Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 152, Wednesday 7 October 2026

Saint Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer (bottom left) on the reredos in Saint Mary Woonoth Church in the City of London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII, 4 October). Today is the third anniversary of the horrific attacks on kibbutzim close to the border between Israel and Gaza on 7 October 2023.

Later this evening, I hope to take part in the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. Before today begins, however, 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.

‘Lord, teach us to pray’ (Luke 11: 1) … prayer books and prayer shawls in the Kadoorie Mekor Haim in Porto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 1-4 (NRSVA):

1 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ 2 He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’

‘Give us each day our daily bread’ (Luke 11: 3) … bread in the window of Knead Baker on Oxford’s High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The version of the Lord’s Prayer in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 11: 2-4) is not the same as the familiar text we use, based on the version in Saint Matthew’s text.

In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Christ teaches the Lord’s Prayer within the context of the Sermon on the Mount. But in Saint Luke’s Gospel, immediately after visiting the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany, Christ finds a private place to pray. It is then that the disciples ask him to teach them ‘to pray, as John taught his disciples.’

The disciples are already familiar not only with the prayers of Saint John the Baptist, but also with traditional Jewish prayers in the home, in the synagogue and in the Temple in Jerusalem.

As a rabbi and a religious leader, Jesus was responsible for teaching his followers how to fulfil Jewish religious commandments, including the obligation to pray at certain times and in certain forms.

Then and now, a religious community has a distinctive way of praying; ours is exemplified by the Lord’s Prayer, which is a communal rather than individual prayer, expressed in the plural and not the singular:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.

We approach God in a personal way, as Father. We then bring before him five petitions that are not on behalf of me personally, but on behalf of us, on behalf of all.

Sometimes we miss out on the impact of the Lord’s Prayer because we are so familiar with it. But, in the public worship of the Church, we often facilitate people missing out on the impact of the Lord’s Prayer when we privatise it.

Many of us were taught to pray the Lord’s Prayer as a private personal prayer as children, perhaps even saying it kneeling by our bedside, hands joined together, fingers pointing up.

So often, in our churches, we encourage people to kneel for the Lord’s Prayer, as if this was now both the most sacred and the most personal part of the Liturgy, rather than asking them to remain standing and to continue in collective prayer.

At synods and mission conferences, we often invite everyone present to say the Lord’s Prayer in their own first language. In this way, a collective, public prayer becomes a private, personal prayer, detached from and ignoring where everyone else is at each stage in the petitions.

As someone with English as my first language, I often notice how others finish a lot later than we do – the Finns in particular, but even the Germans too. Each language has its own rhythms and cadences. And the cacophony and conflicting rhythms mean it sounds as if we are in Babel rather than praying together, collectively and in the plural.

The first two petitions place us in God’s presence (‘hallowed be your name’ and ‘your kingdom come’), the next two bring our needs before God, both physical (‘daily bread,’ verse 3) and spiritual (forgiveness, verse 4), and the final petition has an eschatological dimension, looks forward to the fulfilment of all God’s promises, in God’s own time (‘the time of trial,’ verse 4).

The ‘time of trial’ is the final onslaught of evil forces, before Christ comes again, but also refers to the temptations we experience day-by-day.

So there is a temporal and an eternal dimension to these petitions, even when we pray for ourselves in the here and now.

The privatisation of the Lord’s Prayer, even on Sundays, takes away from its impact and from the collective thrust of each of the petitions.

Jesus, when he is teaching us to pray, is responding not to one individual but to the disciples as the core, formative, collective group of the Church. God is addressed not as my Father, but our Father, and each petition that follows is in the plural: our daily bread, our forgiveness, our sins, our debts, how we forgive, and do not ‘bring us.’

When we say ‘Amen’ at the end, are we really saying ‘Amen’ to the holiness of God’s name, to the coming of the Kingdom, to the needs of each being met on a daily basis, to forgiveness both given and received, to being put on the path of righteousness and justice, to others falling into no evil or into no harm.

If we privatise the Lord’s Prayer, we leave little room for its collective impact to grab a hold of those who are praying, and we leave little room for our own conversion, which is a continuing and daily need.

And so, let the kingdom, the power and the glory be God’s as we pray together:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.

‘Give us each day our daily bread’ … bread at a restaurant in Panormos, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 7 October 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, 4-10 October 2026 (pp 44-45), is ‘The Gun, The Sword, and The Bible’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Les Isaac OBE, founder and President of Ascension Trust and co-founder of Street Pastors.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 7 October 2026) invites us to pray:

Father, teach us to recognise that you have called all peoples into Your Kingdom. Break down division and unite us as true brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God,
increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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:

We praise and thank you, O Christ, for this sacred feast:
for here we receive you,
here the memory of your passion is renewed,
here our minds are filled with grace,
and here a pledge of future glory is given,
when we shall feast at that table where you reign
with all your saints for ever.

Additional Collect:

God, our judge and saviour,
teach us to be open to your truth
and to trust in your love,
that we may live each day
with confidence in the salvation which is given
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Give us each day our daily bread’ … bread and wine on the table at the end of the day in the Sunset Taverna in Rethymnon 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

A walk down memory lane along Jack Straw’s Lane in Oxford, looking for signs of a long-gone youth hostel

Jack Straw’s Lane in Headington still has a semi-rural, almost rustic, feeling to it (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Headington in Oxford twice last week, with an appointment for an ECG in John Radcliffe Hospital, and taking time to visit many of the churches in the Headington area and to explore some of the literary links in the area with CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

But there was a sentimental reason or a search for memories too during those visits. After I left school in 1969, I spent many weekends and much of my holiday time in my late teens hitchhiking around Ireland and England, usually staying in youth hostels. Some of the youth hostels in England I remember well were in Chester, Lichfield, Oxford, Cambridge, Stratford-on-Avon, Shrewsbury and London, and at Ilam Hall in Derbyshire and Wilderhope Manor in Shropshire.

I remember the youth hostel in Oxford because it was in Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane. In those days, youth hostelers could stay in any one hostel for no more than three nights and were expected at hostels run by An Oige and the YHA to arrive on foot or on bicycles. It seemed that among seasoned youth hostelers it was déclassé to be seen to arrive in a car, even a car one had hitched a lift in, and probably even to arrive by bus.

And so I remember arriving at the youth hostel in Oxford late in the afternoon on foot, and leaving again to enjoy an evening out in Oxford or setting out in the morning to explore the city, walking down Jack Straw’s Lane, with its peculiar name, and catching a bus into Oxford at the corner of Marston Road.

I retraced those youthful steps taken over 55 years ago last week when I walked from Headington down the hill along Jack Straw’s Hill, wondering whether I could recognise Cowley House, the former youth hostel where I stayed when I first visited Oxford in my late teens back around 1969 or 1970.

Jack Straw’s Lane is a residential road in suburban Oxford, but still has a rural, almost rustic, atmosphere to it, despite its proximity to the centre of Oxford. It runs from the north end of Pullens Lane on Headington Hill down to Marston Road.

That part of Headington was still in the parish of Saint Andrew’s Church until the 20th century, and the lands of the Lords of the Manor of Headington included the whole of Jack Straw’s Lane. Until well into the 20th century, the lane had no name. It was originally a track at the end of Pullen’s Lane that led to Jack Straw’s farmhouse or Jack Straw’s Castle. The name of the road only dates from about 1932, and was not officially adopted until 1954.

Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane opened as Oxford Youth Hostel 90 years ago in 1936 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When I stayed at the youth hostel, Jack Straw was already well-known and the elected as President of the National Union of Students from 1969 to 1971, and he went on to become a prominent Labour politician and cabinet minister. But he was not the Jack Straw who gave his name of Jack Straw Lane.

Tradition says the Jack Straw of the lane had been a farmer who lived on Headington Hill. Although many highwaymen were active in the area, they had no one leader. But the story goes that when Jack Straw died, the cellars beneath his kitchen were found to have rolls of silk, gold, silver, spices and other valuable goods that had been stolen from travellers and merchants. Yet, no one named Jack Straw was ever buried at Saint Andrew’s Church.

By 1850, Jack Straw’s Castle and farmland were owned by the Lord of the Manor of Headington and leased to John Plowman, who also leased the brickyard on Marston Road and owned another house near the Britannia in central Headington.

Plowman was an architect who had lived in St Peter-in-the-East parish in Oxford, and he was a brickyard-owner rather than a farmer. By 1861, Jack Straw’s Farm covered 105 acres in Old Headington John Plowman was a farmer living in ‘Jack Straw’s Castle’ and employing five men and a boy. His son-in-law Joseph Jones Bickerton was the Town Clerk of Oxford.

The Ordnance Survey map in 1876 shows only three buildings pn Jack Straw’s Lane, with Jack Straw’s Farmhouse, popularly known as Jack Straw’s Castle, towards the north-west. The Plowman family left around 1879, and the castle was let as a private house and the land was farmed separately. The castle was renamed as Belle Vue Lodge. The Revd Charles Morris, the Vicar of Marston, lived there from 1893 until he died in 1899.

The house was known once more as Jack Straw’s Castle by 1901. Ten years later, in 1911, all the land to the north and east of Jack Straw’s Lane, including the farm, the brickworks, and six cottages on Marston Road were sold at auction. The site of Jack Straw’s Castle and Hillside is now occupied by the Rectory Homes development at No 35-43.

The former youth hostel on Jack Straw’s Lane is now a nursery for the children of university staff and children (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Cowley House and the adjoining Cowley Cottage were built on the south side of the lane in 1898. Cowley House was built in about 1898. It was occupied by Hugh Hall from 1899 to 1902, a Mrs Valpy lived there from 1903 to 1907, and Miss Michaelson from 1909 to after 1929.

YHA Oxford Regional Group was formed in the very early days of the Association, in December 1931. Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane in Headington had been unoccupied for four years when it was bought for £2,100 by the YHA. It opened as Oxford Youth Hostel on Maundy Thursday, 9 April 1936, with grants from the Carnegie Trust and the Cadbury Trust, and gifts of furniture from Jesus College.

A new annexe was completed in 1939, when the accommodation increased to 98. But the youth hostel was unavailable during World War II and was used as a school. To compensate for the wartime requisition a temporary summer hostel opened in a building on the corner of Mansfield Road and Holywell Street belonging to Manchester College.

The original hotels was returned to the YHA in June 1945 and reopened on 2 January 1946. For decades, it was one of the most popular youth hostels in England, often needing extra accommodation in temporary seasonal hostels in public or educational buildings that were loaned or hired.

The youth hostel on Jack Straw’s Lane eventually closed on 14 May 2001 when a purpose-built hostel opened on Botley Road near the railway station.

Bryant Homes planned to demolish the former youth hostel on Jack Straw’s Lane and replace it with flats in 2001, but this proposal was rejected. A year later, St Hilda’s College hoped to turn the building into flats in In 2002. But eventually it was converted into the college nursery, run by Kids Unlimited. It was renamed Dorothea Beale House after one of the college’s two founders, and its address is now 32B Jack Straw’s Lane.

Field House, to the right of Dorothea Beale House, was built in the late 1920s. It was designed by the architect Herbert Luck North (1871–1941), who had formerly been an assistant to Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Other houses on the lane include Hillside, now 69 Jack Straw’s Lane, was once the home of Henry Habberley Price (1899-1984), who was Wykeham Professor of Logic.

The Milham Ford School opened on a 16-acre site at Jack Straw’s Lane in 1938, and later became a maintained grammar school for girls then a girls’ comprehensive. The school closed in 2003, it was sold and became the site of the School of Health Care of Oxford Brookes University.

Today, Jack Straw’s Lane is a residential area with high-priced houses and lined with large mature trees. The former youth hostel is now Kids Planet, an exclusive nursery for staff and students at the University of Oxford.

I continued on down Jack Straw’s Lane that afternoon last week and visited Saint Michael and All Angels Church on the corner of Marston Road, before catching a bus back into the centre of Oxford.

Jack Straw’s Lane leads from Headington to New Marston in suburban East Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston: a 1950s church in suburban Oxford with important works of modern art

The Church of Saint Michael and All Angels on the corner of Jack Straw’s Lane and Marston Road, Oxford … today is the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Michael and All Angels (29 September), and in anticipation of this feast day, I visited the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels in New Marston in suburban Oxford last week when I was visiting churches in the Headington area last week.

During my two visits to Headington last week, and in between appointments in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, I visited some of the churches in the area, including Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Headington Baptist Church, Corpus Christi Catholic Church, and Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston.

I found Saint Michael’s Church, which was built as a chapel of ease for Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, at the bottom of Jack Straw’s Lane on the corner with Marston Road.

Inside Saint Michael and All Angels Church, New Marston, facing the High Altar, chancel and east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

New Marston is a suburb about 2 km (1.25 miles) north-east of the centre of Oxford. The area is built on land that was originally part of the Manor of Headington, and it was rural until the 19th century, when housing began to develop along Marston Road from St Clement’s towards the village of Marston.

Saint Michael and All Angels Church was built 70 years ago in 1954-1956 on the corner of Marston Road and Jack Straw’s Lane as a chapel of ease for the parish of Saint Andrew, Headington. New Marston’s early Anglican needs were first met by a mission hall built on Ferry Road in 1919 until the new church was consecrated in September 1955.

Saint Michael and All Angels Church was designed in an Italianate style by the architect Thomas Lawrence Dale (1884-1959), who was the Oxford Diocesan Surveyor for 23 years. At first, Dale specialised in designing houses for private clients. From the 1930s, he was the Oxford Diocesan Surveyor and he was noted for designing, restoring and furnishing Church of England parish churches.

Like Charles Ponting (1850-1932) to whom he had been articled, Dale’s church architecture was strongly Anglo-Catholic. However, whereas Ponting continued to work in the Gothic Revival idiom long after it had passed out of fashion, Dale adopted Italianate architecture for his churches.

Inside Saint Michael and All Angels Church, New Marston, facing the west end … the church was designed in an Italianate style by the architect Thomas Lawrence Dale (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dale was born in London and was educated at University College School, Hampstead. He began trained at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1900, was articled to Charles Ponting in Marlborough, Wiltshire (1901-1904), was assistant to the architect Edmund Buckle (1904-1906), and qualified as an architect in 1906.

He was a captain in the Army Cyclist Corps during World War I and was mentioned in despatches. After World War I, Dale moved to Banbury and designed a series of council houses in several villages. Two of his earlier works are Edwardian houses in Hampstead Garden Suburb, one of which has been described as ‘an excellent house of the Lutyens school’. Dale later moved to Oxford, where he designed his own house on Woodstock Road, and later moved again to Bradmore Road.

As Oxford Diocesan Surveyor, Dale designed at least four parish churches in the Oxford area, and also designed restoration work or new furnishings for a number of parish churches. His churches in the Diocese of Oxford include: Saint Francis of Assisi (1930-1931), Cowley, built on a site provided by Morris Motors as a temporary daughter church of Saint James, Cowley; Saint Alban the Martyr (1933), Oxford, replacing a chapel of ease built for Saint Mary and Saint John Church in 1889; Saint Michael and All Angels (1954-1956), New Marston, built as a chapel of ease for Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington; and Saint Swithun (1956-1958), Kennington.

The sculpted reliefs on the main front include a small figure of Saint Michael and two large reliefs of angels, by John Bunting and Michael Groser (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dale died in 1959 and was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. His son Simon Dale (1919-1987) was also an architect. He was beaten to death at The Heath, the house he and Susan had restored at Hopton Castle, Herefordshire.

The only suspect, Dale’s former wife, Baroness Susan de Stempel, was cleared of his murder due to insufficient physical evidence. The case remains ‘one of West Mercia Constabulary’s relatively few unsolved murders’. But that’s a story for another evening, perhaps.

TL Dale’s churches reflect the various brands of classicism popular in church architecture in England in the mid-20th century and Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston, is perhaps his most ambitious. It is an interesting essay in a sort of stripped Italian baroque manner, typical of Anglo-Catholic taste from the 1920s on.

The statue of Saint Michael by the sculptor Michael Groser (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Michael’s was built as a chapel of ease for Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington. Although the building is slightly limited by its corner site, it is substantial in scale and has been described as being in a ‘vaguely Italian renaissance style’. Its notable features include its campanile, its elliptical windows and its tall, box-like chancel.

The sculpted reliefs on the main front include a small figure of Saint Michael in a niche at the top of the gable, and two large reliefs of angels flanking the oval window, by John Bunting (1927-2002) and Michael Groser (1918-2009). The Latin wording above the west door says: Gloria in Altissimis Deo et in Terra Pax (‘Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace’).

Bunting and Groser were probably responsible for the carvings inside the church, including a suspended rood with the Crucified Christ flanked by figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John, the frontal to the altar and the Stations of the Cross. The statue of Saint Michael is by Groser, the painting of the Annunciation and a series of reliefs are by Bunting, and the reredos above the High Altar was painted by Leon Underwood (1890-1975).

The suspended rood, with figures of the Crucified Christ, the Virgin Mary and Saint John, is by John Bunting and Michael Groser (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John Bunting was one of Leon Underwood’s students. He later taught for many decades at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire, where his students included Antony Gormley, creator of the ‘Angel of the North’, Martin Jennings, whose works include the statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras station and the statue of Philip Larkin in Hull, and the painter Andrew Festing.

Michael Groser was born in his grandfather’s rectory in St Winnow, Cornwall. His father, the Revd St John Beverley Groser (1890-1966), was an Anglican priest and a prominent Christian socialist. He was said to be ‘the best-known priest in the East End’ and Kenneth Leech said that he was ‘one of the most significant Christian socialist figures in 20th century Britain’. He was present at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. He was appointed the Warden of the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in 1948. He played Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 1951 film adaptation of TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, produced and directed by George Hoellering.

Michael Groser moved to London with his parents in the 1920s and attended the Mercers’ School. After a degree in English Literature at Leeds University, he studied for the priesthood at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, Yorkshire, where his father had once been a student. As a conscientious objector during World War II, he was sent to a coalmine near Huddersfield, but managed to study sculpture part-time at Leeds School of Art.

He later moved to Kirtlington, Oxfordshire, and then to Banbury, and sang occasionally with the choir at New College, Oxford. As an actor, he played the Third Priest in Murder in the Cathedral (1951), alongside his father. He moved to Co Cork in 2004, and when he died in Bantry in 2009, he was buried at Church Cross, near Skibbereen.

The painting of the Annunciation by John Bunting above the altar in the Lady Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Michael's Church, New Marston, was consecrated in September 1955 and superseded the Ferry Road mission hall, which was then deconsecrated and sold for secular use.

Saint Michael’s became a parish church in its own right in the Diocese of Oxford in 1963, with a new parish formed from parts of Headington, Marston and Saint Clement’s parishes.

The church built by Kingerlee & Sons. The ground for the new vicarage in Jack Straw’s Lane was bought in 1952, but the vicarage was not built until 1966-1967.

In recent years, a problem with subsidence has left the church needing extensive repairs and when I visited the church last week much of the south side of the building was covered in scaffolding.

The campanile at the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• The Revd Elaine Bardwell has been the Vicar of Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston since 1996. Saint Michael’s uses modern Catholic worship and has a smallish congregation that welcomes all comers. The main Sunday service is the Parish Eucharist at 10 am, and there is a short said Eucharist on Wednesday mornings at 10:30 am.

The tall, box-like chancel and south side of Saint Michael’s Church seen from Jack Straw’s Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 144, Tuesday 29 September 2026, Saint Michael and All Angels

‘Archangel Michael The Protector’ by Emily Young at Saint Pancras Church, London … today is the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 27 September 2026) and today is the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels (29 September 2026). Many churches are holding special events to mark this day. In Pusey House, Oxford, the preacher at Evensong and High Mass this evening is my friend, the Revd Dr Jonathan Lewis-Jong, Vicar of Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Oxford. Later this evening, I plan to write about my visit to the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels in New Marston, Oxford.

Meanwhile, this morning, before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time 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.

Angel I by Emily Young (2003), Paternoster Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 4: 47-51 (NRSVA):

47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48 Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49 Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50 Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51 And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

Angel II by Emily Young (2003), Paternoster Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Like many people, I never cease to be fascinated by the Caryatids that make Saint Pancras Church facing Euston Station in London a unique and captivating church. But I wonder how many pass by in the daily commute and miss the opportunity to appreciate Emily Young’s ‘Archangel Michael The Protector’ in the church gardens.

I stopped to look again at ‘Archangel Michael The Protector’ yesterday between train journeys to and from Euston when I was meeting a long-standing friend for coffee. This sculpture in onyx and can be viewed in the church grounds from Upper Woburn Place, around the corner from Euston Road. An inscription on a plaque between the sculpture and the railings reads: ‘In memory of the victims of the 7th July 2005 bombings and all victims of violence. ‘I will lift up my eyes unto the hills’ Psalm 121.’

Nothing moves in this image, a silent reminder of what is being commemorated in the sculpture. Because Saint Michael’s face has only one eye, and this is closed, some critics have wondered whether the quotation is ill-chosen. But the full context is provided in Psalm 121: 1-2:

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills –
from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

The London bombings over 20 years ago on 7 July 2005, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four co-ordinated suicide attacks that targeted commuters on the public transport system in the morning rush hour.

Three homemade bombs packed into backpacks were detonated in quick succession on Underground trains on the Circle line near Aldgate and at Edgware Road, and on the Piccadilly line near Russell Square; later, a fourth bomb went off on a bus in Tavistock Square, near Upper Woburn Place and Saint Pancras Church.

Apart from the four bombers, 52 people of 18 different nationalities were killed and more than 700 people were injured in the attacks. It was Britain’s deadliest terrorist incident since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 near Lockerbie, and the first Islamist suicide attack in the UK.

Emily Young has been described as ‘Britain’s foremost female stone sculptor’ and ‘Britain’s greatest living stone sculptor.’ On different occasions, as I have strolled through London, I stopped and taken time at an open-air exhibition at ENO Southbank of works by Emily Young.

A number of her works have formed a sculpture trail or garden at the NEO Bankside development on South Bank in ‘Emily Young: Sculptor Trail.’ The exhibition was both a continuation and a broadening of her presence on the South Bank, echoing three large-scale works on long-loan facing the Tate Modern from NEO Bankside.

Emily Young’s sculptures of five angel heads in stone stand on five columns in Saint Paul’s Churchyard, London. The sequence of heads are mounted on columns under the arcade of a new classical-inspired building to the north west side of Saint Paul's, redeveloped as part of the redesign of Paternoster Square at the top of Ludgate Hill.

Her five angels’ heads are placed dramatically on columns in the arcade of Juxon House and almost face the west front of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

Emily Young’s works are instantly recognisable and accessible. She deals in spectacular lumps of stone – quartzite, onyx, marble, alabaster – to which she gives an identity by carving a face but leaving the remainder of the rock displayed in its raw, craggy intensity, as if the face had grown or evolved organically. The Financial Times says: ‘Her sculptures meditate on time, nature, memory, man’s relationship to the Earth.’

Emily Young was born in London in 1951 into a family of writers, artists and politicians. Her grandmother, the sculptor Kathleen Scott (1878-1947), was a colleague of Auguste Rodin, and the widow of the Polar explorer, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, ‘Scott of the Antarctic’. Her works include a statue of Edward Smith, the captain of the Titanic, now in Beacon Park, Lichfield. She later married Emily Young’s paternal grandfather, the politician and writer Edward Hilton Young, 1st Lord Kennet.

Emily Young’s father, Wayland Hilton Young, 2nd Lord Kennet, was also a politician, conservationist and writer. Her mother was the writer and commentator Elizabeth Young; her uncle was the ornithologist, conservationist and painter, Sir Peter Scott.

She was still a student when she achieved fame (or notoriety) in 1971 as the inspiration for the Pink Floyd song See Emily Play written by Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. But the song had earlier origins in the 1960s. She was 15 when she met Syd Barrett at the London Free School in 1965. ‘I used to go there because there were a lot of Beat philosophers and poets around,’ she said many years later. ‘There were fundraising concerts with The Pink Floyd Sound, as they were then called. I was more keen on poets than rockers. I was educating myself. I was a seeker. I wanted to meet everyone and take every drug.’

As a young woman, Emily Young worked primarily as a painter while she was studying at Chelsea School of Art in 1968 and later at Central Saint Martins. She travelled around the world in the late 1960s and 1970s, spending time in the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, France, Italy, Africa, South America, the Middle East and China, encountering a variety of cultures and developing her experiences of art.

In the early 1980s, she abandoned painting and turned to carving, sourcing stone from all over the world. Travelling from a London childhood, to a European education, to a life lived as an artist round the world, she began to interact with the timeless quality of stone to produce breath-taking sculptures of luminous intensity and great beauty.

As well as marble, she carves in semi-precious stone – agate, alabaster, lapis lazuli. These not only reflect and refract the light – but glow with a passionate intensity (as Winged Golden Onyx Head), revealing the hidden crystalline structure of the material and the subtle layers the time has laid down, showing the liquid qualities of hard rock.

The primary objective of her sculpture is to bring the natural beauty and energy of stone to the fore. Her sculptures have unique characters because each stone has an individual geological history and geographical source. Her approach allows the viewer to comprehend a deep grounding across time, land and cultures. She combines traditional carving skills with technology to produce work that is both contemporary and ancient, with a unique, serious and poetic presence.

Emily Young now divides her time between her studios in London and Italy. Her permanent installations and public collections can be seen in many places, including Saint Paul’s Churchyard, Saint Pancras Church, NEO Bankside, and the Imperial War Museum in London; La Defense, Paris; Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire; the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; and the Cloister of Madonna Dell’Orto, Venice.

After years of being feted as ‘Britain’s foremost female stone sculptor,’ the art critic of the Financial Times called her ‘Britain’s greatest living stone sculptor.’ The Daily Telegraph has written: ‘Emily Young has inherited the mantle as Britain’s greatest female stone sculptor from Dame Barbara Hepworth.’

She recently explained: ‘So my work is a kind of temple activity now, devotional; when I work a piece of stone, the mineral occlusions of the past are revealed, the layers of sediment unpeeled; I may open in one knock something that took millions of years to form: dusts settling, water dripping, forces pushing, minerals growing – material and geological revelations: the story of time on Earth shows here, sometimes startling, always beautiful.’

She told an interviewer: ‘I carve in stone the fierce need in millions of us to retrieve some semblance of dignity for the human race in its place on Earth. We can show ourselves to posterity as a primitive and brutal life form – that what we are best at is rapacity, greed, and wilful ignorance, and we can also show that we are creatures of great love for our whole planet, that everyone of us is a worshipper in her temple of life.’

The American composer Fran Schultz, who lives in Howell, New Jersey, said some years ago that my writing about Emily Young’s angels have inspired her composition and recording, ‘How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin.’

Fran describes the composition as in the genre of rock, instrumental and digital electronic music. The musical instruments include a Steinway Grand Piano, Oak Piano Dream Synthesiser, Stutter Stack and Classic D6.

She is generous on her website when she extends ‘special thanks to Patrick Comerford for his writing and his allowing me use of his photos.’ She said she wrote ‘How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin’ because of my ‘inspirational writing.’

She added: ‘I also enjoyed reading all the links he provided about the artist, Emily Young, his thoughts and quotes by her. I thank him very much for letting me make use of his photographs for this piece of music and to the artist Emily Young for making them.’

She continued: ‘The connection point for me in his writing was immediate in his succinct and direct insightful recognition of such questions and in my seeing how in social media distracts us into questions that are essentially “A metaphor for wasting time discussing trivial topics that have no practical value, or asking questions whose answers hold no practical value, or asking questions whose answers hold no consequence, at times when we have more urgent concerns to debate”.’

She was unexpectedly generous when she said my ‘writing has many layers of depth to it that I particularly am drawn to in the subjects of architecture, sculptures, history, theology, questions, the deeper meaning of things and the beauty of things we might not have noticed or fully appreciated before. I love his thoughtful responses to the questions and what brought those very questions up upon reflecting the sculptures made by Emily Young as he was taking a walk in London … and taking photos. Hope you enjoy his writing and enjoy my music too!’

She then offered a link to my website and my article of 25 February 2023, ‘Emily Young’s Five Angels on Columns,’ HERE.

You can listen to Fran Schultz’s composition, ‘How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin’, HERE.

Angel III by Emily Young (2003), Paternoster Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 29 September 2026, Saint Michael and All Angels):

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 was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 29 September 2026, Saint Michael and All Angels) invites us to pray:

Lord God, through the example of Saint Michael, defend and guide those who work for reconciliation. Give them courage so every voice may be heard and every community united in peace.

Angel IV by Emily Young (2003), Paternoster Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Everlasting God,
you have ordained and constituted
the ministries of angels and mortals in a wonderful order:
grant that as your holy angels always serve you in heaven,
so, at your command,
they may help and defend us on earth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect:
as in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Angel V by Emily Young (2003), Paternoster Square, London (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

‘Archangel Michael The Protector’ by Emily Young in the gardens of Saint Pancras Church near Euston Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Two contrasting churches in Headington, Baptist and Catholic, illustrate church diversity in Oxford

Headington Baptist Church is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the present building this year, but the church dates back to early 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Headington in Oxford last week, in between visits to the John Radcliffe Hospital, I visited a number of churches in the area, including Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston, Headington Baptist Church and Corpus Christi Catholic Church.

Headington Baptist Church is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the present building later this year. But the story of the congregation dates back to the early 19th century, when New Road Baptist Church in Oxford started one of its first ‘mission stations’ for dissenters in Old Headington. This means the Baptist Chapel was the first nonconformist chapel in Headington, until a Methodist chapel was built in Trinity Road, Quarry, in 1830.

Headington’s first purpose-built Baptist chapel opened 1836 in what is now a private house known as Croft Hall. Croft Hall stood on land owned by the Latimer family, then the lords of the Manor of Headington and the owners of Headington House, and the freehold was acquired in 1841.

The chapel acquired more land In 1875 to extend its burial ground. However, the chapel was no longer big enough by the end of the 19th century, and the Baptists built a new chapel in Old High Street in 1901.

The cottage to the south of the new chapel was demolished in 1916, and two years later the vacant plot was bought by the Baptist Chapel. Most of the male members of the congregation were then away at war, and women and children helped to clear the site to grow vegetables. The site was to remain a vegetable plot for 16 years.

After World War I, a war memorial organ by Martin & Coate of Oxford was installed in the church in 1920.

The chapel was extended for the first time In 1934 over part of the vegetable plot, and the rest of the plot was turned into a garden. The garden was lost In 1971 when the church was extended again, and the new enlarged church was used for another 23 years until 2004.

The old church was demolished in August 2004 and the first service in the new church took place 20 years ago, on Sunday 5 November 2006.

The Baptist Church continued to own the old chapel in the Croft until the mid-1970s. Initially it was used as a Sunday school, but this was closed in 1924 because the building had fallen into disrepair.

The Freemasons offered to refurbish the building in 1937 as part of a leasing arrangement, and the continued to use the building until 1944. After that, the Exclusive Brethren used the building, and it was then used by a carpet shop. Croft Hall was sold in 1976 and has been converted into a private house.

Corpus Christi Church on the corner of Margaret Road, was built in two phases, beginning 90 years ago in 1936 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Corpus Christi Church on the corner of Margaret Road and Wharton Road in Headington was built in two stages in the 1930s and 1950s. The first Mass in Headington was said by Father Fabian of Greyfriars in 1932, and for about three years a Sunday Mass was celebrated at 9 am for a congregation of 30 to 40 in a café in New High Street.

Father William Flint had been sent to Headington by the Archbishop of Birmingham in November 1935 and Mass was celebrated for the first time in the new Parish Hall on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 12 June 1936. The construction of the church began that month.

Cardinal Arthur Hinsley (1865-1943), Archbishop of Westminster (1935-1943), laid the foundation stone on 1 October 1936. The first stage of the church – the east end – was blessed and opened on 18 February 1937 by Thomas Williams (1877-1946), Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham (1929-1946).

The church was designed by Gilbert Thomas Francis Gardner (1880-1955), who was an architect in Oxford for many years. His projects included the Oxford War Memorial (1921), Twinings shop, Oxford (1924), and shops and flats in Park End Street, Oxford (1925).

Corpus Christ Church in Headington was built in two phases: the east half was built in 1936-1937, and the second phase, the west half, was completed in 1953, although without the tower shown on the original plans. The break between the two parts can still be seen in the different coloured roof tiles and the different types of timber used for the woodblock floor.

The church is built with brick laid in English garden wall bond with a tiled roof and aluminium windows. The plan consists of a longitudinal aisleless nave with a narrower chancel, and a short west tower flanked by transepts. Above the moulded west doorway is a niche with a statue of Christ in Majesty.

The south elevation has gables over five of the central nave bays which project above the roofline. The central gable is wider, presumably due to the original porch below, which is now a niche with a Sacred Heart statue. The east end has a shallow curved extension of the early 1970s to the original blind east wall.

Inside, the church has a tunnel vaulted seven-bay nave. The lobby at the north-west was originally the baptistery, and retains its wrought-iron gates. The sanctuary is flanked by two side chapels. The stone altar, tabernacle stand and lectern date from the reordering in 1980. In the early 1970s, the east end was remodelled, with the addition In the 1970s of a curved dalle de verre window by Leslie Sheels, depicting the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

The north chapel has an icon of Mary Mother of God by the icon writer Alexander Gormatiuk of Moscow, installed in 2000. The south chapel has a copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà. Only the north side chapel retains its altar rails.

The Stations of the Cross (1985-1988) are circular reliefs in bronze by the Oxford sculptor Faith Tolkien (1928-2017), first wife of Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (1924-2020), a lecturer in New College, Oxford. Faith Tolkien’s bust of her father-in-law, JRR Tolkien, is in the English Faculty Library at Oxford University. Her other subjects include Iris Murdoch and CS Lewis.

When the church was refurbished in 2022/2023, the Oxford Preservation Society presented Corpus Christi Church with its 2023 Award for small projects.

• The Revd Ian McDonald is the Minister at Headington Baptist Church, where Sunday morning services begin at 10:30 am. Corpus Christi parish is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, and Canon Mervyn Tower is the parish priest. Sunday Masses are at 9 am, 11 am and 6:30 pm.

The first service in the new Headington Baptist Church was held on 5 November 2006 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

For my guide to Oxford churches and chapels, visit here

A return to Headington, where I find the story of an anti-war protest behind the ‘Headington Shark’

The Headington Shark is a sculpture of a large shark embedded head-first in the roof of a terraced house at 2 New High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Headington is a suburb in east Oxford, at the top of Headington Hill overlooking the city in the Thames valley below, with Marston to the north-west, Cowley to the south, and Barton and Risinghurst to the east. When I first visited Oxford in my teens, around 1969 or 1970, I stayed in Headington at the youth hostel in Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane, which closed in 2001.

I have been through Headington many times in recent years, on my way to and from the hospitals. But an appointment earlier this week at John Radcliffe Hospital and a follow-up visitlater in the week, offered opportunities and time to walk around Headington, and to see the ‘Headington Shark’, the area’s most celebrated landmark and an anti-war protest. There was time too to see Saint Andrew’s Church, Holy Trinity Church and some other churches in the area; to see the ‘Black Booy’ – a pub with a controversial name; and to look into some of Headington’s literary, academic and cultural connections, including links with CS Lewis and Isaiah Berlin.

The commercial and shopping life of Headington and traffic through the area focuses on London Road, the main road between London and Oxford. But Headington also has not one but two High Streets, New High Street and Old High Street. And it was on one of those streets that I found the ‘Headington Shark’ and other noticeable sites.

The Headington Clock in the centre of commercial and shopping life and traffic on London Road in Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Headington Shark – properly named ‘Untitled 1986’ – is a sculpture of a large shark embedded head-first in the roof of a terraced house at 2 New High Street. It began as protest art, installed 40 years ago by Bill Heine and John Buckley, without planning permission and as an anti-war protest, symbolising bombs crashing into homes and buildings.

The shark was installed on 9 August 1986 on the roof of the home of Bill Heine, an American-born radio presenter. Heine and Buckley came up with the idea of the shark while they were drinking wine on the street, and imagined the shark as a metaphor for bombs falling from the US warplanes that flew overhead on their way to bomb Libya.

The shark is in deliberate contrast with its ordinary suburban location. It was designed, created and installed by the Leeds-born sculptor John Buckley with his friend Anton Castiau, a local carpenter. ‘The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation’, Heine said. ‘It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki’.

The painted fibreglass sculpture weighs 200 kg (450 lb), is 7.6 metre (25 ft) long, and the title ‘Untitled 1986’ is written on the gate. It took three months to build the installation, and it was put in place on the 41st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

The Headington Shark began as anti-war and nuclear statement by John Buckley and Bill Hein (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Over time, there were complaints about the conditions of the sculpture and the house, so to mark the shark’s 21st anniversary it was renovated by Buckley in 2007. Magnus Hanson-Heine, bought the house in 2016 to preserve the shark, before his father Bill Heine died on 2 April 2019. The house has been an Airbnb guesthouse since 2018.

The shark was controversial and was the subject of a six-year battle between Oxford City Council and Bill Heine. The council tried to remove the shark on the grounds of safety and because it did not have proper planning permission. However, the shark had much local support. The Department of the Environment ruled on planning grounds in 1992 that the shark could remain in place because it did not harm a visual amenity.

Oxford City Council had the shark listed with Historic England in 2016 and designated the sculpture a heritage site in 2022, despite objection from Magnus Hanson-Heine, who said, ‘Using the planning apparatus to preserve a historical symbol of planning law defiance is absurd.’

Saint Andrew’s Lane in Old Headington … people have lived in Headington ever since the Stone Age (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

People have lived in Headington ever since the Stone Age, and excavations in Barton Lane suggest a date in the 11th century BCE, while pottery found on the Manor Ground is evidence of an Iron Age settlement in the 7th century BCE. The site of a Roman villa and Roman kilns from about 300 CE have been found, and Anglo-Saxon burial remains from about 500 CE have been discovered.

The name Headington comes from the Old English Hedena’s dun, meaning ‘Hedena’s hill’, and it was the site of a palace or hunting lodge of the Kings of Mercia. Æthelred the Unready, in a charter in 1004, gave land in Headington to Saint Frideswide’s Priory, including the quarry and the area around it.

Henry I granted a chapel at Headington to the Augustinians of Saint Frideswide’s Priory when the priory was founded in 1122. Saint Andrew’s Church, the oldest surviving building in Headington, was built in the mid-12th century, enlarged in the 13th century, the bell tower dates from the 13th or 14th century and the Gothic Revival architect JC Buckler restored the church and lengthened the nave in 1862-1864.

Stone from Headington Quarry was used to build Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1474, and was later used to build Cardinal College, later Christ Church.

Headington Football Club, later Headington United, was formed in 1893 and eventually became Oxford United.

Headington developed rapidly in the early 20th century, with new housing around the mediaeval village, now known as Old Headington, around Saint Andrew’s Church. New Headington, south side of London Road, dates from the late 19th century, and other neighbourhoods include Highfield, Quarry and Headington Hill.

Today the main employment sectors are medicine, education and research. The area includes the main campus of Oxford Brookes University, Ruskin College, which moved to Headington in 2012, and Oxford’s main hospitals, including the John Radcliffe, Nuffield and Churchill.

A plaque at the gate of the Headington House commemorates Sir Isaiah Berlin, who lived there from 1956 until he died in 1997 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Headington’s notable residents have included the poet Elizabeth Jennings; CS Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, who lived in the area until he died in 1963 and who is buried at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry; JRR Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, who lived in Headington from 1953 to 1968; the author Elizabeth Bowen; the newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell; and Lord Nuffield (William Morris).

Oxford academics who have lived in Headington include Sir Anthony Kenny, who died earlier last month (3 August 2026), and Sir Isaiah Berlin, who married Mrs Aline Halban of Headington House in 1956, and lived there until he died in 1997. The comedian David Mitchell, star of the BBC series Ludwig, grew up in Headington.

Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (1886-1978), a Spanish writer, diplomat, writer, historian and pacifist and Professor of Spanish at Oxford University, lived in Headington before and after the Spanish Civil War, in 1929-1931 and 1940-1973. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize, received the Charlemagne Prize in 1973.

The house in Headington where Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo lived before and after the Spanish Civil War (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The original, 17th century Black Boy stood from 1667 or earlier at the corner of Barton Lane and Old High Street. The board above the door showed a black boy-servant, a sign commonly hung outside coffee houses in the 17th century. The pub was rebuilt on the site as the present Black Boy on Old High Street in 1937.

The rebuilt pub used to have a sculpted figure of a black servant in the niche above the entrance, but this was smashed in 1990 and was replaced by the painting of a chimney-sweep’s boy, which was supposedly more politically correct. Even so, in 1997 there was an unsuccessful attempt by Oxford students to get the pub’s name changed on the grounds that it was offensive.

The niche remained empty from about 2008, but now a black horse decorates the façade as a new story is told about the pub taking its name from a racehorse. Watching school children walk by in the afternoon September sunshine, I wondered what any black child in Headington would think of the name of the pub, no matter what explanation or excuse is offered.

The Black Boy at the corner of Barton Lane and Old High Street was rebuilt on the site in 1937 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I have yet to be convinced by those explanations or excuses. Instead, I visited the White Hart at 12 St Andrew’s Road, across the street from Saint Andrew’s Church. The White Hart dates from the late 17th century, and is believed to have been the inn once known as ‘Joan of Headington’s’. It is a listed building, and retains some of its original panelling and doors.

In the 17th century, Headington was a favourite destination of Oxford academics taking a walk into the country. As the present main road through the centre did not exist at the time, after reaching the top of Headington Hill they would continue along Cuckoo Lane to the alehouse where the Joan of Headington apparently offered more than ale. By 1750, the inn had become more respectable and it was given a new name as the White Hart.

The White Hart was the annual meet for the South Oxfordshire Hounds, and was also a centre for the mummers. A 26 ft-deep well was discovered in the courtyard in 1976, but was covered for safety reasons.

As for the former youth hostel, which I stayed in when I was 17 or 18, it was renamed Dorothea Beale House after one of the founders of St Hilda’s College, its address is now 32B Jack Straw’s Lane, and it is a children’s nursery.

But more about Saint Andrew’s Church and some other churches in Headington, Jack Straw’s Lane and the connections with CS Lewis in the days to come, hopefully.

The White Hart at 12 St Andrew’s Road, across the street from Saint Andrew’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 137, Tuesday 22 September 2026

‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it’ (Luke 8: 21) … Who is my brother? … the Seven Brothers Taverna at the Old Harbour in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVI, 20 September).

I got home from Oxford late last night after an MRI scan in the John Radcliffe Hospital as part of the follow-up care following my stroke over four years ago (March 2022) and hospital procedures in Milton Keynes, Oxford and Sheffield. Now 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.

‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it’ (Luke 8: 21) … an interesting reminder in a café in Greystones, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 8: 19-21 (NRSVA):

19 Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. 20 And he was told, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ 21 But he said to them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’

Leo Tolstoy offers a challenging understanding of happy and unhappy families in ‘Anna Karenina’

Today’s Reflections:

Leo Tolstoy’s opening sentence in Anna Karenina is often quoted in analyses of family life: ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’

His observation is most quoted when family relationships are being discussed. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian mystic and novelist, and he took another 900 pages or so to describe three generations of unhappy family members who torment and torture each other and themselves. Although he never used the term, Tolstoy demonstrates what therapists today call the ‘intergenerational transmission of trauma.’

Tolstoy means that for a family to be happy, several key aspects must be in place, such as good health of all family members, acceptable financial security, and mutual affection. If there is a deficiency in any one or more of these key aspects, the family will be unhappy. The ‘Anna Karenina principle’ is used as a concept to explain success in many other fields, including, for example, in science.

The opening sentence of Anna Karenina seems to have a ring of truth to it. But do you think it is true at all? Are all happy families alike? And is it so that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way?

Is the family of Jesus a happy family or an unhappy family?

What helps you to discuss this: the behaviour of his family members? Or his response to them?

Defining families, let alone defining happy families or unhappy families, is not as easy a task as appears when we first accept the challenge.

Deciding who is in, and who is out, through our behaviour, may be the first indication of whether a family is happy or not.

We all know families where one brother or one sister is the last to hear family notices, the last to hear about births, marriages or deaths, to hear about family parties and celebrations, to be counted in on family news and gossip. Indeed, there are some families where I imagine each individual sibling thinks he or she is the brother or sister who is always the last to be counted in.

In other families, the definition of family can be surprisingly narrow or surprisingly broad. Do you count second cousins as family members? Do I see everyone who shares my family name as, in some way, a member of some extended family?

Despite the fictional idyllic family life of the Waltons in Little House on the Prairie, there is no ideal family or ideal family life, and no one single agreed definition of family.

What we do know is that we cannot chose our families, even if we think we would like to. We may ignore, marginalise or isolate other family members, but they remain members of the same family.

Why is it acceptable only in families to speak to one another in ways that are unacceptable in the workplace and that would lead to sanctions, discipline or even dismissal?

None of us had any choice when it comes to our family members – parents, siblings, still less remote ancestors. And if we could, we would probably make no better – and no worse – a choice than the one we live with. Indeed, researching a family tree often produces surprises when it comes to finding new family members.

Nor can we chose on God’s behalf who is in and who is out, who is part of God’s family, who is truly my brother and sister. For, in reality, we are all God’s children, and in a very real way our shared baptism makes us, truly, brothers and sisters.

I often feel that the Church is truly like a family, but not because we treat each other like we are the children of God; rather, the way we speak to each other about divisive issues such as sexuality, gender, marriage and divorce shows the Church is an unhappy family as understood by the ‘Anna Karenina principle’.

Which makes it even more difficult to pose my question: Is the family of Jesus a happy family or an unhappy family?

To paraphrase the conclusion of today’s Gospel reading: ‘My parents and my brothers and sisters are those who hear the word of God and do it.’

Drafting a family tree for a family spread across nine generations and five or six countries … researching family trees often produces surprises when it comes to finding new family members (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 22 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 (Tuesday 22 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, for the peoples of the earth and the lands they inhabit, especially those displaced by war, occupation, land grabs, and ecological destruction, we pray. May the earth be honoured as a gift, not exploited as a possession.

The Collect of the Day:

O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers
of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love is the fulfilling of the law:
grant that we may love you with our whole heart
and our neighbours as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord of creation,
whose glory is around and within us:
open our eyes to your wonders,
that we may serve you with reverence
and know your peace at our lives’ end,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘His mother and his brothers … could not reach him because of the crowd’ (Luke 8: 19) … a sculpture in central Milton Keynes (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

‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it’ (Luke 8: 21) … Who is my brother? … the Three Brothers Taverna in Chora Sfakion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)