Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 25, Monday 1 June 2026, the Visitation

The ‘Madonna of the Magnificat’, a sculpture by Laurence Broderick in Saint Peter’s Priory Church, Dunstable (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Since the 50-day season of Easter came to an end with the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday (24 May 2026), we are in Ordinary Time once again. This week began with Trinity Sunday (31 May 2026), and on Trinity Sunday the liturgical colour returned from the Green of Ordinary Time to the white or gold of a festival.

The liturgical colour remains white or gold today because the Feast of the Visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth has been transferred from 31 May to 1 June this year because yesterday was Trinity Sunday. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 1: 39-49 [50–56] (NRSVA):

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

46 And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
[50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

56 And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.]

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

At the Feast of the Visitation, transferred from 31 May this year because yesterday was Trinity Sunday, the Church recalls the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, as Saint Luke’s Gospel records in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 1: 39-49 [50–56]).

This feast was first celebrated at a Franciscan Order General Chapter in 1263 and quickly spread throughout Europe. Since it is a celebration clearly described in the Gospel, the churches of the Reformation were less inclined to proscribe it than they were other Marian feasts, particularly as it was the occasion for the Virgin Mary to sing her great hymn of praise in honour of her Lord and God.

The Canticle Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55) is familiar to Anglicans at Evening Prayer and Evensong throughout the week. The great German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), in a sermon in London over 90 years ago (17 December 1933), said Magnificat ‘is the oldest Advent hymn,’ and he spoke of how Mary knows better than anyone else what it means to wait for Christ’s coming:

‘In her own body she is experiencing the wonderful ways of God with humankind: that God does not arrange matters to suit our opinions and views, does not follow the path that humans would like to prescribe. God’s path is free and original beyond all our ability to understand or to prove.’

Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 1: 39-56) recalls Mary of the Magnificat and tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s visit to her cousin, Saint Elizabeth.

When she visits, they are both pregnant – one with the Christ Child, the other with Saint John the Baptist.

Immediately after the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary leaves Nazareth and travels south to an unnamed ‘Judean town in the hill country,’ perhaps Hebron outside Jerusalem, to visit Elizabeth. When she arrives, although he is still in his mother’s womb, Saint John the Baptist is aware of the presence of Christ, and the unborn child leaps for joy.

Saint Elizabeth too recognises that Christ is present, and declares to Mary with a loud cry: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy’ (Luke 1: 42-44).

The Virgin Mary responds to Saint Elizabeth immediately with the words that we now know as the canticle Magnificat.

So we see, side-by-side, two women, one seemingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the age that is passing away; and the other woman, seemingly too young to have a child, but about to give birth to he who is the beginning of the age that is not going to pass away.

The Virgin Mary of the canticle Magnificat and of the Visitation is a strong and revolutionary woman, unlike the Virgin Mary of the plaster-cast statues and the Rosary.

The Mary I see as a role model for belief and discipleship is the Mary who sets off in a hurry and a flurry to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the Mary with a gob on her who speaks out of turn when she comes out with those wonderful words we hear in this Gospel reading, the Mary who sings the Canticle Magnificat.

What a contrasting pair these two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, are.

How much they speak to so many of the dilemmas we have in our lives today.

Elizabeth is the older woman. She has been married for years. Because of social and family pressures, she had started to become embarrassed that after all those years of marriage she has not become pregnant.

In those days, even in many places to this day, this was an embarrassing social stigma. She had no son to inherit her husband’s lands, his family position, the place of Zechariah as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem.

She reminds us too of Sarah, who is so embarrassed at the thought of becoming pregnant in her old age that she laughs in the face of the three visitors, she laughs in the face of the living Triune God.

Today, a woman who became pregnant at her stage in life might not laugh. She might quake with fear. She might ask for amniocentesis or an amniotic fluid test.

And yet Elizabeth takes control of her situation. She turns a predicament into an opportunity, a crisis of a pregnancy so late in life into a blessing for us all.

She is so filled with joy when Mary arrives that as soon as she hears the knock on the door, as soon as she hears the sound of Mary on her doorstep, her joy is infectious, so infectious that even the child in her womb – the child who would grow up to be Saint John the Baptist – leaps with joy in her womb.

Elizabeth’s action is radical. Life is tough enough for her. Her husband has been struck dumb. A dumb priest was unlikely to be able to continue to earn a liturgical living in the Temple in Jerusalem. How was she now going to provide for her child when he was born?

But Elizabeth’s actions are more radical than that.

How many women of her age, and her respectable background, would have been so quick to rush out and welcome her much younger, single and pregnant cousin?

How many women would have been worried: ‘What if she stays here and has the child here? Would we ever live with the shame?’

How many women might have suggested instead that Mary goes off and finds a home where they can find someone else to take care of her child when he is born?

Instead, Elizabeth welcomes Mary with open arms. Elizabeth’s joyful greeting, ‘Blessed are you among women …,’ echoes the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel (see Luke 1: 28), ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’

It is almost as if Elizabeth is saying: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’

Which is precisely what God says in the Incarnation, in the precious gift of the Christ come among us: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’

Mary for her part is such a wonderful, feisty person. She is, what might be described in the red-top tabloid newspapers today as ‘a gymslip Mum.’ But, instead of hiding herself away from her family, from her cousins, from the woman in her family who is married to a priest, she rushes off to her immediately, to share her good news with her.

And she challenges so many of our prejudices and our values and our presumptions today. Not just about gymslip mums and unexpected or unplanned pregnancies, but about what the silent and the marginalised have to say about our values in society today.

And Mary declares:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

She sings a song of hope in a world where those who are proud in their hearts need to be scattered, where the powerful need to be brought down from their thrones, where the lowly wait to be lifted up.

She sings a song of hope for the hungry who long to be filled with good things, where the rich are about to be sent away empty, where those who have been at the bottom of pile too long need help and mercy.

‘The Visitation’ depicted in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 1 June 2026, the Visitation, transferred):

A new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), was published last week, in time for the USPG conference in the High Leigh, Hertfordshire, from tomorrow (2 June) until Thursday (4 June). The theme this week, from 31 May to 6 June 2026 (pp 6-7) is ‘Peacebuilding in the Gulf’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a reflection from Saint Christopher’s Cathedral in Bahrain.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 1 June 2026, the Visitation, transferred) invites us to pray:

Lord, uphold the people of Saint George’s and all who gather in Baghdad, giving them courage to walk streets shadowed by conflict. Thank you that there is peace in your presence. We pray with them for peace across the country too.

The Collect:

Mighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour on your lowly servants
that, with Mary, we may magnify your holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Gracious God,
who gave joy to Elizabeth and Mary
as they recognized the signs of redemption
at work within them:
help us, who have shared in the joy of this eucharist,
to know the Lord deep within us
and his love shining out in our lives, that the world may rejoice in your salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Visitation depicted in a window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (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 Easter 2025: 42, Saturday 31 May 2025, the Visitation

The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day, which we celebrated on Thursday (29 May 2025), until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday tomorrow week (8 June 2025).

The Church Calendar today celebrated the Feast of the Visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth.

I am back in Stony Stratford this morning after a day of tests in the John Radcliffe Hospital, with a Myocardial Perfusion Imaging Test in the Nuclear Cardiology Test in connection with my sarcoidosis, two long, three-stage bus journeys, a 24-hour period without coffee or chocolate, and all compensated for by Choral Evensong in Pusey House, followed by a sociable reception afterwards on the lawns in evening sunshine.

The Stony Live Festival begins today, and I am looking forward to a number of events in Stony Stratford throughout the day, including an promising programme of street music, dancing and entertainment. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 1: 39-49 [50–56] (NRSVA):

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

46 And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
[50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

56 And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.]

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The church today recalls the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, as Saint Luke’s Gospel records

The celebration of the feast first occurred at a Franciscan Order General Chapter in 1263 but quickly spread throughout Europe. Since it is a celebration clearly described in the Gospel, the churches of the Reformation were less inclined to proscribe it than they were other Marian feasts, particularly as it was the occasion for the Virgin Mary to sing her great hymn of praise in honour of her Lord and God.

Just as Saint Luke sees Saint John the Baptist as the last of the prophets of the old covenant, he uses Saint John’s leaping in Saint Elizabeth’s womb as the first time Saint John bears witness to Christ as the promised Messiah. In this way, he links the old covenant with the new. He seems to be saying that just as the old covenant clearly points to Jesus, so does its last prophet, yet to be born.

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

The words of the canticle Magnificat carved on the wooden screen at the west end of the monastic church in Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 31 May 2025, the Visitation):

We celebrated the Feast of the Ascension on Thursday (29 May 2025) and it has provided the theme for this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections from Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 31 May 2025, the Visitation) invites us to pray:

Lord, as Mary brought the gift of your Son into the world, help us to welcome Christ with the same openness and humility. May we, like Elizabeth, recognise your presence in those around us, and may our hearts be filled with gratitude and awe at the wonders you perform.

The Collect:

Mighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour on your lowly servants
that, with Mary, we may magnify your holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Gracious God,
who gave joy to Elizabeth and Mary
as they recognized the signs of redemption
at work within them:
help us, who have shared in the joy of this eucharist,
to know the Lord deep within us
and his love shining out in our lives, that the world may rejoice in your salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Easter VII:

O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Visitation depicted in a window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (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 Advent 2024: 21, Saturday 21 December 2024

The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the final days of the Season of Advent, today is the Winter Solstice (21 December), tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV, 22 December 2024) and Christmas Day is now just a few days away.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 1: 39-45 (NRSVA):

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 1: 39-45), we continue a series of readings before Christmas that draw on the two nativity narratives found in Matthew 1: 1-24 and Luke 1: 5-79.

During the week before Christmas, the great canticle Magnificat at Evensong traditionally has a refrain or antiphon attached to it proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament. Each name develops into a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.

O Sapientia, or O Wisdom, is the first of these days, and was marked on Tuesday (17 December). It was followed on Wednesday (18 December) by O Adonai, by O Root of Jesse on Thursday (19 December), O Key of David yesterday (20 December), and O Dayspring today (21 December), followed by O King of the Nations tomorrow (22 December), and, finally on 23 December, O Emmanuel.

In the old Sarum rite, these were sung one day earlier, beginning on 16 December, requiring another ascription for 23 December, this being O Virgin of Virgins. Since this was clearly apposite to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and not a ‘title’ of God, it was not adopted much beyond Sarum and, with the revision of the Calendar, Anglicans have adopted the more widely-used formulæ and dating.

The seven majestic Messianic titles for Christ are based on Biblical prophecies, and they help the Church to recall the variety of the ills of humanity before the coming of the Redeemer as each antiphon in turn pleads with mounting impatience for Christ to save his people.

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 1: 39-45), tells the story of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elzabeth, a feast we usually celebrate six or seven months before Christmas, on 31 May 2023.

Just as Saint Luke sees Saint John the Baptist as the last of the prophets of the old covenant, he uses Saint John’s leaping in Saint Elizabeth’s womb as the first time Saint John bears witness to Christ as the promised Messiah. In this way, he links the old covenant with the new. He seems to be saying that just as the old covenant clearly points to Jesus, so does its last prophet, yet to be born.

Immediately after the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary leaves Nazareth and travels south to an unnamed ‘Judean town in the hill country,’ perhaps Hebron outside Jerusalem, to visit Elizabeth. When she arrives, although he is still in his mother’s womb, Saint John the Baptist is aware of the presence of Christ, and the unborn child leaps for joy.

Saint Elizabeth too recognises that Christ is present, and declares to Mary with a loud cry: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy’ (Luke 1: 42-44).

The Virgin Mary responds to Saint Elizabeth immediately with the words that we now know as the canticle Magnificat, which we hear in tomorrow’s readings.

So we see, side-by-side, two women, one seemingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the age that is passing away; and the other woman, seemingly too young to have a child, but about to give birth to him who is the beginning of the age that is not going to pass away.

The Virgin Mary of the canticle Magnificat and of the Visitation is a strong and revolutionary woman, unlike the Virgin Mary of the plaster-cast statues and the Rosary.

The Mary I see as a role model for belief and discipleship is the Mary who sets off in a hurry and a flurry to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the Mary with a gob on her who speaks out of turn when she comes out with those wonderful words we hear in this Gospel reading, the Mary who sings the Canticle Magnificat.

What a contrasting pair these two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, are!

How much they speak to so many of the dilemmas we have in life today!

Elizabeth is the older woman. She has been married for years. Because of social and family pressures, she had started to become embarrassed that after all those years of marriage she has not become pregnant.

In those days, even in many places to this day, this was an embarrassing social stigma. She had no son to inherit her husband’s lands, his family position, the place of Zechariah as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem.

She reminds us too of Sarah, who is so embarrassed at the thought of becoming pregnant in her old age that she laughs in the face of the three visitors, she laughs in the face of the living Triune God.

Today, a woman who became pregnant at her stage in life might not laugh. She might quake with fear. She might ask for amniocentesis or an amniotic fluid test.

And yet Elizabeth takes control of her situation. She turns a predicament into an opportunity, a crisis of a pregnancy so late in life into a blessing for us all.

She is so filled with joy when Mary arrives that as soon as she hears the knock on the door, as soon as she hears the sound of Mary on her doorstep, her joy is infectious, so infectious that even the child in her womb – the child who would grow up to be Saint John the Baptist – leaps with joy in her womb.

Elizabeth’s action is radical. Life is tough enough for her. Her husband has been struck dumb. A dumb priest was unlikely to be able to continue to earn a liturgical living in the Temple in Jerusalem. How was she now going to provide for her child when he was born?

But Elizabeth’s actions are more radical than that.

How many women of her age, and her respectable background, would have been so quick to rush out and welcome her much younger, single and pregnant cousin?

How many women would have been worried: ‘What if she stays here and has the child here? Would we ever live with the shame?’

How many women might have suggested instead that Mary goes off and finds a home where they can find someone else to take care of her child when he is born?

Instead, Elizabeth welcomes Mary with open arms. Elizabeth’s joyful greeting, ‘Blessed are you among women …,’ echoes the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel (see Luke 1: 28), ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’

It is almost as if Elizabeth is saying: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’

Which is precisely what God is saying in the Incarnation, in the precious gift of the Christmas Child: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’

The Visitation depicted in a window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 21 December 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Joy – Advent’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Sonja Hunter, Priest at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Samoa, Diocese of Polynesia.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 21 December 2024) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus. As we near Christmas, fill every home and church with thankfulness and worship.

The Collect:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Advent IV:

God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘The Visitation’, by James B Janknegt

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

Church-goers in Limerick During War and Revolution

First World War memorial in the Church of Ireland, Rathkeale (courtesy: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout the First World War, the War of Independence, and the Civil War, Protestants of all denominations throughout Limerick city and county kept their churches open, maintained their church and social life, and proclaimed constantly their goodwill towards their neighbours and, after the Treaty, their loyalty to the new Irish Free State. Throughout the Civil War, cathedral services continued in St Mary’s, together with ordinations and Holy Week addresses, Sunday services continued in parish churches, and diocesan organisations, including the diocesan synod and council, sought to maintain a semblance of normal church life.1 But this period was also marked by a number of attacks and killings that were inevitably perceived as sectarian.

Members of the Church of Ireland, Methodists, and Presbyterians in Limerick identified overwhelmingly with the British cause in the First World War, and few showed any open sympathy with Irish nationalism and independence. Those members of the Church of Ireland who identified with nationalism at the time stand out as exceptional, although none could be regarded as a marginal member of the Church of Ireland. Conor O’Brien (1880−1952), skipper of the Kelpie during the Kilcoole gun running in August 1914, was a grandson of William Smith O’Brien and a nephew of both Lucius Henry O’Brien, who was the dean of Limerick from 1905 to 1913, and the Revd Robert Malcolm Gwynn (1877−1962), who gave the Irish Citizen Army its name. His cousin Mary Spring Rice (1888−1924), a crew member of the Asgard, was a bishop’s granddaughter. Sir Thomas Myles (1857−1937), who skippered the Chotah in the Kilcoole gun running, was a brother of the dean of Dromore, the Very Revd Edward Albert Myles (1865−1951).2

However, as war memorials in churches throughout Limerick attest, during the revolutionary decade the vast majority of ordinary Protestant churchgoers identified not with independence but with family members who enlisted during the First World War.

Experience of the First World War

The experience of war blighted the lives of almost every Protestant family in these years and in the decades that followed. The men who signed up and fought in the main fields of battle, such as Flanders, the Somme, the Gallipoli landings, and Thessaloniki, included about one hundred former members of the Church Lads’ Brigade, a church-based youth organisation in the Limerick city parishes. It is difficult to overstate the impact of the war on Protestant family life in Limerick. The Heaphy family, for example, paid a heavy price with the deaths of three brothers: Private William Heaphy (28) died of his wounds on 7 May 1916; Gunner Frederick Heaphy (17) was killed on 3 May 1917; and Lance Corporal John Eyre Heaphy (33) was killed on 7 April 1918. A fourth brother, George Heaphy, survived the war. All three Heaphy brothers who died are named on the war memorial in St Mary’s Cathedral, along with two Fogerty brothers, two Hackett brothers, and two brothers from the Wills family. When injured men died at home, their families and churches went to great lengths in organising their funerals. Lieutenant William Brabazon Owens died of his wounds at the age of twenty on 25 June 1916, and received a military funeral in St Mary’s Cathedral. The funeral cortege was headed by a firing party and an army band; his coffin, covered with the union fag and his sword, belt, and cap, was borne on a gun carriage.3

After the First World War, war memorials were erected in St Mary’s Cathedral and in ordinary churches throughout Limerick. The cathedral war memorial was unveiled in 1922 and dedicated ‘In memory of the Men of Thomond fallen in the War: 1914–18.’ The forty-three names are listed alphabetically, without class division or separate categories for ‘officers’ and ‘men’. Lord Glentworth (Captain Edmond William Claude Gerard de Vere Pery), the twenty-three-year-old heir of the Earl of Limerick, was killed in action on 18 May 1918; on the monument, he takes his place alphabetically between a Gabbett and a Gore. In contrast, the war memorial in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, has only seven names, but separates the officers from the men. Their deaths are seen as heroic and are imbued with religious significance, emphasised in the heading and the Biblical citation: ‘1914−1918, To the Glory of God and in loving memory of the following officers and men from this parish who laid down their lives in the Great War … Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.’

Fear among parishioners: The revolutionary years

After the First World War, and as the War of Independence intensified, the Church of Ireland faced difficulties in maintaining diocesan activities. The 1920 diocesan report, for example, refers to ‘the difficulties of travelling, and the early hour at which people must be in their houses.’4 Peter Switzer, an elderly, seventy-five-year-old bachelor, was shot and fatally wounded on 10 January 1922 while he was attending the funeral of his sister in Castletown Church near Pallaskenry.5 When a memorial service for Mrs Maria Lindsay (whose murder as an informer by the Cork No. 1 Brigade IRA on 11 March 1921 caused outrage) was held in St Mary’s Cathedral on 28 January 1922, 450 military of all ranks and ninety Royal Irish Constabulary members attended. In many ways, this service also served to express public anguish in the immediate aftermath of the death of Peter Switzer.6 A week later, on Sunday 5 February 1922, the war memorial in St Mary’s Cathedral was unveiled at a service attended by 800 people. It was unveiled by Brigadier General Louis Wyatt and was dedicated by the newly-elected Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe, Harry Vere White.7 Wyatt was the commanding officer of the troops in Limerick, but was probably invited to unveil the monument because he had become a popular public figure as the general who brought the ‘Unknown Warrior’ from France for burial in Westminster Abbey the previous November.

As the conditions for civil war unfolded across the land in spring 1922, the British Army in Limerick was confined to barracks, and the Church of Ireland Gazette described ‘a strange and dangerous condition of affairs’ in the city.8 Yet, throughout the 1922−23 period, religious services continued in St Mary’s and in parish churches, while the diocesan organisations such as the synod and council worked to maintain the normal routines of church life.9 But on 28 March 1922, an attempt was made to burn Kilpeacon Rectory. Canon Charles Atkinson, who was also precentor of Limerick, may have been singled out because he had been an army chaplain during the First World War. Bishop White visited Kilpeacon the following Sunday and urged calm, saying that Church of Ireland members were ‘law-respecting, God-fearing’ people who showed their patriotism in ‘their frank and loyal acceptance of a new form of Government.’10 In the days that followed, the pavilion of the Limerick Protestant Young Men’s Association (LPYMA) in Farranshone was burnt to the ground, bullets were fired through the windows of its premises on O’Connell Street, and an attempt was made to bomb the building.11 Protestants in Limerick called a public meeting on 4 April 1922 to express their disgust at sectarian outrages in Belfast. The meeting was chaired by Sir Charles Barrington, who – despite the earlier murder of his daughter in May 1921 – praised the toleration shown to Protestants in Limerick and insisted that they ‘had thrived’ in a Catholic community. William Waller declared that Protestants – ‘a small, a very small, minority’ − carried on their daily lives without interference. Their sentiments were echoed by Captain James O’Grady Delmege, who declared that Protestants in Limerick had ‘received nothing but kindness, courtesy and goodwill at the hands of their fellow-countrymen.’12

Brave efforts were made to continue, not only with church-going, but also with the social life of church members. The LPYMA felt confident enough to hold a sports day at its Ennis Road grounds on 27 April 1922 ‘after the lapse of some years.’13 That weekend, however, the diocesan curate, the Revd Ralph Harbord, was shot and seriously wounded on the steps of his father’s rectory in west Cork. In a sermon the following Sunday, White referred to this shooting, and the related murders of thirteen Protestants in the Dunmanway area, as a ‘grim reminder’ of the helplessness of ‘scattered, disarmed members of the Church of Ireland in the South of Ireland.’14

As the new state found its feet, the Diocese of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe reflected the general mood throughout southern dioceses, eager to express loyalty to the new Irish Free State, yet anxious to see an end to violence. In the diocesan report of 19 June 1922, the diocesan auditor, C.H. Fitt, noted that ‘Nation and Church’ had been ‘passing through’ a ‘great crisis and change’, but his report pledged the loyalty of the church to ‘the new state’ and its commitment to ‘the welfare of all the people in our beloved native land.’15 When the diocesan synod met in the Diocesan Hall in Pery Square on 5 July 1922, disruptions to transport prevented a full attendance and the synod struggled to find a quorum. In his address, Bishop White declared: ‘We meet today in great anxiety about public affairs and in a city which is in the hands of opposing bands of armed men.’ White claimed that the Church of Ireland in Limerick had lost up to 60 per cent of its members ‘and many churches are now half empty.’ As a consequence, parishes were amalgamated and fewer curates were employed. ‘Ireland is losing many of her best, most patriotic, and most progressive citizens, who are forced to leave their native land by economic causes or by political and religious intolerance.’ The financial reports showed that collections and subscriptions were falling off, reflecting that economic and numerical decline.16

First World War memorial by Conor O’Brien, St Mary’s Cathedral (courtesy: Patrick Comerford)

War and memory

In the aftermath of the War of Independence and the Civil War, the diocesan report for 1923 noted that the year ‘began in strife and disorder’, but ‘happily ended in peace’ and with a ‘general improvement of the civic life of the country.’17 By 1924, the Diocesan Council was giving ‘thanks to Almighty God for His providential guidance’ and the ‘quietness and peace’ that allowed church life to continue.18

At his diocesan synod in 1923, White lamented the ‘hundreds of industrious Protestant Irish men and women’ who had left ‘because they felt that they were not welcome here, and that satisfactory careers could not be secured for their boys and girls in their own country’. If this hinted at sectarian undertones, White also added that ‘anything like a Protestant exodus would be deplored by our present rulers’.19 But the Protestant exodus continued. Prominent among those who left was Sir Charles Barrington, who never returned; he sold Glenstal Castle in 1926 and died in Hampshire in 1943, aged ninety-three. Ordinary families suffered the greatest haemorrhage: by 1926, the Church of Ireland population in Limerick city had dropped by 55.4 per cent from the figure in 1911, the Methodist population had declined by 51 per cent, and the Presbyterians had fallen by 82.6 per cent.

The sufferings of laity and clergy alike were seldom spoken of. Noone was ever charged with Peter Switzer’s murder, and his youngest sister Eliza died in 1927 at the age of seventy-five, bringing to an end their branch of the Switzer family. The sectarian undercurrents remained for a decade or more after independence. During a wave of sectarian attacks that swept across Ireland in the summer of 1935, an estimated crowd of 200−300 young men attacked churches and Protestant-owned shops and homes in Limerick on Saturday night, 20 July 1935, including Trinity Episcopal Church on Catherine Street and St Michael’s Church of Ireland on Pery Square, the homes of Canon Thomas Abbot and Archdeacon John Waller, the LPYMA building, the Gospel Hall, the Diocesan Hall, and the Masonic Club, and they attempted to set fire to the Presbyterian Church on Henry Street.20 St Peter and St Paul Church, the Church of Ireland parish church in Kilmallock, was destroyed in an arson attack the following night, while the windows of the local rector’s home were smashed along with those of a Protestant-owned shop. No-one was ever convicted or jailed for the attacks.21

Mary Spring Rice died in a sanatorium in Wales in 1924. When her body was brought back for burial in the Church of Ireland churchyard in Foynes, she was given a guard of honour by the local IRA, the Gaelic League, and trade unionists.22 But the role played by a few other members of the Church of Ireland in the War of Independence was forgotten by their co-religionists and their neighbours alike. Conor O’Brien failed to get elected to the Senate in 1925 and spent his later years in semi-isolation on Foynes Island, where he died in 1952. Sir Thomas Myles had become a colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps on the outbreak of the First World War and an honorary surgeon to King George V; he died in 1937 in the Richmond Hospital, Dublin, where he spent much of his career.

In the decades that followed, as churches continued to close, every effort was made to ensure that their war memorials were not lost. The memorials in Christ Church Methodist Church, Limerick, for example, include a war memorial with six names salvaged from the Presbyterian Church on Henry Street when it closed. When Rathkeale Methodist Church closed, the war memorial was moved to Ballingrane Methodist Church near Adare.

To this day, the war memorials in many churches in all three denominations remain the focus for Remembrance Sunday services each November. Yet, only one Church of Ireland churchyard in County Limerick has memorials to members of the Church of Ireland who supported the nationalist cause. A plaque on the gate leading into Mount Trenchard churchyard near Foynes was unveiled in 2014: ‘In memory of Conor O’Brien, Kitty O’Brien, George Cahill, Mary Spring Rice, Thomas Fitzsimons, Sir Thomas Myles. Go ndéana Dia trócaire orthú. Limerick men and women who imported rifles for the Irish Volunteers, July 1914.’ The church at Mount Trenchard had been long closed by 2014, however, and all that remained standing was the church tower. Perhaps the determination to keep open other churches in places such as Castletown and Kilmallock reflects, not only the piety and commitment of their parishioners, but an inherited and inbuilt yet unspoken determination not to concede to the sectarian attacks of previous decades.

Memorial to Limerick members of the Howth and Kilcoole gun running team, Mount Trenchard churchyard, Foynes. Mary Spring Rice and Conor O’Brien are buried within (courtesy: Patrick Comerford)

Notes

1. See, for example, Church of Ireland Gazette, 10 March, 16 June 1922.
2. Valerie Jones, Rebel Prods: The forgotten story of Protestant radical nationalists and the 1916 Rising (Dublin, 2016), passim.
3. Limerick Chronicle, 27 June 1916.
4. Representative Church Body Library, Dublin (RCB Library), D13 Limerick, Ardfert & Killaloe Diocesan Records, 1693–2008: 13/6, Diocesan Report, 1920, p 33.
5. John Lucey, ‘The shooting of Peter Switzer’, North Munster Antiquarian Journal, 53 (2013), pp 237-240.
6. Church of Ireland Gazette, 3 February 1922.
7. Ibid., 10 February 1922.
8. Ibid., 10 March 1922.
9. See Ibid., 10 March, 16 June 1922.
10. Ibid., 7 April 1922.
11. Thomas Keane, ‘Class, religion and society in Limerick city, 1922–1939’ (PhD thesis, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2015), pp 54-6.
12. Ibid, pp 54-55; Brian Hughes, ‘Unionists and loyalists in Limerick, 1922–23’ in Seán William Gannon (ed.), The inevitable conflict: Essays on the Civil War in County Limerick (Limerick, 2022), p. 94; Limerick Chronicle, 5 April 1922; Irish Times, 5 April 1922.
13. Church of Ireland Gazette, 5 May 1922.
14. Ibid., 10 May 1922.
15. RCB Library, D13/13/6, Diocesan Report, 1921, p 4.
16. Church of Ireland Gazette, 28 July 1922.
17. RCB Library, D13/13/6, Diocesan Report, 1923, pp 3-4.
18. RCB Library, D13/13/6, Diocesan Report, 1924, p 4.
19. Church of Ireland Gazette, 22 June 1923.
20. Limerick Leader, 9 January 2010. The primary context for these attacks was an outbreak of sectarian attacks against Catholics in Northern Ireland following that year’s 12 July celebrations.
21. Irish Times, 22 July 1935; Limerick Leader, 27 July 1935.
22. Jones, Rebel Prods, p. 90.

Contributor’s Note:

The Revd Canon Professor Patrick Comerford was Precentor of St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale Group of Parishes (2017–22), including Rathkeale, Askeaton, Castletown, and Tarbert. He is a former adjunct assistant professor in Trinity College, Dublin and a former Irish Times journalist. He now lives in retirement in England. www.patrickcomerford. Com

• ‘Church-goers in Limerick During War and Revolution’ is Chapter 6 (pp 83-89) in Dr Seán William Gannon and Dr Brian Hughes (eds), Histories of Protestant Limerick, 1912–1923 (Limerick: Limerick City and County Council, 2023, ISBN 978-1-999-6911-6)

‘Histories of Protestant Limerick, 1912–1923’ … published in recent days in Limerick

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (3) 31 May 2023

The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Fifty days of Easter season came to an end on Sunday with the Day of Pentecost (28 May 2023), or Whit Sunday, and Ordinary Time resumed on Monday (29 May 2023).

Today is the Feast of the Visitation (31 May 2023). Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection. In this first week in Ordinary Time, between the Day of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday (4 June 2023), I am reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at an image or stained glass window in a church or cathedral I know depicting Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, or the Feast of the Day;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The church today recalls the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, as Saint Luke’s gospel records.

The celebration of the feast first occurred at a Franciscan Order General Chapter in 1263 but quickly spread throughout Europe. Since it is a celebration clearly described in the Gospel, the churches of the Reformation were less inclined to proscribe it than they were other Marian feasts, particularly as it was the occasion for the Virgin Mary to sing her great hymn of praise in honour of her Lord and God.

Just as Saint Luke sees Saint John the Baptist as the last of the prophets of the old covenant, he uses Saint John’s leaping in Saint Elizabeth’s womb as the first time Saint John bears witness to Christ as the promised Messiah. In this way, he links the old covenant with the new. He seems to be saying that just as the old covenant clearly points to Jesus, so does its last prophet, yet to be born.

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 1: 39-56 (NRSVA):

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

46 And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

56 And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.

The words of the canticle Magnificat carved on the wooden screen at the west end of the monastic church in Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s prayer:

The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘Pentecost.’ USPG’s Chaplain, the Revd Jessie Anand, introduced this theme on Sunday, reflecting on Pentecost and languages.

The USPG Prayer invites us to pray this morning (Wednesday 31 May 2023):

Let us pray for those who are unable to communicate through speech. May we be attentive to their ways of communicating and find paths to inclusion and community building.

Collect:

Mighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour on your lowly servants
that, with Mary, we may magnify your holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Gracious God,
who gave joy to Elizabeth and Mary
as they recognized the signs of redemption
at work within them:
help us, who have shared in the joy of this Eucharist,
to know the Lord deep within us
and his love shining out in our lives,
that the world may rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Visitation depicted in a window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (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

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral and USPG: Wednesday 21 December 2022

The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the last week of Advent, and just a few days away from Christmas Day.

The traditional counting of the ‘O Antiphons’ began on Saturday (17 December) with ‘O Sapientia.’ For eight days before Christmas, the canticle Magnificat at Evensong has a refrain or antiphon proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament.

Each name develops into a prophecy of the forthcoming and eagerly-anticipated Messiah, Jesus, the Son of God. O Sapientia, or ‘O Wisdom’, was followed on Sunday by ‘O Adonai’, then O Radix Jesse (‘O Root of Jesse’) on Monday, followed by O Clavis David (‘O Key of David’) yesterday, O Oriens (‘O Dayspring’) today (21 December), then ‘O King of the Nations’ tomorrow and, finally, on 23 December ‘O Emmanuel’.

Before today gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 1: 39-45 (NRSVA):

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

As we read the story of Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea, just outside Jerusalem, pray for all women expecting children. Remember those who have found it hard to conceive and the sadnesses and disappointments they have experienced; pray for single mothers, and those, at whatever stage of pregnancy, who are full of wonder, hope, anxiety, or concern. Pray that the world will be a good home for all new-borns.

Collect:

God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Heavenly Father,
who chose the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of the promised saviour:
fill us your servants with your grace,
that in all things we may embrace your holy wil
l and with her rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
as Mary waited for the birth of your Son,
so we wait for his coming in glory;
bring us through the birth pangs of this present age
to see, with her, our great salvation
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘International Migrants Day.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection on International Migrants Day by Bishop Antonio Ablon, Coordinator of the Filipino Chaplaincy in Europe, part of the Philippine Independent Church.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for churches, charities and NGOs who work with migrants. May we be generous in our giving to support their work and advocacy.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Visitation depicted in a window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (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

‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you’

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 19 December 2021

The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV)

11.30: The Parish Eucharist, Saint Brendan’s Church, Tarbert

Readings: Micah 5: 2-5a; the Canticle Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55; Hymn 712, CD 40); Hebrews 10: 5-10; Luke 1: 39-45.

There is a link to the readings HERE.

‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen

This Advent has been a time of waiting, a time of preparation, a time of anticipation. For the past three Sundays, in our time of waiting, preparation and anticipation, we have been preparing ourselves in the liturgy and the music, with carol services and quiet days, with the Christmas Market and Santa’s grotto, with the Advent Wreath and the Crib.

The four candles on the Advent wreath have reminded us, week-after-week, of those who prepared us in the past for the Coming of the Christ Child: first the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, our ancestors in faith, including Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob; then the prophets of the Old Testament, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah, who we heard from this morning; then, last week it was Saint John the Baptist.

This Sunday, the fourth and final candle reminds us of the Virgin Mary. This connects with the Canticle Magnificat, which we heard instead of a Psalm, and our Gospel reading, telling the story of her visit to her cousin Saint Elizabeth.

The Canticle Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55) is normally heard during Evening Prayer and not on Sunday mornings.

The great German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), in an Advent sermon in London almost 90 years ago (17 December 1933), said Magnificat ‘is the oldest Advent hymn,’ and he spoke of how she knows better than anyone else what it means to wait for Christ’s coming:

‘In her own body she is experiencing the wonderful ways of God with humankind: that God does not arrange matters to suit our opinions and views, does not follow the path that humans would like to prescribe. God’s path is free and original beyond all our ability to understand or to prove.’

The Gospel reading (Luke 1: 39-55), also tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s visit to her cousin, Saint Elizabeth.

When she visits, they are both pregnant – one with the Christ Child, the other with Saint John the Baptist.

Immediately after the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary leaves Nazareth and travels south to an unnamed ‘Judean town in the hill country,’ perhaps Hebron outside Jerusalem, to visit Elizabeth. When she arrives, although he is still in his mother’s womb, Saint John the Baptist is aware of the presence of Christ, and the unborn child leaps for joy.

Saint Elizabeth too recognises that Christ is present, and declares to Mary with a loud cry: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy’ (Luke 1: 42-44).

The Virgin Mary responds to Saint Elizabeth immediately with the words that we now know as the canticle Magnificat.

So we see, side-by-side, two women, one seemingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the age that is passing away; and the other woman, seemingly too young to have a child, but about to give birth to him who is the beginning of the age that is not going to pass away.

The Virgin Mary of the canticle Magnificat and of the Visitation is a strong and revolutionary woman, unlike the Virgin Mary of the plaster-cast statues and the Rosary.

The Mary I see as a role model for belief and discipleship is the Mary who sets off in a hurry and a flurry to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the Mary with a gob on her who speaks out of turn when she comes out with those wonderful words we hear in this Gospel reading, the Mary who sings the Canticle Magnificat.

What a contrasting pair these two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, are!

How much they speak to so many of the dilemmas we have in Irish society today!

Elizabeth is the older woman. She has been married for years. Because of social and family pressures, she had started to become embarrassed that after all those years of marriage she has not become pregnant.

In those days, even in many places to this day, this was an embarrassing social stigma. She had no son to inherit her husband’s lands, his family position, the place of Zechariah as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem.

She reminds us too of Sarah, who is so embarrassed at the thought of becoming pregnant in her old age that she laughs in the face of the three visitors, she laughs in the face of the living Triune God.

Today, a woman who became pregnant at her stage in life might not laugh. She might quake with fear. She might ask for amniocentesis or an amniotic fluid test.

And yet Elizabeth takes control of her situation. She turns a predicament into an opportunity, a crisis of a pregnancy so late in life into a blessing for us all.

She is so filled with joy when Mary arrives that as soon as she hears the knock on the door, as soon as she hears the sound of Mary on her doorstep, her joy is infectious, so infectious that even the child in her womb – the child who would grow up to be Saint John the Baptist – leaps with joy in her womb.

Elizabeth’s action is radical. Life is tough enough for her. Her husband has been struck dumb. A dumb priest was unlikely to be able to continue to earn a liturgical living in the Temple in Jerusalem. How was she now going to provide for her child when he was born?

But Elizabeth’s actions are more radical than that.

How many women of her age, and her respectable background, would have been so quick to rush out and welcome her much younger, single and pregnant cousin?

How many women would have been worried: ‘What if she stays here and has the child here? Would we ever live with the shame?’

How many women might have suggested instead that Mary goes off and finds a home where they can find someone else to take care of her child when he is born?

Instead, Elizabeth welcomes Mary with open arms. Elizabeth’s joyful greeting, ‘Blessed are you among women …,’ echoes the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel (see Luke 1: 28), ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’

It is almost as if Elizabeth is saying: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’

Which is precisely what God is saying in the Incarnation, in the precious gift of the Christmas Child: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’

Mary for her part is such a wonderful, feisty person. She is, what might be described in the red-top tabloid newspapers today as ‘a gymslip Mum.’ But, instead of hiding herself away from her family, from her cousins, from the woman in her family who is married to a priest, she rushes off to her immediately, to share her good news with her.

And she challenges so many of our prejudices and our values and our presumptions today. Not just about gymslip mums and unexpected or unplanned pregnancies, but about what the silent and the marginalised have to say about our values in society today.

And Mary declares:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

It is almost like this is the programme or the agenda we can expect when the Christ Child is born.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

The words of the canticle Magnificat carved on the wooden screen at the west end of the monastic church in Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Luke 1: 39-45 (46-55) (NRSVA):

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

[46 And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’]

‘The Visitation’, by James B Janknegt

Liturgical colour: Violet (Purple), Advent Year C.

Penitential Kyries:

Turn to us again, O God our Saviour,
and let your anger cease from us.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Show us your mercy, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.

Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your salvation is near for those that fear you,
that glory may dwell in our land.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
who prepared the blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
Grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Advent Collect:

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Introduction to the Peace:

In the tender mercy of our God,
the dayspring from on high shall break upon us,
to give light to those who dwell in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1: 78, 79)

Preface:

Salvation is your gift
through the coming of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and by him you will make all things new
when he returns in glory to judge the world:

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
you have given us a pledge of eternal redemption.
Grant that we may always eagerly celebrate
the saving mystery of the incarnation of your Son.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

Christ the sun of righteousness shine upon you,
gladden your hearts
and scatter the darkness from before you:

The Advent Wreath:

The Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) offers this prayer for lighting the Fourth (Purple) candle on the Advent Wreath:

Lord Jesus, your mother Mary
carried you with tender determination
on the dangerous road to Bethlehem.
May the same flame of love
that drove her on, now bring
courage and hope
to all who carry and nurture children today.

Hymns:

158, God rest you merry, gentlemen (CD 9)
Canticle: Magnificat, Luke 1: 46-55 as Hymn 712 (CD 40)
174, O little town of Bethlehem (CD 11)
198, The first Nowell the angel did say (CD 12)



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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.