Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 107, Monday 25 August 2025

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees’ (Malheur à vous, scribes et pharisiens), opaque watercolour over graphite on gray wove paper (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began yesterday with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X). If the Festival of Saint Bartholomew was not observed yesterday (Sunday 24 August), it may be observed today.

This is a holiday weekend in England, and today is the Summer Bank holiday that really marks the end of the summer holiday period here. 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.

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 13-22 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 13 ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

16 ‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.” 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, “Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.” 19 How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22 and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.’

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

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

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

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

We hear two further woes tomorrow (Matthew 23: 23-26): those who tithe mint, dill, and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith; and we hear the final of the seven woes on Wednesday (Matthew 23: 27-32): a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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

In some translations, notably the King James Version, there is an eighth woe in verse 14: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.’ However, older manuscripts do not include this verse.

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

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

The first of these seven woes condemns the scribes and Pharisees for keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven: ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them’ (Matthew 23: 13).

The missing woe in verse 14 is found in footnotes in the NRSV and many other modern translations but not in the main text. The most important authoritative early manuscripts do not include verse 14.

Although part or all of the verse is found in some versions, it is almost certainly not original. Elsewhere, Christ condemns these woeful practices (see Mark 12: 40 and Luke 20: 47), and these verse are not disputed textually.

We might ask whether some scribe long ago omitted this woe, and the omission was then repeated in several subsequent manuscripts, or whether some scribe accidentally copied a marginal note from one of the parallel accounts.

Most Biblical scholars argue for the accidental insertion theory. But the woe in verse 14 is still included in what could be described as conservative evangelical versions, albeit often with brackets around the text or a footnote.

It is absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex B (both early 4th century), Codex D (5th century), Codex Z (6th century), Codex L (8th century), Codex Θ, minuscule 33 and 892 (9th century), and other later manuscripts, on into the middle ages. Many early Old Latin manuscripts do not contain it, such as it^a (4th century), it^e (5th century), and others. The majority of the Latin Vulgate manuscripts, including all of the earliest copies, also lack the reading. The verse is missing in the earliest Syriac manuscript, the Sinaitic Palimpsest (4th century), as well as some of the later Palestinian Syriac copies. Most of the Coptic manuscripts also lack the verse, including the middle Egyptian manuscripts, the Sahidic manuscripts, and some of the Bohairic Coptic manuscripts. The Armenian and Georgian translations likewise do not contain it.

The words in Matthew 23: 14 are found in only a few relatively late Greek witnesses. These include Uncial 0233 (8th century), and some later mediaeval manuscripts and lectionaries. The verse is present here in a number of Old Latin manuscripts, including it^b and it^ff2 (both 5th century), and others. It is also found in the late mediaeval Clementine revision of the Vulgate, the second oldest Syriac manuscript, the Curetonian Gospels (5th century), some of the later Palestinian Syriac manuscripts, and some later Bohairic Coptic manuscripts.

The words in Matthew 23: 14 in the KJV appear between verses 12 and 13 in Codex W (late 4th or early 5th century), Codex O, Σ, and Uncial 0104 (all 6th century), Uncial 0102 and 0107 (both 7th century), Codex E (8th century), Codex F, G, H, K, Y, Δ, Π, and Uncial 0133 (all 9th century), as well as the majority of mediaeval manuscripts.

It is present in this place in very few Latin manuscripts, but is the reading in most of the Syriac copies and a few Bohairic Coptic manuscripts. The verse is also found in this alternate location in the Slavonic and Ethiopic translations.

In other words, there is much older, much stronger, more diverse, and vastly more numerous evidence in favour of the words being between 12 and 13 than there is for them being between 13 and 15.

But the earliest sources lack the verse, and it was absent throughout the centuries. Where there is fairly early evidence in some of the ancient translations, in each case there is even earlier evidence without the verse. Modern scholars conclude that the earliest copies in virtually every stream of transmission lack the verse entirely. The strongest evidence indicates that the words of Matthew 23: 14 are not original to this gospel, but were added in by a later scribe.

In the second of the seven woes, Jesus condemns religious leaders for teaching their converts the same hypocrisy that they themselves practice. They ‘cross sea and land to make a single convert’, and then make ‘the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves’ (Matthew 13: 15).

In the third woe, Jesus refers to the religious elite not as hypocrites but as ‘blind guides’ (verse 16) and ‘blind fools’ (verse 17). They regarded themselves as guides of the blind (see Romans 2: 19), but were blind themselves and unfit to guide others. Instead of teaching spiritual truth, they preferred to quibble over irrelevant matters and find loopholes in the rules (Matthew 23: 16-22).

We should remember that the Pharisees are very religious, pious and good people. Too often we forget that Saint Paul boasts he is a Pharisee, that among the different Jewish groups of the day the Pharisees are the closest in tradition and practice to Jesus, and that Pharisaic Judaism is the spiritual ancestor of all modern forms of Judaism today.

The Pharisees looked at the demands the religious law of the Book of Leviticus made on the priests in the Temple. This priestly class included some of Jesus’ own family, such as Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist.

Purity and cleanliness were part of their role in the Temple. Before they ate or handled any sacred food, they had to wash their hands thoroughly. But these rules only applied when they were on the rota for priestly duties in the Temple. They took it in turn, and outside that turn, those rules did not apply. Nor did they apply to the people in general, the average, everyday Jew on the street or at home.

But after the people return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, the Pharisees see the whole people as a royal people, a holy priesthood. And to make the people conscious of how holy the whole nation is, they suggest people should take on those priestly practices, to show they are holy.

In time, this becomes so accepted that people who do not bother washing their hands ritually before they eat are seen as being hypocrites if, at the same time, they are supposed to be holy and religious people.

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

In Athens in the 4th century BCE, the orator Demosthenes ridiculed his rival Aeschines, who had been a successful actor before taking up politics, as a ῠ̔ποκρῐτής (hypokrités) whose skill at impersonating characters on stage made him untrustworthy as a politician. This negative view of the hypokrités, combined with the Roman disdain for actors, shaded into the originally neutral ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis) or hypocrisy.

It is this later sense of hypokrisis as ‘play-acting’ or assuming a counterfeit persona that gives us the modern word hypocrisy with all its negative connotations.

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are using someone else’s words but do not necessarily understand why those rules and regulations came about.

We should beware when piety gets in the way of fulfilling the heart of the law: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself. Let us beware when our piety separates us from others, for then it also separates us from God.

Classical masks from the theatre in Athens on display in the Acropolis Museum … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 25 August 2025):

The theme this week (24 to 30 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is been ‘From Strangers to Neighbours’ (pp 32-33) This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from the Right Revd Antonio Ablon, Chaplain of Saint Catherine’s Anglican Church, Stuttgart, Germany.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 25 August 2025) invites us to pray:

Loving God, you walked with the exiled and the displaced. Be with all migrants, refugees, and political exiles, especially those struggling with uncertainty, loneliness, and rejection. May they find strength in your presence and hope in their journey.

The Collect of the Day:

Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions
make them to ask such things as shall please you;
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 willed that the gate of mercy
should stand open for those who trust in you:
look upon us with your favour
that we who follow the path of your will
may never wander from the way of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord of heaven and earth,
as Jesus taught his disciples to be persistent in prayer,
give us patience and courage never to lose hope,
but always to bring our prayers before you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Actors promoting a theatrical performance of classical drama in the square at Monastiraki in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

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 2025: 40, Wednesday 18 June 2025

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time and this week began with Trinity Sunday (15 June 2025), and tomorrow is the Feast of Corpus Christi (19 June 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Bernard Mizeki (1896), Apostle of the MaShona, Martyr, 1896.

I spent much of yesterday in London, but there was an interesting dimension, with visits to five or six churches and chapels in Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Mayfair. I am planning to go to a coffee morning this morning to celebrate 50 years of the library in Stony Stratford. There is no choir rehearsal in Stony Stratford this evening as the choir begins its summer recess. But before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 1 ‘Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 ‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

16 ‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’

A T-shirt on sale in the Plaka in Athens … we are challenged to bring together our words and deeds, our needs ‘to be’ and ‘to do’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading for the Eucharist this morning (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18) continues our readings from the Sermon on the Mount, and today’s reading is familiar to many as the Gospel reading on Ash Wednesday.

So, this morning I am reflecting on the meaning of the word ‘hypocrite’ which is repeated three times in this passage (verses 2, 5, 16).

Sometimes our comfortable differences can trip us up in ways that surprise or even embarrass us.

A priest colleague who is not from these islands once told me how, within weeks, he came a cropper in a new parish. He comes from a society and a culture where people speak openly and directly. He regards this as a mark of efficiency and a sign of his honesty.

But this did not go down well at all in his new parish. When he told parishioners what he wanted to do, he thought he was being frank, honest and direct. But they immediately saw him as abrupt, abrasive and rude.

In his next parish, he knew he needed to be a little less direct and a lot more diplomatic.

We all know what diplomats mean when they say talks have been frank and honest: bruising encounters with no one behaving in what we might call a civilised manner, or behaving towards each other like Christians.

We respond instinctively as if we expect to be treated politely and that others expect us to treat them politely too.

I offer two examples of how I think Ireland and England are unique in this respect. In other countries, when people pay for a service, they feel that they are doing someone a favour, giving them their custom and their money, and so walk away when the transaction is complete. It is a bonus for them if the person at the till says as they leave, ‘Thank you.’

But here, on these islands, we respond differently: when we pay in a shop or café, or get off a bus or train, it is we, the paying customers, who say ‘Thank You!’

Or again: How often have I asked someone for information that I know or expect them to have – looking for directions on the street, or asking for information at an airport or a train station. And every now and then we meet someone who is curmudgeonly, who got out on the wrong side of the bed, or is just downright rude. And they answer brusquely, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘Look at the timetable.’

And what do I say in reply? I say, ‘Thank You!’

I am just too Anglo-Saxon with my manners for my own good at times. I put on a polite mask, and I put up.

And sometimes we confuse those good manners with the answer we expect to that perennial question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’

Well, when we look at what Jesus does in so many Gospel readings, we may be shocked. English is a polite language, and translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.

This morning, we hear what sounds like Jesus being very rude about some very religious people. He calls them hypocrites seeking the praise of others in public places (verses 2, 5), and accuses them of being tow-faced (verse 16) on false .

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite who puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

But when Jesus says other religious leaders or teachers are hypocrites, he is challenging them to drop the mask and to own the words they speak and to own the reasons for their prayers and rituals.

I bought a T-shirt in the Plaka in Athens some years ago that said:

To do is to be – Socrates
To be is to do – Plato
Do be do be do – Sinatra

If what we pray or say does not match how be behave or what we do, if our words are not reflected in actions, then we are hypocrites, using the words of others but behaving in our own way.

We should beware whenever prayer and piety get in the way of true religion: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself. Beware when our piety separates us from others, for then it also separates us from God.

‘When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing’ (Matthew 6: 3) … a classical-style statue at Vergina restaurant in Platanias, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 18 June 2025):

‘Crossing the Channel’ is the theme this week (15-21 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 18 June 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, give wisdom and compassion to political leaders and advocates. Please inspire a spirit of compassion so that harmful policies are changed.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you have given us your servants grace,
by the confession of a true faith,
to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity
and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity:
keep us steadfast in this faith,
that we may evermore be defended from all adversities;
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:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
and live and reign in the perfect unity of love:
hold us firm in this faith,
that we may know you in all your ways
and evermore rejoice in your eternal glory,
who are three Persons yet one God,
now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
faithful and unchanging:
enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth,
and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love,
that we may truly worship you,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Collect on the Eve of Corpus Christi:

Lord Jesus Christ,
we thank you that in this wonderful sacrament
you have given us the memorial of your passion:
grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries
of your body and blood
that we may know within ourselves
and show forth in our lives
the fruits of your redemption;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites’ (Matthew 6: 16) … empty tables at a restaurant in Panormos near Rethymnon (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 2025: 9, Tuesday 11 February 2025

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Fourth Sunday before Lent (9 February 2025), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just three weeks away (5 March 2025).

Later today, I have a meeting of the Town Centre Working Group in Stony Stratford. Before today begins, however, 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.

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 7: 1-13 (NRSVA):

1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles). 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God) – 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Sometimes our comfortable differences can trip us up in ways that surprise or even embarrass us.

I was talking to a priest colleague recently, who is not from these islands. He was telling me how, within weeks, he came a cropper in a new parish. He comes from a society and a culture where people speak openly and directly. He regards this as a mark of efficiency and a sign of his honesty.

But when he arrived in that new parish, this did not go down well at all.

When he told parishioners what he wanted to do, he thought he was being frank, honest and direct.

But his parishioners immediately saw him as abrupt, abrasive and rude.

In his next parish, he knew he needed to be a little less direct and a lot more diplomatic.

We all know what diplomats mean when they say talks have been frank and honest: bruising encounters with no one behaving in what we might call a civilised manner, or behaving towards each other like Christians.

We respond instinctively as if we expect to be treated politely and that others expect us to treat them politely too.

I offer two examples of how I think England and Ireland are unique in this respect. In other countries, when people pay for a service, they feel that they are doing someone a favour, giving them their custom and their money, and so walk away when the transaction is complete. It is a bonus for them if the person at the till says as they leave, ‘Thank you.’

But here, on these islands, we respond differently: when we pay in a shop or café, or get off a bus or train, it is we, the paying customers, who say ‘Thank You!’

Or again: How often have I asked someone for information that I know or expect them to have – looking for directions on the street, or asking for information at an airport or a train station.

And every now and then we meet someone who is curmudgeonly, who got out on the wrong side of the bed, or is just downright rude. And they answer brusquely, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘Look at the timetable.’

And what do I say in reply? I say, ‘Thank You!’

I am just too Anglo-Saxon with my manners for my own good at times. I put on a polite mask, and I put up.

And sometimes we confuse those good manners with the answer we expect to that perennial question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’

Well, look at what Jesus does over in our Gospel readings over these two weeks, and we’re in for something of a shocker.

Over these two weeks, we are going to come across what appear to be interesting, front-parlour meetings with Jesus. But that’s because English is such a polite language, and the translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.

In today’s reading, we hear what sounds like Jesus being very rude to some very religious people, who come with real doubts and with polite questions.

How does he respond? He calls them hypocrites.

And to add to that, in the reading on Thursday, Jesus later goes on to compare a woman who comes to him in distress with dogs, and he seems to call her daughter what amounts to – in the original Greek – a ‘little bitch’ (Mark 7: 24-30, 13 February 2025).

Then in the reading on Friday, he meets a man who is deaf and dumb – and he sticks his fingers in his ears and spits on him. (Mark 7: 31-37, 14 February 2025).

Hypocrites, dogs, little bitches, spitting at someone. Now, imagine if I responded in any one of these ways to someone who gives me a curt answer when I try to find my way through a busy train station or a crowded airport, or if they responded to me like that!

In today’s reading, the Pharisees come to Jesus with a genuine question that arises from rules they apply in their religious life, and rules that are radical, reforming, and easy for us to identify with when the reasons behind them are explained.

We need to keep in mind that the Pharisees are very religious, pious and good people. Too often we forget that Saint Paul boasts he is a Pharisee, that among the different Jewish groups of the day the Pharisees are the closest in tradition and practice to Jesus, and that Pharisaic Judaism is the spiritual ancestor of all modern forms of Judaism today.

The Pharisees looked at the demands the religious law of the Book of Leviticus made on the priests in the Temple. This priestly class included some of Jesus’ own family, such as Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist.

Purity and cleanliness were part of their role in the Temple. Before they ate or handled any sacred food, they had to wash their hands thoroughly. But these rules only applied when they were on the rota for priestly duties in the Temple. They took it in turn, and outside that turn, those rules did not apply. Nor did they apply to the people in general, the average, everyday Jew on the street or at home.

But after the people return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, the Pharisees see the whole people as a royal people, a holy priesthood. And to make the people conscious of how holy the whole nation is, they suggest people should take on those priestly practices, to show they are holy.

In time, this becomes so accepted that people who do not bother washing their hands ritually before they eat are seen as being hypocrites if, at the same time, they are supposed to be holy and religious people.

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are using someone else’s words but do not necessarily understand why those rules and regulations came about.

It is not that washing my hands before I eat is a bad idea, or that I am a hypocrite if I do so. If I habitually fail to wash my hands before I eat, I am going to get sick, quickly and often.

But if I forget why I have to wash my hands, I am a hypocrite if I then expect others to do so. And sometimes we leave ourselves in danger of going hungry if we insist on washing our hands before we eat: the facilities to wash my hands are not always to hand on a long train journey or a long flight.

The Pharisees had their own rituals, and I would be silly to think that only they had these problems. We all have our own rituals associated with eating and cleanliness.

It is said one of the principal causes of domestic arguments in the kitchen is about what way to stack the dishwasher, and how to empty it. Should the knives stand up or down? Which sides do you place the glasses and the cups on? Do you rinse the plates before they go in?

To tell the truth, it probably does not matter. But it is still irritating to open the dishwasher and to find someone else has packed it.

The level of questioning from the Pharisees is about a ritual that is probably more important than how you and I stack the dishwasher. And the level of response from Jesus is not as rude as we might first think – just as I shall explain next week why he is not being rude to the distressed woman or the disabled man.

But when he says the Pharisees are hypocrites, Jesus is challenging them to drop the mask and to own the words they speak and to own the reasons for those rituals.

Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hate as much as we put into seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church, or as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?

If we are worried about how clean the patten and chalice are at Holy Communion, how clean the church is, how clean the coffee cup is when it comes out of the dishwasher, how much more should be worried about how clean the Church is as an institution, how worthy it is to be called – for us to be called – the Body of Christ.

How we stack the dishwasher can be a domestic ritual of cleanliness … and the cause of many domestic arguments (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 11 February 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Founders’ Day.’ USPG and SPCK are celebrating ‘Founders’ Day’ in Saint James’s Church, Picadilly, next week (Monday 17 February 2025). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Reflection by Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.


The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 11 February 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, we lament the silence that surrounds the brutal history of Codrington College, where the voices of the enslaved are still not heard. We grieve for the pain that is unspoken and for the erasure of the suffering caused by an economy of death.

The Collect:

O God,
you know us to be set
in the midst of so many and great dangers,
that by reason of the frailty of our nature
we cannot always stand upright:
grant to us such strength and protection
as may support us in all dangers
and carry us through all temptations;
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:

Go before us, Lord, in all we do
with your most gracious favour,
and guide us with your continual help,
that in all our works
begun, continued and ended in you,
we may glorify your holy name,
and finally by your mercy receive everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:
Lord of the hosts of heaven,
our salvation and our strength,
without you we are lost:
guard us from all that harms or hurts
and raise us when we fall;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 108, Monday 26 August 2024

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees’ (Malheur à vous, scribes et pharisiens), opaque watercolour over graphite on gray wove paper (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began yesterday with the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII).

This is a holiday weekend in England, and today is a bank holiday that really marks the end of the summer holiday period here. 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.

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 13-22 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 13 ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

16 ‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.” 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, “Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.” 19 How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22 and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.’

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

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

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

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

We hear two further woes tomorrow (Matthew 23: 23-26): those who tithe mint, dill, and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith; and we hear the final of the seven woes on Wednesday (Matthew 23: 27-32): a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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

In some translations, notably the King James Version, there is an eighth woe in verse 14: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.’ However, older manuscripts do not include this verse.

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

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

The first of these seven woes condemns the scribes and Pharisees for keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven: ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them’ (Matthew 23: 13).

The missing woe in verse 14 is found in footnotes in the NRSV and many other modern translations but not in the main text. The most important authoritative early manuscripts do not include verse 14.

Although part or all of the verse is found in some versions, it is almost certainly not original. Elsewhere, Christ condemns these woeful practices (see Mark 12: 40 and Luke 20: 47), and this verse are not disputed textually.

We might ask whether some scribe long ago omitted this woe, and the omission was then repeated in several subsequent manuscripts, or whether some scribe accidentally copied a marginal note from one of the parallel accounts.

Most Biblical scholars argue for the accidental insertion theory. But the woe in verse 14 is still included in what could be described as conservative evangelical versions, albeit often with brackets around the text or a footnote.

It is absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex B (both early 4th century), Codex D (5th century), Codex Z (6th century), Codex L (8th century), Codex Θ, minuscule 33 and 892 (9th century), and other later manuscripts on into the middle ages. Many early Old Latin manuscripts do not contain it, such as it^a (4th century), it^e (5th century), and others. The majority of the Latin Vulgate manuscripts, including all of the earliest copies, also lack the reading. The verse is missing in the earliest Syriac manuscript, the Sinaitic Palimpsest (4th century), as well as some of the later Palestinian Syriac copies. Most of the Coptic manuscripts also lack the verse, including the middle Egyptian manuscripts, the Sahidic manuscripts, and some of the Bohairic. The Armenian and Georgian translations likewise do not contain it.

The words in Matthew 23: 14 are found in only a few relatively late Greek witnesses. These include Uncial 0233 (8th century), and some later mediaeval manuscripts and lectionaries. The verse is present here in a number of Old Latin manuscripts, including it^b and it^ff2 (both 5th century), and others. It is also found in the late mediaeval Clementine revision of the Vulgate, the second oldest Syriac manuscript, the Curetonian Gospels (5th century), some of the later Palestinian Syriac manuscripts, and some later Bohairic Coptic manuscripts.

The words in Matthew 23: 14 in the KJV appear between verses 12 and 13 in Codex W (late 4th or early 5th century), Codex O, Σ, and Uncial 0104 (all 6th century), Uncial 0102 and 0107 (both 7th century), Codex E (8th century), Codex F, G, H, K, Y, Δ, Π, and Uncial 0133 (all 9th century), as well as the majority of mediaeval manuscripts.

It is present in this place in very few Latin manuscripts, but is the reading in most of the Syriac copies and a few Bohairic Coptic manuscripts. The verse is also found in this alternate location in the Slavonic and Ethiopic translations.

In other words, There is much older, much stronger, more diverse, and vastly more numerous evidence in favour of the words being between 12 and 13 than there is for them being between 13 and 15.

But the earliest sources lack the verse, and it was absent throughout the centuries. Where there is fairly early evidence in some of the ancient translations, in each case there is even earlier evidence without the verse. Modern scholars conclude that the earliest copies in virtually every stream of transmission lack the verse entirely. The strongest evidence indicates that the words of Matthew 23: 14 are not original to this gospel, but were added in by a later scribe.

In the second of the seven woes, Jesus condemns religious leaders for teaching their converts the same hypocrisy that they themselves practice. They ‘cross sea and land to make a single convert’, and then make ‘the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves’ (Matthew 13: 15).

In the third woe, Jesus refers to the religious elite not as hypocrites but as ‘blind guides’ (verse 16) and ‘blind fools’ (verse 17). They regarded themselves as guides of the blind (see Romans 2: 19), but were blind themselves and unfit to guide others. Instead of teaching spiritual truth, they preferred to quibble over irrelevant matters and find loopholes in the rules (Matthew 23: 16-22).

We should remember that the Pharisees are very religious, pious and good people. Too often we forget that Saint Paul boasts he is a Pharisee, that among the different Jewish groups of the day the Pharisees are the closest in tradition and practice to Jesus, and that Pharisaic Judaism is the spiritual ancestor of all modern forms of Judaism today.

The Pharisees looked at the demands the religious law of the Book of Leviticus made on the priests in the Temple. This priestly class included some of Jesus’ own family, such as Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist.

Purity and cleanliness were part of their role in the Temple. Before they ate or handled any sacred food, they had to wash their hands thoroughly. But these rules only applied when they were on the rota for priestly duties in the Temple. They took it in turn, and outside that turn, those rules did not apply. Nor did they apply to the people in general, the average, everyday Jew on the street or at home.

But after the people return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, the Pharisees see the whole people as a royal people, a holy priesthood. And to make the people conscious of how holy the whole nation is, they suggest people should take on those priestly practices, to show they are holy.

In time, this becomes so accepted that people who do not bother washing their hands ritually before they eat are seen as being hypocrites if, at the same time, they are supposed to be holy and religious people.

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

In Athens in the 4th century BCE, the orator Demosthenes ridiculed his rival Aeschines, who had been a successful actor before taking up politics, as a ῠ̔ποκρῐτής (hypokrités) whose skill at impersonating characters on stage made him untrustworthy as a politician. This negative view of the hypokrités, combined with the Roman disdain for actors, shaded into the originally neutral ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis) or hypocrisy.

It is this later sense of hypokrisis as ‘play-acting’ or assuming a counterfeit persona that gives us the modern word hypocrisy with all its negative connotations.

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are using someone else’s words but do not necessarily understand why those rules and regulations came about.

We should beware when piety gets in the way of fulfilling the heart of the law: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself. Let us beware when our piety separates us from others, for then it also separates us from God.

Classical masks from the theatre in Athens on display in the Acropolis Museum … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 26 August 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is the ‘Theological Education Executive Leadership Programme in Africa.’ The course is expected to start in August 2024 and run until December 2025, and this theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Regional Manager Africa, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 26 August 2024) invites us to pray:

We give thanks for the TEIs (theological education institutes) that continue to build the leadership of the Anglican churches.

The Collect:

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

The Post Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Actors promoting a theatrical performance of classical drama in the square at Monastiraki in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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 prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (153) 28 October 2023

The Church of the Immaculate Conception (Chiesa Maria Immacolata) seen from the beach in Giardini Naxos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)


Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Last Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XXI, 29 October 2023). The Church Calendar today (28 October) celebrates the Apostles, Saint Simon and Saint Jude.

Before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.

My reflections on the Week of Prayer for World Peace concluded last Sunday, and my reflections each morning throughout the rest of this week followed this pattern:

1, A reflection on a church or cathedral in Sicily;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The beach at Naxos, where the first Greek settlers arrived in Sicily in 735 BC (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Church of the Immaculate Conception, Giardini Naxos, Sicily:

The Church of the Immaculate Conception (Chiesa Maria Immacolata) is a striking modern church, whose cone shape makes it a very visible landmark on the coast of Giardini Naxos in Sicily. The church was built in the San Giovanni district of Giardini Naxos in 1963-1968, and opened on 8 October 1968.

Giardini Naxos takes its name from the site of Naxos, the earliest Greek settlement in Sicily. Today, it is a popular tourist resort , close to Taormina, and within easy reach of Mount Etna, and the classical sites in Syracuse and Noto.

The site of the classical city of Naxos is behind a railed site, east of the beach at Recanati, and the entrance to the archaeological site and museum is beside La Sirena restaurant on the busy seafront, on the low, rocky headland now called Cape Schisò.

It is hard to imagine with these few scanty remains that this was once an important centre of Greek civilisation and culture on the island of Sicily, and it remained so until the Arab invasions of the Byzantine Empire. Classical Naxos stood on Cape Schisò, formed by an ancient stream of lava, immediately to the north of the Alcantara, one of the great gorges in Sicily. A small bay to the north separates it from the foot of the hill-top town of Taormina.

Classical writers say Naxos was the most ancient Greek colony in Sicily. It was founded a year before Syracusae (Syracuse), or in 735 BCE, by a group of colonists from Chalcis in Euboea and the island of Naxos in the Cyclades. The leader of the colonists and the founder of the city was Theocles or Thucles, who was born in Athens. But the name of Naxos is derived from the presence among the original settlers of a group of colonists from Naxos.

The new colony was soon joined by fresh settlers from Greece. Six years after it was established, the Chalcidians at Naxos were able to send out a fresh colony to set up the city of Leontini (Lentini) in 730 BCE, followed soon by another colony at Catana. Strabo also speaks of Zancle (modern Messina) as a colony from Naxos, although Thucydides does not mention this. Callipolis was another colony of Naxos, although the site is not known.

Surprisingly, little is known about the early history of Naxos, and the first accounts are of disasters that hit the Greek city. Herodotus recounts that Naxos was besieged and captured by Hippocrates, the despot of Gela, ca 498-491 BCE.

Naxos was in the hands of Gelon of Syracuse and his brother Hieron by 476 BCE. In a move to strengthen his own military power, Hieron moved the people of Naxos and Catana to Leontini, and brought in new Greek colonists to live in the cities he had emptied. However, Naxos was restored to the original inhabitants in 461 BCE, and the cities of Naxos, Leontini and Catana formed a close alliance against Syracuse and the other Doric cities in Sicily.

When Athens sent a force to Sicily under Laches and Charoeades, Naxos immediately came to its aid. In the war that followed, Naxos repulsed a sudden attack from Messina in 425 BCE. During a later expedition from Athens to Sicily, the Athenian fleet landed at Naxos in 415 BCE, and Naxos once again fought on the same side as the Athenians. Thucydides recalls that Naxos and Catania were the only Greek cities in Sicily that sided with Athens.

A revenge attack on Naxos by Syracuse was called off in 409 BCE because Carthage was posing a military threat to all the Greek cities in Sicily. But in 403 BCE, Dionysius of Syracuse captured Naxos which was betrayed by the general Procles. Dionysius sold all the inhabitants of Naxos into slavery, razed the city walls and buildings, and handed over the defeated city’s territory to neighbouring Siculi.

Naxos never recovered from this blow, and it is difficult to trace what happened to it in the immediate aftermath. A new settlement was built on the hill called Mount Taurus, which rises immediately above the site of Naxos, ca 396 BCE. This eventually became the town of Tauroménion (Ταυρομένιον), present-day Taormina.

In 358 BCE, Andromachus, the father of the historian Timaeus, gathered together the descendants of the people of Naxos, by now exiles throughout the island, and brought them to live on the hill of Tauroménion, which became the successor of ancient Naxos. Pliny the Elder is mistaken when he says Tauroménion was once called Naxos. The new city quickly prospered, and the site of Naxos was never fully resettled.

However, the altar and shrine of Apollo Archegetes continued to mark the spot where Naxos once stood, and it is mentioned in the war between Octavian and Sextus Pompey in Sicily in 36 BCE. It remained a tradition for all envoys setting out on sacred missions to Greece or returning to Sicily to stop at Naxos and offer a sacrifice on the altar.

The site stretches over a large area of Cape Schisò, among olive and lemon groves. It is poorly labelled, but it is possible to make out the foundations of a once-large town laid out in grids and a long stretch of the city wall of Naxos, as well as rubble indicating the later presence of a Byzantine town on the site.

During the Arab occupation of Sicily, Naxos was called al-Kusus. In the Norman period, Kusus became Kisoi and then Schisò. Since the area was widely cultivated with citrus orchards, it came to be known as Giardini and was part of the administrative area of Taormina.

Queen Adelasia, the wife of Count Roger of Altavilla, gave the Church of Saint Pantaleo at Schisò to monks following the rule of Saint Basil in 1005, granting them the right of tax-free fishing in the sea off Naxos.

Schisò Castle may date back to 1100. For centuries, the castle belonged to the De Spuches family. It is still owned privately by the Palladino family and is not open to visits or for archaeological research. It may date back to 1100. It has a square shape and four round towers and is surrounded by a large garden. The castle had its own independent supply of water thanks to a well immediately outside.

Underground passages connected to the Vignazza Tower, an impressive defence garrison on the promontory of Naxos, and to another small fortress east of the castle. Inside the Schisò Castle is the small Church of Saint Pantaleo, a martyr who was a missionary in Roman Sicily (feast day 29 July).

The towers and castles on the cape helped to protect the Sicilian coastline along the Ionian Sea against corsairs and pirates from the north African coast, and the raids did not cease until France conquered Algiers in 1830.

King Ferdinand II made Giardini an independent commune in 1846. On the evening of 18 August 1860, Garibaldi set sail from Giardini for the Calabrian coast at the beginning of the Italian War of Unification.

Giardini Naxos began to develop economically around 1870 after the Messina-Catania railway opened, changingd the small maritime village into a popular tourist destination. However, the site of Naxos has never been fully excavated by archaeologists, and some of the small number of pieces recovered are on display in the small two-room museum.

The tall, slender Church of the Immaculate Conception with its conical shape has become one of the modern landmarks on the coastline of Giardini Naxos. Bishop Carmelo Canzonieri, Auxiliary Bishop of Messina, blessed the laying of the foundation stone on 1 May 1963. Building work was completed by 8 October 1967, when Archbishop Francesco Fasola of Messina recognised the new parish.

Father Eduardo Di Felice, a Capuchin Franciscan, was the first parish priest. He worked hard to complete the church and the parish complex, and the church was later visited by Pope John Paul II. The parish continued to be run by the Capuchin Franciscans until the beginning of the 2000s.

The other churches in Giardini Naxos include the Church of Santa Maria della Racconmandata, known as the ‘mother church’ of Giardini Naxos and built in 1719, and the Church San Pancrazio (Saint Pancras), built in 1957 and dedicated to the patron of the nearby lofty hill-top town of Taormina.

The lengthy remains of the former city walls of Naxos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 17-27 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 17 ‘I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

18 ‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, “Servants are not greater than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 It was to fulfil the word that is written in their law, “They hated me without a cause.”

26 ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.’

The Byzantine site at Giardini Naxos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers: USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Praying for Peace.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a prayer written by the Revd Tuomas Mäkipää, Chaplain of Saint Nicholas.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (28 October 2023, Simon and Jude, Apostles) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us give thanks for the lives and works of Saint Simon and Saint Jude. May we emulate them in our discipleship and witness to the Good News.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who built your Church upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets,
with Jesus Christ himself as the chief cornerstone:
so join us together in unity of spirit by their doctrine,
that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you;
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:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Among the exhibits in the Archaeological Museum at the site of Naxos (Photographs: 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

Caves between the beaches on the coast at Giardini Naxos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Jewish presence in Taormina should not be relegated to a footnote in the history of Sicily

The façade of the Palazzo dei Giurati in Taormina displays Stars of David, indicating it may have been tin he heart of the Jewish district (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout this week, the reflections in my prayer diary on this blog each morning have drawn on places I have visited in Eastern Sicily, including Giardini Naxos, Noto, Syracuse and Taormina.

Taormina has long been a popular tourist destination. It is, arguably, the prettiest town in Sicily, with breathtaking views, food, restaurants, shops and hotels, with majestic Mount Etna as a backdrop and an ancient Greek amphitheatre. The crumbling Victorian follies in the Villa public gardens were once owned by Lady Florence Trevelyan.

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica and the Jewish Encyclopaedia, at one time there were 37,000 to 100,000 Jews living in 52 different places in Sicily. Rabbi Barbara Aiello, the US-born founder of the Italian Jewish Cultural Centre of Calabria, claims about 40% of people in Sicily and Calabria were Jewish 500 years ago.

Jews probably first came to southern Italy almost 2,000 years ago, perhaps at the time when the Maccabees, fearing annihilation by Antiochus and his forces, sent scouts out across the Mediterranean to search for possible new homes.

The remains of a fourth century synagogue have been found in Bova Marina in Reggio di Calabria, and when a mikveh from the same time was uncovered in Syracuse in 1987 it sparked renewed interest in Sicily’s rich Jewish heritage.

Early records date from 734 BCE, but the town did not begin to prosper until the fourth century BCE. There are references to the town throughout Roman history, and remains of its Greek and Roman past are still visible.

Taormina’s well-preserved Greek theatre is the second largest amphitheatre in Sicily. It was built in the third century BCE and was later renovated by the Romans.

The theatre, which is built into the hillside, has natural acoustics and offers amazing views of the Ionian Sea below and of Mount Etna. A brick with a Greek inscription from the Greek-Roman theatre was probably inscribed by some Christians who respected Saturday as a holy day. It was restored in modern times and is now used for summer performances.

A Greek inscription in the Greek-Roman theatre in Taormina was probably inscribed by Christians who respected Saturday as a holy day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From the 14th century on, the Jews of Sicily faced open discrimination and in some places were forced to live in ghettoes.

Taormina once had a Jewish Quarter and a small Jewish community is referred to in documents from 1415 on. The Jewish quarter was in the area to the west of the cathedral. The imprint of their presence lives on in the placenames and street names in Taormina, such as the shopping street known as Vicolode gli Ebrei (Street of the Jews) and Via Giudecca (Jewish Street).

The façade of the Palazzo dei Giurati in the Piazza del Duomo, on the same square as the duomo or cathedral in Taormina, still displays three Stars of David, indicating many of the building there have Jewish origins and that this may have been the heart of the main Jewish district of Taormina.

A veterans’ hall has a three-sided second-floor balcony that may suggest, perhaps, that it was once a synagogue. In Castelmola, a hilltop village above Taormina, leaded Stars of David can be seen in the windows of the old church, set in stone panels on two sides of a bell tower.

However, there were frequent episodes of intolerance in Taormina. The Dominican friars twice forced Jews to move from the synagogue and the cemetery, claiming they were disturbed by their loud prayers.

This intolerance eventually led to a riot in in 1455, when the synagogue was destroyed. Finally, when the Spanish Inquisition reached the island, a decree was issued in 1492 ordering the expulsion of Jews from Sicily. The edict was similar to those issued in Spain, and by 1493 all Jews had either left Sicily or had been baptised in forcible conversions.

The Greek-Roman theatre in Taormina was built in the third century BCE and is the second largest amphitheatre in Sicily (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen viewing)

The descendants of the Italian conversos were later known as neofiti, and many secretly continued some Jeiwsh practices. The Spanish-run administration in Sicily invited Jews to return to Sicily in a proclamation on 3 February 1740. A small number responded, but they felt insecure and returned to the Ottoman Empire.

Rabbi Barbara Aiello is both the first female rabbi in Italy and Italy’s first non-Orthodox rabbi. She was born in 1947 in Pittsburgh to a family of Italian Jewish descent and was ordained at the Rabbinical Seminary International in New York at the age of 51. In 2005, she conducted the first Passover seder in Sicily since 1492, when the Jews were expelled. She founded the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria and Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud in Calabria.

Rabbi Stefano Di Mauro, who was born in Syracuse in Sicily, is a descendant of neofiti. He emigrated to the US in his teens, but when his mother was dying he learned that his family was Jewish. He converted, returned to Syracuse in 2007, and opened a small synagogue in 2008. He was the first orthodox rabbi in Sicily for more than 500 years, and said many descendants of neofiti were being drawn back to Judaism.

Eventually, however, according to a report in the Jewish Chronicle five years ago (2018), his relationship with Italy’s established Jewish authorities broke down irretrievably, his community in Syracuse is no more and he is now living in Israel. He says Italy’s Jewish establishment was not being welcoming enough, an accusation that is rejected by the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.

Since 2013, Palermo has hosted a public Menorah lighting in the Palazzo Steri, the former headquarters of the Inquisition, where many Jews were detained, tortured and killed.

The Archdiocese of Palermo donated a building to the Jewish community in 2018 to build a synagogue in Vicolo Meschita, the old Jewish quarter. Archbishop Corrado Lorefice was honoured with the Wallenberg Medal for enabling the rebirth of the Jewish community of Palermo and for promoting interfaith dialogue.

It is said locally that former Jewish buildings in Taormina were converted into churches or secular buildings during and after the Inquisition, but that subsequent residents often retained and preserved small signs of their Jewish past Jewish. Perhaps this was to guard against retribution, perhaps it was to soothe guilt, perhaps it was a sign of remorse for the end of the Jewish presence in Taormina.

The signs and symbols of a once thriving Jewish community and a former Jewish Quarter in Taormina usually go unnoticed by most residents and tourists alike. But they are signs and symbols of a community that must never be relegated to a mere footnote in history.

Shabbot Shalom

The Sicilian coastline below Taormina (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)