the discussions.

But they sat side-by-side – and sat comfortably side-by-side – with the other students: the single mother with teenage sons; the refugee who had seen horrific outrages, only to find herself marginalised in a new country; a farmer who travelled a round trip of hundreds of miles just to learn more, and to be challenged more deeply by the Christian faith.

Well, no-one said it was going to be easy, did they?

The Christian faith should be challenging. Our reflections on it should be challenging and should challenge us. And, as we integrate that reflection, our discipleship should be challenging to the world … even when that means that there is a price to pay.

If we are unable or unwilling to speak up about our beliefs in time of plenty, how difficult will it be to speak up for Christian values, the Christian point of view, when things are difficult, when things are tough?

Staying quiet when I should speak out will deal a death blow to my morals and my morale. Silence in the face of injustice and suffering is a silent denial of my faith, and of Christ.

For me, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gonville ffrench-Beytagh and Desmond Tutu stand out as people who knew the consequences but nevertheless took up their cross and followed Christ, and are worthy of the name Christian (Matthew 10: 38). They knew that despite their physical fears were, and the fears they had for the families, who would also suffer socially and physically, that they had little to fear spiritually.

How often do we take the easy option out? How often do we give nice names to the bad things we do? How often do we pretend that we are doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? Or simply because we are doing what is expected of us, what were told to do?

How often good labels have been hijacked to disguise the dreadful. The slogan on the gates outside Auschwitz, Dachau and other Nazi death camps was: Arbeit mach frei – ‘Work makes you free.’

The word ‘apartheid’ does not mean racism. It actually means ‘separate development’, which sounds good except there were no hopes of development and opportunity for anyone but the white people in South Africa.

As he was leading the United States further-and-further along the nuclear arms race, developing new nuclear missiles that would eventually contribute to economic recession, President Ronald Reagan declared in his second inaugural address in 1984: ‘Peace is our highest aspiration. The record is clear, Americans resort to force only when they must. We have never been aggressors.’ They even named one new nuclear weapon ‘Peacemaker’ and named a nuclear warship Corpus Christi.

But it was always so throughout history. In an oft-quoted passage in De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, the Roman orator and historian Tacitus quotes a British chieftain Calgacus speaking about Rome’s insatiable appetite for conquest and plunder: ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (‘where they make a desert, they call it peace’).

The British chieftain’s sentiment was meant as an ironic contrast with the slogan, ‘Peace given to the world,’ frequently inscribed on Roman medals.

This phrase from Tacitus is often quoted alone. The poet Lord Byron, for instance, adapts the phrase in Bride of Abydos (1813):

Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease!
He makes a solitude, and calls it – peace.

The same poetic irony is found when Christ says to his disciples in this Gospel reading: ‘Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have come not to bring peace, but the sword’ (Matthew 10: 34).

It is not that Christ is encouraging his disciples to be warmongers – what a gross misreading of his teachings that would be. Nor is he encouraging family rows, encouraging sons to storm out on their fathers, mothers to nag and niggle at their daughters (Matthew 10: 35).

But he is warning his disciples that it is not going to be easy. They are not going to have a quiet time. Those who want a quiet life as Christians can forget about it. And their hopes of a quiet life as passive Christians will vanish quickly.

Are we prepared to stand up for our faith and its values even at the risk of being ridiculed? Even when this upsets the peace of our families, our communities, our society and our land?

Some of those essays I was reading from those students on that adult education course encourage me when it comes to worrying whether people prefer peace at any price or taking a costly stand, even when it challenges prevailing values today.

Many of them had looked at the way we treat immigrants, migrants and refugees in our society. Yes, they observed the rising levels of racism in our society. Yes, they noticed the inadequate welfare and support payments they receive. But they were even more challenging about the way they thought the Church was too comfortable about the problems we are facing in society today. We are too inward-looking, most of them said in their essays. We are too much of a club.

They had stopped and looked at ordinary, everyday parishes. There is no fear of fathers being set against their sons, mothers against their daughters, daughters-in-law against mothers-in-law, or of finding foes within the household (Matthew 10: 35-37). Most of them found our parishes were too like comfortable families or clubs, not open to the worries, concerns and fears of the outsider.

Do we love the clubbish atmosphere in the Church more than we love the Church, the Gospel and Christ?

Or are we prepared to speak out, not worrying about the consequences, knowing that ‘whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 10: 39).

Matthew 10: 34-42 in Greek:

34 Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν·
οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν.

35 ἦλθον γὰρ διχάσαι ἄνθρωπον κατὰ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ
καὶ θυγατέρα κατὰ τῆς μητρὸς αὐτῆς
καὶ νύμφην κατὰ τῆς πενθερᾶς αὐτῆς,
36 καὶ ἐχθροὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οἱ οἰκιακοὶ αὐτοῦ.

37 Ὁ φιλῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος·
καὶ ὁ φιλῶν υἱὸν ἢ θυγατέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος·

38 καὶ ὃς οὐ λαμβάνει τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθεῖ ὀπίσω μου, οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος.

39 ὁ εὑρὼν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἀπολέσει αὐτήν,
καὶ ὁ ἀπολέσας τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ εὑρήσει αὐτήν.

40 Ὁ δεχόμενος ὑμᾶς ἐμὲ δέχεται,
καὶ ὁ ἐμὲ δεχόμενος δέχεται τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με.
41 ὁ δεχόμενος προφήτην εἰς ὄνομα προφήτου
μισθὸν προφήτου λήμψεται,
καὶ ὁ δεχόμενος δίκαιον εἰς ὄνομα δικαίου
μισθὸν δικαίου λήμψεται.

42 καὶ ὃς ἂν ποτίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων ποτήριον ψυχροῦ μόνον εἰς ὄνομα μαθητοῦ,
ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ ἀπολέσῃ τὸν μισθὸν αὐτοῦ.

‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me’ (Matthew 10: 40) … a multilingual welcome at Saint Paul’s Church, Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 13 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 12 to 18 July 2026 (pp 18-19), is ‘The Land of the Highlanders’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a reflection by the Most Revd Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 13 July 2026) invites us to pray

Lord God, we pray for the people of the Scottish Highlands, for communities shaped by loss, resilience, and hope. Strengthen those who remain, and renew the life of the land and its people.

The Collect of the Day:

Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of our pilgrimage,
you have led us to the living water:
refresh and sustain us
as we go forward on our journey,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect

Creator God,
you made us all in your image:
may we discern you in all that we see,
and serve you in all that we do;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me’ (Matthew 10: 40) … a warm Greek welcome at the Pepi Hotel in Rethymnon

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 Lent 2026: 6, Monday 23 February 2026

‘He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats’ (Matthew 25: 32) … sheep and goats grazing together in a field in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began last week on Ash Wednesday, and yesterday was the First Sunday in Lent (Lent I, 22 February 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Polycarp (ca 155), Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr.

Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time in Kuching 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.

‘I was thirsty and ye gave me drink’ (Matthew 25: 35) … a window in Saint Paul’s Church, Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 25: 31-46 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 31 ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” 37 Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” 40 And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” 44 Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” 45 Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

A scene of the Last Judgment in a fresco in the Orthodox Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 25: 31-46) is normally associated with Advent and the Feast of Christ the King. But Lent, like Advent, is a time of waiting for Christ, anticipating Christ revealing himself among us as the King.

Many of our readings in Lent remind us of what the coming of Christ into the world means, what the Kingdom of God is like, how we should prepare for the coming of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Today’s Gospel reading tells of Christ coming in glory as the Son of Man (verse 31), as the king (verses 34 and 40), and as Lord (verses 37 and 44).

Lent is a time for reflection, penitence and making amends. Today’s is a stark challenge that asks us to think about what the coming of Christ, the second coming, will be like, and what Christ has to say to us about the way we live and the world we live in today.

The division of people into sheep and goats is a good image. We all love to divide people into the insiders and the outsiders, us and them, friend and foe, Manchester United fans and ABU fans. We do it all the time, and sheep and goats are a good short-hand term for what we do.

Sheep and goats behave differently, but in the Palestine of Christ’s time they were fed together. Even to this day, in Greece and other parts of the East Mediterranean, sheep and goats are often difficult to tell apart until they are separated. And when it came to insiders and outsiders, goats were insiders and sheep were outsiders.

Goats are lively animals and very curious. They are happy living either in herds with other goats or on their own. Sheep are more docile, easily led, and always stay in groups.

Goats are gentle browsers, sheep are destructive grazers.

Goats nibble here and there, sampling and chewing on a lot of things without actually eating them. Sheep eat grass and plants all the way down to the ground. They are greedier than goats, and are more likely to overeat if they find more food than they need.

Goats are climbers: they almost never slip or fall; sheep, on the other hand, are much less sure-footed and easily fall and get stuck upside down.

The parable of the lost sheep just would not have had the same resonance if it were told as the parable of the lost goat.

Sheep can and will stay out all night, and are more resilient in bad weather. That is why the shepherds on the first Christmas night were out on the hills tending their sheep. But goats need warmth at night, so might even have been in the stable alongside the ox and the ass.

So: sheep are outsiders, goats are insiders. And what happens to the insiders and the outsiders in this parable would be a shocking end to the story for those who heard it for the first time in the East Mediterranean.

This story has inspired great works of art, from doom walls in English mediaeval churches, to popular images in Greek and Romanian churches to this day; from the sixth century mosaics in Ravenna Fra Angelico in Florence and Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.

Perhaps because of the Ravenna mosaics, Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, and other artists, we often see this story as one about individual judgment and individual condemnation, rather than the judgment of the nations spoken of in this reading.

The story opens with Christ coming again in glory, sitting on his throne of glory (verse 31), and the nations gathered before him (verse 32). We see not isolated individuals are gathered before the throne of Christ, but the nations – all the nations – assembled and being asked these searching questions.

These questions challenge us to ask whether we have taken on board the values of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 3-11; Luke 6: 20-31), and whether we truly accept the values Christ proclaimed at the start of his ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4: 16-19).

The questions he asks are put not just to us as individuals and as Christians. They are put to the nations, to all of the nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, pánta to ethne), each and every one of them.

And that is where Christ comes into the world, at the second coming, with the Kingdom of God. At his birth, the old man in the Temple, Simeon, welcomes him as ‘a light for revelation to the nations’ (φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν, phos eis apokálypsin ethnon) (Luke 2: 32).

Which nations in this war-torn world with greedy, despotic rulers dominating the global agenda, would like to be judged by how enlightened they are; to be compared with the Kingdom of God when it comes to how they treat and look after those the enthroned Christ identifies with: those who are hungry; those who are thirsty; those who are strangers and find no welcome; those who are naked, bare of anything to call their own, or whose naked bodies are exploited for profit and pleasure; those who are sick and left waiting on hospital trolleys or on endless lists for health care they cannot access; those silenced or imprisoned because they speak out, or because they are from the wrong political or ethnic group, or because they do not have the right papers when they arrive as refugees or asylum seekers?

When did we ever see Christ in pain on a hospital trolley, being mistreated at passport control kiosks in the airport arrivals area, trying to cross borders, or trying to cross the seas on makeshift rafts or on overcrowded boats?

But – as long it was done in the name of our nation – we did it to Christ himself.

In his second coming, Christ tells us the kind of conduct, of morality, towards others that is expected of us as Christians. But he also tells us of the consequences of not caring for others.

Our Gospel reading makes a direct connection with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. This Gospel reading challenges us in a way that is uncomfortable, but with things that must stay on our agenda as Christians and on the agenda of the Church and the agendas of the nations.

The genius of great power is revealed in those who have it and can use it but only do so sparingly. Christ’s choice is not to gratify those who want a worldly king, whether he is benign or barmy. Instead, he displays supreme majesty in his priorities for those who are counted out when it comes to other kingdoms.

Christ is not coming again as a king who is haughty and aloof, daft and barmy, or despotic and tyrannical. Instead he shows a model of kingship that emphasises what true majesty and graciousness should be – giving priority in the kingdom to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner (verses 35-36).

As we continue through Lent, we are preparing to recall Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, but are also looking forward to seeing him in glory. Let us be prepared to see him and welcome in the hungry, the thirsty, the unwelcome stranger, those who are naked and vulnerable, those with no access to health care, those who are prisoners, those without the right papers, those who have no visitors and those who are lonely and marginalised.

‘He will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left’ (Matthew 25: 33) … sheep and goats in a sculpture in a garden in Knightstown on Valentia Island, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 23 February 2026):

The theme this week (22-28 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Behold, I make all things new!’ (pp 30-31). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections by the Right Revd Jorge Pina Cabral Jorge, Diocesan Bishop of the Lusitanian Church (Portugal).

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 23 March 2026) invites us to pray:

God of welcome, bless the Anglican Churches in Portugal and Spain in their ministry with migrants. May every stranger be met with dignity, hospitality, and hope.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who gave to your servant Polycarp
boldness to confess the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ
before the rulers of this world
and courage to die for his faith:
grant that we also may be ready
to give an answer for the faith that is in us
and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord 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:

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Polycarp:
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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The sheep and the goats being separated … this morning’s parable depicted in a mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (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

Charles Gutch, the visionary ‘slum priest’ in Marylebone who was a life-long fellow of Sidney Sussex in Cambridge

Father Charles Gutch was the priest at Saint Cyprian’s in Marylebone from 1866 until he died in 1896

Patrick Comerford

In a blog posting yesterday, I was discussing five churches within five minutes’ walk of Marylebone station that have five different stories and traditions. As I looked at the story of Saint Cyprian’s Church on Glentworth Street, I realised not only that its founding priest, Father Charles Gutch, had been a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, for more than half a century, but the controversies involving his Anglo-Catholic style echo many of the experience of another Sidney Sussex fellow, his contemporary the Revd Thomas Pelham Dale (1821-1892), who was jailed for his high church practices.

The Revd Charles Gutch (1822-1896) was a Fellow of Sidney Sussex from 1844 until he died in 1896 and was the Perpetual Curate or priest-in-charge of Saint Cyprian’s Church, Marylebone, for three decades, from 1866 until his death.

Charles Gutch was born in Seagrave, Leicestershire, on 12 January 1822. He was the fourth son of the Revd Robert Gutch the Revd Robert Gutch (1777-1851), the Rector of Seagrave and a Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge; his mother, Mary Ann James, was a daughter of the Revd John James and Elizabeth Hodgson; the couple were married at Saint Giles’s, Marylebone, on 18 June 1810.

Charles Gutch went to school at Christ’s Hospital School, Sussex, and King’s College School, London. He matriculated in 1840 and was admitted a sizar at Saint John’s College, Cambridge, on 23 March 1840. He moved to Sidney Sussex College on 29 January 1842, where he became Prizeman in Classics and Divinity that year. He graduated BA in 1844 and as the 19th Wrangler.

The Wranglers are those students at Cambridge who gain first-class degrees in mathematics. The Cambridge undergraduate mathematics course, or Mathematical Tripos, is famously difficult. The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at Cambridge, a position that has been described as ‘the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain.’

Gutch was immediately elected a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College in 1844, and he later proceeded MA (1847) and BD (1854). He remained a senior fellow of Sidney Sussex for more than 50 years, until he died in 1896.

His contemporaries at Sidney Sussex included the Revd Thomas Pelham Dale (1821-1892), who was nine months older. Dale was admitted as a ‘pensioner’ on 30 June 1841 and matriculated in Michaelmas term. He graduated BA in 1845 and was the 25th Wrangler, and he too was immediately elected a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College in 1845.

The Chapel and Chapel Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge … Charles Gutch was a senior fellow from 1844 until he died in 1896 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

As for Gutch, a year after graduating he was ordained deacon by Thomas Turton, Bishop of Ely, in 1845 and priest in 1847. He served two successive curacies in Leicestershire, in Kilworth (1845-1847) and Saint Margaret’s, Leicester (1848-1851).

Edward Bouveries Pusey asked Gutch to take charge of Saint Saviour’s, Leeds, in 1849. Pusey was Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford and a leading figure of the Oxford Movement. Saint Saviour’s was built in 1842-1845 to designs by the Irish-born architect John Macduff Derick (1815-1849), and Pusey had funded the church.

Gutch refused the offer of the living although he remained at Saint Saviour’s until 1854, when he moved to Norton Saint Philip, near Bath, Somerset (1854-1857), and then to All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London (1859-1864), where the Revd William Upton Richards (1811-1873) was the vicar.

Gutch was anxious to minister in a church of his own in London where he could pursue his own expression of Anglo-Catholicism. At the time, many large London parishes were being divided to create more workable parochial conditions. He approached the Revd IL Davies, the Rector of Christ Church, Cosway Street, about building a church in that part Marylebone that bordered the neighbouring parishes of Saint Marylebone and Saint Paul’s, Rossmore Road.

Davies reacted favourably to a plan that would relieve him of his responsibility for 3,000 people, about a tenth of his whole parish. He suggested that portions of Saint Paul’s and St Marylebone parishes should be handed over to Gutch too. But neither the Rector of St Marylebone nor the Vicar of Saint Paul’s approved of Gutch’s churchmanship, and that part of the plan foundered.

Many of the parishioners of Christ Church were living comfortably. But the north-east part of the parish was described as ‘a neglected and heathen part of London’. The 3,000 inhabitants of the proposed new district were mostly poor, and had no church and no school. A mission church was needed, but land was scarce and the wealthy landowner was unwilling to help.

Saint Cyprian’s Church owes its origins to the work of Father Charles Gutch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Eventually, two houses backing each other and joined by a coal shed in what are now Glentworth Street and Baker Street were rented for use as a temporary chapel. Once the leases were signed, the conversion was entrusted to George Edmund Street (1824-1881), the architect of the Law Courts on the Strand and Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, a churchwarden of All Saints’, Margaret Street, and a personal friend of Gutch.

Gutch faced further difficulties when he proposed dedicating his mission church to Saint Cyprian of Carthage. He explained he was especially struck by Saint Cyprian’s ‘tender loving care for his people, the considerateness with which he treated them, explaining to them why he did this or that, leading them on, not driving them.’

A few weeks before the mission church was due to be opened, the Bishop of London, Archibald Campbell Tait, said that in line with ruling he and his predecessors had made, the district should be named after one of the apostles. Gutch pointed out that Tait had recently dedicated a number of churches in his diocese with the names of saints other than apostles, and he won the day.

The Eucharist was celebrated in Saint Cyprian’s for the first time on Maundy Thursday, 29 March 1866. During the following week, a sisterhood moved in next door to the church. When Queen Victoria formally approved the mission district, Saint Cyprian’s became a distinct parochial charge administered by Gutch with two assistant priests.

Gutch’s curates included the Revd John Witherston Rickards (1844-1921), who later became an SPG (USPG) missionary priest in South Africa, where he founded Saint Cyprian’s Parish at New Rush, Kimberley, on the Diamond Fields in 1871.

Saint Cyprian’s Mission flourished and expanded over the next 30 years. But the mission church was small and could seat only 180 people. It was often overcrowded and extra services were held to accommodate the numbers.

Meanwhile, the landlord, Lord Portman, persistently refused to make available a site for building a larger permanent church. Portman disliked for the churchmanship of Gutch. One of the trustees of Saint Cyprian’s described Portman’s attitude as ‘weak, frivolous, vexatious and unreal.’

Gutch never married. He died at 39 Upper Park Place, Dorset Square, London, at the age of 74 on 1 October 1896. When he died, he had not yet realised his vision of a permanent church.

Saint Cyprian’s Church was modelled on the wool churches of East Anglia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Bishop of London, Mandell Creighton, appointed the Revd George Forbes, Vicar of Saint Paul’s, Truro, as his successor. Negotiations were opened with the Portman Estate for a site, and Lord Portman finally agreed to sell a site for £1,000 in 1901. But among the rigorous conditions he imposed, he insisted the new church should be built and ready for consecration by 1 June 1904.

Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960) was the architect of the new church, and it was the first new church completed to his designs. The Bishop of Kensington blessed the Corner Stone, which was laid by Lady Wilfreda Biddulph on 7 July 1902.

Almost a year before Portman’s terms were due to expire, Saint Cyprian’s was dedicated to the memory of Charles Gutch by the new Bishop of London, Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, on 30 June 1903. At the service, the bishop wore a magnificent cope of Russian cloth of gold and a richly jewelled mitre.

By then, the altars were fully furnished but when the church was consecrated in 1904 the interior was sparsely decorated, and the task of completing the interior was to be left to succeeding generations.

Comper designed Saint Cyprian’s in a Perpendicular Gothic style. The church is built of red brick with stone dressings and has a nave with clerestory and two aisles. There is no tower, but a small bellcote on Chagford Street. Comper modelled the church on the ‘wool churches’ of East Anglia. It includes large Perpendicular windows but the stained glass, also designed by Comper, is confined to the east end. The nave is modelled on the parish church in Attleborough, Norfolk.

Saint Cyprian’s is seen by many as one of London’s most beautiful church interiors

Saint Cyprian’s reflects Comper’s emphasis on the Eucharist and the influence of the Oxford Movement. He wanted his church to resemble ‘a lantern, and the altar is the flame within it’. The unadorned whitened walls in the nave emphasise the contrasting richness of painted and gilded furnishings in the sanctuary.

The sanctuary fittings include a delicate carved and painted rood screen and parclose screens around an ‘English Altar’ surrounded on three sides by hangings and a painted dossal, riddel posts with angels and a painted and gilded reredos.

The central screen below the rood was completed in stages up to 1938. The gilded square tester over the high altar was completed in 1948 and shows Christ holding an open book with a Greek inscription: ‘I am the Light of the World’.

The left-hand screen leads to what was originally called the All Souls’ Chapel, later re-dedicated as the Chapel of the Holy Name. The right-hand screen separates the liturgical south aisle from the Lady Chapel.

Parclose were added and the stone font, vaulted narthex and gallery above in 1930. The decoration of the screens progressed in stages and the tester above the high altar was installed in 1948. The west doors followed in 1952.

Saint Cyprian’s is seen by many as one of London’s most beautiful church interiors. The poet Sir John Betjeman once described Saint Cyprian’s as ‘Comper’s superb church … a Norfolk dream of gold and light within.’ The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner also praised Comper’s work at Saint Cyprian’s: ‘If there must be medieval imitation in the twentieth century, it is here unquestionably done with joy and care.’

• The Parish Mass in Saint Cyprian’s Church on Sundays is at 10:30 am, and Choral Evensong is sung on the second Sunday of each month at 6 pm. Canon Clare Dowding is the Priest in Charge.

Sir John Betjeman described Saint Cyprian’s as ‘Comper’s superb church … a Norfolk dream of gold and light within’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Five Churches close to Marylebone station with different stories and a variety of traditions

Saint Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square, is a prominent landmark Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Marylebone in Central London is part of the West End, and Oxford Street marks its southern boundary. An ancient parish and then a metropolitan borough, it merged with the boroughs of Westminster and Paddington to form the City of Westminster in 1965.

The name Marylebone originates from an ancient hamlet located near Marble Arch, on the east banks of the Tyburn. A parish church dedicated to Saint Mary was built there in 1400. The name Marylebone is derived from Saint Mary-burne, or ‘the stream of Saint Mary’, the Anglo-Saxon word burna meaning a small stream.

The ancient parish church, or Saint Marylebone Parish Church, has been rebuilt several times at various locations within the parish. Saint Marylebone Parish Church on Marylebone Road was built to the designs of Thomas Hardwick in 1813-1817.

On a recent weekend, with an hour or so on my hands, I visited five other churches in Marylebone, each with a different style, flavour and history, and each within a short five or ten minute walk from Marylebone Station or Baker Street.

Saint Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square, was designed by Robert Smirke in the Greek Revival style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

1, Saint Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square:

Saint Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square, is a prominent landmark in the heart of London. It was built in 1823-1824 as one of the Commissioners’ churches, 600 new churches built by the Church Building Commission between the 1820s and 1850s in thanksgiving for and as a celebration of Britain’s victory at the Battle of Waterloo, and to meet the needs of growing populations in the suburbs.

Saint Mary’s was designed by Robert Smirke (1780-1867), best known as the architect of the British Museum. He designed Saint Mary’s to seal the vista from the lower end of Bryanston Square towards York Street. It is a brick building in the Greek Revival style, with a rounded stone portico, a round tower and a small dome, topped by a cross.

The tower rises in three stages from a plain drum base. The main stage has an engaged order of fluted columns with Graeco-Egyptian capitals carrying deep entablature with acroteria to a blocking course and a wreathed clock in drum base to a crowning arcaded cupola with a stone dome and a cross finial. Some internal remodelling was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1874.

The tower of Saint Mary’s has a crowning arcaded cupola with a stone dome and a cross finial (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A major project to restore the Grade 1 listed building to its original Georgian splendour as carried out in 2000-2002.

Today, Saint Mary’s is an HTB-linked charismatic evangelical church led by the Revd John Peters. The congregation is a church plant from Holy Trinity Brompton and Saint Paul’s, Onslow Square, and was allocated the church building by the Bishop of London in 2002. Saint Mary’s is a long-standing member of the New Wine network of churches.

The church holds two services on Sunday: an informal 11 am service, with groups for children and youth, and an informal service 5:30 pm, and there are several midweek groups and courses. I can easily find details and times for serving coffee and pastries on Sunday mornings and afternoons, but can find no details about when Holy Communion or the Eucharist is celebrated on Sundays.

Christ Church, Cosway Street, built in the 1820s, was designed by Thomas and Philip Hardwick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

2, Christ Church, Cosway Street:

Christ Church, Marylebone, also known as Christ Church, Lisson Grove, and Christ Church, Cosway Street, is a Grade II* listed building, mid-way between Paddington Station and Regent’s Park. It was was one of the first of the Commissioners’ churches, and was built in the 1820s to designs by Thomas and Philip Hardwick.

The parish of Christ Church, Cosway Street, was created in 1825 by Act of Parliament as one of four new district rectories within the ancient parish of St Marylebone. The Revd George Saxby Penfold was the first rector, and in 1828 he was succeeded by a notable classical scholar, Robert Walpole, a grandson of Horatio Walpole and a great-nephew of Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister.

Constance Lloyd, later the wife of Oscar Wilde, was baptised at Christ Church in 1858.

The former church is now a multi-sports centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Christ Church is an example of square Georgian neoclassical architecture, covered in pale limestone, with a four-columned Ionic portico, a blank pediment, and further pairs of pillars on each side.

A square tower rises above the church, with clock faces and Corinthian pillars. Above this is an octagonal cupola with a roof shaped like a bell. Inside the church are an eight-bay Corinthian arcade, with Corinthian pilasters on the east wall, clerestory windows above an entablature, and a brick-built nave with a low arched ceiling with ribs and oval panels. The church also has galleries.

Some alterations to the church in 1887 were also designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield.

A post-war scheme to reorganise the Marylebone parishes in 1945 was not implemented until 1952. With parish reorganisation in the Diocese of London again in the 1970s, the parish of Christ Church was united with Saint Paul, Rossmore Road, in 1971 to create the parish of Christ Church and Saint Paul. Christ Church was declared redundant and closed in 1977.

The former church became an antiques market and then a restaurant. It was bought in 2014 by Greenhouse Sports, a youth charity, and was refurbished as a multi-sports centre, while the crypt was converted into changing rooms and meeting rooms.

Saint Paul’s Church on Lisson Street and Rossmore Road replaced the former Bentinck Chapel on Lisson Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

3, Saint Paul’s Church, Lisson Street:

Saint Paul’s Church, on Lisson Street and Rossmore Road in North Marylebone, was designed by JW Higgins and was built by voluntary contributions as Saint Paul’s Chapel in 1837-1838 soon after the closure of the Bentinck Chapel on Lisson Street. It was consecrated in 1838 and was assigned a district. The solemnisation of baptisms was authorised in 1838 and marriages in 1860.

After World War II, Saint Paul’s parish was united with Emmanuel, Maida Hill, and Saint Matthew, Maida Hill, to form the parish of Saint Paul with Saint Matthew and Emmanuel. The parish was united with Christ Church, Cosway Street, in 1971. Saint Paul’s Church became one of the parish churches of the parish of Christ Church and Saint Paul, St Marylebone, until Christ Church was closed in September 1977.

The interior of Saint Paul’s has been subdivided and refurbished, but the reredos remains in place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In recent years, the interior of Saint Paul’s has been subdivided and refurbished, the galleries have been removed, and the worship space is in part of the nave and the sanctuary area. The reredos and the windows remain in place.

Canon Clare Dowding is the Rector of Saint Paul’s, Priest in Charge of Saint Cyprian’s and Area Dean of Marylebone; the Revd Rachel Sheppard is the Assistant Curate; and the Revd Michele Lee is the Associate Priest.

The Parish Eucharist is celebrated in Saint Paul’s every Sunday at 10 am, Morning Prayer is said on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:15, Evening Prayer is said every Monday at 4:30, and Holy Communion is celebrated every Friday at 8:30 am. Through a partnership with West London Synagogue and Foodcycle, Saint Paul’s offers a free community meal every Wednesday night to over 70 people at the church.

Saint Cyprian’s Church is the first new church completed to Sir Ninian Comper’s designs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

4, Saint Cyprian’s Church, Glentworth Street:

Saint Cyprian’s Church in Marylebone is a Grade II* listed building at the north end of Glentworth Street (formerly Park Street) and near the Clarence Gate Gardens entrance to Regent’s Park. The church off Baker Street was designed by Sir Ninian Comper and was consecrated in 1903, but the parish was founded in 1866.

The parish was formed as part of the work of the slum priest Father Charles Gutch (1822-1896), a senior fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, for 52 years. His campaigning Anglo-Catholic views and pastoral mission to London’s poor led him to propose a mission church in the then slum enclave north-east corner of Marylebone. The new mission district was formed from portions of the parishes of Saint Marylebone and Saint Paul, Rossmore Road, although neither the Rector of Saint Marylebone nor the Vicar of Saint Paul’s approved of his Anglo-Catholic style or his pastoral approach.

The mission district was in an area where church attendance was poor and it was densely populated with overcrowded slums. Saint Cyprian’s Mission Chapel, designed by George Edmund Street, was a low-budget conversion of a terraced house on Park Street and a mews hay barn, and about 150-180 people could be squeezed in.

Saint Cyprian’s Church was modelled on the wool churches of East Anglia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Gutch died in 1896, without realising his vision of a permanent church and was succeeded by the Revd George Forbes. The new Saint Cyprian’s Church was designed by Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960) in a Perpendicular Gothic style and was built in 1901. It was modelled on the wool churches of East Anglia, and was the first new church completed to Comper’s designs.

Saint Cyprian’s is built of red brick with stone dressings, with a nave with clerestory and two aisles. There is no tower, but a small bellcote on Chagford Street. It has large Perpendicular windows but the stained glass designed by Comper is confined to the east end.

Sir John Betjeman described Saint Cyprian’s as ‘Comper’s superb church … a Norfolk dream of gold and light within’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Although I did not get inside Saint Cyprian’s that afternoon, the church is regarded by many as one of London’s most beautiful church interiors. In its design, Saint Cyprian’s reflects Comper’s emphasis on the Eucharist and the influence of the Oxford Movement. He said his church was to resemble ‘a lantern, and the altar is the flame within it.’

The sanctuary fittings include a carved and painted rood screen and parclose screens around an English Altar, surrounded on three sides by hangings and a painted dossal, riddel posts with angels and a painted and gilded reredos.

The left-hand screen leads to what was originally called the All Souls’ Chapel, later re-dedicated as the Chapel of the Holy Name. The right-hand screen separates the liturgical south aisle from the Lady Chapel. The central screen below the rood was completed in stages up to 1938. The gilded square tester over the high altar was completed in 1948 and shows Christ holding an open book with a Greek inscription: ‘I am the Light of the World’.

The poet Sir John Betjeman once described Saint Cyprian’s as ‘Comper’s superb church … a Norfolk dream of gold and light within.’ The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner also praised Comper’s work at Saint Cyprian’s: ‘If there must be medieval imitation in the twentieth century, it is here unquestionably done with joy and care.’

The Parish Mass in Saint Cyprian’s on Sundays is at 10:30 am, and Choral Evensong is sung on the second Sunday of each month at 6 pm. Canon Clare Dowding is the Priest in Charge.

Rossmore Hall Evangelical Church on Rossmore Road in Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

5, Rossmore Hall Evangelical Church:

Rossmore Hall Evangelical Church, also known as Paragon Gospel Hall, is a Brethren church on Rossmore Road, off Lissom Grove in Marylebone. It may have taken its name from Rossmore Hall, a mission hall that once stood on Morning Lane in Hackney.

A ‘Mystery Worshipper’ or visitor from the site Ship of Fools described it as sandwiched between two residential houses on a Georgian street, and said in a report: ‘Rossmore Hall is basically a big square room with a high ceiling. At one end there is a long wooden plaque on the wall, with ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ painted on it in gold Gothic lettering, and beneath this an upright piano and a Victorian harmonium.’

A Portuguese-speaking congregation uses the hall on Sunday afternoons.

‘What Habits Do You Want to Give Up’ … ‘Where Do You Need Strength’ … signs at Saint Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 66, Monday 14 July 2025

‘Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me’ (Matthew 10: 38) … the cross outside Water Eaton Church Centre, Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and yesterday was the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV, 13 July 2025). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers John Keble (1792-1866), Priest, Tractarian and Poet.

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.

‘I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’ (Matthew 10: 34) … the Sword of State of James Brooke, first Rajah of Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Matthew 10: 34 to 11: 1 (NRSVA):

Jesus said:

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth;
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

37 ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

39 Those who find their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

40 ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,
and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward;
and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person
will receive the reward of the righteous;

42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple –
truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

11 Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities.

‘Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones’ (Matthew 10: 42) … ‘Christ the Beggar’, a sculpture by Timothy Schmalz on the steps of Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the weekday Gospel readings at the Eucharist in recent days, we have been reading in Saint Matthew’s Gospel how Christ calls the Twelve together and prepares them for their ministry and mission. In today’s reading, he concludes that preparation of the Twelve for this mission, as both their teacher and their master.

It is a wonderful piece of drama and poetry. Most English-language versions of this passage present it as prose narrative. But the original Biblical Greek is drama and poetry, so that its impact is powerful.

At the Last Day, Christ will speak out on behalf of those who are his faithful witnesses faithfully, but will deny those who deny him. The smallest act of kindness to those who marginalised and despised is the same as taking up my cross and following Christ.

To re-present that poetic and dramatic impact, I have presented the Greek text in poetic form at the end of this reflection.

In verses 34-36, Christ gives a new interpretation to the apocalyptic vision in Micah 7: 6, a verse thought to foretell the breakdown of society as the end-times approach (see also Ezekiel 38: 21). Spreading the gospel will have unfortunate consequences. There will be tension and division, even within families, between those who accept Christ’s message and the demands it makes, and those who oppose it.

Christians must put loyalty to Christ above family loyalties (verse 37). Following Christ involves the risk of death, and involves taking up the cross, a sure and certain death for those who rebel against the rulers of the day (verse 38). We are then presented with a paradox: those who try to save their own earthly lives will lose all, but those who die for Christ will find eternal life (verse 39).

Many years ago (2008), I was reading through some insightful essays submitted as part of an adult education course in theology. I was excited so many thinking people were engaging with their faith in a challenging, questioning way, seeking to explore and deepen their understanding of how relevant Christianity and the Church are to the world and its problems.

These were not raw, naïve students. They displayed a wide variety of age, experience, and background, and came with a variety of experiences that challenge our stereotypical image of the Church. Yes, there were suburban housewives and businessmen, and young people from rectory families. And they brought amazing, often unconventional, questions and insights to the discussions.

But they sat side-by-side – and sat comfortably side-by-side – with the other students: the single mother with teenage sons; the refugee who had seen horrific outrages, only to find herself marginalised in a new country; a farmer who travelled a round trip of hundreds of miles just to learn more, and to be challenged more deeply by the Christian faith.

Well, no-one said it was going to be easy, did they?

The Christian faith should be challenging. Our reflections on it should be challenging and should challenge us. And, as we integrate that reflection, our discipleship should be challenging to the world … even when that means that there is a price to pay.

If we are unable or unwilling to speak up about our beliefs in time of plenty, how difficult will it be to speak up for Christian values, the Christian point of view, when things are difficult, when things are tough?

Staying quiet when I should speak out will deal a death blow to my morals and my morale. Silence in the face of injustice and suffering is a silent denial of my faith, and of Christ.

For me, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gonville ffrench-Beytagh and Desmond Tutu stand out as people who knew the consequences but nevertheless took up their cross and followed Christ, and are worthy of the name Christian (Matthew 10: 38). They knew that despite their physical fears were, and the fears they had for the families, who would also suffer socially and physically, that they had little to fear spiritually.

How often do we take the easy option out? How often do we give nice names to the bad things we do? How often do we pretend that we are doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? Or simply because we are doing what is expected of us, what were told to do?

How often good labels have been hijacked to disguise the dreadful. The slogan on the gates outside Auschwitz, Dachau and other Nazi death camps was: Arbeit mach frei – ‘Work makes you free.’

The word ‘apartheid’ does not mean racism. It actually means ‘separate development,’ which sounds good except there were no hopes of development and opportunity for anyone but the white people in South Africa.

As he was leading the United States further-and-further along the nuclear arms race, developing new nuclear missiles that would eventually contribute to economic recession, President Ronald Reagan declared in his second inaugural address in 1984: ‘Peace is our highest aspiration. The record is clear, Americans resort to force only when they must. We have never been aggressors.’ They even named one new nuclear weapon ‘Peacemaker’ and named a nuclear warship Corpus Christi.

But it was always so throughout history. In an oft-quoted passage in De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, the Roman orator and historian Tacitus quotes a British chieftain Calgacus speaking about Rome’s insatiable appetite for conquest and plunder: ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (‘where they make a desert, they call it peace’).

The British chieftain’s sentiment was meant as an ironic contrast with the slogan, ‘Peace given to the world,’ frequently inscribed on Roman medals.

This phrase from Tacitus is often quoted alone. The poet Lord Byron, for instance, adapts the phrase in Bride of Abydos (1813):

Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease!
He makes a solitude, and calls it – peace.

The same poetic irony is found when Christ says to his disciples in this Gospel reading: ‘Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have come not to bring peace, but the sword’ (Matthew 10: 34).

It is not that Christ is encouraging his disciples to be warmongers – what a gross misreading of his teachings that would be. Nor is he encouraging family rows, encouraging sons to storm out on their fathers, mothers to nag and niggle at their daughters (Matthew 10: 35).

But he is warning his disciples it is not going to be easy. They are not going to have a quiet time. Those who want a quiet life as Christians can forget about it. And their hopes of a quiet life as passive Christians will vanish quickly.

Are we prepared to stand up for our faith and its values even at the risk of being ridiculed? Even when this upsets the peace of our families, our communities, our society and our land?

Some of those essays I was reading from those students on that adult education course encourage me when it comes to worrying whether people prefer peace at any price or taking a costly stand, even when it challenges prevailing values today.

Many of them had looked at the way we treat immigrants, migrants and refugees in our society. Yes, they observed the rising levels of racism in our society. Yes, they noticed the inadequate welfare and support payments they receive. But they were even more challenging about the way they thought the Church was too comfortable about the problems we are facing in society today. We are too inward-looking, most of them said in their essays. We are too much of a club.

They had stopped and looked at ordinary, everyday parishes. There is no fear of fathers being set against their sons, mothers against their daughters, daughters-in-law against mothers-in-law, or of finding foes within the household (Matthew 10: 35-37). Most of them found our parishes were too like comfortable families or clubs, not open to the worries, concerns and fears of the outsider.

Do we love the clubbish atmosphere in the Church more than we love the Church, the Gospel and Christ?

Or are we prepared to speak out, not worrying about the consequences, knowing that ‘whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 10: 39).

Matthew 10: 34-42 in Greek:

34 Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν·
οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν.

35 ἦλθον γὰρ διχάσαι ἄνθρωπον κατὰ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ
καὶ θυγατέρα κατὰ τῆς μητρὸς αὐτῆς
καὶ νύμφην κατὰ τῆς πενθερᾶς αὐτῆς,
36 καὶ ἐχθροὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οἱ οἰκιακοὶ αὐτοῦ.

37 Ὁ φιλῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος·
καὶ ὁ φιλῶν υἱὸν ἢ θυγατέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος·

38 καὶ ὃς οὐ λαμβάνει τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθεῖ ὀπίσω μου, οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος.

39 ὁ εὑρὼν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἀπολέσει αὐτήν,
καὶ ὁ ἀπολέσας τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ εὑρήσει αὐτήν.

40 Ὁ δεχόμενος ὑμᾶς ἐμὲ δέχεται,
καὶ ὁ ἐμὲ δεχόμενος δέχεται τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με.
41 ὁ δεχόμενος προφήτην εἰς ὄνομα προφήτου
μισθὸν προφήτου λήμψεται,
καὶ ὁ δεχόμενος δίκαιον εἰς ὄνομα δικαίου
μισθὸν δικαίου λήμψεται.

42 καὶ ὃς ἂν ποτίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων ποτήριον ψυχροῦ μόνον εἰς ὄνομα μαθητοῦ, ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ ἀπολέσῃ τὸν μισθὸν αὐτοῦ.

‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me’ (Matthew 10: 40) … a multilingual welcome at Saint Paul's Church, Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 14 July 2025):

The theme this week (13 to 19 July) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Shaping the Future: Africa Six.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Senior Regional Manager: Africa, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 14 July 2025) invites us to pray

Gracious God, we give thanks for the gathering in Lesotho. Thank you for the gift of time away together that helped the bishops and supporting staff to seek your wisdom and vision for the future. We pray for those unable to attend, continue to grow and sanctify your leaders by your Word.

The Collect:

Father of the eternal Word,
in whose encompassing love
all things in peace and order move:
grant that, as your servant John Keble
adored you in all creation,
so we may have a humble heart of love
for the mysteries of your Church
and know your love to be new every morning,
in 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, shepherd of your people,
whose servant John Keble revealed the loving ervice 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.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me’ (Matthew 10: 40) … a warm Greek welcome in Rethymnon

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