Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 7, Monday 9 February 2026

‘When they got out of the boat, people at once recognised him’ (Mark 6: 54) … the Ilen, the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships, at Foynes Harbour after sailing across the Shannon Estuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent just over a week away (18 February 2026) and the week began yesterday with the Second Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026).

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

They ‘begged him that they might touch even the fringe his cloak’ (Mark 6: 56) … a choice of prayer shawls with fringes in the synagogue in Chania in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 6: 53-56 (NRSVA):

53 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54 When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, 55 and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

‘When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat’ (Mark 6: 53) … a moored boat in the harbour in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Between now and Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026), we are in what the Church Calendar calls ‘Ordinary Time.’

Two striking emphases in Saint Mark’s Gospel are the stories of Christ healing about healing those on the margins and assuring those on the margins that they too are called into the Kingdom of God.

Those people on the margins include people who are seen as sinners, foreigners and unclean, especially women and children. The ways they are belittled is symbolised in our Gospel readings all last week:

• The healing of the ‘possessed’ man who lives among the tombs (Mark 5: 1-20, 2 February 2026, if the Presentation or Candlemas had been transferred to the day before);
• a dying girl who is only 12 years old and a woman unable to find help from doctors for 12 years (Mark 5: 21-43, 3 February 2026);
• Christ lays his hands on and curing sick people (Mark 6: 1-6, 4 February 2026);
• the disciples are sent out in all their vulnerability and poverty (Mark 6: 7-13, 5 February 2026);
• Herod’s fears and wicked response when he hears of these healings and miracles (Mark 6: 14-29, 8 February 2026);
• And then Jesus has compassion for the people who are neglected by their leaders and rulers (Mark 6: 30-34, 7 February 2026).

In today’s reading, Jesus seems to be trying to get away from all the demands and all the expectations that are being laid on his shoulders. The apostles have come back after being sent out two-by-two, and are telling him all they have done and all that has happened.

Now they need a break, and Jesus takes them on a boat and they head off to a quiet place. But there is no escaping the crowd, the people and their demands.

And they ‘bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was’. This happens wherever he goes – in villages and cities, farms and market places (Mark 6: 55-56). It is just enough for them to touch the fringe of his cloak and those who touch it are healed (verse 56).

What did they think they were doing by touching the ‘fringe of his cloak’?

This is not just an act of hope, hoping for healing, but an act of faith, claiming a place in the community of faith, reaching out for love.

Wearing a prayer shawl reminds the wearer and those who see this of all the 613 commandments in Jewish tradition, of the covenant with God.

In touching Christ’s cloak, the sick people are claiming their place at the heart of the community of faith. They are making Jesus ritually unclean, but those who touch him are healed. In touching Christ, they are ‘touched’ by God’s power, and Christ draws them into the Kingdom of God.

These people follow Jesus around everywhere. He has compassion on them because they are ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’ They need healing, not just in mind and body, but in their families and in their society, in political and religious society, in the economy and in the villages, cities, farms and marketplaces where they seek the healing that Christ offers.

Faith and healing come together.

These connections are made in a prayer or poem in the Service of the Heart, a prayer book I use regularly for my personal prayers and reflections. This poem or prayer ‘Lord God of test tube and blueprint’ is by Norman Corwin (1910-2011):

Lord God of test tube and blueprint,
Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors and give instruction to their schemes:
Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer from his father’s colour or the credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who profit by postponing it pretend:
Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of the little peoples through expected straits,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.

Norman Lewis Corwin once declared: ‘I believe in promise, just promise … any species that can weigh the very earth he’s standing on, that can receive and analyse light coming from a galaxy a billion light years distant from us, any species that can produce a Beethoven and a Mozart and a Shakespeare, and the extraordinary accomplishments of our species, scientifically and in medicine and in the humanities, there’s illimitable opportunity for promises to be delivered and met.’

I fell on the street in London around this time last year and ended up in the A&E unit in University College London Hospital with a bruised and swollen face, eye and lips. There I was acutely aware of how hospital staff, medical researchers, scientists, doctors, nurses, porters, and cheerful receptions are all working with the ‘Lord God of test tube and blueprint’ and offering hope and healing to people of faith and of none.

‘When they had crossed over, they … moored the boat’ (Mark 6: 53) … a moored boat on the shore of Canon Island, in the Shannon Estuary, near Kildysert, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 9 February 2026):

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: ‘Safe Routes’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.



The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 9 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for Bradon, his family, and all volunteers serving refugees. Strengthen each heart and mind with courage and compassion, guide every action with wisdom, and protect from harm and exhaustion while offering care to the most vulnerable.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘When they had crossed over, they … moored the boat’ (Mark 6: 53) … a moored boat on the River Ouse in Old Stratford (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 Christmas 2025-2026: 32, Sunday 25 January 2026 Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III)

‘Immediately they left their nets and followed him’ (Matthew 4: 20) … fishing boats and nets by the harbour in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This is the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 25 January 2026), and is also the Festival of the Conversion of Saint Paul, although this may be transferred to Monday (26 January).

Today too is the eighth day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which began last Sunday and ends today. This year’s theme has been ‘One Body, One Spirit’ – from Ephesians 4: 1-13 – and was prepared by the Armenian Apostolic Church, along with the Armenian Catholic and Evangelical Churches.

I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, later this morning. Then, this evening, I am with the Stony Playreaders presenting three new short plays by group members exploring the themes of communication and miscommunication, all Upstairs at the Library on Church Street.

It’s Good To Talk is a new play by Emma Luckhurst in which I have the role of Richard III – without the hunchback. Talking may be good for you, but it is also a risky game, loaded with approximations, misunderstandings and pitfalls for the unwary. The two shorter plays are Stony Magic by Peter Stone, in which I have the part of ‘The Widower’, and Marmalade at the Palace by Claire Kemp, a slightly longer short play for grown-ups with a fondness for dry wit, diplomatic disasters – and small talking bears – when I became a footman of impeccable behaviour.

Admission is free on both evenings at 7 pm on both evenings, on Sunday 25 January and Thursday 29 January, but donations will be welcome, and light refreshments are being offered.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Nets and fishing boats in the harbour in Skerries, north Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 4: 12-23 (NRSVA):

12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

15 ‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles —
16 the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.’

17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake – for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

‘The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light’ (Isaiah 9: 2; Matthew 4: 16) … lights at a house shrouded in darkness in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

When Christ heard about the arrest of Saint John the Baptist, he withdrew to the Wilderness, where he was tempted by the Devil. However, he refused to use his divine powers to his own human ends.

In this reading, he now moves from Nazareth to Capernaum, so he can begin his mission. Saint Matthew also interprets this move as fulfilling the prophecies of Isaiah that are included in today’s first reading (Isaiah 9: 1-4).

At the launch of his public ministry, Christ calls on people to repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

He then calls his first four disciples: Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and the brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee. He invites them to follow him, and to ‘fish for people.’ They give up their trade immediately, leaving their nets (verse 20) and their boats (verse 22), beginning a radically different way of life.

Christ continues his ministry, travelling throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, and proclaiming the good news in both word and deed, through his preaching and his healing.

One of my true pleasures in life is walking on the beach, along the banks of rivers, along the piers of harbours, and by the sea. So this Gospel reading has a particular attraction, with Christ walking by the shores of the sea or lake, meeting people, getting into conversation with them, and inviting them to journey with him.

I imagine, as people listen to this Gospel reading, a number of phrases jump out immediately:

• ‘the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light’ (verse 16; cfIsaiah 9: 2);
• ‘for those who sat in the region and the shadow of death light has dawned’ (verse 16);
• ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (verse 17);
• ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people’ (verse 19);
• ‘Immediately they left their nets [or the boat] and followed him’ (see verses 20, 22).

Despite the familiarity of these phrases, I am sure these are images and quotes that still leap out as people read listen to this passage afresh.

And some come back in the more familiar language of other translations and versions, such as:

• ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (verse 17, RSV);
• ‘Follow me, for I will make you fishers of men’ (verse 19, RSV).

In popular newspaper cartoons, humorous office absences are often indicated by a sign hung on the door declaring: ‘Gone Fishin’.’ Fishing in our culture is often seen by non-fishers as idleness, a sedentary past-time, taking it easy, doing nothing.

I cannot imagine it was like that for the first disciples. It was a tough career choice when you think of the night shifts, the storms, and the difficulties in finding a catch that occur time and again in the Gospels.

I do not know which was a more difficult and demanding task: being a fisher on the Sea of Galilee, or being a Disciple of Christ … especially when the call comes from someone who has withdrawn to Galilee after the arrest of his cousin, the one who publicly baptised and acclaimed him in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Saint John the Baptist (John 1: 29-42).

Either way, the four first disciples were going to have no lazy day by the river bank, or by the shore, or for that matter as followers of Christ.

Becoming ‘fishers of men,’ ‘fishing for people,’ is going to bring these Galilean fishers into a relationship not only with Christ, but with their families, with their neighbours, with the tax collectors, with Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots, with the powers of this world, with Gentiles, with the people who sat in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death.

Sometimes, in the Church, we do not cast our nets far enough or deep enough. No wonder then that most of the time, when we pull in those nets, we find them empty.

There is a saying that fish come in three sizes, small ones, medium ones and the ones that got away.

Too often in the Church, we know about the small ones, we are good with the medium ones, but we pay little attention to going after the ones that get away.

The image of patient fishing is worth working with. Ernest Hemingway, in The Old Man and The Sea, says ‘Il faut (d’abord) durer … It is necessary, above all else, to endure. It is necessary to endure.’

The great Anglican writer Izaak Walton (1593-1683) is known not only for his biographies of John Donne, George Herbert and Richard Hooker, but also as the author of The Compleat Angler. Walton points out that fishing can teach us patience and discipline. Fishing takes practice, preparation, discipline; like discipleship, it has to be learned, and learning requires practice before there are any results. And sometimes, whether it is fishing in a river or fishing in the sea, the best results can come from going against the current.

Walking along piers in north Dublin, in Wexford or in Greek islands, I sometimes see the careful early morning work of the crews in the trawlers and fishing boats, and I am reminded that good fishing does not come about by accident. It also requires paying attention to the nets, moving them carefully, mending them, cleaning them after each and every use, hanging them out to dry.

And fishing is also about noticing the weather, watching the wind and the clouds. Good fishing takes account of contexts … it is incarnational.

Time and again in the Gospels, the Kingdom of God is compared to a huge net cast over different numbers of people and species. We are the ones called to cast that net, and we cannot hang any sign outside on our office or rectory doors saying: ‘Gone Fishin’.’

Nor can we stand by the bank or on the shore, content with two sizes of fish. We are called to go after the ones that others let get away, not just those who come to Church regularly, but also those people who sit in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death.

When they take a break from their fishing in this reading, the disciples follow Jesus, and he goes into both the places of worship and ‘among the people’ (verse 23). The word used here for the people – the people who live in darkness and the people Jesus journeys among – is the word λαός (laós), and it means not just the people, but the rowdy, the masses, the populace; sometimes it even has vulgar connotations.

So we, me and you, are here for our neighbours, those around us. We are here to walk by the waterside, to walk with the people, to cast our nets, but to cast them with those people. Who knows what we can do as we walk together in the time ahead of us.

There will be days when the fishing seems pointless. There will be days when we are happy with our work together. And as we work together, hopefully, there will be days when we are surprised with what we can achieve together, all in Christ’s name and all for the sake of the one that otherwise might get away.

Walking by the shoreline near the harbours in Rethymnon in the early morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 25 January 2026, Epiphany III):

The theme this week (25-31 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Connections That Last’ (pp 22-23). This theme is introduced today with Reflections from Paula de Mello Alves, a Brazilian lawyer and theologian, Executive Secretary of the Southern Diocese, and former co-leader of the Anglican Communion Youth Network (ACYN):

I remember when I first joined ACYN years ago, not really knowing what to expect from a worldwide network. Over time, my involvement grew, and now I’m approaching the end of my term as Global Co-Convener and Americas Regional Co-Chair.

I’ve come to realise that this platform connects much more than people involved in youth ministry. It’s a safe space where we can share our experiences as young Anglicans, learn from one another, and strengthen our work in ministry.

ACYN works with other Anglican groups, allowing us to join delegations to COP and the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Through this, I’ve seen how closely issues like creation care and gender justice are connected, especially since these challenges often affect women the most.

We’ve made great progress, but what I treasure most are the meaningful connections we've built. I’ve met wonderful friends who share the same faith and serve the Church in so many different parts of the world. That, to me, is the real beauty of ACYN – a network that connects the Anglican Communion across seven regions and reminds us that even though we are far apart, we are part of the same global family, working together in faith, hope, and love.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 25 January 2026, Epiphany III) invites us to pray by reading and meditating on Matthew 4: 12-23.

‘Immediately they left the boat and … followed him’ (Matthew 4: 22) … a lone boat in the Crescent in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
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 Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of the Conversion of Saint Paul:

Almighty God,
who caused the light of the gospel
to shine throughout the world
through the preaching of your servant Saint Paul:
grant that we who celebrate his wonderful conversion
may follow him in bearing witness to your truth; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Immediately they left the boat … and followed him’ (Matthew 4: 22) … a boat by the River Great Ouse in Old Stratford, Northamptonshire (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

Three short plays are part of two evenings with Stony Playreaders this evening and on Thursday (29 January) as part of StonyWords 2026

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 9, Sunday 9 November 2025, III before Advent, Remembrance Sunday

‘Now there were seven brothers’ (Luke 20: 29) … the Seven Brothers Taverna at the Harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. In the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today is the Third Sunday before Advent and Remembrance Sunday.

Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, and in the afternoon I plan to attend the Remembrance Sunday commemorations at the War Memorial on Horsefair Green.

Meanwhile, before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The war memorial in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 20: 27-38 (NRSVA):

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’

34 Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’

‘Now there were seven brothers’ (Luke 20: 29) … the Seven Brothers Tavern at the Harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections

When I was younger, much younger, I remember leafing through the pages of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of Ireland during what I must have then thought were boring sermons.

Did you ever do that?

What did you come across?

Some things were undoubtedly more boring than any sermon, such as the list of sermons in the ‘Second Book of Homilies,’ listed in Article 35 of the 39 Articles.

But perhaps the most unusual thing I remember finding in the ‘old’ Book of Common Prayer was the ‘Table of Kindred and Affinity.’

It seeks to list ‘whosoever are related are forbidden by the Church … to marry together.’

The table – which is not there any more – ruled, for example, that a man may not marry his mother, his sister, his daughter, or numerous other relatives, and neither may a woman marry her uncle, nephew, grandparent or grandchild. That all makes common sense.

But it goes into obsessive detail with some surprising prohibitions. For example, a man may not marry his wife’s father’s mother or his daughter’s son’s wife.

I can still recall how my mind boggled at the thought of the need for such rules. What was life like back in the 16th century if the Church felt it needed to specify such prohibitions? And how many women had the opportunity even to contemplate marrying their deceased granddaughter’s husband?

At least six of the 25 relationships that are expressly prohibited from developing into marriage involve no genetic link at all. Yet the list did not prohibit marriages between first cousins. So some of the inconsistencies are striking, to say the least.

Some of the rules make sense: when extended families were the norm, and often lived under the same roof, these rules warned against exploitative relationships within family circles. They helped to prevent secret affairs that might have continued in the hope of their eventual ratification with marriage. And they clearly delineated family structures in ways that were important when it came to inheriting land and property and keeping them within the family.

But it could all have been, and was, dealt with anyway, through legislation and law.

What was something like that doing in a prayer book, in the Book of Common Prayer, in the first place?

I think it had less to do with morality and more to do with the Church needing to bolster long-held prejudices by cloaking them in statements that were good in part but in sum amounted to bad law and bad theology.

When the men who drew up this table in the Church, and the men who handed it down to Anglicans unquestioned for centuries, were getting their minds around some very peculiar relationships, did any one of them ever think about asking a woman, ‘What do you think about these obscure and arcane rules and regulations?’

Is the Church not doing the very same today, with the way it tries to rule about who can and who cannot get married in church today?

As the Church distances itself from marriages that are actually allowed in law today, who among senior decision-makers actually takes the time to ask the women and men who are refused Church marriages, ‘Would you like to be married in Church?’

For example, when Lyra McKee was murdered in Derry in 2019 Church leaders were right to rush to condemn her brutal murder. It was so fitting that she received a dignified funeral in a Church of Ireland cathedral, Saint Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, later that month. But had the bishops and priests who condemned her murder and were supportive of her funeral instead offered her the marriage she had looked forward to, they would have been severely disciplined by Church authorities.

And, as they were disciplined, I imagine, no-one would have asked Lyra McKee what she wanted, what she needed, what she had hoped for.

I think her plight would have been similar to the plight of the woman who is at the centre of the debate in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 20: 27-38).

Her plight was probably not plucked from thin air, not concocted in the narrow imaginations of the Sadducees, the prominent group of ruling priests in the Temple, who use her dilemma to try to paint Jesus into a corner.

They are not interested in her plight.

They are not interested in her dilemma.

They are not interested in the fact that a widow in that society who fails to remarry is left without financial means of support, is left in poverty, may even be forced into prostitution.

Who ever asked this woman what she would like?

Who ever asked her how she would like to end up in this life … never mind in the next life?

And just as they had no real interest in life after death for this widow, they had no interest in life before death for her.

If they had, they would have asked her how she felt not about eternal life but about her life in the here and now … how did she feel after the death of her husband and her husbands … how did she feel about being traded as a commodity to protect men’s property interests … how did they die … did they die in war …?

On Remembrance Sunday each year, I wonder how many men bothered to ask my grandmother how she felt when her husband, my grandfather, returned from Thessaloniki in the middle of World War I, suffering from malaria, malaria that would eventually take him to an early grave.

She was so distressed that the age she gave for him on his gravestone is 49 … not the age he was when he died in 1921 (which was 53), but the age he was in 1916, when he returned from the war in Greece.

Perhaps, in this very sad mistake, she was saying the war had killed her husband.

She lived as widow for another 27 years, bringing up six children, two stepchildren and the four children of her marriage. Who ever asked her what she felt about life-before-death, never mind life-after-death?

If we fail to listen to the plight of the victims of war, then war creeps up on us suddenly. And then we ask: ‘Why did no-one tell us.’

World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars. That promise was betrayed, for my grandmother, for all the men who are named on the war memorials in our churches, for their widows, mothers, sisters, daughters, for all who loved them, for all who continue to love them and to cherish their memories.

Wars continue to be waged in Ukraine and Russia … in Israel, Gaza and Palestine … in Sudan … in central Africa …in the caves and mountains of Afghanistan.

And when the war widows and refugees arrive in Britain or Ireland, they must wonder, in some places, whether we truly believe that love is at the heart of the Christian way of life.

The Sadducees in this morning’s reading do not believe in the afterlife anyway, so any answer Jesus gives is going to be ridiculed.

This woman, unnamed, is made an object by the people who come to Jesus with their silly questions. But none among them is truly concerned about her plight.

Her only role is to meet the obscure obligations set out in the arcane interpretations of the marriage code that make her an object. She has no name, no home; her only function is to serve the needs of men, to continue the family name and line, so that the family lands and wealth are not estranged.

But instead of dealing with trifling arguments that do not matter, Jesus avoids the debate and tells us three very straight truths:

• God is alive and loving.

• We are God’s children.

• Love is at the heart of true relationships.

Of course, we do not yet live in the fullness of God’s kingdom. People still marry, people still vote and run in elections, people still invest and spend money. When we do those things, they have most value when they reflect the values of God’s kingdom.

When they do not reflect kingdom values, they become debased and lose value, significance and meaning. It is easy to understand that in terms of the political, social and economic difficulties we face. It is more difficult to say that in terms of relationships and marriages.

How we inhabit the political and economic structures of this age can become a sign of our dwelling in God’s kingdom … if we live with those structures so that we give priority, not to our own self-interest and gain, but to the concerns and needs of the poor, the outcast and the marginalised.

If we live our committed relationships in this life with integrity and honesty and self-sacrifice, they can become signs of how we live our risen lives in the age to come.

And in the great working out of God’s great eternal plans, these are the three eternal truths that matter most:

• God is alive and loving.

• We are God’s children.

• Love is at the heart of meaningful relationships, with God and with others.

‘Now there were seven brothers’ (Luke 20: 29) … the Seven Brothers Taverna at the Harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 9 November 2025, III Sunday before Advent, Remembrance Sunday):

The theme this week (9 to 15 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Hope for the Future’ (pp 54-55). This theme is introduced today with Reflections from Laura D’Henin-Ivers, Chief Executive Officer at Hope for the Future:

Read and meditate on Psalm 24.

On 10 November, COP30 begins in Brazil, marking a crucial moment in our collective journey to care for God’s creation. Climate change threatens the most vulnerable, from communities facing rising seas to farmers enduring droughts. As Christians, we are called to pray and act, advocating for justice and sustainability.

Faith calls us to action – just as prophets spoke against injustice, so must we raise our voices for the earth. Stewardship is a sacred trust. Through advocacy, sustainable living, and hope, we embody our love for God and neighbour.

At Hope for the Future, we believe in collaboration with decisionmakers for bold climate action. Faith communities hold a unique role, as trusted institutions, vital parts of local and national societal fabric, and moral guides. When we speak up for climate justice, we amplify our message, making it harder for leaders to ignore. Rooted in shared values, faith-driven advocacy builds meaningful change.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 9 November 2025, III Sunday before Advent, Remembrance Sunday) invites us to pray by reflecting on these words: ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth’ (Job 19: 25).

The prayer diary yesterday invited us to pray: Lord of Peace, we pray for your peace to fill the world, healing divisions and bringing unity. May Christians everywhere commit to being prayerful, reflecting your love and sharing your peace with others.

A wilted poppy in the mud in a field in Comberford, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Father,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of all:
govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,
and bring the families of the nations,
divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,
to be subject to his just and gentle rule;
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 peace,
whose Son Jesus Christ proclaimed the kingdom
and restored the broken to wholeness of life:
look with compassion on the anguish of the world,
and by your healing power
make whole both people and nations;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Additional Collect:

God, our refuge and strength,
bring near the day when wars shall cease
and poverty and pain shall end,
that earth may know the peace of heaven
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Peeparations in Stony Stratford and Old Stratford for Remembrance Sunday (Photographs: 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: 88, Tuesday 5 August 2025

‘He made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side’ (Matthew 14: 22) … a boat on the other side of the Ouse in Old Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VII, 3 August 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Oswald (642), King of Northumbria, 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.

A boat in the small harbour in Loughshinny in north Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 14: 22-36 (NRSVA):

22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’

28 Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ 29 He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

34 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. 35 After the people of that place recognized him, they sent word throughout the region and brought all who were sick to him, 36 and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

A boat full of tourists off the coast of Crete … is the only difference between tourism and people smuggling the way people pay? Or is it the difference between present pleasures and future hopes? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection

In recent months, I have enjoyed being on boats in Sarawak and Singapore, barge trips on the Grand union Canal, and watching rowers and boats in York, on the Backs in Cambridge and on the river in Oxford. I even had the pleasure many years ago of one college boat club in Cambridge asking to use one of my photographs in a fundraising drive.

It is almost 60 years since I first went rowing as a teenager on Lough Ramor in Virginia. But I had long thought that I would be left regretting that I had gone to Cambridge as a student too late in life to learn, or to re-learn how to row.

I had come to enjoy rowing as a sport and an activity, but in a very passive way.

Then, shortly after I arrived in Askeaton in 2017, one evening, as I was standing at a slipway by the banks of the Rover Deel, I was invited suddenly and unexpectedly to get into a boat and to row.

I was fearless. It was a pleasure I had often hoped for and wished for. And for almost an hour, we rowed upstream, under the bridge at Askeaton, and as far as the castle, and then downstream past the factory, although not as far as the estuary. When I suggested that I might be too old to learn, or re-learn, how to row, I was told brusquely and with humour that once I stopped learning I had stopped living.

Later that same week, I watched children and teenagers hop in and out of boats, freely and fearlessly, confident of their own ability and the ability of those who were training them.

Fearlessly. But as I was messing about on boats in Crete some weeks earlier, hopping on and off them in the sun as I visited smaller islands and lagoons, I thought of how this was a pleasure that I was paying for and wondered but how many refugees were full of fear as they boarded boats in the dark trying to arrive on Greek islands, having paid exorbitantly for the risk and the dangers.

Fearlessly. What are your worst fears?

I know, at present, many of us have fears arising out of the wars between Russia and Ukraine, the wars involving Israel in Gaza, and the global insecurity created by the mercurial decision making by the Trump regime.

As we grow up and mature, we tend to have fewer fears of the outside world, and as adults we begin to cope with the fears we once had as children, by turning threats into opportunities.

The fears I had as a child – of snakes, of the wind, of storms at sea, of lightning – are no longer the stuff of recurring nightmares they were as a child. I have learned to be cautious, to be sensible and to keep my distance, and to be in awe of God’s creation.

But most of us have recurring dreams that are vivid and that have themes that keep repeating themselves. They fall into a number of genres, and most psychotherapists identify a number of these types of dreams that most of us deal with in our sleep at various stages in adult life.

They include dreams about:

• Drowning.

• Finding myself unprepared for a major function or event, whether it is social or work-related.

• Flying or floating in the air, but then falling suddenly.

• Being caught naked in public.

• Missing a train, a bus or a plane.

• Caught in loos or lifts that do not work, or that overwork themselves.

• Calling out in a crowd but failing to vocalise my scream or not being heard in the crowd or recognised.

• Falling, falling into an abyss.

There are others. But in sleep the brain can act as a filter or filing cabinet, helping us to process, deal with and put aside what we have found difficult to understand in our waking hours, or to try to find ways of dealing with our lack of confidence, feelings of inadequacy, with the ways we confuse gaining attention with receiving love, or with our needs to be accepted, affirmed and loved.

Saint Peter’s plight in the Gospel reading (Matthew 14: 22-36) at the Eucharist today seems to be the working out of a constant, recurring, vivid dream of the type that many of us experience at some stage: the feelings of drowning, floating and falling suddenly, being in a crowd and yet alone, calling out and not being heard, or not being recognised for who we are.

Peter sees Christ walking on the lake or floating effortlessly above the water. At first, he thinks he is seeing a ghost. But then Christ calls to him, and Saint Peter responds.

Once he recognises Christ, Saint Peter gets out of the boat, starts walking on the water, and comes towards Christ. But he loses his confidence when he notices the strong wind, he is frightened, and he begins to sink.

He cries out: ‘Lord, save me.’ Christ immediately reaches out his hand and catches him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’

They get back into the boat, the wind ceases. And those in the boat worship him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

Was the sight of Christ walking on the water an illusion?

Was Peter’s idea that he could walk on the water the product of an over-worked mind while it was sleeping?

Did he realise he was unprepared for the great encounter?

Did the wind cease when he woke from the dream?

All of these questions are over-analytical and fail to deal with the real encounter that takes place.

Even before the Resurrection, in his frailty, in his weakness, in his humble humanity, Saint Peter calls out to Christ: ‘Lord, save me’ (verse 30).

Do the others in the boat fall down at Christ’s feet and worship him because he can walk on water? Because he can lift a drowning man out of the depths? Or because they recognise that in Christ they can find the end to all their worst dreams and nightmares?

In this come-and-go summer, we know too, as they say, to expect the unexpected. On a few occasions, black clouds have moved across our rivers. The weather could turn, the waters could become choppy, and this can be a frightening experience, even on rivers, close to the river bank and close to firm land.

As seasoned boat-handlers, the Disciples know not to try walking on water. They know the risk of sudden storms and swells, and they know the safety of a good boat, as long as it has a good crew.

But since the early history of the Church, the boat has symbolised the Church.

The bark (barque or barchetta) symbolises the Church tossed on the sea of disbelief, worldliness, and persecution but finally reaching safe harbour. Part of the imagery comes from the ark saving Noah’s family during the Flood (I Peter 3: 20-21). Christ protects Peter’s boat and the Disciples on the stormy Sea of Galilee (see also Mark 6: 45-52; John 6 16-21). The mast forms the shape of the Cross.

It is an image that appears in Apostolic Constitutions and the writings of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. We still retain the word nave for the main part of the church, which, architecturally often looks like an up-turned boat.

So, I do would not want any of us to risk walking on water, or to play stupidly in boats on the river or on a lake, and certainly not off the coast or out to see.

But if we are to dream dreams for our parishes, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to be aware that it comes at the risk of feeling our dreams may be the nightmares of others.

If we are going to dream dreams for our parishes, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we may need to step out of our safety zones, our comfort zones, and know that this comes with a risk warning.

And if we are going to dream dreams for our parishes, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to keep our eyes focussed on Christ, and to know that the Church is there to bring us on that journey.

Let us dream dreams, take risks for the Kingdom of God, step outside the box. But let us keep our eyes on Christ and remember that the boat, the Church, is essential for our journey, and let us continue to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

An icon of the Church as a boat, including Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers (Icon: Deacon Matthew Garrett, www.holy-icons.com)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 5 August 2025):

The theme this week (3 to 9 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Indigenous Wisdom’ (pp 24-25). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for the Americas and the Caribbean, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 5 August 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, bless Jocabed, Winston and Isabel as they stand up for justice. Strengthen their advocacy, protect the communities they belong to, and guide us to stand together in faith and action.

The Collect:

Lord God almighty,
who so kindled the faith of King Oswald with your Spirit
that he set up the sign of the cross in his kingdom
and turned his people to the light of Christ:
grant that we, being fired by the same Spirit,
may always bear our cross before the world
and be found faithful servants of the gospel;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post-Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Oswald:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect in the Eve of the Transfiguration:

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

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Learning, or re-learning, how to row on the River Deel at Askeaton, Co Limerick

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: 44, Sunday 22 June 2025, First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I)

‘For a long time … he did not live in a house but in the tombs’ (Luke 8: 27) … the Lycian rock tombs in the cliff faces above Fethiye in Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I, 22 June 2025). Later this morning, I am reading one of the lessons at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, 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, 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.

‘Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding’ (Luke 8: 32) … sculptures of pigs throughout Tamworth celebrate the political achievements of Sir Robert Peel, including ‘bread for the millions’ and ‘religious tolerance’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 8: 26-39 (NRSVA):

26 Then they [Jesus and the Disciples] arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’ – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

‘So he got into the boat and returned’ (Luke 8: 37) … a boat by the banks of the River Great Ouse in Old Stratford, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

Our Gospel story (Luke 8: 26-39) is set by the Sea of Galilee. After Jesus calms a storm on the lake (Luke 8: 22-25), he and the disciples arrive on the other side and travel deep into Gentile territory, perhaps 30 or 50 km on the other side of the lake. The area is known as the Decapolis, dominated by ten Greek-speaking cities.

Imagine you are among the first group of people in the Early Church who begin to read this story. You would expect the story to unfold with Jesus and Disciples seeking out distant family members, staying with nice, upright people, perhaps visiting the local synagogue maintained by a tiny Jewish minority presence in one of the towns.

But from the very moment they get off the boat, they are in a place and among a people they would have regarded as unclean: these Gentile people are ritually ‘unclean,’ the man has an ‘unclean’ spirit, he is naked or a person of visible and public shame, he lives among the tombs, which are ritually unclean … and the pigs are unclean too.

This episode plays a key role in the theory of the ‘Scapegoat’ put forward by the French literary critic René Girard (1923-2015). The opposition of the entire city to the one man possessed by demons is the typical template for a scapegoat. Girard notes that, in the demoniac’s self-mutilation, he seems to imitate the way the villagers might have tried to stone him and to cast him out of their society.

For their part, the villagers in their reaction to Christ show they are not really concerned with the good of the possessed man. He acts as a scapegoat, and they can project anything they dislike about themselves onto him. Why kill him when he has such a useful function in their enclosed society?

Now, I do not in any way want to diminish or dismiss the real power of evil and the hold that it can have over people.

But in René Girard’s take on this story, the uneasy truce that the Gadarenes and the demoniac have worked out means he serves a ritual purpose for them so long as he is alive and perceived as being possessed.

But when Jesus steps off the boat, he brings with him a stronger spiritual power: love and healing, forgiveness and acceptance, are stronger than stoning, chaining, or scapegoating. And the pigs rushing headlong over the cliffside tell a story that is not so much about cruelty to animals but saying we need to put behind us all that we regard as unclean or sinful in others and need to start accepting ourselves.

After this episode, the man not only sits ‘at the feet of Jesus,’ as disciples did, but he becomes a missionary to other Gentiles. This is a story of dramatic transformation.

Look at the changes in this man’s life: he moves from outside the city to inside it; he moves from living in tombs and being driven into the desert to being alive in a house; he moves from nakedness to being clothed, from being demented to being of sound mind.

He moves from destructive isolation to being part of a nurturing, human community. He moves from being expelled from the religious community to being part of the Church and proclaiming the good news. This is real mission, the sort of mission I hope to hear about this week with USPG.

‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you’ (Luke 8: 39).

Saint Luke here uses the word οἶκος (oikos), which means a house, an inhabited house, even a palace or the house of God, as opposed to δόμος (domos), the word used for a house as a domestic home. Those who live there now form one family or household, and this comes to mean the family of God or the Church (for examples, see I Timothy 3: 15; I Peter 4: 17, and Hebrews 3: 2, 5).

The outsider, the person seen as unclean and defiled, the scapegoat, is restored to a full place in the Church, in God’s household, in God’s family.

Who do we see as Scapegoats today, as outsiders to be pushed to the margins, so that we can maintain the purity of our family, church or society?

Who do we expose and shame so that we can maintain the appearance of our own purity?

Are these the very people who might bring the good news to people on the margins, inviting them into the household of God?

‘For a long time … he did not live in a house but in the tombs’ (Luke 8: 27) … in the graveyard between Koutouloufari and Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 22 June 2025, Trinity I):

‘Windrush Day’ is the theme this week (22-28 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme is introduced today with reflections by Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG:

‘Windrush Day marks the anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush in Tilbury on the south coast of the UK. On board were hundreds of Caribbean people who had left the West Indies owing to the call from Britain – the ‘mother country’ – to help rebuild a war-ravaged country.

‘Although they were responding to a call for help, the reality for many of the Windrush generation was a new life subject to hostility, rejection and racism. Shamefully this took place on streets, in neighbourhoods and even at the doors of parish churches – a place where they should have felt welcomed and at home, able to worship God alongside other Christians. It is painfully ironic that it was also the Church of England that had once taken the Anglican faith to the Caribbean – often preaching in the very plantations where enslaved people were held in bondage. A double act of rejection.

‘It is in this reality that the Gospel speaks a powerful and compelling truth. We are all sisters and brothers in Christ, and we all have a responsibility to ensure that our churches are safe places and spaces of belonging for people of every nation and every language who come to church to worship and serve God. It is not just about parish church congregations; the Church of England needs to continue to make the necessary institutional and systemic changes to ensure a more diverse church at every level and recognise that honesty and openness is also key to its flourishing in society.’

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 22 June 2025, Trinity I, Windrush Day) invites us to pray:

Loving Lord, we thank you for the amazing contribution of the Windrush generation to our communities and workplaces, and to your Church in our land.

The Collect:

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
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 Father,
we thank you for nourishing us
with these heavenly gifts:
may our communion strengthen us in faith,
build us up in hope,
and make us grow in love;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of truth,
help us to keep your law of love
and to walk in ways of wisdom,
that we may find true life
in Jesus Christ your Son.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding’ (Luke 8: 32) … The Pig, a pub sign on Tamworth Street in Lichfield, now the Beacon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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 Easter 2025: 14, Saturday 3 May 2025

‘His disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake’ (John 6: 16-17) … boats at the mouth of the Sarawak River at Bako National Park north of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Our Easter celebrations continue in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Third Sunday of Easter (Easter III). Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost.

The pop-up café Στέκι Mας (Our Place), which takes place in Stony Stratford on the first Saturday of each month, is at the Swinfen Harris Church Hall beside the Greek Orthdox Church on London Road from 10:30 am today. This is also World Press Freedom Day, an important day to mark and cherish as media freedoms are trampled underfoot by the Trump regime in the US.

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.

‘When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake’ (John 6: 19) … a lone rower at the Sidney Sussex Boat Club on the Backs in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 16-21 (NRSVA):

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 17 got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20 But he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’ 21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.

‘His disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake’ (John 6: 16-17) … a boat on the Ouse at Old Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflections:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist follows immediately after the account of the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6: 1-15), which we read about yesterday.

These are two of the seven signs in Saint John’s Gospel:

• Turning water into wine in Cana (John 2: 1-11)
• Healing with a word (John 4: 46-51)
• Healing a crippled man at Bethesda (John 5: 1-9)
• The feeding of 5,000 (John 6: 1-14)
• Walking on water (John 6: 16-21)
• The healing of the man born blind (John 9: 1-7)
• The Raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11: 1-46).

The Dominican author and theologian, Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, points out that that in the Bible, seven is the number of perfection. We know of the six days of creation and how God rested on the seventh. In Saint John’s Gospel, we have seven signs and seven ‘I AM’ sayings disclosing for us who Christ truly is.

The feeding with the bread and fish is also a prelude to, looks forward to, another meal by the shores of Lake Tiberias. We read tomorrow about that breakfast with the disciples when Jesus feeds them with bread and fish (John 21: 1-19).

Immediately after he hears and responds to the cry of the poor, Christ hears the cry of creation. He calms the waves and the waters and brings his light into the darkest fears of the disciples.

‘It is I; do not be afraid.’

We can be transfixed by fear or paralysed into inaction.’ But poverty and the assault on the earth challenge us to hear the groaning of creation, and we need to be reminded that there can be no salvation for humanity that does not include creation.

Let the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup take us to the heart of creation.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

An icon of the Church as a boat, including Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers (Icon: Deacon Matthew Garrett, www.holy-icons.com)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 3 May 2025):

‘Become Like Children’ provides 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). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 3 May 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for FeAST and the way in which it unites Anglican scholars in creative and critical theological engagement. May it foster mutual learning and strengthen our commitment to justice, peace, and compassion within the Anglican Communion and beyond.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
you have given your only Son to die for our sins
and to rise again for our justification:
grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness
that we may always serve you
in pureness of living and truth;
through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord God our Father,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ
you have assured your children of eternal life
and in baptism have made us one with him:
deliver us from the death of sin
and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred:
open the doors of our hearts,
that we may seek the good of others
and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace,
to the praise of God the Father.

Collect on the Eve of Easter III:

Almighty Father,
who in your great mercy gladdened the disciples
with the sight of the risen Lord:
give us such knowledge of his presence with us,
that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life
and serve you continually in righteousness and truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow


Rowing on the River Ouse in York (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