Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 106, Saturday 22 August 2026

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … dinner by the beach in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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), followed by the feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle (24 August 2026). Today I am also remembering my eldest brother, Stephen Edward Comerford (1946-1970), who would be 80 years old today, but who died at Duke University in North Carolina almost 56 years ago, on 18 December 1970.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading 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.

‘They love to have the place of honour at banquets’ (Matthew 23: 6) … a restaurant in Bettystown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 1-12 (NRSVA):

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

Rabbi Zalman Lent in the former synagogue on Rathfarnham Road, Dublin, with tallit and teffilin, signs of keeping God’s word before us (Photograph: Orla Ryan)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday (Matthew 22: 34-06), we learned how all the Law and the Prophets – everything taught by Moses and Prophets – depends on, hangs on, the two great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour.

His summary of those guidelines for living came in a conversation Jesus had with a lawyer in the Temple, in front of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the two groups most concerned with teaching what is meant by the Law and the Prophets.

In this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 23: 1-12), we are still in the Temple with Christ in Holy Week, the week leading up to his Passion, Death and Resurrection. There in the Temple, Christ has silenced his critics among the Sadducees and the Pharisees, showing their lack of understanding of the core messages of the Prophets and the Law in the Bible.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, he turns to speak ‘to the crowds and to his disciples’ about the scribes and the Pharisees, and their attitude to and teaching of the Law and the Bible.

Christ tells the people in the Temple that the Pharisees have authority to teach the Law, and he concedes that they are in an unbroken chain that goes back to Moses, for they ‘sit on Moses’ seat’ (verse 2).

But while honouring their teachings, the people should be wary of their practices. In their interpretation of the Law, they impose heavy burdens on others, yet do not follow the Law themselves.

Externally, they appear pious. They wear teffelin or phylacteries, small, black, leather boxes, on their left arms and foreheads with four Biblical passages as a ‘sign’ and ‘remembrance’ that God liberated their ancestors from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 13: 1-10; Exodus 13: 11-16; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; and Deuteronomy 11: 13-21). They also have lengthy fringes or tassels on their prayer shawls (tallitot, singular talit), as visible reminders of the 613 commandments in the Law (see Numbers 15: 38, Deuteronomy 22: 12).

Christ gives four examples of vanity (verse 6-7): they love places of honour at banquets, the best seats in the synagogues, being greeted with respect publicly, and being called ‘Rabbi,’ which means master and later becomes a title for the leader in a synagogue.

We are warned about the dangers built into loving honorific titles, such as ‘teacher,’ ‘father’ and instructor (see verses 8-10) – perhaps for me that means Canon and Professor – because, of course, we are all students, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all disciples, and we are all children of God.

Yet I too am a father and have been a teacher and a tutor. Is Christ warning against the position; or against seeking honours that have not been earned?

It is a truism that parents must earn the respect of their children, not seek or demand it. Most parents have, at one time or another, said to their children: ‘Do what I tell you, not what I do.’ Needless to say, children never listen to parents when we say something so silly.

All parents know, on the other hand, that actions speak louder than words.

Perhaps this morning’s reading reflects later tensions between the Jewish synagogue and the new Christian community. But, in Christ’s own days, people expected a Pharisee to be a careful observer of the Law. Unlike the Temple priests and village elders, the Pharisees did not have a high social status.

Before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 CE, the Pharisees were a relatively modest group of people without political power and they tried to live out Jewish tradition and the Torah seriously and conscientiously in their daily lives. The Pharisees saw the Law as applying not only to every aspect of public life, but to every aspect of private, domestic, daily life too.

There is another well-worn statement: ‘It’s not where you start out but where you end up.’ The Pharisees started out with good intentions, but some of them ended by seeking to be great, seeking to be exalted (verses 11-12). They started out being concerned for holiness, but some ended at exclusion. They started out seeking to recognise God in all aspects of life, but some of them ended by seeking recognition at banquets and in the synagogue (verses 6-7).

Christ calls us to live in such a way that we can say to the world: ‘Do as we say and do as we do.’

The problem here may not so much be a conflict between words and actions, but the need to make the connection between words and actions. Words must mean what they point to, and the actions must be capable of being described in words.

Most of us, as children, learned by watching how adults behave, we learn as members of the human community. As a child, when I needed to learn how to use a fork, I did not need a lecture on the hygienic and sanitary contributions that forks have made to the benefit European lifestyles since the introduction of the fork through Byzantium and Venice to mediaeval Europe; I did not need an engineering lecture on the practicalities and difficulties of balancing the prongs and the handle; I would have been too young to read a delightful chapter by Judith Herrin in one of her books on how the fork-using Byzantines were much more sophisticated than their western allies or rivals who ate with their hands (Judith Herrin, Byzantium – the Surprising Life of a Mediaeval Empire, London: Allen Lane, 2007).

The same principle applies to everything else, as Andrew Davison, Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford, points out in his contribution to Imaginative Apologetics (London: SCM Press, 2011), the same principle applies to how we learn about everything else in life – cups, books, bicycles and so on. He might have added love – the love of God and the love of one another.

On a number of occasions, I have visited the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin. There, in the Great Palm House, are the steps on which the great 20th century German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly sat in contemplation and thought while he was living in Dublin in the late 1940s.

Even for those who find Wittgenstein difficult to read, he offers useful insights in his writings.

Wittgenstein teaches us that thinking and language must be inter-connected. ‘Words have meaning only in the stream of life,’ he says. Thinking requires language, language is a communal experience, and, as Davison points out, we learn language as members of a human community and through induction into common human practices.

We can talk about prayer, forgiveness, and most of all about love itself, to others. But if it only remains talk and has no application, then the words have no meaning.

Saint Paul reminds the members of the Church in Thessaloniki (I Thessalonians 2: 9-13) that they are witnesses to Christ not only in their beliefs but in the way they live their lives and in their conduct towards the new Church members.

Like a father teaching his children, he urges and encourages them, and pleads with them to walk in God’s ways, so that God’s word becomes made active in those who believe. In All Saints-tide, this is good advice on how to live as saints, as part of the Communion of Saints.

We might remind ourselves that when Christ tells the lawyer sent by the Pharisees and the Sadducees that the greatest commandments are to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ and to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ And, he adds: ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’ (see Matthew 22: 34-46),

If the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the young lawyer were teaching and acting in conformity with these laws, if their words and actions were inter-connected, then there would have been an unassailable ring of authenticity to their teaching.

We may say we believe in the two great commandments, but we only show we believe in them with credibility when we live them out in our lives. There must be no gap that separates what we teach and how we live out what we teach in our lives.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 22 August 2026):

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 16 to 22 August 2026 (pp 30-31), has been ‘Hope in the Making’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a reflection by Grace Murray, a USPG volunteer. The prayers this week come courtesy of passersby at Greenbelt Festival 2025.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 22 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Look with compassion, Lord, on our weakness and lack of courage to act. We pray for honesty and perseverance to do what we can.

The Collect of the Day:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
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:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XII:

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.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

The table remains bare if our words and our actions are not inter-connected … tables at a restaurant in Baker Street, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

A return visit to Saint Francis Xavier, the Jesuits’ classical-style church on Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Saint Francis Xavier Church, or Gardiner Street Church, Dublin … designed by Bartholomew Esmonde and Joseph B Keane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Today, the Church Calendar remembers the great Jesuit saint and missionary, Saint Francis Xavier. During my visit to Dublin this week, I visited Saint Francis Xavier Church, popularly known as Gardiner Street Church, the Jesuit-run church on Upper Gardiner Street, near Mountjoy Square.

Gardiner Street Church has associations with many famous Dubliners, including James Joyce, but this was my first time to visit the church since the funeral of Seán MacBride almost 40 years ago in January 1988.

The church was one of the first to be built in Dublin after Catholic Emancipation in 1829. The church was designed by the Jesuit priest Father Bartholomew Esmonde working with the architect Joseph B Keane, as a classical cut granite stone essay. An earlier chapel at 30 Hardwicke Street was opened by Father Charles Aylmer SJ in 1816, the first public chapel of the restored Society of Jesus.

Inside Saint Francis Xavier Church facing east … the church was built in 1829-1835 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The four founders of Gardiner Street church were Father Peter Kenny, Father Bartholomew Esmonde, Father Charles Aylmer and Archbishop Daniel Murray. The foundation stone was laid by Father Charles Aylmer on 2 July 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation, and Archbishop Murray on 3 May 1832 celebrated the first Mass in the church on 3 May 1832 at a temporary altar. The church was solemnly blessed by Archbishop Murray on 12 February 1835 in the presence of 14 bishops and a large congregation.

The church is considered one of the best executed churches of the period. The architectural historian Christine Casey describes it in her book Dublin as ‘the most elegant church of the period in Dublin’. The building is known for its sculpted altar piece and paintings, mostly Italian in origin and dating from the Victorian period.

Father Bartholomew Esmonde (1789-1862) was a Jesuit priest, educator, and amateur architect. He was superior of the Society of Jesus in Ireland briefly in 1820. He was born on 12 December 1789, the second son of Dr John Esmonde and Helen (née O’Callan) of Sallins, Co Kildare. His father was executed by hanging on 13 June 1798 for his part in leading the United Irishmen at the Battle of Prosperous in Co Kildare in the 1798 Rising.

The High Altar and sanctuary in Saint Francis Xavier Church … the high altar was designed in Rome by Bartholomew Esmonde (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Bartholomew Esmonde was a younger brother of Sir Thomas Esmonde (1786-1868), 9th Baronet, MP for Wexford. He was educated at the Jesuit novitiate at Stonyhurst College, England and studied philosophy and theology in Palermo, Italy. Esmonde returned to Ireland as Master of Novices at Clongowes Wood College and later served as Rector of Clongowes, where his nephews, Sir John Esmonde (1826-1876), later the tenth baronet, and Colonel Thomas Esmonde VC (1829-1872), went to school.

Bartholomew Esmonde lived in Rome from 1842 and then in Malta, returning to Ireland in 1850. He died on 15 December 1862. His brother Sir Thomas Esmonde commissioned a portrait of him in the Jesuit building in Gardner Street and a monument in Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey, Co Wexford.

His nephew, Colonel Thomas Esmonde (1829-1872), was decorated with the Victoria Cross for his role in the siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean War. His daughter Eva Esmonde married James Charles Comerford (1842-1907), of Ardavon, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, and their children included the Irish Republican activist Maire Comerford (1893-1982).

Inside Saint Francis Xavier Church facing west … the organ is played in the 1991 film ‘The Commitments’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Dublin-born architect John Benjamin Keane, who worked closely with Esmonde in designing Gardiner Street Church, also designed courthouses in Tralee, Co Kerry (1828), Tullamore, Co Offaly (1832), Downpatrick, Co Down (1832-1834), and Nenagh, Co Tipperary (1842). It is said he designed the courthouse in Carlow (1830-1834), but this was designed by William Vitruvius Morrison and is modelled on the Temple on the Ilissus in Athens.

Keane also designed Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, and Saint John’s Roman Catholic Church, Waterford. He also worked with Sir Richard Morrison on the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin and with AWN Pugin and Patrick Byrne on the designs for the Loreto Convent chapel and lantern in Rathfarnham.

He first appears in records in 1819, as an assistant to Richard Morrison. Some biographical sources say that Keane was trained as an architect at the Office of Works, Dublin, but this has been questioned. By 1823, he was working independently. He exhibited regularly with the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1828 to 1841.

Keane designed the Gothic Revival quadrangle at Queen’s College, Galway (now NUI Galway) in 1845 very much in the fashion of Christ Church College, Oxford. His other buildings include Ballybay House, Co Monaghan (1830), Belleek Manor, Ballina, Co Mayo (1831), Tullamore Courthouse (1835), the Mausoleum at Oak Park, Co Carlow (1841), the courthouses in Nenagh (1843), Waterford (1849) and Ennis (1852), Saint John’s Church, Waterford (1845), and Barmouth Castle, Co Louth.

He was the engineer on the River Suir navigation in 1846-1848. Towards the end of his life, it appears Keane suffered from alcoholism, falling into debt and was jailed in Marshalsea gaol. He died on 7 October 1859.

The cast-iron foliated pulpit with the ‘IHS’ monogram of the Society of Jesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Esmonde’s design of Gardiner Street church is informed by his knowledge of the temples of Italy when he lived there. Esmonde and Keane based their designs on Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in Paris, designed by Louis-Hippolyte Lebas ca1824, and on the Jesuits’ mother church in Rome, the Church of the Gesù, with a nave with low side chapels, shallow transepts and a deep apsidal chancel.

There are differences, however, with the roof in Saint Francis Xavier’s flat and coffered, while at the Gesù, it is barrel-vaulted.

The church is significant for its use of native granite for the portico and the fact that it was completed within a relatively short period of time. The apse was originally rectangular and shallow, but was enlarged in 1851, and this was further influenced by the style of the Gesù.

‘Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Japan’ (1860) over the High Altar by Bernardo Celantano (1835-1863) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Outside, the figures on top of the front pediment, the Sacred Heart, Saint Ignatius and Saint Francis Xavier, are by the sculptor Terence Farrell (1798-1876). The Latin text on the pediment is Deo Uni Et Trino Sub Invoc S Francisci Xaverii , ‘To God one and Three under the invocation of Saint Francis Xavier’.

It is said Father Esmonde designed and assembled the High Altar in Rome. The paintings and sculpture inside the church include the ‘Madonna and Child’ by Ignazio Jacometti (1881), ‘The Agony in the Garden’ by Jacques Augustin Dieudonne (1848, bought in 1853) and ‘Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Japan’ (1860) over the High Altar by Bernardo Celantano (1835-1863).

There is a cast-iron foliated pulpit, with the ‘IHS’ monogram of the Society of Jesus and gilded portrait heads of ‘Christ Crowned with Thorns’ and the ‘Sorrowful Mother of Christ’, and a balustraded timber rail between the nave and the transept. The retention of these interior fittings is of considerable importance in church architecture.

Four oil paintings in the nave are attributed to Pietro Gagliardi (Rome) and were hung in church when Father Nicholas Walsh was the rector (1877-1884).

The organ has been rebuilt several times, always in original organ case. The original instrument was made by Flight and Robson (London) in 1836, and was bought by the Jesuits for 800 guineas.

The Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The presbytery is on the north side of the church and the Convent of the Sisters of Charity is on the south side. Together, these three form part of a group of impressive ecclesiastical buildings that standing out among the Georgian terraces on the street.

The Jesuits opened a school at Hardwicke Street close to Gardiner Street church in 1832, and this later became Belvedere College on Denmark Street. The church also has close associations with Mother Mary Aikenhead and the early days of the Irish Sisters of Charity.

Over the years, many well-known people have been associated with Saint Francis Xavier’s Church. Matt Talbot, regarded by some as the patron of people struggling with alcoholism, prayed there each morning. John Henry Newman celebrated Mass there when he lived on Dorset Street in 1854. The funeral of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was held in the church in 1889.

The church was also the place where Father James Cullen founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in 1898.

The church features in James Joyce’s short story ‘Grace’ in Dubliners and in the 1991 film The Commitments, the church organ is used to play A Whiter Shade of Pale. Many Dubliners also know the church hall, known as the SFX Hall.

The shrine of Blessed John Sullivan in the Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Father John Sullivan, who was based at the church for a short time in 1907, was beatified (declared blessed) in the church, and he is now buried in the church.

John Sullivan (1861-1933) was a Jesuit priest known for his life of deep spiritual reflection and personal sacrifice, and for his dedicated work among the poor. He taught at Clongowes Wood College, Clane, Co Kildare, from 1907 until he died in 1933.

He was born on 8 May 1861 at 41 Eccles Street, Dublin, a son of Sir Edward Sullivan (1822-1885), later the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and he was baptised in Saint George’s Church of Ireland parish church, Hardwicke Place, on 15 July 1861. Later that year, the family moved to 32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin.

He attended Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, studied classics at Trinity College Dublin, and studied for the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London. He then travelled across Europe, visiting southern Italy, Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor, and spent several months in a monastery on Mount Athos.

As a barrister, he was appointed in 1895 to a commission to investigate the massacre of Armenians in Adana, Asia Minor. He joined the Roman Catholic Church at Farm Street Church in Mayfair, London, on 21 December 1896.

From 1900, Sullivan studied with the Jesuits at Tullabeg, near Tullamore, Co Offaly, Stonyhurst and Milltown Park. Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin ordained Sullivan priest in the chapel at Milltown Park in 1907. He said his first Mass at Mount Saint Anne’s convent, Milltown, and was based in Gardiner Street. He then taught at Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit-run school near Clane, Co Kildare. For five years he was the rector of the Jesuit house at Rathfarnham Castle (1919-1924), but then returned to teaching at Clongowes Wood.

He died in Saint Vincent’s Nursing Home, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, on 19 February 1933 with his brother Sir William Sullivan at his side. He was buried at Clongowes Wood, but his body was moved to the Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church in 1960.

The chapel of the Virgin Mary in Saint Francis Xavier Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Archbishop George Simms spoke at a memorial service on 8 May 1983, to honour Sullivan’s life and work in Saint George’s Church, where Sullivan was baptised. The Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, Bishop James Kavanagh, brought greetings from Pope John Paul II.

His beatification was celebrated in Dublin in Saint Francis Xavier Church on 13 May 2017, the first ever beatification to take place in Ireland.

• The Church Co-ordinator (parish priest) is Father Brendan Comerford SJ. Sunday Masses are Sunday 9:15 am, 11 am and 7.30 pm; weekday Masses (Monday to Friday) are at 11 am and 1 pm; Saturday Masses are at 11 am, 1 pm and 6 pm. Gardiner Street Gospel Choir sings at the 7:30 Sunday Mass, except on bank holiday weekends.

A statue of Saint Patrick in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary the Virgin, a Norman church in secluded Addington, was restored by GE Street in the 1850s

Saint Mary-the-Virgin, a Norman and 14th century church in Addington, near Winslow in Buckinghamshire, was rebuilt by George Edmund Street in 1857-1858 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Addington, a secluded village outside Winslow in Buckinghamshire, a few times recently, searching mainly for the Old School House (1876), a Jacobethan-style school and schoolmaster’s house that was designed by the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris. But I also spent some time visiting Saint Mary-the-Virgin, a Norman and 14th century church that was rebuilt by the architect George Edmund Street in 1857-1858.

There is evidence of Norman origins for the church, but the present building is basically 14th century, with a nave and two aisles, with a tower that was restored in the 15th century and a chancel and aisles were rebuilt by Street in 1857-1858.

Addington is off the main road, about half way between Winslow (3.2 km) and Buckingham (4.8 km), and with a population of 145. It is first referred to in the Domesday Book (1086), when the manor was held by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror.

The church in Addington was linked to the Priory of Saint John of Jerusalem from 1222 to 1542 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Bishop Odo, who probably commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry, was later banished from England and died in Palermo. The manor was acquired by the family of Romenel, who had held it under Bishop Odo, and then by the FitzBernard family. The living and the rectory were given by the FitzBernards to the Priory of Saint John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell in 1222, and the earliest-known rector, Henry de Hogginshall, is named when records began that year, in 1222.

Mediaeval rectors of Addington included John de Bokingham, who became Archdeacon of Nottingham (1349), Dean of Lichfield (1350-1363), Archdeacon of Northampton (1351-1363) and Bishop of Lincoln (1362-1398).The advowson of the rectory continued to be vested in the Prior and Convent of Saint John of Jerusalem until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1542. It was annexed to the manor after the Caroline restoration in 1660. The tithes and glebe of this parish were exchanged for certain lands, settled on the rector, by an act of parliament in 1726.

Meanwhile, the manor was sold by the FitzBernard family in 1313 to John Blackett, who soon sold it to Sir John Molins. It then passed through a number of female heirs to the Hungerford and Hastings families before it was sold in 1532 to the Curzons, and by them to John Busby in 1628, marking the start of a long association with the Busby family, who have several monuments in the church.

The monument to Sir John Busby by Nicholas Bigee (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sir John Busby, who died in 1700, was colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia. His plaque in the church has a cartouche with trophies and a portrait bust above. The sculptor was Nicholas Bigee. The monument was consecrated by his son Revd Thomas Busby, who was both the patron and rector and was responsible for the church restorations in 1710.

The monument to the Revd Thomas Busby by John Michael Rysbrack (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Revd Thomas Busby was the Rector of Addington from 1693 until he died in 1725; his wife Ann died in 1745. Their monument, erected 28 years after he died by their two daughters and heiress, Anne and Jane.

The monument was made in 1753 by John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770), a Flemish sculptor who spent most of his career in England. He was one of the foremost sculptors of monuments, architectural decorations and portraits in the mid-18th century, and his works include the monuments to Isaac Newton, John Milton and Ben Jonson in Westminster Abbey, a statue of the Duke of Marlborough, and busts of Robert Walpole, Henry Bolingbroke, and Alexander Pope.

Rysbrack’s monument to Thomas and Ann Busby in Addington shows a cherub with a broken column and an obelisk behind. A putto stands by the broken column, representing the broken Busby line as Thomas Busby had no son, and holds a snake biting its own tail, a symbol of eternal life.

The monument to Anne Busby, Lady Kemyes Tynte, and her sister Jane Busby by Humphrey Hopper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Anne and Jane, the daughters of the Revd Thomas Busby, died within months of each other in 1798 and 1800. Their monument by the sculptor Humphrey Hopper (1767-1844) shows a weeping woman kneeling beside two urns, representing the two sisters.

Anne Busby married Sir Charles Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte (1710-1785), 5th Baronet, MP for Monmouth (1745-1747) and Somerset (1747-1774), who added the name Kemeys to his own in 1747. His mother, Jane Kemeys, Lady Tynte, who died in 1745, was a first cousin of Philip Wharton (1698–1731), Duke of Wharton, the dissipate ‘Rake of Rathfarnham’ who married Maria Theresa O’Neill, sometimes known as Maria Theresa O’Beirne and Maria Theresa Comerford.

Under the wills of Lady Kemyes Tynte and her sister Jane Busby, Addington Manor was inherited by General the Hon Vere Poulett (1761-1812), a son of Vere Poulett (1710-1788), 3rd Earl Poulett. The general was father-in-law of the Irish peer George Nugent-Grenville (1788-1850, 2nd Baron Nugent of Carlanstown, MP for Buckingham (1810-1812) and Aylesbury (1812-1832, 1847-1850), and Lord High Commissioner for the Ionian Islands (1832-1835), when he lived at the Palace in Corfu. From Vere Poulett, the estate passed to his son, John Poulett (1789-1846).

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Meanwhile, Addington, like most parishes in Buckinghamshire, was transferred from the Diocese of Lincoln to the Diocese of Oxford in 1845. John Gellibrand Hubbard, a London banker and merchant, bought the Addington Estate in 1854 and initiated a significant building and renovation programme. George Edmund Street, who was the architect for the Diocese of Oxford at the time, was commissioned for several projects by Hubbard, who at the same time was building an imposing mansion nearby as his own residence.

Hubbard, who found the whole estate had fallen into disrepair, rebuilt the Rectory and many of the other buildings. As a consequence, many of the buildings in Addington are of Victorian origin and all the earlier timbered and thatched houses have been lost. Hubbard also built and endowed Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, and paid for a new chancel aisle in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Buckingham.

Hubbard was an active supporter of the Anglo-Catholic movement and his daughter, the Hon Lucy Marian Hubbard (1845-1893), joined the Community of Saint John Baptist, also known as the Sisters of Mercy or Clewer Sisters, founded in 1852 by the widowed Harriet Monsell and the Revd Thomas Thellusson Carter.

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The monument to Lucy Marian Hubbard in Saint Mary’s Church includes a depiction of Saint Lucy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

GE Street (1824-1881) was a leading architect in the Victorian Gothic Revival. Although he is best known as the designer of the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand in London, he worked mainly as a church architect.

Early in his career, Street worked for five years in the London office of the Buckingham-born architect George Gilbert Scott, who was born in Gawcott, and in 1850 he was architect to the Diocese of Oxford by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.

Street built or restored 113 churches in the Diocese of Oxford, including at least two dozen churches in Buckinghamshire. His other churches include All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London, and his major works outside England include the restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and Saint Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare, and designing Saint Paul’s Within the Walls, Rome, and the American Cathedral in Paris.

Street rebuilt the chancel in Saint Mary’s Church, Addington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Street’s rebuilding and restoration of Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, included the porch, aisles and chancel and the addition of a vestry.

After Street’s work, the church was reconsecrated on 8 January 1859 by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. The Revd William Fremantle of the Claydons, had assisted as Rural Dean at the re-consecration. He later complained about the ceremonial practices that day, including a procession with a processional cross, the cross set in the wall above the communion table, the placing of an ‘embroidered cover’ (presumably a burse and veil) over the communion vessels and adding water to the Communion wine.

Hubbard hosted the festivities after the reconsecration in his unfinished mansion. In his sermon, the bishop remarked, ‘It (the church) is a free gift of a good man, one who in God’s providence has come to reside amongst you, and who would not build up his own house without providing for the worship of God and for the souls of his people by building and restoring your parish church.’

Hubbard was an MP first for Buckingham and later for the city of London and became 1st Baron Addington in 1887. His memorial on the north wall, by the sculptor E Roscoe Mullins in 1897, says: ‘His life was devoted to the service of God and of his neighbours. To great business ability he added a fervent piety and an unfailing charity. He rebuilt this church in the year 1857. ‘A counsellor, a good man, and just’ S Luke xxiii 50; the Gospel reference is to Joseph of Arimethea.

John Gellibrand Hubbard’s monumennt in Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary the Virgin Church in Addington has a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, vestry, porch and a crenellated tower. Set into the high altar is a rare ‘Super Altare,’ probably from the 14th century. It was discovered during the 19th century restoration, along with six books walled up in the chancel, placed there 300 years earlier and valuable records of their times.

At the right hand side of the main altar, is a 12th century capital and shaft that has been converted into a piscina. This had originally been stored in the vestry together with the stone slab that has been set into the altar. The date of these two artefacts suggests that a church stood on this site in the 12th century.

The 14th century arcades and chancel arch are the only substantial parts of the interior of the mediaeval church that survive. The west tower, dating from the 14th century and with unusual pillared supports, is the only exterior part of the mediaeval church that survives. The north and south aisles were added at this time and the tower was restored in 1490.

GE Street designed the 19th century font (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The 19th century font was designed by Street, the organ was built in 1857, and the church has three bells in use, by John Warner and Son (1870), Chandler (1656) and RA (1626).

The windows in the chancel are 14th century in style, and on either side of the nave are restored 14th century arcades of three pointed arches supported by octagonal piers. The clerestory windows are circular and have glass contemporary with the 19th century restoration but the openings may be 14th century.

The east window and clerestory glass is Victorian. The East Window by Clayton and Bell (1858) depicts the Ascension, the Annunciation, the Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and Saint John, Saint John leading the Virgin Mary away, the Nativity, the burial of Christ, and an angel greeting the two Marys at the tomb at the Resurrection.

The west window is of two cinquefoil lights under a four centred head and is probably 15th century and it is likely that it was inserted when the tower was restored.

Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, has the largest collection of Netherlandish glass in any church in England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The windows, although originally recorded as having plain glass, now have the largest collection of Netherlandish glass in any church in England. They are thought to have been collected by the first Lord Addington, and were inserted when Street rebuilt the church in 1857-1858. In all, there are over 60 small Netherlandish panels, roundels, ovals and rectangles, some of them of high quality. Except for the four in the west wall of the tower, all are clearly visible, and most of them can be seen in detail.

Further restoration was carried out by the architect Sir Charles Nicholson in 1926-1930, when the south aisle and the chancel were refurnished and panelled.

When John Hubbard (1883-1964), 3rd Baron Addington, died in 1964, the Diocesan Board of Patronage became patrons of the living and the Hubbard connection with Addington came to an end.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, looking from the chancel towards the west end and the tower (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary-the-Virgin in Addington is part of the benefice of Winslow, which includes Saint Laurence’s Church, Winslow, Saint James’s Church, Great Horwood and Saint Mary’s Church, Addington. The Revd Dr Stephen O’Connor has been the parish priest since 2023, and the other clergy include Canon Alan Hodgetts, who retired to Winslow in 2020, and the Revd Daphne Preece, a retired hospital chaplain and URC minister.

• Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, is a festival church and does not have a regular Sunday service, although services are held about once a month and for major celebrations and festivals, including Nine Lessons and Carols at 5 pm next Sunday (7 December 2025).

The west tower of Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, dates from the 14th century and is the only exterior part of the mediaeval church that survives (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The east end of Saint Mary’s Church, Addington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The planned demolition of Terenure synagogue is the loss of another of my childhood landmarks

Terenure Synagogue on Rathfarnham Road was built in 1952-1953 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have often said in jest that I was born between a synagogue and a laundry and across the road from a cinema.

But Terenure Laundry – still celebrated in trade union lore for a 14-week strike led by Mai Clifford – closed soon after I was born on Rathfarnham Road. The site at 14-18 Rathfarnham Road was later the premises of the Sunday World, and now it’s the site of Lidl in Terenure.

The Classic Cinema was at 11-13 Rathfarnham Road, across the road from both the laundry and the synagogue. It opened in 1938, and when it closed in 1976, Albert Kelly transferred the name of the Classic to the former Kenilworth Cinema in Harold’s Cross – but it too is long gone.

Now it looks as though the third landmark that defined that stretch of Rathfarnham Road where I was born is about to disappear too, and that Dublin’s largest synagogue is soon to be demolished.

Gordon Deegan reported in The Irish Times yesterday (18 September 2025) that An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP), the Irish Planning Commission, has approved a plan to demolish Dublin’s largest synagogue to make way for a 60-unit apartment scheme.

The Dublin Hebrew Congregation endorses the redevelopment, but the plan has been opposed by some local residents who say the area would is going to lose an important historical landmark. ACP has granted planning permission to Granbrind Terenure Ltd for the apartment block scheme on the 0.54 ha site on Rathfarnham Road, Terenure, where the synagogue and has been since 1952.

ACP granted planning permission after concluding that the proposal ‘would provide for a compact and sustainable form of urban development at a highly accessible location, would not seriously injure the visual or residential amenities of the area and would not adversely impact the character of the area.’

A letter on behalf of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation in July 2024 gave full support to the application. The signatories to the letter include the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, the Very Revd Yoni Wieder, whose inauguration had taken place in the synagogue two months earlier.

Dublin City Council granted planning permission for the scheme in April, but the development was stalled after an appeal by the Terenure Residents’ Association, Wasdale Park residents and Greenmount Lawns residents.

The residents who oppose the demolition of the synagogue site say the landmark building with its five Stars of David and stained-glass windows would be a huge loss to the history of the Jewish community living in the area. They argue the proposed apartment blocks would result be an overbearing and intrusive presence and overshadow adjoining properties.

As part of a 105-page inspector’s report, the ACP inspector Ms Mary Kennelly agreed ‘that the demolition of these buildings is appropriate’. She said the synagogue building ‘is not a protected structure and has not been assessed as being of architectural or historical significance and is unsuitable for repurposing and reuse’.

She also said it was intended to reuse the stained-glass windows in a future synagogue site and it was accepted these would not be suitable for use in other community buildings. Ms Kennelly said the proposed demolition and redevelopment of the site would benefit the community. A report said the new development would provide new housing units in an area of such high population growth, and within close proximity of the city centre.

A spokesperson for the Dublin Hebrew Congregation told The Irish Times last year it planned to move to a more suitably sized facility as the space was too large for its needs.

Five Stars of David over 10 squared panels on Terenure Synagogue facing onto Rathfarnham Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The synagogue is a distinctive building in the Terenure and Rathfarnham areas of south Dublin, clearly visible and identifiable with windows with five Stars of David over 10 squared panels. It was designed by the architect Wilfred Cantwell (1921-2000) and was dedicated in 1953.

I had been born a few doors away, at No 28 Rathfarnham Road, and lived part of my childhood at No 104 Rathfarnham Road. My father was born in Rathmines and spent his childhood in Terenure. Although my parents lived for much of their life in Harold’s Cross, they later lived in Rathfarnham Wood.

The Terenure synagogue at No 32-34 Rathfarnham Road was designed by the Irish architect Wilfred Cantwell and dates back to a meeting in 1936, when it was agreed to set up a synagogue in the Rathmines, Rathgar or Terenure area to cater for families in those suburbs who found it was too far to walk on Saturdays to the synagogues on Adelaide Road or at Greenville Hall on the South Circular Road.

The shul started in rented rooms at 6 Grosvenor Place, Rathmines, and moved when No 52 Grosvenor Road was bought in 1940. At Rosh Hashanah, 4 October 1948, the congregation moved from Rathmines to a Nissen hut in the grounds of ‘Leoville’ on Rathfarnham Road, bought a few years earlier for £1,490 on behalf of the congregation by Woulfe Freedman and Erwin Goldwater.

Building work on the new synagogue began in August 1952, shortly after I was born, and it was completed and dedicated on 30 August 1953.

During his career, the architect Wilfrid Cantwell worked with Michael Scott, alongside Kevin Roche, Kevin Fox and Robin Walker, and worked on Bus Arús, Dublin. He later worked with JN Kidney before setting up his own practice (1947-1975). He attained distinction in the area of church architecture, particularly in the years immediately after Vatican II. From 1976 until he retired in 1993, he specialised as a consultant in church design.

Cantwell said his new synagogue in Terenure met the committee’s specifications for a building that would ‘cost less than half the normal place, look as if it cost the full amount and be an example of good modern design.’ It was praised for its ‘original, modern, commanding and attractive design.’

The ‘master builder’ of the synagogue was the Dublin timber merchant Sam Noyek, who built the synagogue with a capacity for 600 people.

Terenure Synagogue was supported by or attracted a number of Jewish families to this part of Terenure and Rathfarnham, including the Leon, Citron, Lazarus, Gafson, Khan and Davis families who lived on Rathfarnham Road.

In typical Dublin wit, some members of the Adelaide Road synagogue, which was regarded as more middle class, referred to the new synagogue opposite the Classic Cinema as the ‘cinema-gogue.’

A Church of Ireland Interfaith Conference visiting Terenure Synagogue on Rathfarnham Road, Dublin

The shul was set on fire on Wednesday 9 February 1966. Several Siffrei Torah were destroyed, and the shul itself was very badly damaged. The Nissen hut that had been turned into a function hall was quickly converted back into a shul, and no Shabbat services were missed.

The newly refurbished synagogue was rededicated on Sunday 26 May 1968. Its features include the striking stained-glass windows on the north and south walls by Stanley Tomlin, who began his career in the Harry Clarke Studios in 1932.

At extraordinary meetings of the Terenure and Adelaide Road congregations in January 1999, the two congregations agreed to merge. It was agreed that the Adelaide Road Synagogue would be sold, and that some of the proceeds of the sale would be used to build a new synagogue complex, including a new mikveh and a community centre, on the grounds at Rathfarnham Road.

From then on, the Terenure Synagogue hosted the members of the former synagogue on Adelaide Road. This arrangements continued until 15 December 2004, when both congregations held simultaneous extraordinary general meetings and agreed to merge as the new Dublin Hebrew Congregation.

The agreed new synagogue was never built, and Terenure Synagogue is the only major Orthodox synagogue in the Republic of Ireland.

Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said the decision to sell the Terenure synagogue is not so much ‘a story of decline’ as one of changing patterns of practice among Jews in Ireland. ‘As with most religions, attendance at services is not as great as it used to be,’ he told Patsy McGarry of The Irish Times in May 2023.

Indeed, despite widespread reports of decline, the Jewish population in Ireland is growing. The 2022 census shows there were 2,193 Jewish people in Ireland, a drop since the figure of 2,557 in 2016. But both figures are higher than the figure of 1,984 in 2011, and other statistics show the Jewish population in Ireland may even be higher.

The Institute for Jewish Population Research, which uses four key definitions to describe the size of the Jewish population in different countries, offers these figures for the Jewish population in Ireland: the ‘core’ Jewish population, 2,700; population with Jewish parents, 3,348; enlarged Jewish population, 3,966; the ‘Law of Return’ Jewish population, 4,644.

Much of the steady increase is attributed to employees of multinational companies working in Ireland. Maurice Cohen said at the time, however, that the upkeep of the Terenure synagogue is ‘very expensive’ and figures for attendance at services ‘have gone down dramatically.’ This is exacerbated as ‘the older generation passes away while younger people were less likely to attend. It is an issue Judaism is debating.’

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 109, Wednesday 27 August 2025

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the rock face in the cliffs above Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X) and then the Summer bank holiday on Monday. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Monica (387), the mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who is commemorated tomorrow (28 August).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading 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.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the ‘King’s Tomb’ has become a symbol of Kaş in southern Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 27-32 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 27 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors.’

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … a damaged sarcophagus by the harbour in Kaş, without any sign or marking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Beatitudes at the beginning of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says eight groups of people are blessed: ‘the poor in spirit … those who mourn … the meek … those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … the merciful … the pure in heart … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness …’ (Matthew 5: 3-10).

Now, as we come close to the end of this Gospel, we have seven groups of people who are condemned as hypocrites and against whom Jesus pronounces seven woes.

In the Gospel reading on Monday (Matthew 23: 13-22), we heard the first three of these seven woes: woe to you who ‘lock people out of the kingdom of heaven’ (13) … who ‘make the new convert twice as much a child of hell’ (15) … and ‘blind guides’ who swear by the ‘gold of the sanctuary’ (16-22).

We then heard two further woes yesterday (Matthew 23: 23-26): for those who tithe mint, dill, and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith; and these who care about the details of domestic purity but neglect the cleanliness of their hearts and inner thoughts.

Now, we hear the final of the seven woes today (Matthew 23: 27-32): a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but who inside are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

A ‘woe’ is an exclamation of grief, similar to what is expressed by the word alas. In pronouncing woes, Jesus is prophesying judgment on the religious leaders of the day for their hypocrisy. He calls them hypocrites, blind guides, snakes and a ‘brood of vipers’.

Before Jesus condemns the hypocrisy of religious leaders, they have been following him to test him and try to trick him with questions about divorce (Matthew 19: 3), his authority (Matthew 21: 23), paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22: 17), the resurrection (Matthew 22: 23), and the greatest commandment of the law (Matthew 22: 36).

Jesus prefaces his seven woes by explaining to the disciples that they should obey the teachings of the religious leaders – as they teach the law of God – but not to emulate their behaviour because they do not practice what they preach (Matthew 23: 3).

In the third grouping of these woes, which we read today, we hear the final of the seven woes: a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23: 27-32).

In the sixth woe, Jesus compares the religious leader of the day to ‘whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth’ (verse 27).

The rotting corpse inside a tomb is like the hypocrisy and lawlessness in the hearts of these particular scribes and Pharisees. They appear righteous on the outside, but they are just beautified tombs, for inwardly they are spiritually dead.

The phrase ‘whited sepulchres’ (‘whitewashed tombs’ in the NRSV translations) is one of those phrases that have found their way into everyday English through the King James Version. The tombs in Jesus’ time were very different. The caves used for tombs were regularly painted or washed white with lime to look clean on the outside, but the inside was very plain, undecorated, just holding the body of the dead person. Behind the attractive exteriors were rotting corpses, as unclean as anything a faithful Jew could imagine.

The setting for this reading is Passover week. It was customary in the preceding month of Adar to renew the whitewashing on tombs in order to mark them clearly so that pious people who were on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover would not accidentally defile themselves by touching a place where dead bodies were buried. Someone who unwittingly stepped on a grave became ritually unclean. Whitewashing made the tombs more visible, especially in the dark.

In other words, whitewashing was not a mark of beauty; it was a warning of uncleanness – of being dead to humanity and dead before God.

This mention of tombs leads Jesus in the seventh woe to comment on the pride the religious leaders of the day take in the tombs built in memory of the prophets and other holy people.

Jesus accuses them of hypocrisy in erecting these monuments and decorate the tombs of the prophets of old. He says the slain prophets had been killed by the ancestors of the religious leaders, Pharisees, who imagined themselves much better than their fathers. He puts words into their mouths, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets’ (verse 30). But in saying things like that, they acknowledge their own background. Jesus says they have inherited their ancestors’ wickedness and are following in their steps.

Is Jesus implying here that while these religious leaders pretended to revere the prophets of old, they are persecuting the prophetic people of their own day?

We have whole groups of such people who are active in the Church today, offering ‘alternative’ leadership. They claim to know Anglicanism better than the Archbishop of Canterbury and deplore the ‘heresies’ of Anglicans who engaged with the Living in Love and Faith process, forming their own, self-selecting elitist groups and afraid of being contaminated not only by the world, but even by other Anglicans, demanding their own, parallel church structures and ministries.

The seven woes in Matthew 23 are dire warnings to the religious leaders of the day. But they also serve to warn us against religious hypocrisy today. We are called to true godliness, sincere love, and enduring faith. Pretension, affectation, and hypocrisy only lead to woe.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … a graveyard in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 27 August 2025):

The theme this week (24 to 30 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is been ‘From Strangers to Neighbours’ (pp 32-33) This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Right Revd Antonio Ablon, Chaplain of Saint Catherine’s Anglican Church, Stuttgart, Germany.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 27 August 2025) invites us to pray:

God of justice, open our hearts and minds to welcome the stranger with love. Inspire leaders to create fair policies that respect the dignity and rights of migrants and refugees.

The Collect:

Faithful God,
who strengthened Monica, the mother of Augustine, with wisdom,
and through her patient endurance encouraged him
to seek after you:
give us the will to persist in prayer
that those who stray from you may be brought to faith
in 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:

Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servant Monica revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like her know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful’ (Matthew 23: 27) … the Lycian rock tombs in the cliff faces above Fethiye in Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

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

Saint Monica in a painting once in Orlagh, the former Augustinian retreat house in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin … Saint Monica is commemorated on 27 August (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A new biographical study of the ‘Rake of Rathfarnham’ reconnects with the Spanish branch of the Comerford family

José Antonio Peña Martínez has published a new biographical study of Philip Wharton (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

A new book is always a pleasant present that brings a smile to my face. It is even more welcome when the book is unexpected and when it is signed by the author. And the pleasures are added to when I find that I am referred to a number of times in the text and that I am fully referenced in the citations and the footnotes.

José Antonio Peña Martínez worked for most of his life in the pharmaceutical, agro-chemistry and food technology sectors in Spain. But since he retired, he has concentrated on historical research, particularly focussed on Aragon and on his home town of Llíria, 25 km north-west of Valencia.

Over the past 20 years or so, he has written and published a series of historical studies and biographies, and his latest book is a study of the infamous ‘Rake of Rathfarnham’, Philip Wharton (1698-1731), who became Duke of Wharton and Earl of Rathfarnham. Wharton inherited the Rathfarnham Castle and neighbouring estates, including Knocklyon and Scholarstown, when his parents died in 1716. His property in England included a large estate at Winchendon near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, about 20 miles south of Stony Stratford, where I now live.

Philip Wharton also inherited his parents’ great influence and wealth, with an estimated income of £14,000 a year. But within less than a decade, while he was still in his early 20s, he had dissipated a heritage that had passed to him from the Loftus family.

Later, Philip Wharton married his second wife, Maria Theresa Comerford, in Madrid in 1726 – just three months after the death of his sadly neglected and abandoned first wife Martha Holmes and after a very public affair with Lady Mary Montagu (1689-1762). Maria Theresa’s mother was Henrietta Comerford, her father was Colonel Henry O’Beirne, an Irish colonel in the Spanish army, and her step-father was Major-General John Comerford (ca1665-1723), of Finlough in Loughkeen, Co Tipperary, of Waterford, and of Madrid.

Despite having converted to Catholicism when he married to Maria Theresa Comerford, Wharton founded a lodge of English Freemasons in Madrid in 1728. He continued his dissolute life, and his health broke down completely in the winter of 1730. He died a destitute in the Cistercian Monastery of Saint Bernard at Poblet, near Tarragona, at the age of 32 on 31 May 1731, and was buried in the church there the next day. At his death, all his titles, apart from that of Baron Wharton, became extinct.

Alexander Pope wrote of him in his first Moral Essay, probably noting Wharton’s death, in 1731:

Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise …

Wharton appointed his widow as his ‘universal heiress’. But there was nothing for the widowed duchess to inherit. Some time after her mother died in Madrid in August 1747, the former Maria Theresa Comerford moved to London, where she subsisted on a small Spanish pension.

She died at her house in Golden Square, Soho, on 13 February 1777, and was buried in Old Saint Pancras churchyard. There were no children to inherit her claims to her husband’s former wealth and titles in Ireland, including the estates and castles he had disposed of at Rathfarnham Castle, Knocklyon Castle and Scholarstown House. The south Dublin estates had been returned to the Loftus family ten years earlier in a legal victory in 1767.

I have long been interested in Philip Wharton and this duchess related to the Comerford family, and I have spoken about them in lectures organised by Rathfarnham Historical Society and Knocklyon History Society about 20 years ago.

In his new biographical study of Philip Wharton, José Antonio Peña Martínez is particularly interested in his role in establishing freemasonry in Spain and in the masonic symbolism on his tomb in Poblet, one of the largest and most complete Cistercian abbeys in the world.

I am hardly equipped to critically engaged with these aspects of Philip Wharton’s life, but I am pleased that substantive portions of the genealogical details take account of my papers 20 years ago in Rathfarnham and Knocklyon and on my biographical details of the former Maria Theresa Comerford on the Comerford Genealogy site.

José Antonio Peña Martínez has been interested in history and historical figures since childhood. His first book, Edeta. Our Iberian Past (2007), was followed by Llíria in the 13th Century (2008); Martin I the Humane, a King without an Heir (2010); The Compromise of Caspe. A Historical Perspective 600 Years Later (2014); Roger de Lauria, a Titan of the Seas (2016); Saint Teresa of Jesus Jornet Ibars. Her Historical Context (2018); Charles of Trastámara and Évreux. The First Prince of Viana (2019); and The Prince Without a Kingdom (2020), and Marie Curie. La cientifica en un mundo de hombres 2022.

His latest book, a new biography, El Misterio del Masón Enterrado en Poblet (The Mystery of the Mason Buried in Poblet), was published this year. Although I am not descended from Philip Wharton or his Comerford duchess, I am related to her Comerford stepfather. That side of the Comerford family continued to be engaged in Spanish politics and life well into the late 19th century.

Perhaps the exotic and eccentric life of her half-brother’s granddaughter, Doña Josefa Eugenia Maria Francisca Comerford MacCrohon de Sales or ‘Josefina’ de Comerford) (1794-1865), who was involved in Spanish political intrigues in the early 19th century. She was given the title of Condesa de Sales and is the one figure in the history of the Comerford family in Spain who stands out as a femme fatale. She might even make a good subject for another biographical study.

My school-level Spanish helped me to read this well-researched and delightfully illustrated book. book. The author José Antonio Peña Martínez thanks me for sharing my research with him. But I have been more than delighted to be in touch again with this Spanish dimension to my family history.