Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 107, Sunday 23 August 2026, Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII)

‘On this rock I will build my church’ (Matthew 16: 18) … the monastery of Simonopetra, built on a rocky clifftop on Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 23 August 2026) and the feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle.

Later this morning, I hope to be at in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, reading one of the lessons. 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, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Christ giving the keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter (see Matthew 16: 19) … a mosaic on the façade of Saint Peter’s Church, Saffron Hill, on Clerkenwell Road, Lonon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 16: 13-20 (NRSVA):

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ 14 And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ 15 He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ 16 Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ 17 And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ 20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

The Acropolis, the highest point in Athens, stands on an extremely rocky outcrop … a poster seen in a Greek restaurant (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

One of my pleasures in visiting Athens is standing at the top of Acropolis (Ἀκρόπολις) and taking in the breathtaking views in every direction across the city and out to the port of Piraeus.

The Acropolis is the highest point in Athens. It stands on an extremely rocky outcrop and on it the ancient Greeks built several significant buildings. The most famous of these is the Parthenon. This flat-topped rock rises 150 metres (490 ft) above sea level and has a surface area of about 3 hectares (7.4 acres).

Below, immediately north-west of the Acropolis, is the Areopagus, another prominent, but relatively smaller, rocky outcrop. Its English name comes from its Greek name, Ἄρειος Πάγος (Areios Págos), the ‘Rock of Ares,’ known to the Romans as the Hill of Mars.

In classical Athens, this functioned as the court for trying deliberate homicide. It was said Ares was put on trial here for deicide, the murder of the son of the god Poseidon. In the play The Eumenides (458 BCE) by Aeschylus, the Areopagus is the site of the trial of Orestes for killing his mother.

Later, murderers would seek shelter here in the hope of a fair hearing.

Here too the Athenians had an altar to the unknown god, and it was here the Apostle Paul delivered his most famous speech and sermon, in which he identified the ‘unknown god’ with ‘the God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth’ (Acts 17: 24), for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ (verse 28).

This is the most dramatic and fullest reported sermon or speech by the Apostle Paul. He quotes the Greek philosopher Epimenides, and he must have known that the location of his speech had important cultural contexts, including associations with justice, deicide and the hidden God.

The origin of the name of the Areopagus is found in the ancient Greek, πάγος ( pagos), meaning a ‘big piece of rock.’

Another word, λιθος (lithos) was used for a small rock, a stone, or even a pebble – it is the Greek word that gives us words like lithograph and megalithic, meaning Great Stone Age.

When I see breathtaking sights like these, I understand how culturally relevant it was for Christ to talk about the wise man building his house on a rock rather than on sand (see Matthew 7: 21-29, 25 June 2026).

Ordinary domestic buildings might have been built to last a generation or two, at most. But building on rock, building into rock, building into massive rock formations like the Acropolis, was laying the foundations for major works of cultural, political and religious significance that would last long after those who had built them had been forgotten.

And so, when Christ says to Saint Peter in the Gospel reading this morning that the Church is going to be built on a rock, he is talking about the foundations for a movement, an institution, an organisation, a community that is going to have lasting, everlasting significance.

In the past, Christians have got tied up in knots in silly arguments about this Gospel story. Some of us shy away from dealing with this story, knowing that in the past it was used to bolster not so much the claims of the Papacy, but all the packages that go with those claims. In other words, it was argued by some in the past that the meaning of this passage was explicit: if you accepted this narrow meaning, you accepted the Papacy; if you accepted the Papacy, then you also accepted Papal infallibility, Papal claims to universal jurisdiction, and Papal teachings on celibacy, birth control, the immaculate conception and the assumption of the Virgin Mary.

And that is more than just a leap and a jump from what is being taught in the Gospel reading today. But to counter those great leaps of logic, Protestant theologians in the past put forward contorted arguments about the meaning of the rock and the rock of faith in this passage. Some have tried to argue that the word used for Peter, Πητρος (Petros), is the word for a small pebble, but that faith is described with a different word, πητρα (petra), meaning a giant rock, the sort of rock on which the Greeks built the Acropolis or carved out the Areopagus.

But they were silly arguments. The distinction between these words existed in Attic Greek in the classical days, but not in the Greek spoken at the time of Christ or at the time Saint Matthew was writing his Gospel. Πητρος (Petros) was the male name derived from a rock, πητρα (petra) was a rock, a massive rock like Petra in Jordan or the rocks of the Acropolis or the Areopagus, and the word lithos (λιθος) was used for a small rock, a stone, or even a pebble.

And Saint Peter is a rock, his faith is a rock, a rock that is solid enough to provide the foundations for Christ’s great work that is the Church.

How could Saint Peter or his faith be so great? This is the same Peter who in last week’s Gospel reading (Matthew 15: 21-28; 16 August 2026) wanted Christ to send away the desperate Canaanite woman because ‘she keeps shouting at us.’

This is the same Peter who a week before (Matthew 14: 22-33; 9 August 2026), tried to walk on water and almost drowned, and Christ said to that same Peter: ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ (verse 31).

This is the same Peter who, in the week before that (Matthew 14: 13-21, 2 August), was among the disciples who wanted to send away the crowd and let them buy food for themselves (verse 15).

This is the same Peter who seems to get it wrong constantly. Later in this Gospel, he denies Christ three times at the Crucifixion (Matthew 26: 75). After the Resurrection, Christ has to put the question three times to Peter before Peter confesses that Christ knows everything, and Christ then calls him with the words: ‘Follow me’ (John 21: 15-19).

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 and trips, like I do, 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 him out as someone special. No. It is his faith, his rock solid faith.

Despite all his human failings, despite his often-tactless behaviour, despite all his weaknesses, he 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’ (verse 16).

Who do you say Christ is?

Who is Christ for you?

I often spend time off in Lichfield, where I began working as a freelance journalist for the Lichfield Mercury 55 years ago in 1971. George Fox, the founding Quaker, once walked barefoot through the streets of Lichfield. But he also challenged his contemporaries with these words: ‘You may say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of the Light and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?’

Who is Christ for you? Is he a personal saviour? One who comforts you? Or is he more than that for you? Who do you say Christ is?

It is a question that challenges Peter in this Gospel reading. Not who do others say he is, but who do you say Christ is?

Peter’s faith is a faith that proves to be so rock-solid that you could say it is blessed, it is foundational. Not gritty, pebbly, pain-on-the-foot sort of faith. But the foundational faith on which you could build a house, carve out a temple or monastery, or a place to seek justice and sanctuary, rock-solid faith that provides the foundation for the Church.

There are other people in the Bible and in Jewish tradition who are commended for their rock-solid faith, including Abraham and Sarah (see Isaiah 51: 1f).

It is the sort of faith that will bring people into the Church, and even the most cunning, ambitious, evil schemes, even death itself, will not be able to destroy this sort of faith (verse 18).

Throughout the Bible, as people set out on great journeys of faith, their new beginning in faith is marked by God giving them a new name: Abram becomes Abraham, Jacob becomes Israel, Saul becomes Paul, and Simon son of Jonah is blessed with a new name too as he becomes Cephas or Peter, the rock-solid, reliable guy, whose faith becomes a role model for the new community of faith, for each and every one of us.

Why would Christ pick me or you? Well, why would he pick a simple fisherman from a small provincial town?

It is not how others see us that matters. It is our faith and commitment to Christ that matters. God always sees us as he made us, in God’s own image and likeness, and loves us like that.

The faith that the Church must look to as its foundation, the faith that we must depend on, that we must live by, is not some self-determined, whimsical decision, but the faith that the Apostles had in the Christ who calls them, that rock-solid, spirit-filled faith in Christ, of which Saint Peter’s confession this morning is the most direct yet sublime and solid example.

Apostolic faith like Saint Peter’s is the foundation stone on which the Church is built, the foundation stone of the new Jerusalem, with Christ as the cornerstone (Ephesians 2: 20; Revelation 21: 14).

It does not matter that Saint Peter was capable of some dreadful gaffes and misjudgements. I am like that too … constantly, every day.

But Christ calls us in our weaknesses. And in our weaknesses, he finds our strengths. So that, as the Apostle Paul reminds us in the Epistle reading this morning, the Church is then built up by the gifts that each one of us has to offer, ‘each according to the measure of faith that Christ has assigned’ (Romans 12: 3).

Our weaknesses can be turned to strengths if we accept the unique gifts each of us has been given by God and joyfully use them, lovingly use them, in God’s service, for building up his kingdom.

Let us not be afraid of our weaknesses. Let us not be afraid of the mistakes we inevitably make. But let us accept the gifts God has given us. Let us use those to build up our faith, to build up the Church, and to serve Christ and the world.

Symbols of Saint Peter, the crossed keys and the upside-down cross, on a hassock at the font in Saint Peter’s Church, Lingwood, Norfolk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 23 August 2026, Trinity XII):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 23 to 29 August 2026 (pp 32-33), is ‘Legacies of History’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by the Revd Dr Rachele Evie Vernon O’Brien, a Jamaican-born theologian and advocate:

The Revd Levon Alkins is a recent graduate of Codrington College and assistant curate in Barbados. In an extract from Legacies of History, he reflects on how younger generations are wrestling with the Church’s history of slavery and its lasting impact.

“When we think about the church and slavery,” he says, “we look at it from an unfortunate point of view - how could someone who is promoting the gospel also promote slavery?” He notes that many young people struggle with this contradiction and that some “don’t even want sometimes to get involved in the church… because the church upholds something that wasn’t right.”

He names the tension clearly: “On the one hand the church says you have to love, but on the other hand, the church is treating people without love because we are using people for labour to gain profits.” His words highlight the gap between the gospel’s call to love and the failures of human institutions.

Yet he also points towards hope. He urges the Church “not [to] dwell too heavily on the past, but look into the relevance for the future.” This forward-looking hope is grounded in formation and reflection, pointing to Codrington College as “an institution … where one can come and learn about spirituality,” alongside the importance of forgiveness.

Legacies of History brings Caribbean perspectives to the forefront, helping churches reflect faithfully on history, justice, and mission. Explore and use the resource in your church or small group at www.uspg.org.uk/legacies-of-history.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 23 August 2026, Trinity XII, International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition) invites us to pray:

God of truth, as your Church reflects on its history, give us wisdom and honesty. Help us face the past with humility, recognise our mistakes, and follow your call to reconciliation.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of 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 of all mercy,
in this eucharist you have set aside our sins
and given us your healing:
grant that we who are made whole in Christ
may bring that healing to this broken world,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of constant mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Bartholomew:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace
truly to believe and to preach your word:
grant that your Church
may love that word which he believed
and may faithfully preach and receive the same;
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

A statue of Saint Peter in Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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

Changes in Bloomsbury reflect how William Penn is losing his place in the memory of Quakers

Friends’ House in London … William Penn’s name has been removed from one of the rooms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was meeting some people in the café in Friends’ House, London, the other day, to discuss shared literary projects, historical research and books. Our conversations over lunch and copious cups of coffee ranged over a wide range of topics, from family history and youth hostelling in Ireland, to the work of the International Atomic Research Agency in Vienna, church architecture and the role of the churches in providing a welcome for refugees and asylum seekers, to football and life in New Zealand, Ireland, Stockton on Tees and Milton Keynes.

It was one of those lingering lunches, where our conversations and imaginations ran apace, and we lost track of time.

But, having arrived at Euston Station a little earlier than I expected, and with a short amount of time on my hands before catching the train back to Milton Keynes, I spent some time strolling through the squares of Bloomsbury and also rummaging in the Quaker bookshop at Friends’ House.

Friends International Centre was once on the corner of Torrington Place and Byng Place, close to Gordon Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the past, on working trips to London when I was a trustee of USPG, I occasionally stayed at the Penn Club in Bedford Place off Russell Square. It was a tradition or habit that dated back to taking part in CND protests and meetings in the 1970s and 1980s, and other members of my family have stayed there too.

So, it was with sadness that I heard a few years ago that the Penn Club was closing at the end of March 2021.

I have vague memories too of staying at another Quaker-run guesthouse in Bloomsbury in the early or mid 1970s. Friends International Centre was in an elegant cluster of houses at the corner of Torrington Place and Byng Place, close to Gordon Square, and a five or seven minute walk from both Friends House and the Penn Club.

The houses at the corner of Torrington Place and Byng Place stand close to the Church of Christ the King on Gordon Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Those houses are built right up against the Church of Christ the King on Gordon Square, once the University Church and now shared by Forward in Faith and Euston Church. The houses now seem to have been incorporated into the conglomerate of university buildings around Bloomsbury. But I was reminded of their past Quaker associations a few days ago when I noticed that one of the houses is now known as William Penn House.

That reminder was all the more surprising because the memory of William Penn has been falling out of favour among Quakers in recent years. Shortly after the Penn Club closed on Bedford Place, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) announced on 10 April 2021, ‘In a step towards becoming an actively anti-racist church, Quakers will cease to name a room in their London offices after William Penn.

Friends’ House on Euston Road houses contains the central offices of Quakers and has conference space that is available to outside groups. About 20 rooms in the building are named after Quakers who have made a difference in the world as a way to share the Quaker story with hundreds of thousands of visitors to Friends’ House each year.

Following much discussion, the decision to end naming a room in Friends’ House after William Penn was made by the yearly meeting trustees, working with the staff at Friends’ House.

William Penn’s name remains on one of the houses (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The statement in 2021 noted that ‘Penn, born in 1644, founded the state of Pennsylvania. He was an avid writer, defending religious freedom, democracy and pacifism … However, he also owned enslaved people.’

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said, ‘Racism today is rooted in the trade of enslaved people. We are committed to tackle racism and to build an anti-racist culture. Commemorating William Penn by having a room named after him is incompatible with that. Some might say we’re rewriting history. Rather, we’re completing history, by telling the whole story and deciding not to commemorate someone who had a direct involvement in slavery. Part of telling a complete history is to acknowledge how it might previously have been understood from a limited perspective. We owe it to those who live with the legacy of slavery to take steps to redress this.’

Friends in Britain were not alone in thinking again about William Penn and other Quaker historic figures. Friends Committee on National Legislation, in Washington DC decided to rename William Penn House, a Quaker-run hostel, due to Penn’s slaveholding.

Back in Friends’ House, I spent a little time browsing in the bookshop beside the café. Looking at the history shelves, I imagine it may take a little longer to change the way William Penn is remembered among Friends. His name remains on one of the paving slabs in the garden celebrating milestones in Quaker history.

William Penn’s name remains on one of the history paving slabs in the garden at Friends’ House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Childhood memories of waiting for Tomorrow with Petticoat Loose by the shores of Bay Lough

Bay Lough, the ‘bottomless’ lake near the Vee in the Knockmealdown Mountains … ‘Petticoat Loose’ and the monsters were condemned to its waters until ‘Tomorrow’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was musing a few evenings ago about the Greek word for tomorrow and how we can joke that the word avrio (αύριο) can never convey the same urgency that mañana has in Spanish.

Our anxieties about tomorrow are raised again in the Gospel reading tomorrow (Matthew 6: 25-34), when Jesus says: ‘But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? … Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own’ (Matthew 6: 30, 34).

Tomorrow seemed to be a far-away world to us as children on those Sunday afternoons when we were regularly brought on family outings to the ‘Vee’, a scenic, V-shaped hairpin bend in the Knockmealdown Mountains, with spectacular views across the Golden Vale and three counties, Waterford, Tipperary and Cork.

At the Vee we were halfway between Cappoquin and Clogheen, and only a few miles from my grandmother’s farm, we were entertained with stories and tales about Samuel Grubb and the grave where he was buried standing, and about ‘Petticoat Loose’ and the monsters in Bay Lough, the ‘bottomless’ lake, who came up and asked, day after day, ‘Is it tomorrow.’

The grave of Samuel Grubb overlooking the Vee and the Golden Vale (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Samuel Richard Grubb (1855-1921) was a wealthy landowner of Quaker descent and a former High Sheriff of Co Tipperary. His distinctive, beehive-shape grave stands on Sugarloaf Hill overlooking the Vee and the Golden Vale. He said he wanted to be buried on the mountainside, standing upright, so that he could keep watch over ‘his people’ and ‘his fields’ at Castle Grace, where he farmed over 1,600 acres.

Before he died, Grubb designed his grave of rubble stone, looking like one of the clochans on the Great Skellig. Some say he asked to be buried there because the Grubb family had been by the Society of Friends or Quakers before Samuel was born for attending ‘balls at which music and dancing form a chief part’.

Grubb died on 6 September 1921 and was buried four days later, with the Revd J Talbot of Clogheen conducting the burial service. Grubb was buried standing up, with his dog beside him, although some people in the area said the men who buried him put him in the grave upside down.

From his grave 2,000 ft up in the mountains, there are panoramic views across the Golden Vale, and of the Galtee Mountains, the Comeragh Mountains and Slievenamon. On clear summer days as we looked across the valley below, and the villages of Clogheen, Ardfinnan and Ballyporeen (later known as the ancestral home of Ronald Reagan) were pointed out to us, and the towns of Cahir and Clonmel. The Grubb family sold Castle Grace near Clogheen in 2019, although many of his descendants continue to live in the area, including Nicholas Grubb who lives in Dromana House at Villierstown, near Cappoquin.

The panoramic view from the Vee across south Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Close to the Vee Gap, on the county boundaries of Waterford and Tipperary, Bay Lough is on the side of Knockaunabulloga in the Knockmealdown Mountains, close to Saint Declan’s Way, the path Saint Declan trod as he made his way from Ardmore to Cashel.

Bay Lough is easily accessed from a car park on the Co Waterford side of the lake. Many people believe it is a ‘bottomless’ lake and that it is not possible to swim across it, even though it is quite small. In late May and early June, the rhododendrons are in bloom at the lake, providing spectacular views from Bay Lough to Clogheen.

Folklore in South Tipperary and West Waterford says the lake is the place where Petticoat Loose was banished, condemned as penance to drain the ‘bottomless’ lake with a thimble until tomorrow came.

Local folklore portrays Petticoat Loose as a vengeful ghost, a banshee or a haunting witch and sometimes identify her as Mary Hannigan. She was said to be a 6-ft tall, strong woman who did a man’s work on the farm, drank like a man, fought like a man and wrestled and fought the local men when they mocked her. But she was known too for adulterating milk and for her wicked behaviour. They say she killed a bull with a single blow of her first, killed a farmhand with his own spade, and threatened to kill anyone who told on her.

Mary Hannigan was born in the early 19th century, the only child of a well-to-do farming family who lived in the townland of Colligan, near Clogheen, and she was known for her love of dancing and drinking. During one drunken dance, as she spun around, her skirt was caught on a nail and fell to the ground, causing mirth and leading to laughter and jeering. The incident raised her anger and left her with the name ‘Petticoat Lucy’ or ‘Petticoat Loose’.

She met her future husband on the dance floor, but the marriage lasted only a year, and he met an early death. Local people whispered that Mary’s lover, a local hedge-school teacher, had murdered him.

Then, one night during a drinking session in a pub in Dungarvan, Mary drank half a gallon of beer, suddenly slumped forward onto the table and died. There was a big wake but no priest was called, even for the burial.

Seven years after her death, there were several sightings of Petticoat Loose, seen as a ghost with red hair or as a monstrous horse-headed figure who had returned to haunt people on the Vee road. She was also seen in the pubs and dance halls and became the terror of the Vee road, although – for some inexplicable reason – she never harmed any man with the name John.

She continued to haunt the Vee road close to Bay Lough, and it became a common practice for people travelling at night to carry religious relics or hazel sticks as protection.

Finally, people who were living in fear of Petticoat Lucy called on a local priest to rid the area of Mary and her nightly visits. One night, the priest and two men spotted her coming across a field. When the priest asked her name, she replied ‘I’m Petticoat Loose’, telling him she would do evil wherever she was.

‘We will see’, the priest replied. ‘I will place you head downwards.’ He took out a bottle of holy water and sent her to the far banks of the deepest lake, telling her: ‘You shall be condemned until judgment day to empty it with a thimble!’

The priest is said to have died two weeks later – some say she had drained the life out of him.

Many people say Petticoat Loose still sits on the far bank of Bay Lough with her thimble, vainly trying to empty the lake, waiting for tomorrow. Some say she sometimes appears out of the water and asks the same questions over and over again: ‘When will judgment day come?’ ‘Is it tomorrow?’

She is often associated with other spirits and monsters trapped in the lake by Saint Patrick. He told them to stay there and wait, and that he would be back tomorrow. So, they are still there, deep in the dark waters, waiting for tomorrow. Petticoat Loose, or one of the monsters, is said to surface occasionally to ask ‘Is it tomorrow?’

It is only possible to walk about half way around Bay Lough and few ever swim in the lake (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bay Lough is a favourite for walkers and family outings, although it is only possible to walk about half way around the lake, and few ever swim in it, frightened off by tales that Petticoat Loose waits below to grab your legs and pull you down.

Perhaps the idle tale that Samuel Grubb was buried upside down was conflated or confused with the story that Petticoat Loose had been sent head down into the lake. As children we revelled in those stories, pretending to be only slightly scared. But in the 1950s and the early 1960s, the men in the family had probably driven up to the Vee and Bay Lough to get better radio reception.

Back on my grandmother’s farm near Cappoquin, in a valley below the Knockmealdowns, the mountains often blocked reception of what was then Radio Éireann. Instead, I grew up listening to the BBC Light Programme, nourished by a daily diet of programmes that included the Archers, Mrs Dales Diary, Hancock’s Half Hour, Housewives’ Choice, Listen with Mother, Woman’s Hour, and, of course, the Goons. Petticoat Loose may have been as far from Petticoat Lane as I could imagine, yet I understand how I grew up in rural Ireland with Received Pronunciation or ‘BBC English’ as my first language.

In those years, the Waterford hurlers were at their peak, reaching the All-Ireland finals in 1957, 1959 and 1963, and the men in the family needed better reception to hear the match commentaries. The ‘wireless’ was taken from the house, brought with us up to Bay Lough or Grubb’s Grave and connected to the car battery so my uncles could listen to Mícheál Ó hEithir’s match commenaties while we children played and picknicked by the lake shore or on the mountainside.

As a treat later, we were brought back to the ‘Cats’ near Melleray for lemonade and crisps, while the men celebrated the match result – or drowned their sorrows. Later we might even be allowed to listen to the music or watch the dancing at the ‘Stage’ … if we behaved ourselves.

The working week resumed on Monday morning. Cows were to be milked, animals had to be fed, there was shopping to do in Cappoquin, and children had to go to school. Tomorrow always came.

Tomorrow brought work, school and shopping in Cappoquin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The resistance in Crete, ‘Water into Wine’, the Dance of Love, and Bishop Stephen Verney’s reluctant pacifism

‘Water into Wine’ (1985), Bishop Stephen Verney’s commentary on Saint John’s Gospel, drawing on his scholarly knowledge of Greek and insights from his experiences with the resistance in Crete

Patrick Comerford

When I was writing about the sundial at Dial House on Bristle Hill in Buckingham on Thursday (29 January 2026), I noted that the Latin inscription had been provided by Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009), who died only a year after the dial was installed by the late Anthony Randall (1933-2021).

Bishop Stephen has been described as ‘brave, open-thinking and creative’ with a ‘strong romantic side’. He had been a conscientious objector during World War II, but later became an undercover agent in occupied Crete, working with the Greek resistance. He was as an Oxford classicist and at one time his book Water into Wine (1985) had a profound influence on my understandings of Saint John’s Gospel.

Because of a combination of so many of his interests – classical Greek, early pacifism, the resistance in Crete, the Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral and Saint John’s Gospel – as well as his family links with Buckinghamshire, I said at the time I should return to his story in the days or weeks to come

The Gospel reading tomorrow, in those places where it is marked as the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, is John 2: 1-11, the story of the Wedding at Cana and changing water into wine, which inspired that book by Stephen Verney, Water into Wine (1985), and I found myself this week trying to find one of my copies of this book.

Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009) has been described as ‘brave, open-thinking and creative’ with a ‘strong romantic side’

Stephen Edmund Verney was the second Bishop of Repton (1977-1985) and when he retired he was an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford. He was born on 17 April 1919 in Anglesey at his paternal grandmother’s home. His father, Sir Harry Verney (1881-1974), 4th Baronet, of Claydon House, had been the Liberal MP for Buckingham until 1918, held a number of junior ministerial posts and won a DSO in World War I. His maternal grandfather, Victor Alexander Bruce (1849-1917), 9th Earl of Elgin, was Viceroy of India in 1894-1899, and the family was also related to Florence Nightingale.

Stephen Verney spent his childhood at Claydon House, outside Winslow in Buckinghamshire. He went to school at Harrow and then to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1937 to take a classics degree. When World War II broke out, his brothers joined the armed forces. However, Stephen was a conscientious objector and chose to interrupt his university studies to work with the Quaker-run Friends’ Ambulance Unit in in Norway, Finland, Libya and Syria.

But as the war intensified, the Nazi campaign became demonstrably more evil. An incident in Aleppo that led Verney to the agonising decision to leave the Quakers and join the army, and he became a private in the Royal Army Service Corps. This took him to Egypt, and a chance encounter at a party in Cairo with his former headmaster at Harrow, Paul Vellacott (1891-1954), then the director of political warfare in the Middle East with the Political Warfare Executive (PWE).

Aware that Verney was a classicist who could easily master modern Greek, and whose shortness of stature and often scruffy appearance might enable him to pass for a Greek peasant, Vellacott persuaded Verney to join the PWE.

The shore at Preveli on the south coast of Crete … Stephen Verney was landed in Crete on a small boat in 1944

After initial involvement in black propaganda from Cairo, he was commissioned, and in August 1944 – disguised and accompanied by a German Jewish interpreter – he was sent to Crete by night in a small boat. On landing he was met by a Cretan ‘guardian angel’, who recruited a few others to form a cell under Verney’s leadership. With his expertise in classical Greek, it was an easy step to learn modern Greek, and because he was short and naturally dishevelled, it was said he could pass for a Greek peasant.

Verney and his team operated from a base outside Chania – home to the headquarters of the German commander in Crete. With the assistance of a German sergeant major who was in love with a Cretan woman and a Cretan journalist, he printed and distributed Kreta Post, a subtle propaganda paper, in German and Greek, from a cave outside Chania.

His newssheet created a false impression of the size of the resistance movement and that the occupation forces were cracking under the strain. He wrote frequently to the German commander, General Hans-Georg Benthack (1894-1973), telling him Kapitulation was the only real option. A graffiti campaign with the letter ‘K’ was launched, local boys daubed it in on walls, bridges and sentry boxes, and acid was used to etch it on military vehicles.

Verney and his partisans targeted dissatisfied German soldiers who rejected the Nazi regime, others who had fallen in love with Cretan girls, as well as Austrians, Poles and other nationals who had been forced unwillingly into the German army. He negotiated the release of several partisan prisoners by threatening to castrate ‘his’ German prisoners.

On one occasion, Verney was responsible for the mass desertion of Italians who had been fighting with the German army. After indirect contacts with their colonel, a disguised Verney crept into the camp hospital. The meeting was conducted with Verney stretched out on an operating table, the colonel hunched by him as if hearing his confession, while another officer played the part of a surgeon. Verney negotiated the defection of the whole battalion the next morning, and he arranged their evacuation after confiscating all their weapons.

Benthag formally, but secretly, surrendered to one of Verney’s fellow-officers on 8 May, and that evening the small group of British officers in the area invited the German officers who had been hunting them to a party in a café. A jazz band from the German garrison was pressed into service, and during the festivities Verney and the others disclosed their code names and true identities to their astonished guests, including some of the most detested men in the occupying army. All were immediately taken prisoner.

Following the German surrender of Crete, Verney he set up an exhibition of photographs received from recently liberated concentration camps. These were not believed by the still armed German soldiers and a grenade was left under his car.

Verney’s exploits in Crete were recognised after the war with a military MBE. I sometimes wonder whether anyone at the time knew that the man who played such a crucial role in the liberation of Greece was a direct descendant through his mother of Thomas Bruce (1766-1841), 7th Earl of Elgin, who plundered the Parthenon Marbles or Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis of Athens almost a century and a half earlier.

The Suda Bay Commonwealth War Cemetery in Crete, near Chania … Stephen Verney’s exploits in Crete were recognised after the war with a military MBE (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Verney returned to Baliol College in 1946 to complete his degree in Oxford and married his first wife, Priscilla (‘Scilla’) Schwerdt, in 1947. He had been drawn by his wartime experience to ordained ministry, and so trained for the priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge.

He was ordained deacon by Bishop Russell Barry of Southwell at Southwell Minster in 1950, and priest in 1951. He was a curate at Gedling, then the priest in charge of Saint Francis Clifton, Nottingham and Vicar of Leamington Hastings, often working in tough housing estates.

He moved to the Diocese of Coventry as the diocesan missioner in 1958, as Basil Spence’s new cathedral was rising from the ashes of the old cathedral. Cuthbert Bardsley was an enthusiastic new bishop, putting together a team of gifted clergy to develop a vibrant Christian life for the new cathedral. The slogan, ‘A consecrated building requires a consecrated people’, was adopted for a three-year period of preparation, and Verney was entrusted with the project.

Verney enthused people, combining an organising vision with deep spirituality. The Cross of Nails, formed of nails from timber in the ruined cathedral, was passed from parish to parish and made the focus of prayer vigils. By the time Coventry Cathedral was ready for consecration on 26 May 1962, the diocese was in a state of high expectancy and Verney’s leadership was a vital factor.

He was appointed a residentiary canon at Coventry Cathedral in 1964, and by then had become known as an energetic and informal priest within the radical tradition in the Church of England. The gifted team he was a central part of made the Coventry Cathedral a centre of creativity and theological thinking.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the diocese in 1968, he organised an international conference on ‘People and Cities’, celebrating the benefits of urban life and confronting the problems of depersonalisation caused by the scale of modern cities. The participants included planners, philosophers and theologians, and some of the conference’s proposals eventually led to new approaches to urban planning.

In the conference book People and Cities (1969), Verney argued that the future of the Church’s work in cities lay in the formation of small groups, what he called ‘companies of forgiveness’. The book gave rise to the term ‘megalopolis’; it was an early warning about urban conglomeration and exploitation of the natural environment, had a discernable influence on the planners of the new city of Milton Keynes, and was a precursor of the Church of England report Faith in the City (1985).

At the conference, Verney met Fred Blum (1914-1990) who had founded the New Era Centre in 1967. Blum, who had been a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, had become a Quaker and was later ordained an Anglican priest. They became close friends and Verney became a trustee of the New Era Centre.

The Cross of Nails is at the heart of the ministry and outreach of Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Verney became a residentiary canon at Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1970, and was responsible for Saint George’s House, the centre for discussions and conferences in Windsor Castle, organising conferences along ‘Chatham House’ rules. But he was challenged by the traditions and protocols at Saint George’s and when he tried to introduce contemporary worship and modern music he faced opposition and a sharp clash of personalities.

He was also a confessor and friend for ordination candidates at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, near Oxford, and became a spiritual adviser to the L’Arche community, working with people with learning difficulties. Its founder, Jean Varnier, shared Verney's passion for Saint John’s Gospel.

Scilla’s death in 1974 affected him profoundly. Three years later, he became the Suffragan Bishop of Repton in the Diocese of Derby and he was consecrated bishop by Archbishop Donald Coggan of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey in 1977.

In 1981, Stephen Verney married Sandra Bailey, a divorcee whose husband was still living. He was the first bishop to marry a divorced woman. The controversy that followed became a catalyst for permanent changes in the Church of England’s policies on divorce.

As a bishop, he cared warmly for his clergy, believing the church was too restrictive and cautious in matters of morality. He accepted relationships of all sorts so long as they were not exploitative, and was vocal on issues such as nuclear disarmament, just war, trade unions and capitalism, opposed capital punishment and advocated moving away from prison as punishment towards restorative justice.

He developed a ministry to articulate ecumenical groups disillusioned by their churches because of their priorities for maintain buildings or doctrinal differences, or for ostracising gay people or people seeking divorce or remarriage. He encouraged the distinction between church and faith, arguing that God is liberating, and established the retreat centre at Sutton Courtenay near Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

After eight years as Bishop of Repton, he retired to Blewbury in Oxfordshire in1985. In retirement, he was saddened by the pressures for narrowness and judgmentalism within the Anglican Communion, and used his linguistic skills for a sharp critique of fundamentalism in all forms.

He died on 9 November 2009 and was survived by Sandra and the children of his first marriage; a son from his second marriage predeceased him.

His book Fire in Coventry (1964) tells how the people of Coventry prepared for a new cathedral after World War II. In his posthumously published Snakes And Ladders (2016), he reflects on his whole life, from his childhood, his army service, his ordination, and his time in Coventry to his time as a bishop. His ideas found expression in three other small books – Into the New Age (1976), Water into Wine (1985) and The Dance of Love (1989) – each a combination of romanticism, vision and insight.

‘Fill the jars with water … and they filled them up to the brim’ (John 2: 7) … two large jars or pithoi at the Minoan palace in Knossos, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Gospel reading tomorrow is Saint John’s account of the wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), long one of my favourite passages in the Gospels and the reading Charlotte and I chose for the blessing of our weddng in Southwark Cathedral in 2023. This story gave the title to Sttephen Verney’s commentary on Saint John’s Gospel, Water into Wine (1985). His intimate knowledge of Classical Greek served him well as a biblical commentator and the depth of his scholarship made him thoroughly familiar with New Testament Greek, so that he brought out nuances lost so often in English translations.

Water Into Wine is a beautiful book on Saint John’s Gospel, and I have lost many copies over the years, lending them to friends and students, then rummaging again in second-hand bookshops for fresh copies. It was first published in 1985, a year before Steven Verney retired as Bishop of Repton, the year of the miners’ strike and the riots in Handsworth, Brixton and Tottenham, and soon after the Falklands War in 1982 and the intense personal loss of a baby son.

In Water Into Wine, he ties his themes together well, using the Wedding at Cana as the first sign that gives context to the other signs Jesus performed. He draws on the Greek words ἄνω (ano) and κάτω (kato) as ways to understand Saint John’s Gospel. He points out how these two words are different orders, where order is the pattern and the governing principle behind the pattern.

In the order of kato, the ruling principle is me and the pattern is people competing, manipulating and trying to control each other. The order of ano, on the other hand has love as its governing principle and the pattern is one of compassion. The most urgent question confronting each of us, and humanity as a whole, he argues, is how these two orders can be reconciled.

He talks of how ‘the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love’ and of ‘people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.’

The insight into how Saint John’s Gospel that emerges is one of a carefully constructed narrative in which seemingly trivial details, such as the ‘third day’ in tomorrow’s Gospel reading (see John 2: 1), assume a new significance in the events of Holy Week. Verney includes vignettes from his long and varied life, including his time with the resistance in Crete, to illustrate aspects of the gospel.

He writes that ‘we can see in our world order the terrible consequences of our ego-centricity. We have projected it into our institutions, where it has swollen up into a positive force of evil. We are all imprisoned together, in a system of competing nation states, on the edge of a catastrophe which could destroy all life on our planet.’ He was writing in the 1980s but could have been describing today’s populism and nationalism.

The theme of the wedding feast at Cana at the beginning of Saint John’s Gospel points to another third day and to another marriage in eternity. This new age of eternal life begins on the third day after the death of Jesus at the Resurrection ‘and it continues in our experience.’

A new age begins with the crucifixion and resurrection, and Verney locates the new age in the ‘I AM’ sayings of Jesus and what they reveal of his relationship with God. In Jesus, there is a marriage of heaven and earth – a bringing together of ano and kato, up and down, water and wine – and we are called, by Jesus, to become part of that marriage. The marriage of heaven and earth reflects an even more astonishing union that Verney calls ‘The Dance of Love’.

Jesus does only what he sees the Father doing and the Father reveals to Jesus everything that he is doing. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, ‘I and the Father are one.’ The Son cries, ‘Abba! Father!’ and the Father cries ‘my beloved Son’, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.’

There is a relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead where love is constantly shared and exchanged and we are invited into that relationship of love. Becoming part of the Dance of Love through the marriage of heaven and earth is the new age into which we are born again through the death and resurrection of Jesus. To be born again in this way is to be raised from a consciousness that is really death into a quality of life that is eternal.

Stephen Verney's life is recalled in his posthumous ‘Snakes and Ladders’ (2016)

Dial House on Bristle Hill and the extraordinary story of a hidden but very modern sundial in Buckingham

The sundial at Dial House at 7 Bristle Hill, Buckingham, with its Latin inscription, was commissioned by Anthony Gordon Randall and designed by David Harber (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Wandering through the streets of Buckingham, I have often gazed at Dial House at 7 Bristle Hill, and wondered about the sundial that fills the lower of two recesses above the front door, and its Latin inscription and Roman numerals.

I could find no reference to house or the sundial in architectural guides, local histories or tourist leaflets, nobody in the tourist information office in the Old Gaol in Buckingham seemed to know about the dial or the house, and so last week I began to wonder about the origins, antiquity and purpose of the dial and the story of Dial House.

Dial House is at the bottom of Bristle Hill, at its north-west end, where it meets School Lane, close to a bend on the River Great Ouse.

Across the top of this vertical declining dial on the first floor is the Latin inscription Super collem saetigerum septem / semper luceat sol. Below there is a fading translation, Upon seven Bristle Hill let the sun shine still, though this is now difficult to make out, and a peculiar sequence of letters and numbers ‘AGR 080808’ that seem to create a puzzling conundrum.

The blue painted slate dial plate is set in a recess about 30 mm deep. The hours XI to X are shown with full length hour lines originating from a sun, below may be the letters ‘GMT’. There are declination lines labelled for the solstices and equinoxes, although they may not be accurately drawn, and another dashed line that is not identified. All the remaining dial lettering appears to be gold or gold leaf.

I inquired around and eventually learned that the initials AGR are those of an interesting and creative local figure, the late Anthony Gordon Randall (1933-2021), and learned too how he erected the dial almost 18 years ago to mark his 75th birthday on 8 August 2008 – hence the puzzling numbers 080808 beside his initials.

Dial House is at the bottom of Bristle Hill, at its north-west end, where it meets School Lane, close to a bend on the River Great Ouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Anthony Gordon Randall, once a website developer and printing entrepreneur, was born into Quaker family in Woking on 8 August 1933, the third and youngest of three children. He was educated at Leighton Park, a Quaker-run public school in Reading, and at Trinity College Oxford (BA 1957), Insead (MBA 1962) and the University of Buckingham (MA 2012).

He moved from Richmond to Buckingham in 2007 and there, at the beginning of 2008, as he was looking forward to his 75th birthday, he began thinking of suitable ways to celebrate that milestone. He heard how the number 8 is regarded as lucky in China because the word eight sounds similar to the word that means ‘prosper’ or ‘wealth’. The date 08.08.08 would be a particularly auspicious one in China, and coincided with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

His house on Bristle Hill was originally a couple of old two-storey cottages with a third floor probably added shortly after the canal arrived in Buckingham in the early 19th century and with a Georgian façade added to form the front of the house.

Above the front door and between the two windows on each of the upper floors are niches, probably designed to resemble windows in more stately houses that were blocked up in the 18th century to avoid Window Tax. Randall decided the lower of the niches would be a suitable place for a sundial.

An online search led him to David Harber, whose list of commissions included Oxbridge colleges, stately homes and international corporate head offices. The wording for the Latin inscription was provided by Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009), a former Bishop of Repton, who lived near David Harber’s workshop.

Randall wanted a motto related to the house at the bottom of Bristle Hill. He thought of the words in the funeral, Lux aeterna luceat …, ‘Let light eternal shine …’, and transformed this into ‘Let the sun always shine’ (Semper luceat sol …), ending (or beginning) with ‘upon 7 Bristle Hill’.

But he met some problems with his efforts at creating a Latin phrase. When he looked up ‘bristle’ he got saeta, and so he submitted to Bishop Verney Super collem saetae (‘of the bristle’) septem … He got back Super septem (before, not after, the street name) collem saetigerum (‘bristle-bearing’).

Meanwhile, during a visit to Naples, he thought he might find the correct position for the number seven (VII) during a visit to Pompeii. But the people of Pompeii did not use numbers for addresses: ‘this was a new-fangled Greek idea, which might be all very well in Alexandria, but really wouldn’t do for us Romans in Campania.’ And so, imagining the modern Italian method of putting the house number after and not before the street name was perhaps based on some Roman precedent, he decided to do likewise.

The bishop’s opinions about the word ‘Bristle’, however, were supported by a family member who had won a classical scholarship in Oxford college. He was convinced that forming adjectives from nouns by adding ‘-bearing’ in cases such as this was a common occurrence and was derived from Greek practice. They arrived at what they agreed was a reasonable Latin motto, adding a translation into English in small print at the bottom. There he produced a rhyming couplet to render semper (‘always’) as ‘still’, or continuing until this time, and produced: ‘Upon Seven Bristle Hill / Let the sun shine still’.

In addition, he chose the typeface Trajan for the wording on the dial.

Anthony Randall and David Harber worked with Bishop Stephen Verney to complete the inscriptions on the dial at Dial House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the installation of the sundial at No 7 Bristle House, David Harber and Anthony Randall discussed a follow-up project for the empty niche above, with Harber suggesting a weather cock on the chimney that would link through gears to a pointer on a compass rose in the niche: ‘This birthday you’re tracking the sun: the next big one, track the wind!’

No 7 Bristle House became Dial House, the sundial was nominated for a prize for the best recent embellishment of the town of Buckingham, and Anthony Randall began planning for his 80th birthday on 8 August 2013. But those plans never saw the light of day, and he died on 18 January 2021.

The house at the bottom of Bristle Hill was sold recently and is being refurbished. I hope the sundial is restored to its original glory, and that the new owners have a vision for the second-storey niche above.

As for Bishop Stephen Verney, he died on 9 November 2009, just over a year after the dial was installed. As a conscientious objector during World War II, he first served with Friends Ambulance Unit but later became an undercover agent in occupied Crete, working with the Greek resistance.

He was as an Oxford classicist and his Water into Wine (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1985) had a profound influence on my understanding of Saint John’s Gospel. Perhaps I should return to his story in the weeks to come.

Looking down Bristle Hill in Buckingham towards School Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 25, Sunday 18 January 2026, Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II)

The Lamb of God on the throne (see John 1: 36) … a stained glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). Today is the Second Sunday after the Epiphany (Epiphany II, 18 January 2026), with readings that continue to focus on the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist, one of the three great Epiphany themes, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Wedding at Cana.

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

Today is also the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (WPCU), from 18 to 25 January. This ecumenical celebration provides an opportunity to focus our prayers on Christian unity and to know that we are joining with international brothers and sisters in Christ. This year’s theme is ‘One Body, One Spirit’ -- from Ephesians 4: 1-13 – which was prepared by the Armenian Apostolic Church, along with the Armenian Catholic and Evangelical Churches.

The opening Ecumenical Service for the week in Milton Keynes is in Saint James Church, New Bradwell, at 6 pm. The preacher is Doral Hayes of Churches Together in England, and music is from One Voice, the MK Christian Community Choir. The Hope for the World Concert in Christ the Cornerstone Church, also this evening, is raising funds for two local charities, Camphill MK and Bridgebuilder Trust.

Meanwhile, 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.

‘This is the Lamb of God’ … Saint John the Baptist (left) with Christ in the centre depicted as the Good Shepherd and the Virgin Mary (right) … a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 1: 29-42 (NRSVA):

29 The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ 32 And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’

35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ 39 He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

The Lamb of God depicted in a stained-glass window in Charleville, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections

Saint John’s Gospel has no story of the first Christmas, no child in the crib, and no Visit of the Magi. The manifestation of the Incarnate Christ in Saint John’s Gospel is revealed with the witness of Saint John the Baptist to Christ as the Lamb of God, the one who ‘existed before me,’ and as ‘the Son of God’ or ‘God’s Chosen One.’

In the Fourth Gospel, Christ first walks onto the stage, like the principal character in a Greek drama, as Saint John the Baptist is baptising in the River Jordan and talking about what is to be. And, in good dramatic style, letting us know what to expect as the drama unfolds on this stage, Saint John the Baptist uses three ways to describe Christ.

He is:

• ‘The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1: 29 and 36);
• ‘A man … who was before me’ (John 1: 30);
• ‘The Son of God’ (John 1: 34).

That manifestation of the Christ in Saint John’s Gospel will close with the witness of the Beloved Disciple – the other John – to the Paschal Lamb dying on the Cross on the eve of Passover.

His description of Christ as the ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ presents Christ as the Servant of God described by the Prophet Isaiah as being led without complaint like a lamb before the shearers, a man who ‘bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors’ (see Isaiah 53: 7-12).

With the benefit of hindsight, this is also as a reference to the Lamb sacrificed at the Passover – in Saint John’s Gospel, the crucifixion takes place at the same time as the Passover.

But the Lamb of God is taking away not just my sin, not just our sin, not just the sin of many, of Christians, or those we judge as transgressors, those we still have a grudge against – not even the sin of the world, but the sin of the κόσμος (cosmos), which means not merely planet earth, but the whole created order.

Secondly, Saint John the Baptist describes Christ (verse 30) as the one who ‘existed before me’ (RSV) or who ‘was before me’ (NRSV), which reflects a recurring theme in Johannine literature of the pre-existence of the Word.

Thirdly, he describes him as ‘the Son of God’ or ‘God’s Chosen One’ (verse 34). This is the first time in this Gospel that Christ is given the messianic title of ‘the Son of God.’ This title, ‘The Son of God’ is another reference to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah.

We then move on in this reading to find the disciples of Saint John the Baptist turning to follow Christ. So this reading links the baptism of Christ with the call of the Disciples, links seeing and believing, being and doing, baptism and discipleship.

The first two disciples are called to follow Jesus (verse 37) in word and action, ‘Come and see’ (verse 39). In Saint John’s Gospel, ‘seeing,’ in the true sense, means believing. Think of the later insistence by Saint Thomas that he cannot believe unless he also sees (see John 20: 24-29). And to come and see is to abide in Christ. Those first disciples come, see and stay (verse 39).

But who do the disciples say Christ is?

They have three very different descriptions from those given by Saint John the Baptist. They describe him as:

• Rabbi or Teacher (verse 38)
• the one to see and follow (verse (verse 39)
• the Messiah or the anointed one (verse 41)

Who is Christ for you?

This is a question each and every one of us must ask ourselves anew time and time again.

He must be more than a good rabbi or teacher, because the expectations of a good religious leader or a good teacher change over time.

Who is the Messiah for you?

Again, many people at the time had false expectations of the Messiah.

But who is Christ for you?

George Fox, the founding Quaker, challenged his contemporaries: ‘You may say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of the Light and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?”

Who is Christ for you?

Is he a personal saviour?

One who comforts you?

Or is he more than that for you?

Who do you say Christ is?

It is a question that challenges Saint Peter later in Saint Matthew’s Gospel (see Matthew 16: 15, which is part of the reading on 22 August 2026, the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, Matthew 16: 13-20).

Not who do others say he is, but who do you say Christ is?

There is a difference in translations that speak of the ‘sins of the world’ and the ‘sin of the world.’

The word in this Gospel reading (see verse 29) is the singular sin of the cosmos (ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου). The word indicates being without a share in something, in this case God’s intention or design … missing the mark.

So often the world has missed the mark in terms of shaping up to Gods plan and intention for the whole creation, the whole cosmos.

Christmas has passed, and the Epiphany season concludes with the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Candlemas, in two weeks’ time (2 February 2026).

Today’s Gospel reading is a reminder at Epiphany time that Christ has come, not just as a cuddly baby at Christmas, not just to give me personal comfort, not just to give me a personal revelation, but to confront the whole created order, and to reconcile the whole created order to God’s plan.

I find it is a beautiful presentation in this Gospel that the beginning of Christ’s ministry is set out over six days. And on the seventh day of that new beginning we have a sabbath – God rests; Christ goes to the wedding at Cana, the third of the Epiphany moments. And there we have a sign, a sacrament, a token of the complete transformation of the created order, a sacramental or symbolic token of the heavenly banquet (John 2: 1-12; see John 2: 1-11, the Gospel reading on Sunday 1 February 2026, Epiphany IV).

Who is Christ for you? He confronts the evils of the world; he suffers with us; he invites you and me to come and see; he calls us into the new Creation; he makes us equal in the Kingdom of God; and we are guests at his banquet. He is God among us.

As Saint John the Baptist says, ‘I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God’ (John 1: 34)

Robert Spence (1871-1964), ‘Woe to the Bloody City of Lichfield,’ depicts George Fox preaching barefooted in the snow in Lichfield in 1651 … George Fox challenged his followers to say who Christ is for them (Lichfield Museum)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 18 January 2026, Epiphany II):

The theme this week (18-24 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Freedom Theologies’ (pp 20-21). This theme is introduced today with Reflections from Dr Thandi Gamedze, poet, theologian, and senior researcher at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice:

‘Growing up in South Africa, I was surrounded by the Church, but I didn’t know the full story of its role in our history. For decades, the voices of Black South Africans who resisted apartheid were often silenced or forgotten, even within faith communities. One of the most powerful examples is the Kairos Document, written in 1985 during a State of Emergency. It boldly confronted the Church’s complicity with apartheid and called people of faith to stand for justice. Reading it was like discovering a hidden heartbeat of courage and hope.

‘These stories inspired me to create Freedom Theologies: South Africa, a card game that brings these untold stories to life. Players explore moments like the Peace March of 1989 or the Christian Institute Agape meals, swapping stories and mapping them on timelines to see how the movement grew.

‘The game grew out of a simple idea: learning can be participatory and fun, but still deeply meaningful. These stories of everyday prophetic theologies and actions are really important because all of us have different roles to play in this work of ‘world making’. Whether that happens through art, or a march, or even something as simple as a weekly meal. That’s what the Cape Director of the Christian Institute did. The meals he hosted were more than food. It was a lively space where people connected, prayed, and planned together, fuelling the fight against apartheid with shared spirit and action. We could do with more of that.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 18 January 2026) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on John 1: 29-42.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Lamb of God … a surviving detail in Saint Senanus Church, Foynes, Co Limerick (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