Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 1, Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day

The Nativity … a Christmas icon by the icon writer Alexandra Kaouki in Rethymnon in Crete

Patrick Comerford

Christmas has arrived, and this is Christmas Day. Later this morning, I hope to join the choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, at the Christmas Eucharist (9:30 am) and then settle in to a quiet family Christmas day.

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 Christmas crib in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 2: 1-20 (NRSVA):

2 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

A Christmas icon in the Coptic tradition

Today’s Reflections:

It is interesting that each Gospel begins to tell its story each in its own unique, different way:

Saint John begins at the beginning, at the very beginning: ‘In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1: 1).

Saint Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, generation after generation, with long lists of sometimes unpronounceable names (Matthew 1: 1-17), before he summarises the story of the first Christmas in seven crisp verses … and even then he seems to concentrate more on how Saint Joseph’s fears and suspicions were allayed than on the Christmas story (see Matthew 1: 18-25).

Saint Mark has no Nativity narrative, and has no story of the first Christmas. Instead, he begins his Gospel at the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan, an event that comes a little later on in the other three Gospels.

Saint Luke begins with a personal explanation to Theophilus of why he is beginning to write the Gospel (Luke 1: 1-4), before moving on to the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1: 5 ff). It takes him a full chapter before he gets to tell the story of the first Christmas (Luke 2: 1-20).

There is a telling, short sentence at the end of this Gospel reading: ‘Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart’ (verse 19).

At the heart of this Gospel narrative is the understanding that things are not always going to work out the way we would like them to. But at the heart of the Gospel story of Christmas is the truth that God is always with us, and that God’s expectations for us, God’s awe and wonder at being in our presence, should be as much a source of mystery as our awe and wonder at being in the presence of God.

When we wrap our presents and gifts in festive colours, and decorate our homes and workplaces with lights and tinsel, it is easy to think we have bundled our fears and despair away – at least for the next week or two. Our popular celebrations of Christmas become comfortable and comforting as we sing carols and try to convince ourselves that ‘all is calm, all is bright.’

Yet all is not calm in our world, in the US, in Russia and Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Europe, in our land or in our economy. Nor is all bright for those who are homeless this Christmas, who live in dark fear of poverty or who dread what the future may hold.

All those well-wrapped, warm and homely celebrations are in danger of forgetting that the first Christmas was one filled with fear and dread. Immediately after the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem, the scene in Saint Luke’s account moves to a hillside where shepherds are working at night, in the dark and in the cold, easy prey to wolves, thieves and the cold weather, less valuable than the animals they tend. And the Gospel writers tell us that those poor shepherds are terrified when they see the angelic host.

The initial task of the angels is to calm those fears. Their first words to those frightened shepherds are not ones of call or command, but words to calm them: ‘Fear Not’ … ‘Do not be afraid’ (verse 10).

This Christmas time, when the world is a cold, frightening and uninviting place for many, the first task of the Church must be to bring hope where there is fear, love where there is hatred and no peace, to give rather than receive. The angels’ call to the shepherds to ‘fear not’ is not a platitude or an invitation to piety, but one that is linked with the promise of Good News, the promise that God’s plans for humanity and for creation are brighter than the darkness of their night: ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people’ (Luke 2: 10).

But where is there good news for the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly, the parents of vulnerable children?

Where is the hope of great joy for people around the world denied democracy and human rights, for those who live in poverty and under oppression?

In a thought-provoking column in the New Statesman some years ago [19 December 2017], the Revd Lucy Winkett, the Rector of Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, wrote:

‘This festive season, I find myself musing on the often-repeated thought that “it’s for the children”, and hoping that the estimated 70,000 London primary pupils who go to school hungry children each day, and the estimated 300,000 unaccompanied child refugees in camps across the world, get some of our attention. Especially at the Feast of the Incarnation, when Christians celebrate God becoming real to us in the vulnerability of a baby, but with the light and power and warmth of the sun.’

On a visit to Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, earlier this year, I noticed a slogan: ‘Christ did not come so that we could have church and that more often. He came so we could have life and that more abundantly.’ For many people this Christmas, their principal fear is about life, the apprehension that they do not have the abundances to face the future without fear.

In his poem Christmas, John Betjeman dismisses the commercialisation of Christmas and challenges us to return to the truth of the Christmas message:

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all …
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

When, in John Betjeman’s words, the ‘Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’,’ we are called not only to hear the story of Christ’s birth, the story of a child born to a couple for whom ‘there was no place’ in Bethlehem, but we are called too to ensure the words ‘Happy Christmas’ are not hollow and meaningless.

A Christmas crib in a front window on the High Street in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day):

The theme this week (21 to 27 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love Brings Life in Tanzania’ (pp 12-13). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 25 December 2025, Christmas Day) invites us to pray:

Lord Jesus, born among us, fill our hearts with joy and hope. Let your love shine brightly in the world, bringing peace to every family and strength to the weary.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have given us your only-begotten Son
to take our nature upon him
and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
grant that we, who have been born again
and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
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 Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
may the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord Jesus Christ,
your birth at Bethlehem
draws us to kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth:
accept our heartfelt praise
as we worship you,
our Saviour and our eternal God.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A Christmas scene in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 18, Thursday 20 February 2025

Saint Peter depicted in one of the paired east windows in Saint Brendan’s Cathedral, Clonfert, Co Galway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are now less than two weeks away (5 March 2025).

Before this day 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.

A large statue of Saint Peter in the portico of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Mark 8: 27-33 (NRSVA):

27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28 And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29 He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

The large bronze statue of Saint Peter in the Church of Mary Immaculate, Inchicore, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 27-33) is set on the road between Bethsaida and the villages of Caesarea Philippi, in today’s Golan Heights.

We read yesterday Saint Mark’s story of an unnamed blind man who is healed gradually at Bethsaida (Mark 8: 22-26), but is warned against going ‘even … into the village.’ In today’s reading, after Simon Peter’s confession of faith, You are the Messiah’, the disciples are warned sternly not to tell anyone about is said. When Simon Peter then challenges Jesus’ teaching, he is rebuked sternly and told, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

Saint Peter is so like me. He trips and stumbles constantly. He often gets it wrong, even later on in life. He gives the wrong answers, he comes up with silly ideas, he easily stumbles on the pebbles and stones that are strewn across the pathway of life. But eventually, it is not his own judgment, his own failing judgment, that marks Peter out as someone special. It is his faith, his rock solid faith.

What did Peter believe in?

What did Peter not believe in?

After this experience, Peter must have thought again about what he needed to speak out about and needed to reexamine his beliefs once again.

It is one month today since the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States in Washington on 20 January 2025. Since then, many of us, I am sure, have had to reexamine our beliefs, our commitments, and to ask once again when we need to speak out and what we need to strength to speak out.

At the Founder’s Day Eucharist with USPG and SPCK in Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, earlier this week, we used this Affirmation of Faith, adapted from a church in Indonesia:

All: I believe in God, who is love and who has given the earth to all people.
I believe in Jesus Christ, who came to heal us, and to free us from all forms of oppression.
I believe in the Spirit of God, who works in and through all who are turned towards truth.
I believe in the community of faith, which is called to be at the service of all people.
I believe in God’s promise to finally destroy the power of sin in us all, and to establish the kingdom of justice and peace for all humankind.

People to the Leader’s Right: I do not believe in the right of the strongest, nor the force of arms, or the power of oppression.

People to the Leader’s Left: I believe in the rights of the weak, in the solidarity of all people, in the power of non-violence.

People to the Leader’s Right: I do not believe in racism, sexism or casteism, in the power that comes from wealth and privilege, or in any established order that enslaves.

People to the Leader’s Left: I believe that all of God’s children are equally human, that order based on violence and injustice is not order.

People to the Leader’s Right: I do not believe that war and hunger are inevitable and peace unattainable.

People to the Leader’s Left: I believe in the beauty of simplicity, in love with open hands, in peace on earth.

All: I do not believe that suffering need be in vain, that death is end, that the disfigurement of the world is what God intended. But I dare to believe, always and in spite of everything, in God’s power to transform and transfigure, fulfilling the promise of a new heaven and a new earth where justice and peace will flourish. Amen.

Despite all his human failings, despite his often-tactless behaviour, despite all his weaknesses, despite all the denials, Peter is able to say who Christ is for him. He has a simple but rock-solid faith, summarised in that simple, direct statement: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’. It does not matter that Saint Peter was capable of some dreadful gaffes and misjudgements. I am like that too … constantly. But Christ calls us in our weaknesses. And in our weaknesses, he finds our strengths.

The keys of Saint Peter displayed at the gates of Saint Peter Mancroft Church, Norwich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 20 February 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Struggle for Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Dr Rodrigo Espiúca dos Anjos Siqueira, Coordinator of the Department of Advocacy, Human, Environmental and Territorial Rights of the Anglican Diocese of Brasília. Pastor of Espírito Santo Parish, Novo Gama, Goiás.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 20 February 2025, World Day of Social Justice) invites us to pray:

We pray that churches, faith communities and religious organisations will discover their role in eliminating injustice and defending the rights of the most vulnerable.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who alone can bring order
to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity:
give your people grace
so to love what you command
and to desire what you promise,
that, among the many changes of this world,
our hearts may surely there be fixed
where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Merciful Father,
who gave Jesus Christ to be for us the bread of life,
that those who come to him should never hunger:
draw us to the Lord in faith and love,
that we may eat and drink with him
at his table in the kingdom,
where he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
into the image of Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism’ is the current exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly … the USPG prayer diary this week focusses on the struggle for Indigenous land rights in Brazil (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

How Eros got his name in Piccadilly Square, and the sculptor who refused to attend its unveiling

The statue known as ‘Eros’ in the middle of Piccadilly Circus … ‘a striking contrast to the dull ugliness of the generality of our street sculpture’(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

When I was still a child, my parents took my elder brother on a holiday to London. I was too young at the time to remember the visit – I think, perhaps, I was still living with foster parents. I say it was a holiday, and that is how Steve remembered it. But it may have been tagged on to one of my father’s business or union visits to London, and was probably a search by my parents for a medical response to Steve’s epilepsy and autism.

He came back from London with a toy red, double-decker London bus, which became his pride and joy, alongside his ‘Bayko’ set, invented by Charles Plimpton, and his toy chemistry set. I remember how he played with his toy red bus as imitated the sounds of a bell ringing and a conductor calling out, ‘Piccadilly Circus.’

Those two words, ‘Piccadilly Circus’, rang out in my ears while I was still a child. But when he went away to school, I was under strict instructions not to even think of touching his red bus. He had probably outgrown his bus at the stage, but – as only a big brother can do – he idly threatened to take my finger prints in case I even dared to touch that Picadilly Circus bus, tucked away in a dark corner of the toy cupboard.

I never found out what happened to that bus. Frankly, I found it all something of a circus, and I never really wanted to play with it anyway, nor with his plastic Bayko bricks or his chemistry set. But the memory of it came back this week as I walked through Piccadilly Circus earlier this week.

The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, officially and popularly known as Eros, is a fountain surmounted by a winged statue of Anteros, at the south-east side of Piccadilly Circus. It was designed by the sculptor Sir Alfred Gilbert (1801-1885) was erected in to commemorate Anthony Ashley Cooper (1801-1885), 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, the Victorian politician and philanthropist, and his work to end child labour. The fountain overlooks the south-west end of Shaftesbury Avenue, to which he also gave his name.

Gilbert also designed the statue of the penal reformer John Howard (1726-1790), erected in Saint Paul’s Square, Bedford, in 1890 to mark the centenary of Howard’s death.

Gilbert took five long years to consider how best to commemorate Shaftesbury’s life and work. His final design was an ornately decorated bronze fountain on a nautical theme, topped by a statue reflecting the earl’s philanthropic life. The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain was originally meant as a public drinking fountain, and the bronze base was supposed to support a dome of water, with a mythical figure of a god appearing to float on the surface of the flowing water.

Although his choice of a nude figure on a public monument was controversial, even at the end of the Victorian era, it was generally well received. The Magazine of Art said it was ‘a striking contrast to the dull ugliness of the generality of our street sculpture’ and contrasted it with ‘the old order of monumental monstrosities’ in London.

The statue has been called ‘London’s most famous work of sculpture’, and it became the symbol of the Evening Standard on its masthead. It was the first sculpture in the world to be cast in aluminium and is set on a bronze fountain that inspired the marine motifs that Gilbert carved on the statue.

Although the statue is generally known as Eros, Gilbert intended it to be an image of that Greek god’s brother Anteros. He had already sculpted a statue of Anteros and, when commissioned for the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, chose to reproduce the same subject, who, as ‘The god of Selfless Love’ was seen as a suitable representation of the philanthropic Shaftesbury.

Gilbert described Anteros as portraying ‘reflective and mature love, as opposed to Eros or Cupid, the frivolous tyrant.’

The model for the sculpture was Gilbert’s16-year-old studio assistant, Angelo Colarossi who was born in Shepherd’s Bush to Italian parents. Fernando Meacci was involved in the moulding of the fountain and it was cast by George Broad & Son at the Hammersmith Foundry.

The memorial was unveiled by the Duke of Westminster on 29 June 1893. Gilbert’s design for the water fountain was flawed from the start. The base was too narrow, so that instead of water flowing smoothly, it splashed everywhere, creating a mass of mud beside the fountain. Gilbert also designed cups chained to the base so that people could more easily drink, but the cups were stolen almost immediately.

Some critics felt the memorial was sited too close to Soho, then seen as a vulgar part of London with its theatres and brothels; others said it was too sensual a memorial for a sober and evangelical aristocrat.

Some of the objections were tempered by renaming the statue as the Angel of Christian Charity, which was the nearest approximation that could be invented in Christian terms for the mythical role of Anteros. However, the name never became popular ever since the statue has been known as Eros, the god of sensual love.

Gilbert refused to attend both the unveiling of his sculpture in Piccadilly Circus in 1893, and the unveiling of his statue of John Howard in Bedford by the Duke of Bedford nine months later on 28 March 1894.

Gilbert was paid £3,000 for his work in Piccadilly Circus, but it cost him £7,000 to complete. Most of his expenses went towards the richly decorated base of the fountain. He was heavily in debt and was eventually forced to flee abroad and spent 25 years living in Belgium. He never felt his work did enough to commemorate Shaftesbury and even suggested melting down the fountain and selling the material, using the money to build homeless shelters.

The statue and the memorial have been moved from Piccadilly Circus on a number of occasions. It was removed in 1925 to facilitate building work on a new tube station directly beneath. The memorial was put in storage in Embankment Gardens, but was returned in 1931. When World War II broke out in 1939, the statue was moved for safety to Egham, and it returned to Piccadilly Circus in 1947.

The statue was again removed in the 1980s – this time for restoration – and it was re-sited when it returned in 1985. The statue was vandalised in 1990 and after radiography and restoration returned in 1994. A new bow string was fitted to the statue in 2012 after the original had been broken by a tourist.

In the winter of 2013-2014, the statue was covered with a PVC snow globe with internal fans blowing ‘snowflakes’. This was supposed to protect the statue against vandalism, but strong , winds damaged and deflated the globe and it was not never repaired.

Piccadilly Circus was laid out in 1819. In the past, it was described as the heart of the British Empire and it was said that if you stood for long enough in Piccadilly Circus, everyone in the world would pass by. It remains a popular gathering place for tourists and local people alike, but it may be better known today for the theatres, and rthe garish neon signs and video displays rather than Eros or the big red buses.

It was said that if you stood for long enough in Piccadilly Circus, everyone in the world would pass by (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

After so many years, I have my first visit to Hatchards of Piccadilly, England’s oldest bookshop

Hatchards, the oldest bookshop in England, was founded by John Hatchard on Piccadilly since 1797 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Hatchards is the oldest bookshop in England and has been on Piccadilly since 1797, when the shop was founded by John Hatchard. So, I cannot understand why I never stepped through its doors until I was in Piccadilly yesterday.

Of course, I have walked past Hatchards many times before and have been along Piccadilly throughout my life. Most memorably, I spent working time in Piccadilly when the Athens News commissioned me to write a major two-page feaure on ‘Byzantium 330-1453’, an exhibition hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts in the Main Galleries in Burlington House for five months in 2008-2009.

I have been to Hatchards other outlet at Saint Pancras station last year, when Charlotte and I were on our way to Paris, yet somehow I had missed the shop on Piccadilly all my life. But then, there are many places I have never visited on Piccadilly, including Fortum and Mason, right next door to Hatchards.

The street façade of the Piccadilly wing of Burlington House reflected in the windows of Hatchards, the oldest bookshop in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I was in Piccadilly yesterday with the Anglican mission agency USPG and the publisher SPCK for the celebrations of Founder’s Day in Saint Jame’s Church. And, of course, on Charlotte’s recommendation, I spent some time afterwards in Hatchards, which is prominently located between Saint James’s and Fortum and Mason and across the street from Burlington House.

SPCK is one of England’s oldest publishers – founded by Thomas Bray in 1698, it is older than John Murray (1768), and younger only than Cambridge University Press (1534) and Oxford University Press (1586). It seemed only right, after celebrating with one of England’s oldest publishers, to then spend some time too in England’s oldest bookshop.

Hatchards has had a shop on Piccadilly for 228 years. The business was founded by the bookseller and publisher John Hatchard ((1769-1849) at 173 Piccadilly in 1797. John Hatchard was still in his 20s when he took over the bookshop at 173 Piccadilly formerly run by Richard White and bought a collection of merchandise from a bookseller Simon Vandenbergh.

The shop moved along Piccadilly in 1801, to No 189-190, and the street number of the second shop changed to No 187 in 1820. Meanwhile, the site of the first shop had been cleared in 1810 to build the Egyptian Hall.

Hatchard had deep religious views and was an abolitionist and he became the main publisher for works associated with the Clapham Sect. William Wilberforce, Sir Walter Scott, Sir John Hawkins and Lord Spencer were among the figures of the day who frequented Hatchard’s back parlour. Sydney Smith writing in the Edinburgh Review in 1810, described Hatchard’s visitors as ‘a set of well-dressed, prosperous gentlemen, assembling daily at the shop well in with the people in power, delighted with every existing institution and with every existing circumstance.’

Hatchard died at Clapham Common in 1849, and there is a memorial to him in Saint Paul’s Church, Clapham. His grandson, George Josiah Palmer (1828-1892), was the founder and editor of the Church Times.

Later in the 19th century, Hatchards was Oscar Wilde’s favourite bookshop, and he signed his books sitting at the ground floor main table – still known today as ‘Oscar’s Table’.

Hatchards was bought for £6,000 by the convicted fraudster Clarence Hatry (1888-1965). Ten years earlier, the fall of the Hatry group which had been worth about £24 million (equivalent to £1,840 million today), contributed to the Wall Street crash of 1929. Hatry turned around the ailing business at Hatchards, and in 1946 he also acquired the publishers T Werner Laurie Ltd. Within four years, he owned the largest retail book business in London.

Hatchards was acquired by William Collins & Sons in 1956, and it expanded its number of retail outlets in the 1980s, opening branches across the United Kingdom. It was bought by Pentos in 1990. Pentos, in turn, was acquired by Waterstones who rebranded all the shops apart from Hatchards on Piccadilly. Waterstones also owns Hodges Figgis in Dublin, which was founded in 1768 and is the oldest bookshop in Ireland.

Today, Hatchards has a reputation for attracting high-profile authors and holds three royal warrants. The shop opened its new outlet in St Pancras station in 2014, beside a new branch of Fortnum and Mason, continuing a pairing that goes back over two centuries. A third shop opened in Cheltenham in 2022.

‘Oscar’s Table’ on the ground floor … Hatchards was Oscar Wilde’s favourite bookshop and he signed his books sitting at the main table (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Hatchards is no ordinary Waterstone’s shop – it is a unique British institution and a landmark building on Piccadilly. It is familiar to many with its curving bay windows and its prominently displayed royal warrants above the front doors. Inside, the shop has a grand, four-storey staircase and mementos of the past through the building, with historic photographs, old catalogues, Oscar Wilde’s table, which continues to be used for book signings, and an anonymous painting said to be a portrait of the founder John Hatchard.

The shop also displays an array of first editions from Margaret Atwood, Samuel Beckett, Ted Hughes, DH Lawrence and Iris Murdoch. The shop continues to host regular book signings and author events. Indeed, many of those authors are also regular customers, and the shop remains a literary haven for authors.

As for the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly, built in 1812 on the site of the first Hatchards shop, it became a venue for exhibitions, popular entertainments and lectures, and became known as ‘England’s Home of Mystery’. But after less than a century, it was demolished in 1905 to make way for flats and offices.

Hatchards is the oldest bookshop in England. But it is not the oldest bookshop on these islands. That accolade goes to Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street in Dublin, which was founded in 1768, and is the third-oldest functioning bookshop in the world, after the Livraria Bertrand in Lisbon (1732) and Pennsylvania’s Moravian Book Shop (1745).

Hodges Figgis opened in Dublin in 1768 at 10 Skinner’s Row, near Christ Church Cathedral, and has had many addresses since then, including 32 Grafton Street (1797), 104 Grafton Street (1819), 20 Nassau Street (1920), 6-7 Dawson Street (1945), and Saint Stephen’s Green (1974). Since 1979, Hodges Figgis has been at 56-58 Dawson Street, the former Browne and Nolan bookshop. Like Hatchards, Hodges Figgis is now owned and operated by Waterstones. But then, so too are Dillons and Foyles in London and Blackwell’s in Oxford.

Hopefully, Hatchards, and all those other unique bookshops, maintain their style and presence for generations to come. And, hopefully, I shall be back in Hatchards the next time I am in Piccadilly.

Hatchards is familiar to many with its curving bay windows and creative window displays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A day with USPG at Saint Jame’s, Piccadilly, and memories of a day with ‘a Very Dangerous Man’

Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, where USPG and SPCK celebrated Founder’s Day or Bray Day today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I spent much of today at the celebrations of Founder’s Day with the Anglican mission agency USPG and the publishers SPCK in Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly. The day celebrates the life of the Revd Dr Thomas Bray, who was commemorated in the Calendar of the Church of England on Saturday (15 February) and who was the founder of both the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and SPG (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, now USPG).

This year, Founder’s Day began with a celebration of the Eucharist in Saint James’s, and included reflections on the people who bring hope in the midst the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land, with an address by Dr Ruth Valerio, Advocacy Director at Embrace the Middle East. There was an opportunity too to meet many of friends during the buffet lunch that followed.

Canon Lucy Winkett, who presided at the Eucharist today, is a writer, broadcaster and musician. She has been the Rector of Saint James’s since 2010 and Priest-in-Charge of Saint Pancras, Euston Road, since 2023. She was one of the first generation of women to be ordained priest in the 1990s, and the first woman priest to be appointed to Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and the author of Our Sound Is Our Wound, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book in 2010.

Canon Joseph McCormick (1834-1914), William Temple’s immediate predecessor at Saint James’s, played Cricket for Ireland

Saint James’s was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and was consecrated in 1684. Since then, it has had many distinguished rectors, including four future Archbishops of Canterbury: Thomas Tenison, William Wake, Thomas Secker and William Temple, who was the rector throughout World War I.

Temple’s immediate predecessor was a Liverpool-born Irish priest, Canon Joseph McCormick (1834-1914), whose father, William McCormick (1801-1878), was the MP for Derry City in 1860-1865. Joseph McCormick played Cricket for Ireland under the alias of J Bingley, the name of one of the schools he had attended, to disguise his participation from his parishioners in Dunmore East, Co Waterford. He also rowed in the Cambridge Boat in March 1856, helping to defeat Oxford in 22 minutes 45 seconds, and he was a well-known mountain climber.

Joseph McCormick was the Rector of Dunumore East, Co Waterford, before moving to England, where he was a chaplain to three successive monarch, Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V. When I was working on doctoral research on Irish Anglican missionaries in South Africa, one of the people I came to know as ‘my missionaries’ was Joseph McCormick’s son, Canon (William) Patrick ‘Pat’ Glyn McCormick (1877-1940), who worked with SPG in the Transvaal in 1903-1910. Pat McCormick played cricket for Devon and had one first class match for MCC in 1907, and also played Rugby for Transvaal. He later succeeded Dick Shepherd (1880-1937) as the Vicar of Saint Martin in the Fields in London, and continued his work among the ‘down and outs.’

Another son, Joseph Gough McCormick (1874-1924) became the Dean of Manchester, and also played cricket with distinction for Norfolk 1899 to 1909, scoring four hundreds.

The Revd Donald Reeves (centre) at the Irish School of Ecumenics with Canon Patrick Comerford of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (left) and Dr Andrew Pierce of the Irish School of Ecumenics in Dublin in 2011

Many years ago, I spent a memorable day with another former Rector of Saint James’s, the Revd Donald Reeves, who died a few months ago (31 October 2024) at the of 90. He was once described by Margaret Thatcher as ‘a very dangerous man’ and by The Times as the ‘radical rector’ and ‘the most extraordinary clergyman in the Church of England.’

While he was the Rector of Saint James’s, Donald Reeves developed a reputation among Thatcher’s allies as a ‘turbulent priest’ – an eminent and honourable place to hold in Anglican tradition.

I spent a day with Donald Reeves when he visited Dublin in June 2011. By then, he was in his late 70s, but he was still working on peace-building and peace-making projects in the Balkans. He had long been a thorn in the side of the Establishment, and when he heard Thatcher’s description of him as ‘a very dangerous man’, he was ‘rather pleased … it felt like a natural title.’ It is a sobriquet that he came to wear with pride and that inspired the title of his autobiography The Memoirs of a Very Dangerous Man.

But the man who enjoyed excoriating Thatcherite dogma and episcopal complacency in the 1980s, emphasised his role as a peacemaker rather than as a troublemaker. He continued to co-direct the Soul of Europe, working at peacemaking and peace-building in the Balkans. When we met, he was visiting Dublin, preaching in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and speaking about the work of the Soul of Europe at a seminar organised by the Irish School of Ecumenics and co-sponsored by the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.

Through the Soul of Europe project, Donald Reeves spent much of his time in the Balkans, trying to build durable trust between communities only nominally at peace after terrible conflicts. He sought to help people living through post-conflict situations to realise Nelson Mandela’s words first addressed to politicians in Northern Ireland: ‘If you want to make peace do not speak with your friends, you must speak with your enemies.’

He was frustrated by the way in which ignorance of religion has become an embedded in official thinking, so that religion is seen as matter of choice and that a real illiteracy of religion has emerged. It means churches and mosques are valued only and merely as places of cultural heritage and not as living religious communities. But ‘religion is the crucible in which the “chosen trauma’ of a community is held.’

He expressed a deep-seated ‘nervousness’ about growing Islamophobia in Europe, describing it as an ‘alarming phenomenon.’

‘The Muslims are the new Jews of Europe,’ he told us.

Inside Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, where USPG and SPCK celebrated Founder’s Day today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Donald St John Reeves was born in 1934 and was educated at Sherborne School, Queens’ College, Cambridge. While he was teaching in Beirut in the 1960s, he felt called to ordained ministry, and after training at Cuddesdon Theological College he was ordained deacon in 1963 and priest in 1964. After two years as a curate, he became chaplain to Bishop Mervyn Stockwood of Southwark, who had a reputation for controversy and socialist politics.

His heyday was as the Rector of Saint James’s, Piccadilly, a space he filled with extraordinary worship, celebrated pulpit dialogues, a coffee house and street market. Those who passed through the church doors included leading international film-makers, writers, theologians and politicians.

He was the Rector of Saint James’s for 18 years (1980-1998). When he first arrived there, it was not an auspicious place. Although the church was known for society weddings, there was little evidence of a congregation rooted in the community. ‘On my arrival,’ he said, ‘I could see no justification for keeping the church open.’

The church where William Blake was baptised was in decay and facing closure. Four years later, as the church celebrated it tercentenary, he was able to tell the Guardian: ‘There’s only one thing to do with a church which is slap in the centre of London and whose congregation has dwindled ever since the 19th century brought business to where town houses used to be: you use the site and turn it into a showcase for Christianity.’

Gradually, he turned Saint James’s into a thriving institution, closely linked to local people, both rich and poor, and a place for exploring ideas. Saint James’s soon had its own orchestra, a full-time arts director, a programme of lectures called ‘Turning Point,’ and a programme called ‘Dunamais’, offering lectures, workshops and the opportunity to explore issues of personal, national and international security in the nuclear age. The church became a centre of both liturgical innovation of theological debate and radical politics. He encouraged debate across the boundaries, inviting speakers as diverse as Norman Tebbit and Tony Benn, non-believers as well as believers.

‘Jesus wasn’t exactly into garden parties. He was regarded as a nuisance,’ he said. ‘The churches shouldn’t be creating little managers of sectarian communities but should be places of dissent.’

His own challenge to Thatcherism was overt. He sparked lively debate by speaking out against the Falklands War and by helping the miners’ wives during their husbands’ bitter strike. After several brushes with Thatcher, she described him as ‘a very dangerous man’ – an acknowledgement that by then he was part of the Anglican tradition of ‘troublesome priests’ – apt to turn critical fire not only on the world but on the Church too.

Bishop Trevor Huddleston, a veteran campaigner against apartheid, who lived in the Saint James’s Vicarage for many years, was another significant influence.

Donals Reeves was made MBE in 2006 for his peace-building in Bosnia, received awards for fostering good relations between the Abrahamic Faiths, and was a Visiting Fellow in Peace Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Canon Paul Oestreicher, in a tribute in the Church Times, wrote: ‘Donald was a spiritual activist whose own “Eucharistic Prayer” (below) will tell you all you need to know about him.’

We had lunch together before he left Dublin, and I said then how I hoped we continue to hear his radical voice for many years to come. His mark is still evident today in Saint James’s, Piccadilly, with its inclusiveness, its celebration of other faith traditions, its social justice ministries to the marginalised in greater London, and its continuing work with asylum seekers.

‘Eucharistic Prayer’

We break this bread for those who love God,
For those who follow the path of the Buddha
And worship the God of the Hindus;
For our sisters and brothers in Islam,
And for the Jewish people from whom we come.

We break this bread for the great green earth;
We call to mind the forests, fields and flowers
Which we are destroying,
That one day, with the original blessing, God’s creation will be restored.

We break this bread for those who have no bread,
The starving, the homeless and the refugees,
That one day this planet may be a home for everyone.

We break this bread for the broken parts of ourselves,
The wounded child in all of us,
For our broken relationships,
That one day we may glimpse the wholeness that is of Christ.

The south side of Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, where USPG and SPCK celebrated Founder’s Day today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A day with ‘a very dangerous man’

The Revd Donald Reeves (centre) at the Irish School of Ecumenics with Patrick Comerford (left) and Dr Andrew Pierce, Lecturer in Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies at ISE

Patrick Comerford

The Revd Donald Reeves was once described by Margaret Thatcher as “a very dangerous man” and by The Times of London as the “radical rector” and “the most extraordinary clergyman in the Church of England.” At the time, he was the Rector of Saint James’s, Piccadilly, and among Thatcher’s allies he had developed a reputation as a “turbulent priest” – an eminent and honourable place to hold in Anglican tradition.

Now in his late 70s, Donald Reeves works on peace-building and peace-making projects in the Balkans. He has long been a thorn in the side of the Establishment, and when he heard Thatcher’s description of him as “a very dangerous man”, he was “rather pleased … it felt like a natural title.” It is a sobriquet that he came to wear with pride and that inspired the title of his autobiography The Memoirs of a Very Dangerous Man.

The man who enjoyed excoriating Thatcherite dogma and episcopal complacency in the 1980s, emphasises his role these days as a peace-maker rather than as a trouble-maker. Today, he co-directs the Soul of Europe, which has been working at peace-making and peace-building in the Balkans for 10 years. He has been visiting Dublin for the past few days, and spoke this morning about the work of the Soul of Europe at a seminar organised by the Irish School of Ecumenics and co-sponsored by the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.

Through the Soul of Europe project, which he co-directs, Donald Reeves spends much of his time in the Balkans, trying to build durable trust between communities only nominally at peace after terrible conflicts. The Soul of Europe seeks to help people living through post-conflict situations to realise Nelson Mandela’s words first addressed to politicians in Northern Ireland: “If you want to make peace do not speak with your friends, you must speak with your enemies.”

In Kosovo, he has been talking to Serbs and Albanians, seeking to “dismantle the fear each has of the other” and to break down the isolation of minorities – in this case the Serbs, and their ancient religious institutions, living under armed guard. He has tried to help Kosovo’s Albanians and Kosovo’s Serbs to help normalise relations between Kosovo’s Muslim Albanians and two endangered Serbian Orthodox Monasteries at Decani and Pec.

Before Kosovo, he was working in Bosnia. Both Bosnia and Kosovo “are littered with failed projects,” he told us.

In Bosnia, progress was uneven and inconclusive, as he and his colleagues experienced deeply-rooted mutual suspicion and resentment in communities where co-existence had turned overnight into murderous hatred. They had to listen patiently to “raw memories” and accept that there could be “no short cuts, no quick fixes.”

But he is scathing too about the role of the UN, the EU and other peace-keeping bodies and bureaucrats, saying this morning: “I have become very disillusioned with the way European bureaucracy functions.”

He is frustrated by the way in which ignorance of religion has become an embedded in official thinking, so that religion is seen as matter of choice and that a real illiteracy of religion has emerged. It means churches and mosques are valued only and merely as places of cultural heritage and not as living religious communities. But “religion is the crucible in which the ‘chosen trauma’ of a community is held.”

He expressed a deep-seated “nervousness” about growing Islamophobia in Europe, which he described as an “alarming phenomenon.”

“The Muslims are the new Jews of Europe,” he said.

The Irish School of Ecumenics at Milltown Park, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Donald St John Reeves was born in 1934 and had a conventional middle-class upbringing. He was educated at Sherborne School and spent two years in the Royal Sussex Regiment, before studying at Queens’ College, Cambridge. While he was teaching in Beirut in the 1960s, he felt called to ordained ministry, and after training at Cuddesdon Theological College he was ordained deacon in 1963 and priest in 1964. Following two years as a curate in Maidstone in the Diocese of Canterbury, where he was already a controversial figure, he became chaplain to Bishop Mervyn Stockwood of Southwark, who had a reputation for controversy and socialist politics.

After being radicalised in Chicago in 1968, he returned to England and carried the revolution to a housing estate in South London, where he was Rector of Saint Helier in Morden from 1969 to 1980. But his heyday was as Rector of Saint James’s, Piccadilly, a space he filled with extraordinary worship, celebrated pulpit dialogues, a coffee house and street market. Those who passed through the church doors included leading international film-makers, writers, theologians and politicians.

He was the Rector of Saint James’s, Piccadilly, for 18 years until 1998. When he first arrived at Saint James’s Piccadilly in 1980, it was not an auspicious place. Although the church was known for society weddings, there was little evidence of a congregation rooted in the community: “On my arrival,” he says, “I could see no justification for keeping the church open.”

The church where William Blake was baptised was in noble decay and facing closure. Four years later, as the church celebrated it tercentenary, he was able to tell the Guardian: “There’s only one thing to do with a church which is slap in the centre of London and whose congregation has dwindled ever since the 19th century brought business to where town houses used to be: you use the site and turn it into a showcase for Christianity.”

Gradually, he turned Saint James’s into a thriving institution, closely linked to local people, both rich and poor, and a place for exploring ideas. Saint James’s soon had its own orchestra, a full-time arts director, a programme of lectures called “Turning Point,” and a programme called “Dunamais” offering lectures, workshops and the opportunity to explore issues of personal, national and international security in the nuclear age. The church became a centre of both liturgical innovation of theological debate and radical politics. He encouraged debate across the boundaries, inviting speakers as diverse as Norman Tebbit and Tony Benn, non-believers as well as believers.

“Jesus wasn’t exactly into garden parties. He was regarded as a nuisance,” he says. “The churches shouldn’t be creating little managers of sectarian communities but should be places of dissent.”

His own challenge to Thatcherism was overt. He sparked lively debate by speaking out against the Falklands War and by helping the miners’ wives during their husbands’ bitter strike. After several brushes with Margaret Thatcher, she described him as “a very dangerous man” – an acknowledgement that by then he was part of the Anglican tradition of “troublesome priests” – apt to turn critical fire not only on the world but on the Church too.

In anticipation of his later work in the Balkans, he began to explore the idea of peace-building, inviting Chinese and Russian visitors. Bishop Trevor Huddleston, a veteran campaigner against apartheid, who lived in the Saint James’s Vicarage for many years, was another significant influence.

Today he devotes most of his energies to his peace-building projects in the Balkans, and his energy is inexhaustible, even in his 70s.

He was made MBE in 2006 for his peace-building in Bosnia, and for fostering good relations between the Abrahamic Faiths he was awarded the Muhammad Nafi Tschelebi Peace Prize last year by the Tschelebi Institute, the oldest Islamic organisation in Germany. He is a Visiting Fellow in Peace Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University, and now lives in Crediton in Devon. But his mark is still evident at Saint James’s, Piccadilly, with its inclusiveness, its celebration of other faith traditions, its social justice ministries to the marginalised in greater London, and its continuing work with asylum seekers.

We had lunch together before he headed back to England this afternoon. I hope we continue to hear his radical voice for many years to come.