Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 50, Sunday 24 May 2026, Day of Pentecost (Whit Sunday)

The Day of Pentecost depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing through Ascension Day until today, the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday (24 May 2026).

Later this morning, I hope to be part of the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, singing with the choir. 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.

‘Come Holy Spirit’ … the holy water stoup in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 14: 8-17 (25-27), NRSVA:

8 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ 9 Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

[25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.’]

Pentecost or the Descent of the Holy Spirit, by Titian, in the Church of Santa Maria della Salute, Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Rabbi David Aaron opens one of his books with a story about the comedian Henny Youngman, the ‘King of One-Liners,’ who once said, ‘I tried being an atheist, but I gave it up. There are no holidays.’

There are three great holidays in the Calendar of the Church when canon law expects the Eucharist to be celebrated in every cathedral and church: Christmas Day, Easter Day and the Day of Pentecost, today.

Each of these holidays or holy days is a day that celebrates how God has come among us and how God invites us to be with him.

They are just like our own holidays.

How often do you remember a holiday as a time when someone came to visit you, or you went to visit someone special in your family?

I have fond memories of long, extended holidays spent on my grandmother’s farm near Cappoquin in West Waterford.

How many of us know Christmas would not be Christmas without visiting the homes of family members, or special people in our lives and families coming to visit us, or even stay with us?

We have had two family members visiting our small flat in Stony Stratford in recent weeks. Despite its size, we have tried to make this flat a place of hospitality, where people can come and visit us, and sometimes stay with, live with us, even if only for a short time.

These principal holy days or holidays in the life of the Church – Christmas, Easter and Pentecost – are holidays to celebrate how God comes to dwell with us.

1, At Christmas, we celebrate the Incarnation: God comes as Christ to live among us, as one of us.

2, At Easter, God invites to us to come and dwell with him, to become what we are truly made to be.

3, At Pentecost, God as the Holy Spirit comes and dwells with us.

In a typical American way of telling it, David Aaron in that book, Inviting God In (Boston and London: Trumpeter, 2006), makes a distinction between a vacation and a holiday.

He argues that a vacation is a time to get away, such as time on the beach, playing golf or going to a good concert.

A holiday, on the other hand, is a time to celebrate. ‘A holiday,’ he says, ‘is not an escape from everyday life to paradise. Rather, it is a time to infuse paradise into everyday life.’

Playing with the words celebrate and celestial, he says a holiday is a holy day in which we see the celestial within the terrestrial.

The Hebrew name for a holy day, moed (מועד), is used especially for the three great Biblical festivals of Passover, Shavout or Pentecost, which was celebrated over the last few days (21-23 May 2026), and Sukkot (Booths). This Biblical word describes special days set apart from non-sacred days. It actually means ‘date,’ ‘appointed time’ or ‘meeting.’ In other words, these great holidays are actually times to meet God, they truly are dates with God.

And a date with someone special, involves getting dressed up, going somewhere special, perhaps having a special meal together, all in the hope and with the promise of getting to know each other better, of enjoying each other’s company.

David Aaron points out that each of these holy days is a date with God and celebrates a critical ingredient in the recipe for a loving relationship with God and with our fellow human beings – freedom, responsibility, fallibility, accountability, forgiveness, spontaneity, integrity, wholeness, intimacy, anticipation, hope and trust.

Those great holy days are about recalling the great encounters, dates with God in the past, making them real in the present, and looking forward to the promises that they are imbued with, that they may become real in the future.

David Aaron points out that each of these holy days is a date with God. Each holiday is an opportunity to relive the dramatic events that occurred on those days – to remember and celebrate God’s timeless love for us.

In the Feast of Pentecost, we remember how God the Holy Spirit comes to dwell with us, and the Church is formed on the Day of Pentecost.

Until then, they were a small collection of followers of Jesus. Now they become one body. And the Holy Spirit is living in this body.

There is a wise old maxim that you do not really know someone until you live with them. As Sean O’Casey has Joxer say in his play Juno and the Paycock (1925), ‘if you want to know me, come an’ live with me.’

In the ‘reality television’ series First Dates, now in its eleventh series on RTÉ, when people have their first dates, they behave so nicely to one another. They put on their best clothes and finest perfume or aftershave, they are polite, they try to have the best table manners, show they know the best wine and food, and are oh so courteous, considerate and caring.

But when you live with someone, you get to know that person really. Their highs and their lows, their habits and their fads, what they really smell like, how short their fuses may be … even what they really think.

Pentecost celebrates how the Holy Spirit comes to dwell among us, how God wants to live with us and wants us to live with God.

This is the promise of Jesus to his Disciples at the Last Supper that we hear in the Gospel reading this morning (John 14: 8-17, 25-27):

He tells them first that he is alive in God the Father, and that God the Father is alive in him, and that he will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit, who ‘abides with you, and he will be in you.’

It is the promise at our Confirmation, it is the promise at my ordination. But it is God’s promise to all, at Pentecost.

Because of Pentecost, God lives with us, and we live with God. We have been formed into one body, the Body of Christ. There are no more barriers, based on social class, gender, birth, job title, language, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity … or any of the other barriers we search for to separate us one from another.

The Holy Spirit breaks down all those barriers.

It sounds crazy.

It is crazy … by the normal pushy standards we see all around us. No wonder some people who saw what happened that first Pentecost in Jerusalem sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine’ (Acts 2: 13).

But then, God loves us, and wants more than a first date. God wants to live with us, and wants us to live with God.

Like a holy date, our Pentecost Eucharist or Holy Communion later this morning includes some of the elements we might expect on a date with God. We dress up nicely, we tell stories, we ask about one another, in our prayers we share our hopes and dreams and sorrows, we eat with another.

God has come to live with us, and now invites us to share his love, and to show this love in how we care for one another, pray for another, and how we now look at the world through the love-tinted glasses of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

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

Pentecost breaks down the doors we lock and the walls we build to separate ourselves from God and from each other … a locked old door in the streets of the old town in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Acts 2: 1-21 (NRSVA):

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ 13 But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

17 “In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
20 The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The Day of Pentecost depicted in an icon in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 24 May 2026, Day of Pentecost, Whit Sunday):

This week in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), from 24 to 30 May 2026 (pp 58-59), the theme is ‘Carriers of the Flame’ and is introduced today with reflections by Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG:

‘At Pentecost we remember how the Holy Spirit came like fire, igniting the hearts of the first disciples and sending them out into the world. That same Spirit continues to inspire USPG supporters today – people whose faith has led them to champion mission, justice, and care across generations.

Some have served overseas: “I was a missionary in Zimbabwe from 1981 to 1985 … I keep USPG and the church in Zimbabwe in my prayers.” Others have shared professional skills: “I first volunteered in the USPG library in Tufton Street in 1980 and shortly after was appointed Librarian.”

‘For some, USPG is part of their heritage: “My mother was an SPG medical missionary in Delhi in the late 1930s and early 40s, so it has always been part of my heritage.” For others, it has shaped a lifelong vocation: “We went as missionaries to Southern Africa with USPG between 1983–1991 … later I joined the staff.”

‘At Pentecost we give thanks for this great cloud of witnesses - ordinary people carrying the flame of faith, passing it on to the next generation, and reminding us that the Spirit still calls, still sends, and still empowers us to serve God’s world.

‘USPG continues this mission today. You can be part of it; by praying, volunteering, becoming a parish contact or representative in your diocese, or giving to support life-changing projects. Together, we carry the flame.’

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 24 May 2026, Day of Pentecost, Whit Sunday) invites us to pray and to reflect by reading and meditating on John 20: 19-23, celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Collect:

God, who as at this time
taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
grant us by the same Spirit
to have a right judgement in all things
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through the merits of Christ Jesus 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:

Faithful God,
who fulfilled the promises of Easter
by sending us your Holy Spirit
and opening to every race and nation
the way of life eternal:
open our lips by your Spirit,
that every tongue may tell of your glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Holy Spirit, sent by the Father,
ignite in us your holy fire;
strengthen your children with the gift of faith,
revive your Church with the breath of love,
and renew the face of the earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Day of Pentecost depicted in the iconostasis in the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in 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

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 49, Saturday 23 May 2026

‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ (John 21: 21) … Saint John with the poisoned chalice, a statue on the Great Gate of Saint John’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday tomorrow (24 May 2026).

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

1, 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.

Saint John in a window by CE Kempe in Saint Leonard’s Church, Wigginton, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John 21: 20-25 (NRSVA):

20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about him?’ 22 Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ 23 So the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’

24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. 25 But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

The symbol of the serpent and the chalice, a carving by Eric Gill in the capstone at Saint John’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading (John 21: 20-25) at the Eucharist today brings us to the last of the post-Resurrection appearances and the conclusion of Saint John’s Gospel. Today’s reading challenges us to consider whether we are going to follow Jesus to the end, no matter how, when or where death may come.

In this reading, we have an insight into the rumours that persisted in the community that the Beloved Disciple would not die (verse 23). But death comes to us all.

Over the past four years, I have spent a lot of time in hospitals in Oxford, Milton Keynes, London and Sheffield, following a stroke, and for tests, scans and consultations on my pulmonary sarcoidosis and the traces of sarcoidosis in my heart. Waiting between one set of consultations and tests and for further appointments, I have realised, time and again, how we all depend on the NHS here, and how vulnerable and fragile we are.

At 73, I may not quite be in rude health. But my distant ‘cousin’ Kevin Martin, who died three years ago (14 June 2023), would greet me on my birthdays with the traditional Jewish greeting of ‘ad meah v’esrim’, ‘may you live until 120!’ (עד מאה ועשרים שנה‎).

I may not live to be 120, despite everyone’s good wishes. I am certainly not going to live for ever. Are the other disciples in today’s reading engaging in humorous banter or hyperbole when they suggest the youngest among them is going to outlive the rest of them so that it appears as if he is going to live for ever?

Surely they realise everyone is going to die – including Lazarus who was raised from the dead after three days (John 11), including the son of the widow of Nairn (Luke 7: 11-17), the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8: 40-56), the centurion’s slave (Matthew 8: 5-13; Luke 7: 1-10), the official’s son in Capernaum (John 4: 46-54), Peter’s mother-in-law (Matthew 8: 14-15; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-39) …

Saint John too lived a life of service and suffering: he was exiled on Patmos, and although he died in old age in Ephesus, there were numerous attempts to make him a martyr.

Saint Paul names John as one of the pillars of the Church in Jerusalem (see Galatians 2: 9). Later, tradition says, he takes over the position of leadership Paul once had in the Church in Ephesus and is said to have lived there and to have been buried there.

According to a tradition mentioned by Saint Jerome, in the second general persecution, in the year 95, Saint John was arrested and sent to Rome, where he was thrown into a vat or cauldron of boiling oil but miraculously was preserved from death.

During the reign of the Emperor Domitian, it is said, Saint John was once given a cup of poisoned wine, but he blessed the cup and the poison rose out of the cup in the form of a serpent. Saint John then drank the wine with no ill effect. A chalice with a serpent signifying the powerless poison became one of his symbols.

Domitian then banished Saint John to the isle of Patmos. It was there in the year 96 he had the heavenly visions recorded in the Book of Revelation. After the death of Domitian, it is said, he returned to Ephesus in the year 97, and there tradition says he wrote his gospel about the year 98. He is also identified with the author of the three Johannine letters.

According to Eusebius, Saint John died in peace at Ephesus, in the third year of Trajan, that is, the year 100, when he was about 94 years old. According to Saint Epiphanius, he was buried on a mountain outside the town. The Basilica of Saint John the Theologian gave the later name of Aysoluk to the hill above the town of Selçuk, beside Ephesus.

The story of the poisoned chalice may be a pious myth, but it seeks to tell us that Saint John too took up the challenge to drink the cup that Christ drinks (Mark 10: 38-39).

For there is another poison that can damage the Church today – we can fail to love.

It is in sharing and serving with those who are most like Christ in his suffering that the world becomes united with the Christ we meet in Word and Sacrament, and there too we find eternal life.

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

‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ (John 21: 21) … Saint John the Evangelist with the poisoned chalice depicted in a window in Saint John’s Church, Monkstown, Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 23 May 2026):

The theme this week (17-23 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) has been ‘Breaking Barriers: Gender Justice in Malawi’ (pp 56-57). This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections from Tamara Khismisi, Projects Coordinator, Anglican Church in Malawi.

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Saturday 23 May 2026):

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the partnership between USPG and the Anglican Church in Malawi. May this collaboration continue to provide education, health care, and advocacy that mirrors your transforming love and heart for justice.

The Collect:

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.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God, giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom:
confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Collect on the Eve of Pentecost (Whit Sunday):

God, who as at this time
taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
grant us by the same Spirit
to have a right judgement in all things
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour,
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 site of Saint John’s tomb near Ephesus is marked by a marble plaque and four Byzantine pillars (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 2026: 44, Monday 18 May 2026

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 13) … Christ in Majesty depicted by Sir Ninian Comper in a window in the Shrine Chapel in Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing through Ascension Day (14 May 2026) until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday next Sunday (24 May 2026). Yesterday was the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII).

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.

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33) … the Crucifixion and the Resurrection in a windows in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John 16: 29-33 (NRSVA):

29 His disciples said, ‘Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! 30 Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.’ 31 Jesus answered them, ‘Do you now believe? 32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. 33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 13) … the Risen Christ above Sir Ninian Comper’s baldacchino in the Chapel in Pusey House, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

As I was saying in my reflections yesterday, we are, in some ways, caught in the church calendar in an in-between time, between Ascension Day, last Thursday [14 May 2026], and the Day of Pentecost next Sunday [24 May 2026].

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 16: 29-33), we continue reading from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ when Jesus talks with the Disciples at the Last Supper about their future and the future of the Church after he leaves them.

The disciples now claim to understand exactly what Jesus is talking about, although it seems they really do not. It is not until later that they grasp the meaning of his words fully.

In the coming days, they will be scattered in all directions and leave Jesus alone as he faces death. In the years ahead, they will be scattered abroad, and they too will face persecution and death. But they are to take courage, for Christ has conquered the world and overcome evil in the world. The disciples and we can share in his peace and in his victory: ‘I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (verse 33).

The term ‘Christus Victor’ has become an influential phrase through Christus Victor by the Swedish bishop and theologian Gustaf Aulén (1879-1977), first published in Swedish as Den kristna försoningstanken (The Christian Idea of the Atonement) in 1930, and in English as Christus Victor in 1931.

Aulén reinterpreted the classic ransom theory of atonement, which says that Christ’s death is a ransom to the powers of evil that had held humankind in captivity. It is an understanding of the atonement until the time of Anselm of Canterbury. What became the satisfaction theory of atonement or penal substitutionary atonement sees Christ’s suffering as paying the penalty for human sin, and continues to dominate western theological thinking, particularly among ‘conservative’ evangelicals.

The concept of Christus Victor (‘Christ the Victor’) as a description of Christ’s triumph over evil and death through his death and resurrection, emphasises God’s victory over the forces of sin and darkness and highlights Christ’s role as the cosmic liberator, rescuing humanity from the bondage of evil and restoring a relationship with God.

The Christus Victor view has its roots in early Patristic teachings, and the Eastern Orthodox Church still holds to the view of the atonement put forward by Irenaeus and that is called ‘recapitulation’, in which Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is.

For Irenaeus, the ultimate goal of Christ’s work of solidarity with humanity is to make humankind divine. Of Jesus he says, he ‘became what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself.’ These ideas were shared by many other Church Fathers, including Sainr Athanasius, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint Augustine and Saint Maximus the Confessor. They have been most influential within the Eastern Orthodox Church, and this Eastern Orthodox theological development out of the recapitulation view of the atonement is called theosis (‘deification’).

Aulén argues that theologians have incorrectly concluded that the early Church Fathers held a ransom theory of atonement. Aulén argues that the Church Fathers’ theory was not that the crucifixion is the payment of a ransom to the devil, but rather that it represents the liberation of humanity from the bondage of sin, death and the devil. As the term Christus Victor (Christ the Victor) indicates, the idea of ‘ransom’ should not be seen as some sort of business transaction, but more in the terms of a rescue or liberation of humanity from the slavery of sin.

He sees the concept of Christus Victor as uniting Christ and his Father at the Crucifixion in a subversive condemnation of the unjust powers of darkness, a drama and a passion story in which God conquers the Powers and liberates humanity from the bondage of sin: ‘The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil.’

The Christus Victor theory is becoming increasingly popular with both paleo-orthodox evangelicals because of its connection to the early Church Fathers, and with liberal Christians and peace churches because of its subversive nature, seeing the death of Jesus as an exposure of the cruelty and evil present in the worldly powers, and the resurrection as a triumph over these powers.

The Christus Victor theory has also influenced liberation theology in Latin South America, as well as feminist and black theologies of liberation.

‘I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).

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

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33) … a window in the funeral chapel in Saint Joseph’s Church, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 18 May 2026):

The theme this week (17-23 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) has been ‘Breaking Barriers: Gender Justice in Malawi’ (pp 56-57). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections from Tamara Khismisi, Projects Coordinator, Anglican Church in Malawi.

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Monday 18 May 2026):

Lord, we pray for girls in Malawi, that each one may take hold of courage, be granted protection and the support needed to stay in school. May education open doors for every girl’s future and dreams.

The Collect:

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.

Post Communion Prayer:

Eternal God, giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom:
confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33) … a window in Saint Peter and Saint Church, Watford, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Praying with the ‘in-between’ people caught in these ‘in-between’ times of uncertainty and unrest

The Ascension depicted in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In this week, we find ourselves in an ‘in-between’ time, between the Ascension and Pentecost, between the Son ascending to the Father and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

But this is also an ‘in-between’ time, with uncertainty at the top of government, and with uncertainty on the streets, with open expressions of hatred and racism and threats of violence.

In a poem he posted on his Facebook page this morning, the priest poet Jon Swales of Leeds prayed:

Christ, show us a unity
not crafted in statements,
not shouted in streets,
but broken in bread,
poured in wine,
birthed at your table.

In preparing the intercessions for the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning(Easter VII, 17 May 2026), I adapted a well-known prayer by Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711) that seems so appropriate at this time of marches, tension and the deliberate hijacking of Christian symbols and language:

O God, make the door of this house
wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship,
and a heavenly Father’s care;
and narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and hate.
Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children,
nor to straying feet,
but rugged enough to turn back the tempter’s power:
make it a gateway to thine eternal kingdom.

His prayer was inscribed on the door of Saint Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, in London, which I have visited a number of times, and it is found inside the doors of many churches in the Church of England. The prayer is found in many sources, including the King’s Chapel Prayer Book at King’s Chapel, one of the oldest churches in Boston, and The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton.

Bishop Thomas Ken is one of the founding figures in Anglican hymnody. He had an often-fraught relationship with the Church of England and was one of the Non-Juring bishops at the time of the Williamite Revolution.

Thomas Ken was born in 1637 at Little Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. His father was Thomas Ken of Furnival’s Inn; his mother was the daughter of the poet John Chalkhill; and his step-sister Anne married Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler and biographer of some of the key Caroline divines and poets, including George Herbert and John Donne.

Ken was educated at Winchester College, Hart Hall, Oxford, and New College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1662, and was the rector of parishes in Essex, the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, before returning to Winchester in 1672 as a prebendary of the cathedral, chaplain to the bishop and a fellow of Winchester College. There he prepared manuals on prayer and wrote many of his hymns, including ‘Awake, my soul, and with the sun,’ ‘Glory to thee, my God, this night’ and ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.’

Ken visited to Rome with Izaak Walton in 1674, and the journey seems to have confirmed him in his commitment to Anglicanism.

King Charles II appointed Ken chaplain to Princess Mary, wife of William of Orange, in 1679. However, he incurred William’s displeasure at the court in The Hague, and when he returned to England in 1680 he was appointed one of the king’s chaplains.

When Charles II visited Winchester with his court in 1683, Ken refused to provide lodgings for Nell Gwynne, the king’s mistress. Later that year, he accompanied Lord Dartmouth to Tangier as chaplain to the fleet.

When the fleet returned, Charles II appointed Ken as Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was consecrated at Lambeth on 25 January 1685, and one of his first duties was to attend the king on his deathbed. That year he also published The Practice of Divine Love.

When James II issued the Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, Ken was one of the seven bishops who refused to publish it. Ken and the other his six bishops were sent to the Tower of London on charges of high misdemeanour, but were acquitted at their trial.

When the Williamite Revolution followed, however, Ken believed his sworn allegiance to James II prevented him from taking an oath of loyalty to William of Orange. He became one the Non-Jurors, and in 1691 he was replaced as Bishop of Bath and Wells by the Dean of Peterborough, Richard Kidder.

For the next 20 years, he lived in retirement as a guest of Lord Weymouth at Longleat in Wiltshire. There he wrote many of his famous hymns, including ‘Awake my soul.’

Queen Anne failed to persuade him to return to Bath and Wells when Bishop Kidder died in 1703, but he persuaded George Hooper to accept the vacant see. At Hooper’s request, Queen Anne granted Ken a pension of £200. He died at Longleat on 19 March 1711.

One of Ken’s last sayings was, ‘I am dying in the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; and, more particularly, in the Communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from both Papal and Protestant innovation, and adheres to the Doctrine of the Cross.’

At dawn on 20 March 1711, while his friends sang ‘Awake, my soul,’ he was buried below the East Window of Saint John’s Church in Frome, Somerset, the nearest parish in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.

Thomas Ken is remembered in the Church of England with on 8 June and in the Episcopal Church on 20 March. He is also commemorated with a statue in a niche on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral.

‘O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all’ … Bishop Thomas Ken’s prayer was inscribed on the doors of Saint Stephen’s Walbrook (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 37, Monday 11 May 2026

‘And the fire and the rose are one’ (TS Eliot) … a candle and a rose on a dinner table in Minares on Vernardou Street, Rethymnon, in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season that beginning on Easter Day (4 April 2026) and that continues until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026).

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

1, 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 Advocate … whom I will send to you from the Father’ (John 15: 26) … Christ with the Holy Spirit depicted above as a dove on a gravestone in Calverton Road Cemetery, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 26 to 16: 4 (NRSVA):

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

1 ‘I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. 3 And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. 4 But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.’

‘The Absinthe Drinker’ by Viktor Oliva in the Café Slavia in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Café Slavia in Prague was once the traditional hangout of Czech writers, artists, intellectuals, and political dissidents. Although those days are long gone, the Café Slavia – or Kavarna Slavia – opposite the National Theatre and overlooking the Vltava River has been a national institution since it first opened in August 1884.

The café has changed in appearances over the years – from Art Nouveau to Social Realism – leaving us with the Functionalist interior with Art Deco wall decorations of today. The walls café are lined with photographs of the writers, artists, revolutionaries and intellectuals who once came here.

The café became a cultural place where writers, poets and intellectuals met to talk and debate. The original regular clientele included the composer Bedřich Smetana, the actor Jindřich Mošna, the poet Jaroslav Seifert, and the writer Vítězslav Nezval, Josef Čapek and many others. The list of guests and visitors has been described as ‘a who’s who of Bohemian culture at the time.’

The interior was changed to the popular style Art Deco style but has remained unchanged since then, with Tonet chairs, dark wood tables and green marble walls that evoke the 1920s. During the communist era, the café became state property, but continued to draw artists, writers and intellectuals, even after the Prague Spring and the invasion by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, and it became the meeting place for dissidents.

Regular guests during the Velvet Revolution in 1989 included the poet, playwright and human rights activist Václav Havel, who later became the Czech president, and the poet and artist Jiří Kolář. More recent guests have included Hillary Clinton and the writer Arnošt Lustig. The café closed in 1992, but re-opened in 1997 with a glittering ceremony that also marked the eighth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.

President Havel sent a message saying the re-opening of Cafe Slavia was a victory of ‘reason over stupidity.’ He said its reopening was a step towards renewing the natural structure of Czech spiritual life, stressing the café’s role as a meeting place for different artistic streams and currents of opinion.

The owners of the Café Slavia have tried to recapture the atmosphere of the 1930s, when the café was in its hey-day, and in the evenings, a live piano player helps to create a romantic atmosphere in the evening.

The café is also known for ‘The Absinthe Drinker,’ a copy of the large painting by Viktor Oliva (1861-1928). The original hangs in the Zlata Husa Gallery in Prague, but this copy has been on the wall of the artist’s favourite café since 1920. Viktor Oliva was part of the ‘Parisian Bohemians’, a group of Czech artists who lived in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it was there that he discovered the comforts of the absinthe, the anise-flavoured, green, highly alcoholic spirit often known in literature as la fée verte ‘the green fairy’. It has often been portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and hallucinogen, giving rise to the term ‘absinthism’.

In among the chairs and tables of Café Slavia, a man sits alone sipping a glass of absinthe, with an open newspaper to one side. In the background, a waiter is approaching to serve him. But the man’s eyes are fixed on the figure of an alluring but transparent young green woman perched on his table.

Is she his muse?

Is he reminiscing about a past or lost love?

Or, has he fallen in love with the ‘green fairy’ – another name for the strong hallucinating drink?

What is your comforting spirit? Where do you seek or find inspiration? Is any talk of the Holy Spirit as irrelevant to you as talk about green fairies’?

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 15: 26 to 16: 4) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper in Saint John’s Gospel. Christ continues to prepare his followers for his departure, and repeats once again his promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf’ (verse 26).

Our thinking about the Holy Spirit is often made difficult by traditional images of a dove that looks more like a homing pigeon; or tongues of fire dancing around meekly-bowed heads of people cowering and hiding in the upper room in Jerusalem, rather than a room that is bursting at the seams and ready to overflow.

But the Holy Spirit is not something added on as an extra course, as an after-thought after the Resurrection and the Ascension.

Last year we marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and the agreement on the Nicene Creed, in which we say: ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit’. Do we really believe in the Holy Spirit as ‘the Lord, the giver of life,’ in the Holy Spirit as the way in which God ‘has spoken through the prophets’?

The gift of the Holy Spirit does not stop being effective the day after confirmation, the day after ordination, the day after hearing someone speaking in tongues, or the day after the Day of Pentecost.

God never leaves us alone. This is what Christ promises the disciples, the whole Church, in today’s Gospel reading. We need have no fears, for the Resurrection breaks through all the barriers of time and space, of gender and race, of language and colour.

If the Holy Spirit is the Advocate and is living in me and you, then who am I an advocate for? Who do I speak up for when there is no-one else to speak up for them?

Pentecost includes all – even those we do not like. Who do you not want in the Kingdom of God? Who do I find it easy to think of excluding from the demands the Holy Spirit makes on me and on the Church?

Pentecost promises hope. But hope is not certainty, manipulating the future for our own ends, it is trusting in God’s purpose.

‘Little Gidding,’ the fourth and final poem in the Four Quartets, is TS Eliot’s own Pentecost poem. ‘Little Gidding’ begins in ‘the dark time of the year’, when a brief and glowing afternoon sun ‘flames the ice, on pond and ditches’ as it ‘stirs the dumb spirit’, not with wind but with ‘pentecostal fire.’

At the end of the poem, Eliot describes how the eternal is contained within the present and how history exists in a pattern, and repeating the words of Julian of Norwich, he is assured:

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

I have no doubts that the Holy Spirit works in so many ways that we cannot understand. And no doubts that the Holy Spirit works best and works most often in the quiet small ways that bring hope rather than in the big dramatic ways that seek to control.

Sometimes, even when it seems foolish, sometimes, even when it seems extravagant, it is worth being led by the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit may be leading us to surprising places, and, surprisingly, leading others there too, counting them in when we thought they were counted out.

Whether they are persecuted minorities in the Middle East, immigrants threatened with deportation to a third country, cowering asylum seekers isolated in hotels and subjected to barracking baying from flag-waving activists, or people who are marginalised at home, or those we are uncomfortable with because of how they sound, seem, look or smell, God’s generosity counts them in and offers them hope.

And if God counts them in, so should the Church. And so should I.

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

‘… all shall be well and / All manner of thing shall be well’ … sunset seen from the Sunset Taverna in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 11 May 2026):

The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 11 May 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for the Positive Parenting Programme and all its facilitators. May each parent, child, and community leader experience guidance, trust, and understanding that builds stronger, safer families.

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us
to eternal 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:

God our Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life:
may we thirst for you,
the spring of life and source of goodness,
through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:
help your Church to obey your command
and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Café Slavia was once a place where Prague’s writers, poets and intellectuals met to talk and debate (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 2026: 30, Monday 4 May 2026

‘The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything …’ (John 14: 25) … Pentecost depicted in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó, in the hills above Hersonissos in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V, 3 May 2026).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers prayerfully the English Saints and Martyrs of the Reformation Era. 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 Advocate, the Holy Spirit … will … and remind you of all that I have said to you’ (John 14: 15) … Pentecost (El Greco)

John 14: 21-26 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 21 ‘They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ 23 Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.’

‘Come Holy Spirit’ … the holy water stoup in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Today’s short Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary at the Eucharist (John 14: 21-26) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in Saint John’s Gospel.

This chapter (John 14) includes questions from three of the disciple and three answers from Jesus, which we hear over the course of four days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and today:

• ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ (Thomas, John 14: 5)

• ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied’ (Philip, John 14: 8)

• ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ (Judas Thaddeus, John 14: 22)

These are also the questions and problems faced by the communities and churches gathered around Saint John in Ephesus and in Asia Minor. The answers Jesus gives to these three questions are like a mirror in which those communities find a response to their doubts and difficulties.

Jesus is preparing the disciples to separate themselves and reveals to them his friendship, communicating to them security and support.

Today’s reading begins with Jesus reminding the disciples: ‘They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them’ (verse 21).

This continuing use of encouraging words in the face of troubles and differences reflects the many disagreements within those communities, each claiming to have the right approach to living out the faith and believing the others are living in error.

Jesus’ words in this morning’s reading are reminders that the unity of the church should reflect the unity found in the Trinity.

Judas Thaddeus or Jude then asks ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ (verse 12).

Jesus replies, saying that anyone who responds to Jesus with love will certainly experience the love of Jesus. He again reminds the disciples that everything he passes on to them comes ultimately from the Father and not from him alone. He is the mediator, he is the Way, he is the Word of God. And later, after he has gone, this role will be taken over by the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.

The word ‘paraclete’ (παράκλητος, paráklētos) has many meanings. It can mean a defence lawyer in a court of law who stands beside the defendant and supports him in making his case. It means any person who stands by you and gives you support and comfort.

So, the word can signify:

1, Someone who consoles or comforts.
2, Someone who encourages or uplifts.
3, Someone who refreshes.
4, Someone summoned or called to one’s side, especially called to one’s aid.
5, Someone who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, the counsel for the defence, a legal assistant, an advocate.
6, Someone who intercedes to plead another person’s cause before another person, an intercessor.
7, In the widest sense, a helper, one who provides succour or aid, an assistant.

So, in its use, παράκλητος appears to belong primarily to legal imagery. The word is passive in form, and etymologically it originally signified being ‘called to one’s side.’ The active form of the word, παρακλήτωρ (parakletor), is not found in the New Testament but is found in the Septuagint in the plural, and means ‘comforters’, in the saying of Job regarding the ‘miserable comforters’ who failed to rekindle his spirit in his time of distress: ‘I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all’ (Job 16: 2).

However, the word παράκλητος in its passive form is not found in the Septuagint, where other words are used to translate the Hebrew word מְנַחֵם‎ (mənaḥḥēm ‘comforter) and מליץ יושר‎ (Melitz Yosher).

In Classical Greek, the term is not common in non-Jewish texts. But the best known use is by Demosthenes:

‘Citizens of Athens, I do not doubt that you are all pretty well aware that this trial has been the centre of keen partisanship and active canvassing, for you saw the people who were accosting and annoying you just now at the casting of lots. But I have to make a request which ought to be granted without asking, that you will all give less weight to private entreaty or personal influence than to the spirit of justice and to the oath which you severally swore when you entered that box. You will reflect that justice and the oath concern yourselves and the commonwealth, whereas the importunity and party spirit of advocates serve the end of those private ambitions which you are convened by the laws to thwart, not to encourage for the advantage of evil-doers.’ (Demosthenes, On the False Embassy, 19: 1).

In Jewish writings, Philo of Alexandria speaks at several times of ‘paraclete’ advocates, primarily in the sense of human intercessors. The word later passed from Hellenistic Jewish writing into rabbinical Hebrew writing.

In the Greek New Testament, the word is most prominent in the Johannine writings, but is also used elsewhere:

1, In Saint Matthew’s Gospel (see Matthew 5: 4), Christ uses the verb παρακληθήσονται (paraclethesontai), traditionally interpreted to signify ‘to be refreshed, encouraged, or comforted.’ The text may also be translated as vocative as well as the traditional nominative. Then the meaning of παρακληθήσονται, also informative of the meaning of the name, or noun Paraclete, implicates ‘are going to summon’ or ‘will be breaking off.’ The Paraclete may thus mean ‘the one who summons’ or ‘the one who, or that which, makes free.’

2, In Saint John’s Gospel, it is used four times (14: 16, 14: 26, 15: 26, and 16: 7), where it may be translated into English as counsellor, helper, encourager, advocate, or comforter. In the first instance (John 14: 16), however, when Christ says ‘another Paraclete’ will come to help his disciples, is he implying that he is the first and primary Paraclete?

3, In one brief paragraph in II Corinthians 1: 3-7, the word παράκλητος, is used in various forms seven or eight times in the sense of comfort and support. The word has a wide range of meanings that include advocate, encourager or comforter.

4, In I John 2: 1, παράκλητος is used to describe the intercessory role of Christ, who advocates for us or pleads on our behalf to the Father.

The Early Church identified the Paraclete with the Holy Spirit (Το Άγιο Πνεύμα) received in the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles (see Acts 1: 5, 1: 8, 2: 4, and 2: 38; see also Matthew 3: 10-12 and Luke 3: 9-17).

The word Paraclete may also have been used in the Early Church as a way of describing the Spirit’s help when Christians were hauled before courts. Christ has already promised ‘When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit’ (Mark 13: 11; see Luke 12: 11-12).

In the next chapter of this Gospel (John 15: 26-27), much of the legal imagery remains intact. Here the Spirit is the advocate employed by the Father to advocate on behalf of the Son. Even the language of ‘sending’ is legal, since one of the major avenues of communication in the ancient world was through one’s legal agent or ἀπόστολος (apostolos), ‘sent one.’

So the role of the Spirit is to make a case for Christ in the court of the world and to help us to do so. That is our task in mission as the Church.

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

The Holy Spirit shapes the top panel in the Triptych (1999) of the Baptism of Christ in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 4 May 2026):

‘Following God’s Lead’ provides the theme this week (3-9 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 52-53. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Father Thanduxolo Noketshe, Vicar of Saint Mary’s and Christ Church in Cayon, St Kitts & Nevis.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 4 May 2026) invites us to pray:

‘To see the fulfilment of my call is the greatest gift and a blessing’.

Heavenly Father, we rejoice in the gift of calling and the blessing of seeing it come to life. May Father Thanduxolo’s service be guided by your wisdom, and may every act of love, every word of peace.

The Collect of the Day:

Merciful God,
who, when your Church on earth was torn apart
by the ravages of sin,
raised up men and women in this land
who witnessed to their faith with courage and constancy:
give to your Church that peace which is your will,
and grant that those who have been divided on earth
may be reconciled in heaven
and share together in the vision of your glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness and giver of all good things:
may we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Memorial to the Martyrs of the Reformation in the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Oxford … the English Saints and Martyrs of the Reformation Era are commemorated on 4 May (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 35, Friday 13 June 2025

A summer wedding in a monastery in Crete … but today’s Gospel reading may bring us to ask whether a marriage should last longer than love (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 50-day season of Easter, which began on Easter Day (20 April 2025), came to an end on Sunday with the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday (8 June 2025), and once again in the Church Calendar we are in Ordinary Time.

I am about to head off on the bus to Oxford, where I am going to spend much of the day in the Churchill Hospital with a another series of tests and consultation monitoring my pulmonary sarcoidosis and its impact on my heart. 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.

Enjoying a summer wedding (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 5: 27-32 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 27 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

31 ‘It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.’

Wedding flowers strewn on the lawn at Lisnavagh House in the late evening … what happens when love fades in a marriage? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 5: 27-32) continues our readings from the Sermon on the Mount, and, at first, the statements on adultery, divorce and remarriage may sound harsh and judgmental. So, this morning, I am going to look carefully at this passage in some detail before any further reflection or coming to any conclusions.

Verses 27-28:

‘You have heard’ … the Mosaic code states that you shall not commit adultery. Legally, adultery is sex with another person’s partner, more specifically, with another man’s wife. Under the Mosaic Law, consensual sex between two people who were not married was settled in marriage and so legally it was not adultery. However, adultery carried the death penalty (see Leviticus 20: 10; Deuteronomy 22: 22). But when it comes to God’s perfect law, lust is as good as the deed, thus ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’

In this passage, ‘a woman’ (γυνή, gynē) implies specifically a married woman. When a man looks at her lustfully, he already conjures up the thoughts and the images of intercourse with her. But here the construction may also express the result.

Verses 29-30:

We now move to two parabolic sayings in which Christ speaks of the crucial importance of taking any necessary measures to control any excessive passions that flare out of control (see also Matthew 18: 8-9; cf Mark 9: 43-48). These sayings are more like crisis parables than ethical illustrations.

Of course, Christ is not advocating radical surgery or self-mutilation, nor is he suggesting that this kind of surgery can rid us of sinful desires will be exorcised. Nor is he saying we must blind ourselves to what is wrong, in the sense of closing our eyes to it, like the three monkeys who ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ But we must deal radically with sin, and the language of hyperbole expresses radical action.

Verses 31-32:

Is divorce always against the will of God? Is the ‘one-flesh relationship’ between a man and a woman to be permanent and for all time? What does the Apostle Paul have to say? Where may the law end and grace begin?

Think of the consequences in those days for a woman if her husband divorced her. And whatever about a man divorcing his wife, what about a woman divorcing her husband?

The Mosaic law, recognising the human condition, regularises marital separation by the requirement of a ‘document of dismissal’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1). By the time of Jesus, this had become little more than publicly-sanctioned adultery. But where the Church has taken the ideal and enshrined it in legalism, have we become more like the Scribes and the Pharisees? Christ exposes our state of sin, but does he seek to burden us with a weight too hard to bear? Is this an ideal to strive after or a law to be obeyed?

There is an exception, but Matthew alone notes this, while Mark and Luke give no grounds at all for ending a marriage. Matthew is describing cases where one partner has destroyed marriage through πορνεία (porneía), which can refer to illicit sexual intercourse, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, intercourse with animals, sexual intercourse with close relatives, sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman. It is the word that gives us ‘pornography’, but it is also used throughout the Bible to talk about the worship of idols and the defilement of idolatry, incurred by eating the sacrifices offered to idols.

The word was originally used of sex with a prostitute, but took on a wider sense to include all sexual acts outside of marriage. In Deuteronomy 24: 1-4, the ground for a divorce was ‘something indecent’, but Christ now severely limits the understanding of what constitutes an ‘indecent’ act.

Should a man divorce his wife for other reasons, he is effectively trying to condemn her as an adulteress. In Jewish society it would be extremely difficult for a woman to survive without a husband. A divorced woman would be forced to take another husband and be seen as an adulterer. The responsibility for this situation properly rests on the man who divorced her.

Reflecting on the reading:

I wince and even imagine physical pain when it comes to the discussion of physical mutilation in the first part of this reading.

As a priest who is divorced and remarried, I find the topics in this reading a challenge every time I read it, even though I have dealt with these topics on many occasions when I have preached in a parish and pastoral context, in preparing couples for marriage, and in my own life. I wish some of my priest colleagues had been as generous to me in the recent past as I hope they are to their own parishioners when it comes to providing true pastoral care, understanding and support.

Later in this Gospel (Matthew 19: 11-12), the discussion about divorce and remarriage causes me even greater confusion and all my attempts to understand its context still leave me in search of meaning and understanding. But then even the text itself warns that some readers will not be able to receive what is being said.

Jesus’ words seem to find echoes in Saint Paul’s writings when, for example, he seems to advocate remaining single if someone is called to do so (see I Corinthians 7: 24-28), yet says it is wrong to forbid marriage to anyone (I Timothy 4: 1-3). However, both Jesus and Paul stress that relatively few people were called to a life of celibacy, a lifestyle that was generally unacceptable socially in their time.

People who go through a marriage breakdown and divorce, and still cling on to going to church, perhaps just by their fingernails, may well ask, ‘Where is the Good News this morning?’

The Pharisees were divided on the legality of divorce and the grounds for divorce. The Law of Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife, if he finds ‘something objectionable about her’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1). It never said a woman could divorce her husband.

A man could simply ‘write a certificate of dismissal’, without going through any formal legal proceedings. ‘Something objectionable’ could cover a multitude, from adultery to an eccentric hair-do on a bad hair day. Indeed, by the time of Christ, divorce was allowed for the most trivial of reasons, and was so common that many women suffered.

There are other places in the New Testament where Christ, and Saint Paul and Saint Peter, accept that a man may divorce an unfaithful wife. Saint Mark alone mentions the possibility of women also divorcing. This may have been normal in non-Jewish contexts, but cases of Jewish women initiating divorce are rare.

Christ devotes much of his teaching time interpreting scripture in a way that gives priority to human wellbeing. For example, the Sabbath is made for us rather than we being made for the Sabbath. Similarly, we could say he is saying here that the order of marriage is made for us, not that we are made for the ordering of marriage, or worrying about the minutiae in the details religious people construct around marriage.

The way Christ interprets scriptural law ought to provide a clue to how we interpret his teaching.

Today, many of us may appear to be on the side of the Pharisees on the question of divorce. Divorce is common today and most of us accept it as a reality. Our laws and our customs, like those of the Pharisees in the Gospel accounts, assume divorce happens.

Christ appears to be harsh and uncompromising on a first reading this morning. But many marriages get stale or toxic, relationships can dry up or lose focus, self-destruct, or break down. Things go wrong for far too many reasons.

A divorce may be a burial for a dead marriage. Divorces do not kill marriages any more than funerals kill people … although one of the great tragedies today is that far too many couples are burying their relationship when it is only sick or injured.

Is it not possible that the promise to be together until death can refer to the death of the relationship as well as the death of the person?

Is it not possible to recall that the original intent of our loving and caring God who gave us the gift of marriage was to make our lives better?

Does that desire of God evaporate when we are no longer in a marriage?

In other Gospel passages, when Jesus is asked about divorce and remarriage, people are trying to set a trap for him. But marriage is not a trap and not a matter of expediency in which the wife is the property of the husband.

Of course, the covenant of marriage is still just as valid today. Ideally, when two people marry, they commit themselves to an exclusive relationship of love and devotion in a new entity. But it is easier to say thar than it is to face up to reality, which includes the complexities of child-rearing, careers and competing religious, social and economic claims and responsibilities.

Ideally, we are not to live alone, but in loving and committed relationships. Indeed, in an ideal world, there would be no such thing as divorce. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a fallen and broken world in which human nature always falls short of the glory of God. Whether we like it or not, divorce is a reality and we have to live with that.

Sadly, when people go through a divorce, the church is often the last place they can turn to for help and understanding.

But divorce is like a death. It is the death of a relationship, and so people grieve, and they need sympathy and to be consoled. Would we dare chastise someone who was grieving after the death of a family member?

I was reminded once by a divorced priest in the Church of Ireland that when God says: ‘I hate divorce ... I hate divorce’ (Malachi 2: 16), that of course God hates divorce because God has gone through the sufferings and grieving of divorce through our faithlessness and wandering.

God hates divorce because God has suffered divorce.

It was a profound insight.

Too often, in debates, passages of Scripture taken out of context, or one-sided interpretations of the tradition of the Church can be used to set a trap so that people are forced to accept only one standard or practice for marriage in the world today. Let us not use this reading to trap Jesus through hardness of heart. And let us not use this reading to trap vulnerable, suffering and grieving people who remain open to loving and being loved.

We must face questions about marriage and divorce, about who can be married and who can be divorced, as challenges that ask us to think outside the box, without trying to trap Jesus or to trap those who are faced with honest questions about marriage and about divorce.

‘If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away’ (Matthew 5: 29) … posters for an exhibition seen in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 13 June 2025):

‘Pentecost’ is the theme this week (8-14 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for the Americas and the Caribbean, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Friday 13 June 2025) invites us to pray:

Spirit of God, in the same way as you did at Pentecost, humble us to open your word up to all who may want to hear it, making us faithful ambassadors of Christ.

The Collect:

O Lord, from whom all good things come:
grant to us your humble servants,
that by your holy inspiration
we may think those things that are good,
and by your merciful guiding may perform the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Gracious God, lover of all,
in this sacrament
we are one family in Christ your Son,
one in the sharing of his body and blood
and one in the communion of his Spirit:
help us to grow in love for one another
and come to the full maturity of the Body of Christ.
We make our prayer through your Son our Saviour.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Gracious God, lover of all, in this sacrament … help us to grow in love for one another’ (the Post Communion Prayer) … Communion vessels in the Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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