Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 142, Sunday 27 September 2026 Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII)

He said to his sons, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today’ (see Matthew 21: 28) … in a vineyard Perpignan in the south of France (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 27 September). Later this morning, I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. I also plan to visit the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford later this morning.

Today in the Jewish Calendar is the second day od Sukkot 5787. Yom Tob Day 1 started at sunset on Friday night (25 September) and ended last night (26 September), and Yom Tob Day 2 started yedsterday evening and ends this evening (27 September).

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?’ (Matthew 21: 25) … the baptism of John in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 21: 23-32 (NRSVA):

23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’ 24 Jesus said to them, ‘I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?’ And they argued with one another, ‘If we say, “From heaven”, he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?” 26 But if we say, “Of human origin”, we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.’ 27 So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And he said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

28 ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” 29 He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

Rome or Paris? Black or White? … are all decisions a clear choice between conflicting contrasts? … wallpaper in a restaurant in Templeogue, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Black or White?

Dog or Cat?

Land or Sea?

Wet Bob or Dry Bob?

Paris or Rome?

Wine or Beer?

It’s the sort of game we all play in our families at one time or another. I loved playing ‘Matching Pairs’ with my sons when they were at the early learning stage.

For adults, there are similar jokes about two kinds of people we compare or contrast: ‘There are two types of people: those who divide people into two categories, and those who don’t.’ For the mathematicians: ‘There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.’ And for those with a more subtle sense of humour: ‘There are two types of people in this world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.’

The readings in the lectionary today give us contrasting pairs. In the first reading (Exodus 17: 1-7), we see contrasts between adults and children; water and wilderness; testing and thirsting; obeying and quarrelling; responsible freedom and slavery without responsibility. The Psalm (Psalm 78) contrasts images of ancestors and children, day and night, rock and river, and so on. In the Epistle reading (Philippians 2: 1-13), the Apostle Paul presents the stark contrasts offered in Christ of slavery and freedom, deity and humanity, fear and trembling, heaven and earth.

These images prepare for the matching pairs or clashing contrasts in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 21: 23-32).

In the week before his Crucifixion, Christ has just shown the importance of faith in understanding God’s ways. Now, as he teaches in the Temple, representatives of the Sanhedrin, the chief priests and the elders, ask who has given him the power and authority to say and do all that he has said and done in his ministry.

However, Christ declines to answer them until they first answer his question, one that will show whether they have the faith needed to understand his answer.

Those who come to question Christ are skilled in the Law. But this is of little help when it comes to deciding whether a prophet is genuinely from God, in this case Saint John the Baptist.

If they say that Saint John the Baptist was from God, they ought to have repented as he urged them. If they say John was not from God, they risk losing face and credibility with the crowd who are now following Christ. The Sanhedrin judged such issues, but their answer shows their incompetence.

In the second part of this reading (verses 28-30), Christ tells a parable about admission to the kingdom. Like the first son in this parable, people once regarded as disobedient and having lived evil lives, such as tax collectors and prostitutes, have turned to God. But people like the second son, who have given lip-service to the law of God, have not lived out what they say they believe. The second son in the parable addresses the father as κύριος (kyrios), not merely Lord, but in the Septuagint a way of addressing God, yet remains disobedient. br />
However, there is still time.

The Gospel reading is set in the immediate aftermath of Christ’s entry in triumph into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his cleansing of the Temple. When he returns to the Temple the following day, he is confronted by the religious and civic leaders, the guardians of belief and tradition, who challenge and question him about his power and authority.

The ‘chief priests and the elders of the people’ are the leaders in the Temple hierarchy, and also at the apex of society in Jerusalem – questioning Jesus about what gives him authority. In particular, they ask what gives him the right to behave as he does, and especially the right to claim he is acting in God’s name when he is behaving like that.

It is a question that Christ might have expected, under the circumstances. The exchange takes place when he enters the Temple. The day before had been an eventful day: when Christ enters Jerusalem and the crowds hail him as king. He next goes into the Temple courts, he overturns the tables and the seats of the money changers and the dove sellers, and he speaks about the destruction of the Temple.

The Temple authorities have been offended. Quite naturally, they have to confront him.

Who does he think he is?

What gives him the right to force his way in and stir things up?

What authority has he to behave like this?

But, in a clever manoeuvre, Christ answers their questions by asking his own question. It was acceptable then, but every bar room lawyer knows now that you are not allowed to ask questions that allow only a choice between two convicting answers, loaded questions like: ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’

Loaded questions are loaded with presuppositions, often with built-in fallacies and false dichotomies. And the chief priests and the elders fall into a trap that every sixth-form debater would know how to set and how to escape.

There is a great deal of humour here. Those who are skilled in the Law failed to see the flawed legal trap. And in doing this they display their innate inabilities, their incomparable incompetence, their own failures in judgment.

In this reading, Christ answers with a two-part question. And once again, he turns the tables on those who confront him. They are taken aback; they are caught in a dilemma: if they answer one way, they are caught out; if they answer the other, they are still caught out. It is a dichotomy, a nd either way they cannot win.

As they are left mulling this over, Christ tells the parable of two sons and a father. The second dichotomy, the second comparison, the second either/or choice, is posed when Christ tells this parable about a father who sends his two sons, a willing son and an unwilling son, to work in the family vineyard.

It is a sharp contrast between being and doing. The two sons remind me once again of the T-shirt I have joked about for years and that eventually I bought in the Plaka in Athens with the words:

‘To do is to be’ – Socrates

‘To be is to do’ – Plato

‘Do be do be do be do’ – Sinatra

The American publisher Cyrus Curtis (1850-1933) once said: ‘There are two kinds of people who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.’

But the two sons illustrate a serious dilemma: Those who respond negatively to what they are asked to do, may eventually do it … and recognise their initial wilfulness. Those who say they are going to do something they are tasked with, but then refuse to follow-up, to deliver, to do, refuse to recognise their own wilfulness yet persist in their sinfulness.

How often have we responded to people because of their words rather than their deeds and found we have completely misjudged them?

The two sons are asked to go to work in the family vineyard. One son says: ‘I will not.’ In a Mediterranean village culture, in which there is no such thing as personal privacy, this son’s reaction to his father shames the father publicly. The other son says: ‘I go, sir.’ In public, he appears to be what a good son should be.

But the tables are turned when we learn that the son who mouths off actually goes to work in the vineyard, while the son who seems at first to be good and dutiful turns out to be disobedient.

So, those who say they are compliant and say they are doing the right thing have headed off to do things their own way, while claiming they are doing what God wants.

On the other hand, Christ tells all present that even prostitutes and tax collectors who appear to be disobedient might actually end up with a true place in the vineyard. In today’s context, who are the people I keep excluding from the kingdom yet are being called in by God?

Paradoxes aside, most of us are not like one son or the other … most of us are like both sons, and wrestle with their responses and their approaches throughout our lives.

nvitation to a party, a book launch, a wedding, often have four little letters at the end: ‘RSVP’? Have you ever been one of those people who, anxious not to offend, sends back a reply saying yes, I’ll be there, and then something else crops up, and I fail to turn up?

I admit that at time I have been invited to events, ignored the RSVP line in the bottom corner, and then, at the last moment, turned up. And, I have to confess, I have, at least one or twice, accepted … and not turned up. On which evening do you think I was most appreciated, most welcomed? It is more forgivable to be socially awkward than to be wilfully rude.

When we strive with the demands of Christian living, with Christian discipleship, it is easy to be like one of these sons. There are times when we may find it difficult to do what God is asking you to do. We wait, we think, we ponder, but eventually we answer that RSVP and seek to do God’s will. We say ‘No’ countless times, and then realise how worthwhile it all is: labouring in the vineyard should be hard work, but it leads to a good harvest and good wine.

I have to be careful to distinguish between God’s will and my own will. When they coincide, there are countless blessings. But when they are in conflict, I need to beware of pretending that one is the other, that I am answering the Father’s call and doing his work, when in reality I am doing what I want to do myself, and telling others what I want rather than what God wants.

In The Great Divorce, CS Lewis claims: ‘There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done”.’

Doing and Being … advice on a T-shirt in the Plaka in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 27 September 2026, Trinity XVII):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 27 September to 3 October 2026 (pp 42-43), is ‘Power of Language’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG:

‘Language is more than words; it carries culture, identity, and connection. It preserves memory, shapes community understanding, and gives voice to what matters most. At the USPG International Consultation 2026, the Right Revd Dushantha Rodrigo and the Right Revd Sally Hernández García shared examples of how language can both divide and heal communities.

‘In Sri Lanka, Tamil and Sinhala communities have long histories and rich cultural traditions. After independence, political decisions once excluded Tamil speakers from official recognition, leading to unrest, lost opportunity, and deep division. In short, “Two languages, one country; one language, two countries.” The Church responded by using language as a bridge, offering services, hymns, and liturgy in Tamil, Sinhala, and English so communities could worship together. “Presenting the gospel in different languages gives us credibility in a multi-lingual nation. No message means no hope at all,” explained Bishop Dushantha. Language here becomes access to the gospel and a pathway to reconciliation.

‘In Mexico, Indigenous languages continue alongside Spanish, allowing communities to express faith in ways that honour local culture. Translating the Book of Common Prayer and other liturgical materials is not only technical work but an act of inclusion and respect.

‘As a linguist myself, it was amazing to worship in many different languages. It offered a tangible reminder that God is not bound by language or culture, and that when every voice is honoured, worship and mission are enriched and made more complete.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 27 September 2026, Trinity XVII) invites us to pray as we read and mediate on Matthew 21: 23-32:

He said to his sons, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today’ (see Matthew 21: 28) … in a vineyard in Platanias, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘John came to you in the way of righteousness’ (Matthew 21: 32) … Saint John the Baptist in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó, near Iraklion in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 140, Friday 25 September 2026

When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 21 September). Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in this week in the Church Calendar are also known as Ember Days.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester and spiritual writer; and Saint Sergei of Radonezh (1314-1392), Russian monastic reformer, teacher of the faith.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence

Luke 9: 18-22 (NRSVA):

18 Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ 19 They answered, ‘John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.’ 20 He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Messiah of God.’

21 He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, 22 saying, ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’

When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence

Today’s Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 9: 18-22), after his profound confession of faith, Saint Peter is ‘sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone.’ This is in sharp contrast to the response to this confession of faith in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, when Christ tells Saint Peter: ‘I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church …’ (Matthew 16: 18, NRSVA).

When is it appropriate to be silent and not speak out?

In Saint Mark’s Gospel, when Bartimaeus the blind beggar realises he is in the presence of Christ outside the gates of Jericho, ‘many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly’ (Mark 10: 48).

But are there times when words are not enough, when words are simply not appropriate?

In the midst of the unsettling and shocking turn events in the US in recent weeks, many people who speak out against racism, hatred and oppression, are being silenced by people who once claimed they defended free speech, while the name of Christianity is being misappropriated, hijacked and politically manipulated by people whose values and lifestyles show no commitment to living according to principles and values.

I am reminded of a saying attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: ‘Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.’

There are moments when actions speak louder than words, and when our lifestyle and discipleship offer far better sermons than anything we may say in a sermon.

There are moments to cry out loudly in the presence of God, and there are moments when silence is so appropriate.

So, in my prayers and silent reflections this morning, as the Church remembers Saint Sergei of Radonezh, regarded as the greatest of the Russian saints, my thoughts are turning to the icon of Christ the Blessed Silence, an icon found in some traditions in the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, but that is not so well known outside Orthodoxy.

In this icon, Christ is portrayed as a youthful figure looking like a winged angel, his hands crossed against his chest, sometimes wearing a bishop’s mitre and dressed in a sakkos (σάκκος), the vestment worn by Orthodox bishops. In most of these icons, Christ is shown with an eight-pointed, shining nimbus.

The icon of Christ the Blessed Silence represents his sacrifice, through his young face and crossed hands, and his ecclesiastic mission in his attire. His angel-like face and the wings point to his ministry. In some of these icons, Christ is bare-headed, in others he wears the crown of a bishop, to show that he is both the Great High Priest and the King of Kings. In some icons of Christ the Blessed Silence, Christ holds the cross, spear and sponge of the Crucifixion.

The tradition of icons of Christ the Blessed Silence developed in the 14th and 15th centuries on Mount Athos, in Greece and in the Balkans. In Greece it was associated in Greece with the tradition of Hesychia. This Blessed Silence of Christ associates this icon with the hesychasts in the Eastern Orthodox tradition – the Greek ἡσυχία (hesychia) is a word for silence or quiet.

This icon is known in Russian as Spas Blagoe Molchanie or the Saviour of the Blessed Silence, and even as the Angel of Great Counsel. The earliest icon in this tradition in mediaeval Rus dates from the late 15th century. Christ is portrayed on the iconostasis or icon screen in the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin in Moscow, above the entrance to the sanctuary and dates from ca 1482 or perhaps later (1514-1515).

This image was widespread in the 17th century, and it is found special reverence in the 18th and 19th centuries among the Old Believers in Russia. Many of these icons were confiscated from the Old Believers and kept in archives in St Petersburg.

The icon of Christ the Blessed Silence Saviour is one of the few types in which Christ is represented in the form of an angel. In these icons, Christ is young and without a beard, looking like an angel or messenger, the angel of the blessed silence.

The sacred silence of Christ in this icon is also associated with the Christ who was born in time to be the Suffering Servant who died in Silence. In the traditional interpretations of Isaiah, the Suffering Servant passages are associated with the crucifixion of Jesus:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53: 7)

So, the suffering Christ was silent, and Christ the Angel of Great Counsel is the Son of God begotten in the Silence of Eternity.

Isaiah also says:

He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street (Isaiah 42: 2).

These icons often also bear inscriptions from another passage in Isaiah:

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11: 2)

Sometimes Christ holds in his hand a scroll that reads: ‘You are the God of Peace, Father of Mercies, the Angel of Great Counsel.’ These words are in Irmos 5 in the Liturgy of the Nativity:

O God of peace and Father of mercies
Thou has sent to us the Angel of Great Counsel who grants us peace.
So we are guided to the light of the knowledge of God.
Waking early from the night we praise Thee, O Lover of men.

Traditionally, the words of Isaiah 9: 6 are associated with the birth of Christ and the Nativity narratives. They are best known in the English-speaking world because of their use in the libretto by Charles Jennens for Handel’s oratorio Messiah:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Jennens was drawing on the text of the Authorised Version or King James Version of the Bible, which reflects the Hebrew text of the Bible as it was known in the 17th century. However, early Christians knew the Biblical texts not in Hebrew, but in the Greek of the Septuagint. In Greek, Isaiah 9: 6 reads somewhat differently:

The ‘Messenger of Great Counsel’ (Ο Μεγάλης Βουλής Άγγελος) in the Septuagint may also be understood as the ‘Angel of Great Counsel.’ Greek versions of the icon of the Angel of Great Counsel sometimes include the inscription:

ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον καὶ ἥκω:
οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ ἐλήλυθα, ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνός με ἀπέστειλεν.

For I came from God and now I am here.
I did not come on my own, but he sent me (John 8: 42).

As I think of the icon of Christ the Blessed Silence, I think too of the Logos begotten from God in Eternity and of the birth of the Christ Child in time. He is the one who was, who is and who is to come, the one to cry out loud to and the one in whose presence we should be silent too.

I have said with humour and full sincerity that when my coffin is being taken into the church at my funeral (later than sooner, I hope), that I want to hear Leonard Cohen’s ‘If it be your will’ … and when my coffin is being carried out I want to hear his ‘Dance me to the end of love.’

So often I want to be in control. I want to control the agenda, I want to control conversations, I want to control discussions. And I particularly want to control the words I use, the words others are going to hear me say.

And so, I am humbled at times when I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, ‘If it be your will.’

Leonard Cohen ended many of those concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit:

Leonard Cohen sings of his nearly complete subjection to the divine will.

If he is told to be silent, he will be silent; if he is told to sing, he will sing.

If he is allowed to express his true voice (‘if a voice be true’), he will sing in praise of God from ‘this broken hill’ … from Calvary?

The mercy of God, the compassion of God, the love of God, redeems the burning hearts in hell … if it is God’s will.

Leonard Cohen’s great hope in this will leads to prayer, to the one who can ‘make us well’ if we devote ourselves to God, pray to God, sing to God. But he still prays to God to act on behalf of the suffering.

Cajoling God in song and poetry, Cohen says God has the power to ‘end this night’ of the darkness of the human condition, in which people are dressed in only dirty ‘rags of light’ that are fragmented, that are not fully whole and illuminated.

In this song, I imagine Christ on the cross as he speaks to God the Father as his agony comes to its close:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before.

The broken hill is Golgotha where he has been crucified, the rugged and rocky Mount of Calvary.

‘Let the rivers fill’ may refer to the water of his thirst, the water of his sweat, the water that streams from his side, the waters of baptism, the Living Water that will never leave us to thirst.

If it be your will
To make us well
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell.

Lancelot Andrewes, who is remembered in the calendar of the Church of England today, repeatedly emphasises that the ultimate heights of Christian mystery – particularly Christ's incarnation and his suffering on the cross – transcend what human words can articulate. In his 1604 Good Friday Passion Sermon, based on Lamentations 1: 12, Andrewes contemplates the unmatched, incomparable sorrow (non sicut) of Christ: ‘It is a non sicut this, it cannot be expressed as it should, and as other things may; in silence we may admire it, but all our words will not reach it.’

For Andrewes, trying to stretch words to encapsulate the depth of divine suffering borders on hubris. Instead, true devotion requires us to halt our speech and allow adoring silence to take over where vocabulary fails. He echoes Saint Augustine in his writings, noting that ‘even they that are full of words are but dumb’ when attempting to fully describe God, concluding that the highest form of praise ‘hath rather silence than words.’

He routinely returns to the intense cosmic paradox of Christmas: the Verbum infans, the ‘infant Word’ or the ‘Word without a word’. He marvels that the eternal Word of God, who commands the vastness of the oceans and the cosmos, would enter the world wrapped in swaddling clothes, entirely unable to speak. In Andrewes’s theology, God’s own choice to embrace the silence of infancy demands a mirroring, humbled silence from humanity as we approach the manger.

The Dominican theologian Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe of Oxford says: ‘We must wait for the resurrection to break the silence of the tomb.’ We must speak up when it is necessary, and to have the courage to speak is ‘ultimately founded upon the courage to listen.’

Leonard Cohen, If it be your will:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

When is it appropriate to be silent? (see Luke 9: 21) … an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence

Today’s Prayers (Friday 25 September 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 20 to 26 September 2026 (pp 40-41), is ‘For God and Country’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Rosie Dawson, USPG Trustee and freelance journalist.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 25 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray that the Gospel may be spoken, sung, and embodied in every tongue and context. Free us from silencing voices that we falsely claim do not belong.

The Collect of the Day:

Lord God, who gave to Lancelot Andrewes many gifts of your Holy Spirit,
making him a man of prayer and a pastor of your people:
perfect in us that which is lacking in your gifts,
of faith, to increase it,
of hope, to establish it,
of love, to kindle it,
that we may live in the light of your grace and glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Collect (for the ministry of all Christian people):

Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Lancelot Andrewes revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer (Ember Days):

Heavenly Father,
whose ascended Son gave gifts of leadership and service to the Church:
strengthen us who have received this holy food
to be good stewards of your manifold grace,
through him who came not to be served but to serve,
and give his life as a ransom for many,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow


‘If It Be Your Will’ … Leonard Cohen and The Webb Sisters, Live in London

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

The Greeks have a word for it: 68, Ρωμιοσύνη (Romiosini)

In the side streets of Platanias in Rethymnon … the meanings and understandings of ‘Romiosini’ are tied up with identity and soul (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The English words ‘Greek’ and ‘Greece’ do not exist in the Greek language. Greeks call themselves Hellene (Έλληνας, Hellinas), know the country as Hellas or Helláda (Ελλάδα), and know the Greek language as Ελληνικά (Elliniká). Why, even a Greek coffee is ένας ελληνικός (enas hellenikós).

The term ‘Greek’ comes not from Greek but from the ancient Latin word Graecus, derived from a small tribe (Graikoi) that the Romans may have encountered first in Epirus. In Greek mythology, Graecus (Γραικός, Graikos) was the son of Pandora II and Zeus. His mother was the daughter of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and sister of Helen. The label stuck in Western languages, including English. But it was never adopted by Greeks or in Greece.

Instead, Greeks refer to Greek people as Έλληνας (Hellinas, masculine singular) or Ελληνίδα (Ellinida, feminine singular).

Another word, but one only used among Greeks for themselves and seldom used in conversation with people who do not speak Greek is Ρωμιός (Romios), from Rome, meaning Byzantium. It is not used that often, but it has the vibe of the core of Greek identity, and it is sometimes used to refer to traditions and the traditional understanding of what it is to be Greek, Greek-born, with in-born Greek values and understandings.

The word romiosini comes from the Byzantine idea that Greeks are descendants of the Roman empire, as in the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire. It means more than just being Greek; it describes resilience, freedom, and survival through hard times and foreign rule. The words Ρωμιός (Romios) and Ρωμιοσύνη (Romiosini) are probably more appropriate to use when describing the emotions Greeks share and how they feel in the face of adversity or even foreign interference.

No two Greeks have the same definition of these terms. The meanings and understandings of Romiosini are tied up with identity and soul, it is both but it is neither. It is about Greek-ness, yet not about identity with the Greek State, which is less than 200 years old. It is Hellenic and it is Byzantine. If foreigners find it difficult to understand, then Greeks find it difficult to describe.

The word has its roots in being part of the Roman Empire. But not the Empire of Rome. It is eastern Rome or the Empire of Byzantium, it is the New Rome that is Constantinople, Κωνσταντινόπουλος (Konstantinopoulos), or simply ‘the City’.

The history of modern Greece, from the end of Ottoman rule to the 21st century fiscal crises, is one great unfolding drama and catastrophe, punctuated by coups, revolutions, invasions, civil wars, the tyranny of the colonels, and the tension of being both Western and Eastern, of being both Balkan and Anatolian.

Greeks of my generation learned to speak two languages, formal Καθαρεύουσας (Katharevoussa) and popular or domestic Δημοτική (Dhimotikí) – all at one and the same time … and at different times. At school and in churches, in songs and in placenames, Greeks learn how two words can mean the one thing: water is both ύδωρ (idor) and νερό (nero), bread is both άρτος (artos) and ψωμί (psomí).

Ireland is Ireland, England is England, but Greece is not defined by the cartographer’s limitations or lines drawn on the maps of Europe. Greece is Ἑλλάς (Hellas), but Romiosini is defined in hearts and in souls. Politics, parties and geographical boundaries can change, but Romiosini endures.

When Constantine founded Byzantium as the new capital of his empire, the word Hellene became associated with a pagan past, although Greek became the official language. From then on, the Roman and Greek cultures were virtually fused in the East.

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greeks were defined by the Turkish terms Rumlar and Rum millet. In time, Greek identity was largely defined by Orthodoxy. A unique intertwining and blending of language and religion shaped that identity, that fused a Hellenistic identity that claimed Classical Athens and a Greek Orthodoxy focussed on Byzantium and Constantinople.

Greeks today remember that Byzantium flourished while Western Europe was living in poverty, ignorance and violence.

Byzantine and Greek flags flying at the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The 20th century poet Kostis Palamas defended the use of the words Roman instead of Hellene and Romanism instead of Hellenism, of the use of the terms Romios and Romiosini.

For Crete’s greatest writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba exhibits all the characteristics of a character with all the marks of Romiosini.

Yiannis Ritsos (1909-1990), the poet of the Greek Left and of the resistance, saw the memory and emotion, the identity and the energy in these concepts that evade translation alive in Greek memory, and expressed it in his great long poem Romiosini.

For Ritsos, Greeks fall into one of two groups: the educated middle class, who want to forget the memory of the 400 years of Turkish oppression and identify with the ancient Greeks; and the peasant and working class, whose memory goes back through the Turkish occupation to Byzantium. Greeks in the first group think of themselves as Hellenes, those in the second group are Romoii, and Ritsos sees himself as a Romios, embracing the living language that expresses this.

Romiosini expresses and is the suffering and the experience German occupation, the Civil War, and the betrayal of the Resistance. But it goes back from the ballads the klephts sang in the War of Independence to the Byzantine poems and the Homeric songs.

In the 1960s, Mikis Theodorakis provided a choral setting that made this the classic anthem of Greek identity and of resistance to the colonels. It is one of his earliest works with nine songs drawing on the lyrics of Ritsos. In one of the earliest recordings, these songs and poems were interpreted by the legendary singer Grigoris Bithikotsis (Γρηγόρης Μπιθικώτσης).

This poem and this choral setting shatter the barriers of space and time and they recover the memories of past sufferings that shape identity from the debris of Greek history.

There are nine songs in all:

1, These trees (Αυτά τα δέντρα)
2, All are thirsty (Όλοι διψάνε)
3, When they shake the hand (Όταν σφίγγουν το χέρι)
4, So many years (Τόσα χρόνια)
5, They got enslaved (Μπήκαν στα σίδερα)
6, Tree after tree (Δέντρο το δέντρο)
7, Who would say it (Ποιος να το πει)
8, Soon the bells will ring (Θα σημάνουν οι καμπάνες)
9, They travelled to heaven (Τραβήξανε ψηλά)

When Greeks use the word Romiosini, it means more than being Greek, yet it is impossible to describe in English the emotional dimensions of this word. It conveys culture, resistance, place, tradition, dance, character, wilfulness, language, history, tradition, identity, dance and song.

It is the spirit stands up in the face of adversity, catastrophe, trauma and the tide and tempest of the world.

It is freedom and resistance, it is democracy and revolution, it is a way of being Greek but more than Greek.

And in recent days I have returned again to listening this interpretation by Mikis Theodorakis of the poem by Ritsos. The original references are to resistance to the Ottoman Turks. But this became one of the songs that symbolised the resistance to the colonels’ junta, and today it sings of resistance to everyone who would try to deny the Greekness of Greeks.

Γιάννη Ρίτσου, «Τη Ρωμιοσύνη μην την κλαις»

Τη ρωμιοσύνη μην την κλαις
εκεί που πάει να σκύψει
με το σουγιά στο κόκκαλο
με το λουρί στο σβέρκο

Νά τη πετιέται απο ξαρχής
κι αντριεύει και θεριεύει
και καμακώνει το θεριό
με το καμάκι του ήλιου

This is a poor effort to translate this deeply moving and emotional poem and song:

Don’t dare cry for Greece
There where she is forced to stoop,
Stabbed by a knife in her back
Bent by a yoke on her neck.

Yet see her rise from the blow,
Grow with strength and with fury,
And see her strike back at the beast
With the harpoon of the sun.



Words in this series:

1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.

2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.

3, Bread, Ψωμί.

4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.

5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.

6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.

7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.

8,Theology, Θεολογία.

9, Icon, Εἰκών.

10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.

11, Chaos, Χάος.

12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.

13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.

14, Mañana, Αύριο.

15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.

16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.

17, The missing words.

18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.

19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.

20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.

21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.

22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.

23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.

24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.

25, Asthma, Ασθμα.

26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.

27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.

28, School, Σχολείο.

29, Muse, Μούσα.

30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.

31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.

32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.

33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.

34, Cinema, Κινημα.

35, autopsy and biopsy

36, Exodus, ἔξοδος

37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος

38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς

39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια

40, Practice, πρᾶξις

41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός

42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή

43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή

44, catastrophe, καταστροφή

45, democracy, δημοκρατία

46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end

47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse

48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha

49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric

50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις

51, Bimah, βῆμα

52, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari), fish.

53, Τὰ Βιβλία (Ta Biblia), The Bible

54, Φῐλοξενῐ́ᾱ (Philoxenia), true hospitality

55, εκκλησία (ekklesia), the Church

56, ναός (naos) and ἱερός (ieros), a church

57, Χριστούγεννα (Christougenna), Christmas

58, ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia), θεοφάνεια, (theopháneia), Epiphany and Theophany

59, Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros), the West Wind

60, Αύριο (Avrio), Tomorrow

61, καλημέρα (κaliméra), ‘Good Morning’, and καλαμάρι, κalamári, ‘squid’

62, Ελευθερία ή θάνατος, ‘Freedom or Death’

63, Ποδόσφαιρο, ‘Football’

64, καφές (coffee), Φραπές (frappé)

65, Odyssey (η Οδύσσεια) and Odysseus (Ὀδυσσεύς)

66, Cosmopolitan, Κοσμοπολίτης

67, Εἰρήνη (Eirene), Peace

68, Ρωμιοσύνη (Romiosini)

Series to be continued

In the streets of Panormos near Rethymnon … the meanings and understandings of ‘Romiosini’ are tied up with identity and soul (Photograph: Patrick Comerford

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 132, Thursday 17 September 2026

‘A woman … began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair’ (Luke 7: 37-38) … a detail in a window by Michael O’Connor & Sons in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 13 September 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Hildegard (1179), Abbess of Bingen, Visionary. The calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church today commemorates Saint Sophia, whose name (Σοφία) means ‘wisdom’ in Greek, and her three daughters, Pistis, Elpis and Agape, or Πίστις (Faith), Ελπίδα (Hope) and Αγάπη (Love), martyrs in the second century.

I hope to be involved with a play-reading and drama group in Stony Stratford Library later this afternoon. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Peter Paul Rubens, ‘The Feast of Simon the Pharisee’

Luke 7: 36-50 (NRSVA)

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37 And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.’ 40 Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ 41 ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ 43 Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ 44 Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ 48 Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ 49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ 50 And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

James Tissot, ‘The Ointment of the Magdalene’ (‘Le parfum de Madeleine’) … however, the woman in Simon’s house, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the woman caught in adultery are four different women (Photograph: Brooklyn Museum)

Today’s Reflections:

In today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist in the lectionary (Luke 7: 36-50), Jesus is a guest, but the unwelcome guest at the meal, when he is invited to the house of Simon the Pharisee.

Jesus is accused at different times of eating with publicans and sinners. As we read yesterday, he knows that his detractors point to him and say: ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ (Luke 7: 34).

But Jesus also eats with Pharisees too. Indeed, he may have had many meals with Pharisees, although the Gospel writers simply make a passing reference to the host without naming him (see Luke 14: 1-24), or perhaps ignore the meals altogether.

However, at this meal, I imagine an evening when Jesus is found eating with an eminently respectable member of society, a Pharisee, and a leading Pharisee at that too.

Jesus is invited to dinner by a leading Pharisee, Simon, although it is some time before we learn the name of the host that evening. Nor is it clear which city he lives in. Is it Capernaum? Is it Nain or Bethany? Saint John’s Gospel has a similar incident in Bethany (see John 12: 1-8), but it is a very different story, set in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. But do the venue or location really matter? What matters is that the man who should have been the host fails at his task, and the guest at the dinner becomes the true host.

Have you ever been at a dinner where you know some of the guests were invited simply to boost the ego of those who had invited them? Do you know what I mean by the dinner-party-name-dropping-syndrome?

Some might think Simon was suffering from DPND syndrome when he invited Jesus to dinner. I am not inclined to think so: after all, just a few verses earlier, Jesus has come in for some severe criticism, and has given a robust response.

Simon may have thought he was doing the decent thing … a Pharisee inviting a visiting rabbi and preacher to dinner would have been common courtesy and a common experience.

Nor is there is anything unusual, anything offensive, about the behaviour of Jesus at this meal. He takes his allotted or allocated place at the table, and he probably enjoyed the conversation with the people beside him and opposite him.

But then the drama begins.

A woman in the city, a woman known as a sinner, manages to get in. Now, despite popular portrayal and the myths of centuries, it does not necessarily mean that this woman was an open and public sinner, a figure who was known for her sinful ways.

Those who were blind or who were suffering from leprosy or a physical ailment were often treated as sinners. They were seen as having brought their visible scars on themselves, or to be suffering because of the sins of their parents or their ancestors.

Perhaps she was not the easy woman of popular story-telling. Perhaps she was blind, or was disabled physically in some way. We are not told.

And some people ask: how did she get into the house anyway?

But on a balmy summer’s evening in a Mediterranean house, people will normally eat in the inner courtyard that is the part of any house of substance. I just love those long evening dinners in Greece, where you break bread and pour wine for each other at long tables, and as you hand the bread to and pour the wine for the person next to you, the natural response is σε ευχαριστώ (seh efcharisto, thank you), the very phrase that gives us the word Eucharist, thanksgiving.

Anyway, as they were sitting around, perhaps in the inner courtyard, giving thanks to each other, this woman slips in, unnoticed. There was no need for her to gatecrash, she probably just slipped in silently and unnoticed.

At first, even Jesus would not have noticed her, for she stands behind him.

What hurt this unnoticeable woman on the margins so much that she cried so profusely? She cries so much that she must have been deeply hurt, thoroughly dejected and rejected.

I think Rubens and the other great painters get it wrong when they show her in front of Jesus, washing and drying his feet. This woman’s very marginalisation is symbolised in four ways:

• No-one noticed her coming in, or if they did, she was not worth going to the bother of throwing out.

• When she is noticed, she is regarded by all present as being a sinner, although Jesus tells us that she has been forgiven … probably long before this incident took place.

• Although Saint John’s Gospel names her as Mary, she remains unnamed, anonymous, throughout this story. At the beginning, Simon is unnamed, but eventually we get to know who he is. This woman is obviously well-known in her town, but no-one calls her by her name. And in Christian tradition, we have continued to deny her identity, often confusing her with Mary Magdalene and with the woman caught in adultery – two completely different people altogether.

• By her physical place at the table: she is standing behind Jesus, at the back, perhaps just where the servants would have stood as they waited to bring more dishes, or clear away some empty plates. But she takes the place of the servant at the table … in other words, she is a true deacon.

The woman’s behaviour embarrasses Simon. He never went through the normal courtesies and formalities of welcoming a guest into the house, seeing that his shoes were taken from him, given water to wash his hands, his feet washed, his head anointed.

But her alabaster and tears used for anointing and washing Jesus, his head and his feet, also prefigures something else: the women who come to wash the corpse of the Crucified Christ, and to anoint him in his grave (Luke 24: 1-11).

This woman prefigures those women who will be the first witnesses of the Resurrection … perhaps she even is to become one of them.

If so, then wanting to eject her becomes a rejection of the Easter faith.

Simon thinks Jesus should know who this woman really is, failing to realise that Jesus knows what is really going on in Simon’s heart.

Simon is embarrassed, not by what Jesus might know about him, but by the woman.

But Jesus is not embarrassed at all. Instead of confronting the woman, he confronts Simon, and he commends this woman for her faith. He sends her out in peace – the very dismissal that we should experience at the end of the Liturgy every Sunday, week-by-week. She is sent out as a disciple, as an apostle, as a missionary.

And Simon wants to eject her.

Not because of who she is, nor because of her reputation, but because she has shown him up to be a poor host.

There is a sharp contrast between the shallow faith of Simon, the pillar of the Church, and the woman, who has been pushed to the margins, a sharp contrast between those with apparent faith and no response, and those dismissed for having no faith but who are full in their response to Christ’s presence among us.

Simon fails in offering the proper hospitality to his guest. This woman on the other hand receives the full and generous hospitality of God.

Simon has no place in his house for this woman – and, to be honest, no place in his house for Jesus. But God has a place for her in his kingdom.

The conversation between Jesus and this woman is a model for all our encounters with people we see as different or as strangers.

Am I like Simon, and only willing to count in within my inner circle those who are like me and who behave according to my standards?

If I am going to enter into conversation with the stranger, am I open to listening to them, to talking openly and honestly with them about where they come from and what they believe?

When the conversation is over, will they remain strangers?

How open am I to new friendships?

How often do I think people get what they deserve rather than sympathising with their predicaments?

Do I live up to my weekly commission to go out into the world in peace to love and serve the world in the name of the Risen Christ?

Mary anoints the feet of Jesus in Bethany … a window in the north aisle of Saint Mary’s Church in St Neot’s, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 17 September 2026):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 17 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Christ who bore the cross, draw me into deeper discipleship that does not turn away from pain. Teach me to act with love where injustice burdens others.

The Collect:

Most glorious and holy God,
whose servant Hildegard, strong in the faith,
was caught up in the vision of your heavenly courts:
by the breath of your Spirit
open our eyes to glimpse your glory
and our lips to sing your praises with all the angels;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Hildegard
that she served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Saint Sophia and her daughters Pistis, Elpis and Agape depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete … they are commemorated on 17 September (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 129, Monday 14 September 2026, Holy Cross Day

The Elevation of the Holy Cross … an icon in the Monastery of Arkadi in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV).

Today in the Church Calendar is Holy Cross Day. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Elevation of the Holy Cross … an icon in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 3.13–17 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said to Nicodemus] 13 ‘No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’

The Elevation of the Holy Cross … an icon in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The cross on which Christ was crucified has become the universal symbol of Christianity, replacing the Ichthus or fish symbol of the early Church. After the early persecutions ended, early in the fourth century, pilgrims began to travel to Jerusalem to visit the places associated with the life of Christ. Saint Helena, the mother of the emperor, was a Christian and, while she was overseeing excavations in the city, it is said, she uncovered a cross she believed to be the Cross of Christ. A basilica was built on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and dedicated on this day, 14 September 335.

Nicodemus only appears in Saint John’s Gospel, and in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (John 3: 13-17) we read the first of his three appearances. He is a leading Jew of the day, a Pharisee and a rabbi, a doctor of the law, a member of the ruling Sanhedrin. He comes to visit Jesus at night, and he comes with a bundle of questions.

But, despite his erudite learning, he finds it difficult to understand the answers Christ gives. Yet, it is all so simple: ‘God so loved the world …’ (verse 16).

In fact, what Jesus says here is deeply profound. The Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos, the neighbouring island of Patmos, the island to which Saint John was exiled.

Most of us know about Pythagoras because of his calculations about right-angle triangles. But he also provides an insight into one of the key concepts in Saint John’s writings. His understanding of the cosmos (κόσμος) includes the earth, the planets, the stars, the whole created order.

It is an idea derived from the mathematician and philosopher, Pythageros of Samos. In Pythagorean thinking, the cosmos (κόσμος) includes the arrangement of the stars, ‘the heavenly hosts’ as the ornament of the heavens (see I Peter 3: 3). It is not just the whole world, but the whole universe, the whole created order. It is earth and all that encircles the earth like its skin.

It is as if everything is wrapped into and lives within God’s skin, that we live in God’s womb, and it is there that God loves us. It is not that God so loved the saved, or men, or humanity, or even the world. What Christ says here is that God so loved the cosmos, the whole created order, that he gave, or rather sent, his only-begotten Son.

This key phrase is often translated as ‘God so loved the world’ (John 3: 16). Indeed, in China, I was shocked to see this verse translated into Chinese in a way that it means ‘God so loved humanity’ … ‘that he gave his only Son.’

The original text tells us that God so loved the κόσμος – the whole pulsating, created order as imagined by Pythagoras and the philosophers – God so loved the cosmos that he sent his only son … [Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν Υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν …] Not that he gave insipidly, but that he sent actively, sent him on a mission.

Nicodemus is a little nonplussed, but he comes back again and again, a second time (John 7: 45-51) and a third time (John 19: 39-42), and the third encounter is on Good Friday.

When Christ dies on the Cross, and the women come to bury him, Joseph of Arimathea provides the grave (Matthew 27: 57; Mark 15: 43; Luke 23: 50-56; John 19: 39-40), and Nicodemus steps forward to provide the customary embalming spices, and he assists them in preparing the body of Christ for burial (John 19: 39-42).

Nicodemus brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes, estimated at about 33 kg, to embalm Christ’s body. In his book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, the late Pope Benedict XVI observes that ‘the quantity of the balm is extraordinary and exceeds all normal proportions. This is a royal burial.’

So, in the story of Nicodemus, we find birth is linked with death, new birth is linked with new life, and before darkness falls Nicodemus really comes to possess the Body of Christ, to hold the Body of Christ in his hands, and in anointing him to recognise him as priest, prophet and king.

If being a priest is about presenting God through Christ to the world in word and sacrament, and presenting the world through the Christ to God in word and sacrament, then Nicodemus both receives and presents the Body of Christ, in a very Eucharistic way, and is a model for priesthood.

But we could say the same too of the women who seek to comfort and console Christ as he carries his cross to Calvary, who stay with him at the Crucifixion, who bury him, and who at great personal risk set off early on Easter morning to anoint his body, not knowing then that the Cross is not the end of the Christ story, but that it reaches its climax at the Resurrection.

The Body of Christ is the Church. Nicodemus claims his place in the Church. He acts on his faith. But he could never have known what the consequences would be for him, for the Church and for the world because he first came to Jesus in the dark, because he engaged with the fact that this Jesus would die, because he claimed the Body of Christ and because he engaged in an Epiphany-like moment, revealing that the Christ who became his teacher, the Christ who was to be betrayed, the Christ who was executed, is also the Risen Christ.

Saint Constantine and Saint Helen hold the Holy Cross … an icon in the church in Arkadi Monastery in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 14 September 2026, Holy Cross Day):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 14 September 2026, Holy Cross Day) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, we thank you for the cross of Christ, where sin is defeated and your saving love is revealed. Help me to live in the freedom and hope won there, bearing witness with faith and courage.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessed Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace:
grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ
that we may gladly suffer for his sake;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Faithful God,
whose Son bore our sins in his body on the tree
and gave us this sacrament to show forth his death until he comes:
give us grace to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
for he is our salvation, our life and our hope,
who reigns as Lord, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

The Emperor Constantine and Saint Helena hold the Holy Cross … a fresco in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Saint Constantine and Saint Helen hold the Holy Cross … an icon in the church in Panormos, east of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)