Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 29, Friday 5 June 2026

The copy of Michelangelo’s David in the he Piazza della Signoria in the centre of Florence (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We have returned to Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with Trinity Sunday (31 May 2026), and yesterday was the Feast of Corpus Christi (4 June 2026) or the Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Saint Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton (754), Bishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany and Martyr.

After yesterday’s length return journey from Luton to Dublin, I got back last night, and am in back in Stony Stratford. 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.

King David in a stained glass window in Saint George’s Church, Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 12: 35-37 (NRSVA):

35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he said, ‘How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? 36 David himself, by the Holy Spirit, declared,

“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet’.”

37 David himself calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’ And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

‘David himself calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’ (Mark 12: 37) … a forlorn statue in an abandoned workshop in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The scribes and the Pharisees regarded themselves as the experts in Biblical interpretation. But Christ, who is teaching in the temple and responding to their questions, now asks them some questions (verses 35, 42), to the delight of the large crowd that is listening to him.

At the time, the general understanding and expectation among the people was for a political ‘Messiah’ who was descended from David, ‘the son of David’.

At the time it was also thought that David was inspired by the Spirit to write the Psalms. But Christ asks how it is that David refers to the Messiah as ‘Lord’ (overlord), in writing ‘The Lord’ God (Yahweh) ‘said to my Lord’ (in other words, David’s overlord, whom Christ presents in this dialogue as the Messiah) ‘sit ...’

So, how can the Messiah be both David’s son and his overlord?

While in English and Greek, the word ‘Lord’ (κύριος, kurios) occurs three times in this reading, Christ may have quoted Psalm 110: 1 in Hebrew; there the words are different. He was probably not unique in taking ‘my Lord’ there to be the Messiah, for a political Messiah would defeat his ‘enemies’.

And so the Pharisees too are shown not to understand the Scriptures.

Which leads me to think this morning of how often passages of scripture that are neither not fully understood or are apparently contradictory on the surface are still used by people who promote themselves as experts in Biblical interpretation to advance oppressive and bigoted teachings.

King David (right) in a stained glass window in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 5 June 2026):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 5 June 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for an end to violence across the Gulf region, and for dialogue and diplomacy to bring a swift and just peace.

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
who called your servant Boniface
to preach the gospel among the German people
and to build up your Church in holiness:
grant that we may preserve in our hearts
that faith which he taught with his words
and sealed with his blood,
and profess it in lives dedicated to your Son
Jesus Christ 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:

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Boniface:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

King David (left) and King Solomon in a stained glass window in Saint Brendan’s Cargedral, Clonfert, Co Galway. Tamworth (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

Words of consolation and hope in Psalm 34 and the collects at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral

The Choir, Chapter Stalls and High Altar in Lichfield Cathedral before Evening Prayer yesterday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

As the lies, mistruths, half-truths and misrepresentations continue to flow like torrents from the members of the Trump administration, from the Oval Office and from the White House, it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine the depths to which these people can descend in a destructive vortex.

This week alone has seen Trump compare himself to Christ, healing the sick and raising the dead. He has virulently attacked the Pope and wrongly accused him of wanting Iran to have nuclear weapons.

We have seen JD Vance audaciously presuming to teach theology to the Pope.

We have seen Pete Hegseth quote a verse from Ezekiel that is not in the Bible but is, instead, from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, as Jules murders an unarmed man in cold blood.

It all descended into absolute alcoholic farce when Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mistakenly referred to the Strait of Hormuz as the ‘Straits of Vermouth’.

The very survival of the planet hangs on the decision-making capacity of these people. Where are we to find comfort, consolation and hope?

After a day of walking through the Staffordshire countryside, by canals and in fields, and through Rugeley, Armitage and Lichfield yesterday, I ended the day at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral.

Words of consolation in Psalm 34 at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Some of the verses in Psalm 34, the psalm appointed for Evening Prayer, offered some of that much-sought comfort, consolation and hope in the face of these lies, misrepresentations, cruelty and bellicose war-mongering:

4 I sought the Lord and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears …
6 This poor soul cried, and the Lord heard me
and saved me from all my troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him
and delivers them.
8 O taste and see that the Lord is gracious;
blessed is the one who trusts in him.
9 Fear the Lord, all you his holy ones,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 Lions may lack and suffer hunger,
but those who seek the Lord
lack nothing that is good.
11 Come, my children, and listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Who is there who delights in life
and longs for days to enjoy good things?
13 Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from lying words
. 14 Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous
and his ears are open to their cry.
16 The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to root out the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 The righteous cry and the Lord hears them
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and will save those who are crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the troubles of the righteous;
from them all will the Lord deliver them.
20 He keeps all their bones,
so that not one of them is broken.
21 But evil shall slay the wicked
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord ransoms the life of his servants
and will condemn none who seek refuge in him.

Words of consolation the collects at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

There was comfort and some consolation too last night in the Second Collect at Evening Prayer and the Third Collect, for Aid against all Perils:

O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed: Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that both our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments, and also that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Evening lights in the Cathedral Close in Lichfield before Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 158, Friday 17 October 2025

‘Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight’ (Luke 12: 6) … a mural in the Old Bath House, Wolverton, by Timothy B Layden and Luke McDonnell shows Ella Jones-Seal creating music for the birds (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Today the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness remembers Saint Ignatius (ca 107), Bishop of Antioch, Martyr.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free’ (Leonard Cohen) … birds on the wires in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 12: 1-7 (NRSVA):

1 Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered in thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. 2 Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.

4 ‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. 7 But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’

The portrait of Mao Zedong overlooking the entrance to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing … Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign when it was too late (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

There is story from China in the 1950s of how Mao ordered the extermination of several pests, including sparrows. But it was a campaign that led to an environmental disaster.

It all seems to have started off with what looked like a good idea. Mao argued that nature should be fully exploited for production, and building up industry would not only modernise China but also build up an urban proletariat that would provide a solid support base for the Chinese Communist Party.

The Eurasian Tree Sparrow was singled out in particular because in was eating grain seeds. Chinese scientists calculated that for every million sparrows killed, there would be enough food to feed 60,000 people.

Chinese people took to the streets in great numbers, clanging their pots and pans or beating drums to terrorise the birds and prevent them from landing. Nests were torn down from trees, eggs were smashed, chicks were killed, and sparrows were shot down from the branches.

School children, civil servants, factory workers, farmers and soldiers were all mobilised in the campaign, along with hundreds of thousands of scarecrows and colourful, fluttering flags.

Young people trapped, poisoned and attacked the sparrows, children and old people kept watch, and free-fire zones were set up for shooting the sparrows.

Hundreds of millions of sparrows were killed in this campaign of destruction, and the sparrow almost became extinct in China.

But as well as eating grain, the sparrows also ate insects in great numbers. Without the sparrows to eat the insects, the insects gobbled the crops that the sparrows had nibbled at. Crop yields dropped to an all-time low and rice growing faced a disaster.

When Mao called off the Great Sparrow Campaign, it was too late. The situation got progressively worse, locusts swarmed the countryside, and the loss of the sparrow contributed to widespread famine from 1958 to 1961, when 30 million people or more died of hunger.

It still remains a chilling reminder of the dangers that can be created by any changes to an ecosystem.

The sparrow in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 12: 1-7), is, in the original Greek, στρουθίον (strouthíon), any small bird, especially a sparrow (verses 6, 7; see also Matthew 10: 29). The Hebrew word צִפּוֹר (tzippor) comes from a root signifying to chirp or twitter, a phonetic representation of the call-note of any passerine or sparrow-like bird.

This word occurs more than 40 times in the Hebrew Bible. In English translations, it is often rendered as ‘bird’ or ‘fowl’ and denotes any small bird, both of the sparrow-like species and such as the starling, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet, goldfinch, corn-bunting, pipits, blackbird and song-thrush.

However the name is translated from the Hebrew or the Greek, these birds are found in great numbers in the East Mediterranean and are of very little value, selling for the merest trifle.

The blue thrush is probably the bird to which the psalmist alludes to – ‘I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop’ (Psalm 102: 7) – is a solitary bird, setting itself apart from the company of its own species, and rarely more than a pair are seen together. The English tree-sparrow is also very common, and may be seen in numbers on Mount Olivet and about the sacred enclosure of the Mosque of Omar.

There are great numbers of house-sparrows and field-sparrows who make their nests just where people do not want them: they block stoves and water-pipes with their rubbish, and build in the windows and under the beams of roofs.

The sparrow mentioned several times in the Bible often symbolises insignificance and the providential care of God. The sparrow represents the humble and the lowly. Despite their perceived insignificance, their nuisance value, and the cheap price they sell for, the Bible uses sparrows to illustrate God’s attentive care for all his creation. And without them, without each and every one of us, the whole ecosystem of God’s beautiful creation is severely threatened and endangered.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God (Psalm 84: 3).


Watching a mother bird feed her chick at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 17 October 2025):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 17 October 2025, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty) invites us to pray:

Lord God, poverty is not your plan. We pray for an end to poverty in all its forms, that every person may live with dignity and hope.

The Collect of the Day:

Feed us, O Lord, with the living bread
and make us drink deep of the cup of salvation
that, following the teaching of your bishop Ignatius
and rejoicing in the faith
with which he embraced a martyr’s death,
we may be nourished for that eternal life
for which he longed;
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 redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Ignatius:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Luke:

Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
by the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow


Watching a mother swallow feed her chicks in a nest in the ceiling of Aghias Anna Church, Maroulas, 10 km south-east of Rethymnon (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

By the river in Buckingham and its weeping willows, I visited a Holocaust memorial

The Holocaust Memorial Stone at the east end of Bourton Park, Buckingham, was installed in 2021 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

In the Jewish calendar, Shabbat Chol Hamoed Sukkot begins at sunset this evening and end at sunset tomorrow evening. This is the Shabbat that falls in the middle of the week-long festival of Sukkot, known as the ‘Intermediate Shabbat’. It is a significant Shabbat that features special Torah readings from the Book of Exodus, discussing Moses’s request to see God’s glory and God’s proclamation of his attributes. The Haftarah reading is from the Book of Ezekiel, prophesying the war of Gog and Magog, and the Book of Ecclesiastes is also read in some synagogues.

On a warm sunny autumn morning last week, I visited the Holocaust Memorial Stone in Bourton Park, Buckingham. The memorial has become the venue for the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in Buckingham each year.

The Holocaust Memorial Stone was installed at the east end of Bourton Park in 2021. Several years ago, Ruth Newell, a past mayor, initiated a fundraising drive to place a Holocaust memorial in one of the town’s parks. What began as a small initiative grew into a significant community event.

Buckingham Town Council commissioned Louis Francis, a local stonemason and master letter carver, to engrave the Holocaust Memorial Day emblem and the lettering. The stone is bedrock, sourced from the Brackley Road cemetery in Buckingham. It was transported, as a gesture to the community, by a local firm Paragon Tool Hire.

The Holocaust Day ceremony earlier this year (27 January 2025) was led by the Mayor of Buckingham, with readings from Ruth Newell, a former mayor, and from Stan Cohen, a representative of the Milton Keynes Synagogue. The service included readings, survivors’ stories and moments of silence, with time to pause and reflect on the immense loss and the vital lessons learned from this tragic period in history.

Around 25 primary school students from Bourton Meadow Academy showcased their recent work on the Holocaust, following a visit to Bletchley Park. Staff and sixth form students from Furze Down School contributed a vibrant hand-painted banner to the event, with bright colours and thoughtful designs symbolising hope and resilience.

Buckinghamshire has a total of 1,688 Jewish people, according to census figures, making up 0.3% of the population. There are at least two Jewish communities in Buckinghamshire, represented by the Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue, based in north Milton Keynes, and the South Bucks Jewish Community, which holds its services and events near Amersham.

Louis Francis engrave the Holocaust Memorial Day emblem and the lettering in Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

After visiting the Holocaust memorial I went for a long walk by the banks of the River Great Ouse and through Bourton Park. It was a sunny day, and it was still within the Ten Days of Awe, the High Holy Days that ended with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, last week (2 October 2025).

It is the most popular of Buckingham’s three main parks, with plenty of space to explore nature, exercise and play. The river and a series of ponds create a diverse eco-system including otters, kingfishers and dragonflies as well as wildflower and meadow areas.

Bourton Park’s hard-surface paths are accessible and suitable for running or long walks, and the park is the home of Buckingham Parkrun and Junior Parkrun. The Trim Trail has outdoor exercise equipment for pull-ups, hurdles, sit-ups and more. There is a multi-use games area for basketball and football and a table tennis table. A fenced area caters for toddlers, while a senior play area has a zip wire, balance trail and spinners.

As I walked by River Great Ouse in the park, with a vast number of weeping willows along the river bank, I found myself repeating the opening words of Psalm 137, so often associated with Holocaust commemorations:

1 By the rivers of Babylon –
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
3 For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
4 How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

‘By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept (Psalm 137: 1) … by the River Great Ouse in Bourton Park, Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The former Belfast Bank in Rathmines has moved from a ‘Quid’ in the Psalms to making the best dough

The former Belfast Bank, now Reggie’s Pizzeria on Rathmines Road Lower, was designed by Vincent Craig (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The former Belfast Bank at 221-223 Rathmines Road Lower is now Reggie’s Pizzeria and is one of the interesting buildings in Rathmines that I looked at last week, along with the former YMCA building on Lower Rathmines Road, close to Portobello Road, nearby Kensington Lodge on Grove Park, and the former Kodak building.

The former Belfast Bank in Rathmines is a small building in a Scottish Baronial style, with a sharp corner and a corner turret. Despite its size, it is very noticeable for the narrow façade that creates an optical illusion, for its individual features, and because of its prominent location on a busy corner where Rathmines Road Lower meets Rathgar Road and Rathmines Road Upper.

The side street is Wynnefield Road, and many people also know the building because of its location beside Slattery’s public house.

The narrow façade at the junction of Rathmines Road, Wynnefield Road and Rathgar Road creates an optical illusion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Belfast Bank was formed in 1827 by a merger of two private banks, Batt’s, also known as the Belfast Bank, and Tennant’s, also known as the Commercial Bank. The bank moved in 1846 to the former Assembly Buildings at the corner of North Street, Bridge Street, Waring Street and Donegall Street. Within decades, the bank was trading in branches throughout the northern half of Ireland.

The Belfast Bank had a New York branch by the 1860s, but it did not establish a branch in Dublin until 1892, when temporary premises were acquired in Dame Street. A purpose-built branch at 21-22 College Green was designed by William Henry Lynn and was built in 1893-1894.

The Belfast Bank in Rathmines was the second branch in Dublin, and a third branch in Dublin at 86 Talbot Street was designed by Frederick George Hicks and built in 1900. The branch building in Rathmines was designed by the Belfast architect Vincent Craig (1869-1925), whose work included clubhouses for yacht and golf clubs, Presbyterian churches, hospitals, banks for the Belfast Bank and the Ulster Bank, and masonic halls.

Craig was born at Craigavon, Strandtown, Belfast, in 1869, one of seven sons of James Craig, a wealthy whiskey distiller, and a younger brother of James Craig (1871-1940), later Lord Craigavon and first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

Vincent Criag was educated at Bath College and received his architectural training in the office of William Henry Lynn from 1885 to 1889. He then spent a year travelling in Europe before setting up in practice in Belfast in 1891.

He was a member of the Royal Institute of the Architects in Ireland, and was elected a fellow (FRIAI) in 29 May 1906. He was also a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA, 1900). His pupils and assistants included John Charles Lepper, Arthur Norman McClinton and Jackson Graham Smyth. He exhibited drawings of three of his designs in the Irish International Exhibition in Dublin in 1907.

Craig was a keen yachtsman and motorist, and also a generous benefactor of hospitals. He represented Court Ward on Belfast City Council in 1903-1906, and he was president of the Belfast Art Society in 1903.

He worked from 5 Lombard Street, Belfast, and 22 Donegall Place, and lived at Eldon Green, Helen’s Bay, Co Down, which he designed for himself. He moved to England in 1910, retired from his architectural practice soon after, and lived in retirement at High Close, Wokingham, Berkshire.

The former bank is in a Scottish baronial style, with a sharp corner and a corner turret (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Craig’s bank in Rathmines was built between 1899 and 1900 for the Belfast Bank. Tenders were invited in September 1899 and the building was ‘nearly complete’ by mid-July 1900.

The site was once part of the Chains. A fading photograph in Slattery’s beside the former bank tells how the Chains were one of the worst slums in late Victorian Rathmines. According to Weston St John Joyce in The Neighbourhood of Dublin (1912), the Chains were a number of dilapidated shanties enclosed by chains hung from stone pillars. They had become ‘an unsightly and insanitary slum’ until they were cleared to make the site for a new bank.

The corner is marked by a tower, topped by a finial and cut into at the base to make the entrance. The curve to the castellation is picked up on the apex of the gable, and the little peaks on the slope look even more like cake decoration when you follow the line down into the fussy scrolled base.

The terracotta plaque with the coat of arms of Belfast and the motto ‘Pro tanto quid retribuamus’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

On the Wynnefield Road elevation, a terracotta plaque set into the wall displays the coat of arms of Belfast with the motto Pro tanto quid retribuamus (‘What return shall we make for so much?’). It is a paraphrase of Psalm 116: 12 in the Vulgate translation, which reads ‘Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi?’

My childish sense of humour could not resist being amused by a Latin motto on a bank building that includes the word Quid.

On this façade, the chimney’s descent stops nearly in line with the top of the door, and it is an additional tension, a feat of brinksmanship with the visual weight as well as a clear marker of the asymmetry of the two façades. The break happens within the entrance, too, with the columns holding nothing and the pointed brackets above hanging like stalactites.

Sitting on the string course are two stone figures that look like lions bearing shields with the initials BB for Belfast Bank. The doors have panels and panes of stained glass.

Two stone figures that look like lions bear holdshields with the initials BB for Belfast Bank (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, the Belfast Bank merged with the London City & Midland Bank in 1917, the first entry into the Irish market by an English bank. After partition, the Belfast Bank decided to operate only in what became Northern Ireland. Following secret negotiations, the business in what had become the Irish Free State was transferred to the Royal Bank of Ireland in 1923, along with 20 branches and their staff.

The bank in Rathmines was more recently the premises of the Trustee Savings Bank/TSB Bank, and then the offices of a recruitment agency. It is now Reggie’s Pizzeria, which was opened in December 2024 by Reggie White, his wife Amy and their daughter Florence, who live nearby.

He has been described by the The Irish Times as ‘Ireland’s pizzaiolo-in-chief.’ He has trained Ballymaloe, and had stints at Del Popolo and Flour+Water in San Francisco. He returned to Dublin, co-founded Pi on George’s Street, and then made his name consulting for some of Ireland’s best-known pizza spots, including Little Forest, Bambino and Otto. With ten of his friends, including James Lowe, quietly backing 20 per cent, he opened Reggie’s in Rathmines shortly before last Christmas.

Once again, my childish sense of humour could not resist being amused by the thought that a former bank that exalted the word Quid is now making some of the best dough in Dublin.

As for the Belfast Bank, its businesses in Northern Ireland eventually merged with the Northern Bank, which began trading in 1824. Both were acquired by the Midland Bank, the integration was completed in 1970, and Northern Bank continued to trade throughout the whole of Ireland. The Midland Bank eventually sold the Northern Bank to the National Australia Bank, which later transferred ownership to Danske Bank.

Many of the former Belfast Bank buildings in Northern Ireland have been sold on to other businesses. But the name of ‘Belfast Bank’ continues to adorn a few of the old buildings, including those in Portrush, Rathfriland and Warrenpoint, as well as the former bank building on that narrow corner on Lower Rathmines Road.

For the former National Bank and Bank of Ireland branch at Lower Rathmines Road, see here

Inside Reggie's Pizzeria in the former Belfast Bank on Rathmines Road Lower (Photograph © Bryan O’Brien, The Irish Times, 2025)

The former YMCA is a landmark 100-year-old redbrick building on Lower Rathmines Road

The former YMCA building on Lower Rathmines Road awas designed by the Dublin architect George Palmer Beater (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

When I was staying in Rathmines this week during a very brief family visit to Dublin, I took another look at some interesting late 19th and early 20th century buildings on Rathmines Road, including the former YMCA building, Kensington Lodge around the corner from it on Grove Park, the former Belfast Bank on a prominent corner with Rathgar Road, and the former Kodak building, one of two listed Art Deco buildings in Dublin.

The former YMCA building on the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and Grove Park was designed by the Dublin architect George Palmer Beater and was built in red brick 1911 by J & P Good. It is a landmark redbrick building near Portobello building, with some terracotta features and interesting lettering on the façade.

The main entrance is now permanently locked, and the whole building is shabby in appearance, but it is still possible to appreciate its early 20th century elegance. The lettering above the porch reads: ‘Rathmines YMCA Erected 1911’.

Higher up the façade, the lettering reads: ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Psalm cxxvii. 1’ It is a quotation from Psalm 127: 1 that reflects not only that this was built for the Young Men’s Christian Association, but that also reflects the evangelical faith of the architect.

The YMCA building is closed and the porched is gated and locked (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

George Palmer Beater (1850-1928), an important church architect at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. I am familiar with Beater’s work because I worked in one of his buildings for many years. He was born in Dublin on 16 June 1850, the son of Orlando L Beater (1817-1908) and Abigail née Palmer (1824-1891). His father was chairman of Arnott’s and the family lived at Glenarm, Terenure Road East.

Beater was educated in Dublin and articled to the architect Alfred Gresham Jones (1824-1915), who also designed many churches, including Grosvenor Road Baptist Church and Athlone Methodist Church.

Beater designed the Fetherstonhaugh Convalescent Home for the Adelaide Hospital at Braemor Park in 1894. This former convalescent home is now the main redbrick building of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, with the chapel, lecture and seminar rooms, offices and the rooms of the academic staff. I was on the staff of CITI for 15 years, four years part-time (2002-2006) and 11 years full-time (2006-2017), with a room upstairs in Beater’s original building, looking out onto the lawn and facing the morning sunrise.

Beater’s other works include: a new entrance porch for the former Nelson Monument (Nelson’s Pillar) on O’Connell Street, Baptist churches on Harcourt Street and North Circular Road, Dublin, Cork Baptist Church, the former Baptist Church in Limerick, the Slievemore Hotel, Dugort, Achill Island, Co Mayo, for the trustees of the Achill Mission Estate, the Dublin Medical Mission on Chancery Place, the Presbyterian church hall in Rathgar, the façade of Merrion Hall (now the Davenport Hotel), first built by Alfred Gresham Jones in 1863, and Northumberland Hall (now Dun Laoghaire Evangelical Church) for the Plymouth Brethren, Woolworth in Henry Street, the Northern Bank in Bray, Co Wicklow, and the YMCA in Rathmines.

The former YMCA building was built in red brick 1911 by J & P Good (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Beater also designed much of the work on Arnott’s premises in Henry Street, Dublin, many of the premises rebuilt on Sackville Street (O’Connell Street), Dublin, after the 1916 Rising, and some of the houses on Grosvenor Road, Rathmines.

He was the architect of the Elvery’s Building on O’Connell Street, and many extensions to both the Adelaide Hospital and Stewart’s Hospital.

In recent years, there has been much interest in his work on the Mill Street Schools and Mission Buildings complex at 10 Mill Street, Dublin 8. When this early 18th century, five-bay building was acquired by the Irish Church Missions in 1891, Beater was commissioned to remodel it as part of the Mill Street Schools and Mission Buildings. His work included building a buttressed porch in place of the door-case and reconstructing the top floor with a conventional hipped roof centring on a corbelled gable. The building has been carefully restored in recent years and is now in use as offices.

The quotation from Psalm 127: 1 reflects work of the YMCA and the evangelical faith of the architect George Palmer Beater (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Beater worked from offices at 3 Molesworth Street (1873), Liverpool & London Chambers, Foster Place (1874), 17 Sackville Street Lower (1874-1882, 1886-1915), 57 Dawson Street (1883-1886), and 10 Leinster Street (1916-1926).

He was married twice. He married Isabel Stokes, daughter of William James Stokes, of Dublin, in 1880, and they were the parents of one son, Leslie Orlando Beater. Isabel died on 28 January 1882 and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

Beater married his second wife, Constance Perry, in 1896. She was the daughter of R Middleton Perry, JP, of 73 Leinster Road, Rathmines. Her sister, Annette Marion Perry, was secretary of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. George and Constance were the parents of two daughters and one son, George Perry Beater who died in infancy.

He was a member of the Architectural Association of Ireland (1899-1908), a member (1878) and a fellow (1919) of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (FRIAI), and a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1898).

He was a member of Rathmines and Rathgar Town Council, supported many charities in Dublin and was a governor of the Royal Hospital, Dublin, the Old Men’s Home on Leeson Park, and the Protestant Orphanage in Harold’s Cross.

Beater lived at 1 Rostrevor Terrace, Rathgar (1873-1879); St Helen’s, Highfield Road, Rathgar (1881-1882); Glenarm, Terenure Road, Rathgar (1883-1896); and Minore, St Kevin’s Park, Rathmines (1897-1928).

He died at 9 Brighton Road, Rathgar, the home of his brother, Dr Orlando Beater, on 8 February 1928, and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery with his first wife. His obituary in the Irish Builder described him as ‘a kindly, courteous gentleman, liked and respected by all who knew him.’

When his widow Constance Beater died on 23 March 1945 at 9 Rathdown Park, Terenure, she was buried at Friends’ Burial Ground, Temple Hill, Blackrock.

His brother, Dr Orlando Palmer Beater of Terenure Road, Rathgar, was a solicitor and a qualified but non-practising medical doctor and surgeon. For many years, Dr Orlando Beater was a member of the board of Arnott’s and a director of the publishers and printers Cherry and Smalldridge, as well as a governor of the Royal Hospital for Incurables, Stewart’s Hospital and the Northbrook Home.

The side of the building on Grove Park may once have been a chapel as part of the YMCA facilities, and has been renamed Kensington Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The YMCA shut up shop in Rathmines many years ago, but Beater’s building near Portobello Road remains a landmark on the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and Grove Park.

The side of the building facing onto Grove Park may once have been a chapel as part of the YMCA facilities. It was renamed Kensington Hall in recent years when the Leeson Park School of Music moved in, and it uses its big yellow door as part of its promotional images.

Kensington Lodge takes its name from Kensington Lodge, on the opposite side of Grove Park, quite a fantastically ornate brickwork and terracotta Queen Anne style house designed by William Isaac Chambers for himself in 1882.

But more about Kensington Lodge in the days to come, hopefully.

The Church of Ireland Theological College … designed by George Palmer Beater as the Fetherstonhaugh Home for the Adelaide Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 68, Wednesday 16 July 2025

Philip Jackson’s monument of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg at Wallenberg Place, near Hyde Park in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV, 13 July 2025). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Osmund (1099), Bishop of Salisbury.

Later today, I hope to attend Evensong in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The centrepiece of the Mary Elmes Bridge is designed to create the impression of a menorah (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 11: 25-27 (NRSVA):

25 At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’

Mary Elmes (1908-2013) … the only Irish-born person among the Righteous Among the Nations

Today’s Reflection:

At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.’ – (Matthew 11: 25)

In today’s short Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 11: 25-27), Christ thanks the Father for choosing the simple and uneducated (‘infants’) over ‘the wise and the intelligent.’ Christ is the Father’s representative, and those who know the Father know him because of Christ.

The Liturgical Calendar of the Episcopal Church in the US honours the ‘Righteous’ on 16 July. The date may have been chosen because it is a day before the presumed anniversary of the execution of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg on 17 July 1947 while he was a prisoner at Lubyanka Prison.

The Righteous Among the Nations is an honorific used at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem for non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.

The term originates with the concept of ‘righteous gentiles’, a term used in rabbinical Judaism for non-Jews who abide by the Seven Laws of Noah.

When Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, was founded in 1953, one of its tasks was to remember the ‘Righteous among the Nations’, who are also offered honorary citizenship of Israel.

So far, about 25,000 people from 45 countries are recognised in this way.

The only Irish woman on this list is Mary Elmes from Cork, who risked her life to save Jewish children from the Nazi gas chambers. The children she rescued include Michael Freund, a boy of five, and his two-year-old little brother, Ronald Friend, who went on to become a Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook, New York.

Mary Elmes was born in 1908 and was educated in Trinity College Dublin, the London School of Economics and in Geneva. She joined the London University Ambulance Unit in February 1937, and worked in a children’s hospital during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1939, she joined thousands of refugees fleeing Spain across the Pyrenees into France. There she continued her work with the Quakers, and provided food supplies and school books for children.

When the Nazis started taking people on trains from France to concentration camps, Mary Elmes and the Quakers started a campaign to move children under the age of 16 to children’s colonies. Under this ruse, she transported many children across the border, hiding them in her car and driving them high into the Pyrenees. We shall probably never know how many children were saved by ‘Miss Mary,’ as she was known.

She was arrested in January 1943 and was held for six months in a prison near Paris. After the war, she married Roger Danjou, they settled in France and they were the parents of two children. She made frequent return visits to Cork before she died in 2002. She never sought special recognition and even declined the Légion d’Honneur. Her bravery was eventually recognised by Yad Vashem in 2013.

The Psalm at the Eucharist today (Psalm 103: 1-7) promises justice in a world that is suffering injustice and oppression:

The Lord works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed (verse 6).

We are about to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in 1945. But war is an every-day reality for children, women and non-combatant men throughout the world today – in particular, I have the people of Ukraine and Russia and the people of the Middle East, the people of Gaza, Palestine and Israel, in my prayers this morning.

Who speaks out today for the victims of racism, war and genocide?

Who speaks out today for the children who are the innocent victims of the failed politics of adults?

Who speaks out these days for the children being ‘disappeared’ and the families being broken up on a daily basis by ICE and Homeland Security throughout the United States?

In the Collect today we pray:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy …

The bronze wall is draped with the Swedish flag made up of 100,000 ‘Schutzpässe’, the protective passes Raoul Wallenberg used to rescue Hungarian Jews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 16 July 2025):

The theme this week (13 to 19 July) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Shaping the Future: Africa Six.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Senior Regional Manager: Africa, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 16 July 2025) invites us to pray

Almighty God, guide USPG and all who support women’s leadership in the Church, that they may walk faithfully alongside those they serve.

The Collect:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope:
teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
by the obedience of Jesus
you brought salvation to our wayward world:
draw us into harmony with your will,
that we may find all things restored in him,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

The Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs by Imre Varga in the Raoul Wallenberg Holocaust Memorial Park at the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 47, Wednesday 25 June 2025

‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves’ (Matthew 7: 15)

Patrick Comerford

The week began with the First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I, 22 June 2025). I am back in Stony Stratford, having spent yesterday as a day of prayer, reflection and thanksgiving in Lichfield, marking the 24th anniversary of my ordination as priest 24 years ago, on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist [24 June 2001]. Today is the 25th anniversary of my ordination as deacon on 25 June 2000.

I marked these two anniversaries yesterday at the Patron Festival Eucharist in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, at mid-day and Choral Evensong Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral. During the day, I also went for some walks around Lichfield, by Minster Pool and out into the coutryside north of Lichfield along Cross in Hand Lane, and I even caught a glimpse of Comberford from the trains between Lichfield and Tamworth in the morning and in the evening.

Today is an Ember Day, marked on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in the week before the Sunday nearest to 29 June as days of prayer for those to be ordained deacon or priest. 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.

‘You will know them by their fruits … you will know them by their fruits’ (Matthew 7: 16, 20) … oranges at a corner shop in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Matthew 7: 15-20 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 15 ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits.’

‘Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?’ (Matthew 7: 16) … grapes on the vine at the Hedgehog in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s reading (Matthew 7: 15-20) returns to our series of readings from the Sermon on the Mount in Saint Matthew’s Gospel. This morning, Jesus warns us of the dangers posed by ‘false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.’ We are to ‘know them by their fruits.’

Immediately after the weekend bombing attack on Iran, carried out in breach of international law and without the sanction of Congress, Donald Trump declared on Saturday night: ‘I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.’

It was a blasphemous obscenity from Trump – as he was flanked by a Catholic Vice-President, JD Vance, a Catholic Secretary of State, Mario Rubio, who has also been a Baptist and a Mormon, and a Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, a member of the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a church in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches – claiming God blesses his war-mongering, his violence, his genocide, and invoking God to sanction his evil actions.

How do we recognise wolves in sheep clothing or false prophets who hijack abuse the name of Christ and Christianity today? Let me offer four further names to consider:

1, Allie Beth Stuckey seeks to legitimise the concept of ‘toxic empathy’ in her book Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. She describes herself as a Reformed Baptist, is a regular guest on Fox News, and is heard on the podcast ‘Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey’, distributed by Blaze Media, known for its recent film hijacking the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to promote ultra-right ‘Christian Nationalism’ in the US.

Stuckey studied communications at Furman University and has been a publicist and social media strategist on behalf of pro-Trump and MAGA causes. But she has no theological education or degrees that qualify her to make her judgmental theological pronouncements.

Stuckey made a video in 2018 that purported to be an interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in which the politician appeared to give bizarre answers to the questions put to her by Stuckey. It emerged later that the video plagiarised footage from other interviews spliced to appear as answers to Stuckey’s questions. When the video was widely exposed as a hoax, Stuckey said it was ‘satirical’ and ‘a joke’, but she has not made similar videos or jokes about right-wing politicians.

In her book, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, published last October (2024), Stuckey claims that when politics are driven by empathy rather than truth, innocent people pay the price. She claims empathy has become the highest virtue but like so many other words, such as tolerance, justice and acceptance, the word has been hijacked by people who exploit compassion for their own political ends.

She claims ‘toxic empathy’ is the primary tool of persuasion used by progressives to manipulate well-meaning Christians. She says they use toxic empathy ‘by employing our language, our Bible verses, our concepts and then pervert them to morally extort us into adopting their position.’

Stuckey argues that empathy has become a tool of manipulation by left-wing activists, claiming they bully people into believing that they must adopt progressive positions to be loving. She associates toxic empathy with the issues she is obsessed with: abortion, gender, sexuality, immigration and social justice. She argues empathy should derive from God’s definitions of love, goodness, and justice, and argues there are logical pitfalls and moral consequences for toxic empathy.

‘Our language, our Bible verses, our concepts’? Stuckey seems to imply the Bible and the language of Christianity are the sole preserve of far-right fundamentalists. She complains someone of the same religion can read the shared religious text and come to a different conclusion about its meaning, such as coming to the conclusion that the Prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus in the Gospels meant what they said about responding with human decency to the outcast, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned, the widowed, and the orphan.

But her notion that there is one and only one correct understanding of Scripture, is a false notion … one might even say it is a toxic notion.

Q, Wolf or Sheep? True prophet or false?

2, Pastor Paula White-Cain, a televangelist and a prominent figure in the charismatic movement, has been a longtime spiritual adviser to Donald Trump and is a proponent of ‘prosperity theology’, which takes advantage of vulnerable believers, promising material blessings in return for donations.

In the past, she has been the pastor at churches that bought her a waterfront mansion for $900,000, paid over $1 million in salaries to her and her family members and paid for their private jet, yet failed to pay mortgages and electricity bills and filed for bankruptcy. One church alleged White had stolen $600,000 in audio-visual equipment.

She chaired the evangelical advisory board for Trump’s 2016 campaign, delivered the invocation at his inauguration in 2017, became his special adviser on the Faith and Opportunity Initiative at the Office of Public Liaison in 2019, and offered an opening prayer before Trump’s speech at the rally shortly before the US Capitol was stormed on 6 January 2021.

White has warned that ‘Christians that don’t support President Trump will have to answer to God.’ Earlier this year (7 February 2025), he appointed White to lead the White House Faith Office.

She once criticised immigration advocates who cited the Gospel account of Jesus’ escape to Egypt as a child, saying: ‘Yes, he did live in Egypt for 3½ years. But it was not illegal. If he had broken the law, then he would have been sinful and he would not have been our Messiah.’

Q, Wolf or Sheep? True prophet or false?

3, Mike Huckabee – or, more formally, the Revd Dr Michael Dale Huckabee – has been Trump’s ambassador to Israel since April. He is an ordained Baptist minister, but has also been the Governor of Arkansas (1996-2007), and has hosted a talk show on the Fox News Channel. He has claimed, wrongly that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and alleged Obama supported the Mau-Mau rebels, he outlawed same-sex marriage in Arkansas, and he has repeated the unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

He denies global warming, opposes anti-discrimination legislation, is vocal in opposing migration into the US, and opposes gun control measures. Within hours of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, he told Fox News: ‘We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?’

Before his present appointment, he opposed Palestinian statehood and rejected Palestinian identity as ‘a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.’ At an event in the West Bank in 2017, he said: ‘There is no such thing as a West Bank – it’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities. They’re neighbourhoods. They’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.’

When he presented his credentials to President Isaac Herzog, Huckabee claimed Iran wants to destroy Israel and the US. He hardly has the credibility or the credentials to be an impartial mediator or negotiator in any part of the Middle East, or in any conflict.

Q, Wolf or Sheep? True prophet or false?

4, Vance Boelter – or, more formally, the Revd Dr Vance Luther Boelter – has been arrested in connection with the killing of a Minnesota state legislator and her husband and the shooting of a state senator and his wife on 14 June. It turns out he has been an evangelical missionary who has preached in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in recent years, and has long been a Trump supporter and a registered Republican voter.

Boelter has been charged with killing Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband Mark Hortman at their home in Champlin, a suburb of Minneapolis, and with shooting and wounding Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman at their home.

Videos show Boelter preaching from 2021 to 2023 at La Borne Matadi, a church in Matadi, on the western coast of the DRC. In one sermon he says ‘God is going to raise up apostles and prophets in America to correct his church.’ Boelter says he was ordained in 1993, claims a doctorate from Cardinal Stritch University, a private Catholic college in Wisconsin that was shut down in 2023, and says he studied at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, a charismatic ‘Spirit-filled Bible School’. His other intended targets included Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee last year, and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women members of Congress. So far, Trump has had neither the courtesy nor the courage to pick up the phone and offer words of consolation and assurance to these three politcians or anyone else named on Boetler’s hit list. Then, on the other hand, perhaps it’s no small mercy that he has not managed to shift the the blame onto migrants or refugees, yet.

Q, Wolf or Sheep? True prophet or false?

As I ponder on these thoughts, I find comfort in the opening words of Psalm 82 sung at Choral Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral at the end of the day yesterday:

1 God standeth in the congregation of princes: he is a Judge among gods.
2 How long will ye give wrong judgement: and accept the persons of the ungodly?
3 Defend the poor and fatherless:
see that such as are in need and necessity have right.
4 Deliver the outcast and poor: save the hand of the ungodly.
5 They will not be learned nor understand but walk on still in darkness:
all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
6 I have said Ye are gods: and ye are all the children of the most Highest.
7 But ye shall die like men: and fall like one of the princes.
8 Arise O God and judge thou the earth:
for thou shalt take all heathen to thine inheritance.

‘Every good tree bears good fruit’ (Matthew 7: 17) … lemons ripening on a tree near the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 25 June 2025):

‘Windrush Day’ is the theme this week (22-28 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 Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 25 June 2025) invites us to pray:

Father God, we pray for our leaders and people with great power. Work through your people to seek the good for all mankind.

The Collect:

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
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 Collect for those to be ordained:

Almighty God, the giver of all good gifts,
by your Holy Spirit you have appointed
various orders of ministry in the Church:
look with mercy on your servants
now called to be deacons and priests;
maintain them in truth and renew them in holiness,
that by word and good example they may faithfully serve you
to the glory of your name and the benefit of your Church;
through the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal Father,
we thank you for nourishing us
with these heavenly gifts:
may our communion strengthen us in faith,
build us up in hope,
and make us grow in love;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

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

Additional Collect:

God of truth,
help us to keep your law of love
and to walk in ways of wisdom,
that we may find true life
in Jesus Christ your Son.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit’ (Matthew 7: 18) … figs ripening on a fig tree on Lasithiou street in Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.