Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 21, Sunday 23 February 2025, the Second Sunday before Lent

February afternoon lights at Cross in Hand Lane, Lichfield … our responsibility for creation is at the heart of the mission of the Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Today is the Second Sunday before Lent (24 February 2025), and Lent begins next week on Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025). This Sunday was known in the past as Sexagesima, one of those odd-sounding Latin names once used in the Book of Common Prayer for the Sundays between Candlemas and Lent: Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima. In many parts of the Church, today is also Creation Sunday.

Later this morning, I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, where I reading when one of the lessons. This is also a weekend of wall-to-wall rugby, and having enjoyed watching Ireland’s Triple Crown victory over Wales and England’s Calcutta defeat of Scotland, yesterday, I hope to find an appropriate place to watch France and Italy playing this afternoon.

Before this day begins, however, 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.

‘He got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake’ (Luke 8: 22) … fishing boats on the Sarawak River in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 8: 22-25 (NRSVA):

22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, 23 and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

‘He woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm’ (Luke 8: 24) … a window in a church in Rush, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

It is very easy to be misunderstood, for someone else to understand our motivations and the reason behind what we do. It is natural, for it is easier to judge than to understand, it is easy to ask questions without waiting for and listening to answers.

And usually answers are not simple and they do not come easily.

So, when it comes to the environment, we all know we as humans are responsible for what is happening. We want someone to do something about carbon emissions – as long as it does not make demands on me that I feel are too demanding.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The workers in factories blame the farmers, the farmers say the people in the towns do not understand their dilemma. Everyone blames the politicians, and Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their acolytes continue to deny the scientific evidence for climate change. Meanwhile, I continue to add to my carbon footprint when I book yet another cheap flight.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The blame sharing that goes on between industry and agriculture ought to be turned around to sharing not just responsibility but developing our vision for a better and brighter future – a better and brighter future that may be a symbol, a sign, a sacrament of what the Kingdom of God is like.

Working together, industry and agriculture, town and country, in sharing our responsibility for the creation and the environment might be a very good way to introduce the partnership that we are supposed to share in – between God and humanity – when it comes to responsibility for the environment and the creation.

God’s creation is good, we are told in the first reading provided in the Lectionary this morning (Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25). This is the second account of the Creation narrative in the Book Genesis.

Forget, for a moment, about the mythological ways of telling stories about creation, and think for a moment about the purpose of telling the story, and what lessons it tries to teach. This story tells us that without God’s gift of rain and without human presence ‘to till the ground,’ there would be no growth in the soil.

This second account of creation therefore presents humanity as co-creators with God, or partners with God in God’s plan for bringing creation to full fruition and growth.

Humanity is given responsibility for creation, but there are limits on the use of creation. We are not to see everything as ours, to do with it what we decide. We are created from the soil of the earth – the Hebrew name adam means ‘from the dust of the ground’ – and we are to cultivate and care for the earth (verse 15). Being God’s partners in the creation brings responsibilities for caring for that creation.

The Psalm provided for today (Psalm 65) is a song of thanks for the Earth’s bounty.

All flesh, all people, all humanity, praise God for the harvest of the earth. He answers prayers and he forgives us our transgressions. The place to thank God for the goodness of creation is in prayer and in worship, for God is ‘the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas’ (verse 5).

This psalm praises him for creation, for the earth and the seas, for soil and the rain, for the pastures and the hills, for the meadows and the valleys.

The Gospel reading (Luke 8: 22-25) introduces a miracle of a very different kind. It shows that Christ is the Lord of Creation, that he has authority over chaos in nature as he calms the stormy seas. He will then go on to calm of a stormy personality, bringing together the calming of the waves and the calming of the mind, showing he is the Lord of Creation and the Lord of humanity, of the cosmos and of human order.

Christ and the disciples have left the crowd behind them (see Luke 8: 19), they get into the boat, and Jesus sends them to the other side of the lake crowd away. The act of sending is at the heart of mission. Mission begins with God so loving the world that he sends his only Son so that we may know that love. And Christ then sends those with him on a journey that is fraught with danger to a strange place where they expect to find disturbing realities and disturbing people.

Sending is the foundation of mission – and the sending of the disciples is a sending on mission, just as our dismissal at the end of the Eucharist marks, not so much the end of the liturgy, but the beginning of mission.

Christ invites the disciples get into the boat and sends them to a strange place. But, instead of finding that the boat or the church empowers them for mission, the disciples treat it as a place to take them away from the crowds and the world. They see it as their own cocoon, their safe territory.

How wrong they are. When the storm comes, when the waves batter them, when the wind rises up against them, they find that we cannot be in the church and be without Christ and without the crowd.

Christ falls asleep on the boat and seems unaware of the peril at sea as they sail towards the other side of the lake.

When Christ shows his power over the stormy reality of creation, he challenges the disciples and asks, ‘Where is your faith?’

They are afraid and amazed. Are they more afraid and amazed when it comes to Christ’s command of the wind and the waves than they are of the wind and the waves themselves?

Their faith has been tested, and it has been found to be weak, in the deep waters it is found to be shallow.

So, Christ is the Lord of Creation, and the mission of the Church is only going to work in harmony when God and humanity work in partnership in creation.

If we do this well, then, the reading from the Book of Revelation (Revelation 4) tells us, the whole of creation is invited into the Kingdom of God.

In his exile on the island of Patmos, Saint John the Divine has an ecstatic vision of the heavenly throne.

Around the throne of God are 24 thrones with 24 elders who are wearing white robes and golden crowns. The number 24 could be read as symbolising a new or perfect creation, doubling the number of disciples, who double the number of the days of creation.

Around the throne too are four living creatures – a lion, an ox, a human person and an eagle – who came later to represent the four evangelists.

God is worshipped by these 24 elders or priests and by these four living creatures or evangelists as the Lord God who has created all things and by whose will all things exist and are created.

Later, as this vision continues, we are told that this is Lamb on the throne (see Revelation 5: 6-8).

In our liturgy and worship, the Church invites the whole of Creation into the Kingdom of God. Indeed, at the heart of the liturgy, our worship, is our concern for the whole of God’s creation.

There are five marks of mission that we agree on in the Anglican Communion. The fifth mark is, ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’

Our co-responsibility for creation is not peripheral to mission, it is at the heart of mission, and underpins it.

At the General Synod of the Church of England some years ago (2019), the Revd Andrew Lightbown expressed concern that the material prepared for a debate on mission and evangelism was ‘a bit thin — I worry that mission and evangelism is reducible to conversion.’

If we reduce mission to evangelism, and miss out on the centrality of the liturgy of the Church and on our responsibility for creation, then the Church misses out on the opportunity to invite all creation, through the Church, into the Kingdom of God.

The Church of the Resurrection, the Anglican church in the centre of Bucharest … the reflections in the USPG prayer this week are introduced by the Revd Dr Nevsky Everett of Bucharest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 23 February 2025, the Second Sunday before Lent):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Grain of Wheat.’ This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by the Revd Dr Nevsky Everett, chaplain of the Church of the Resurrection, Bucharest, Romania, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate:

On 1 March, Romanians celebrate an ancient Spring festival by wearing intertwined red and white threads. The colours are of blood and snow, recalling a legend in which the hero dies fighting to free the captured sun. Where his warm blood dissolved the snow, the first snowdrop appeared. The story’s themes are profoundly Christian, echoing Jesus’ words about life coming out of death in John 12: 24.

This week also marks the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the face of war, it’s hard to believe in the triumph of life over death. On our news screens and in the stories of refugees, we encounter so much suffering and heartache. But Jesus knows the depth of our pain and the cost of the world’s evil. By his death, Jesus brings us the hope of eternal life. That hope doesn’t lessen the grief and tragedy of war, but it points us to a new future where the victory of love is final. In that hope, we can discern the signs of God’s future breaking into our present moment; the radical generosity and hospitality that people have shown to those whose lives are affected by war, the many acts of love and service shown by individuals, institutions and communities.

In our broken and fallen world, we cannot escape our own suffering or the suffering of our neighbours. But Jesus promises us that life will spring from death, like a grain of wheat in the earth.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 23 February 2025, the Second Sunday before Lent) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

‘Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit’ (John 12: 24).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Inside the Church of the Resurrection … the reflections in the USPG prayer this week are introduced by the Revd Dr Nevsky Everett of Bucharest (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

There is a beauty to winter that I did not appreciate in my younger years

A winter’s afternoon at the harbour in Skerries in north Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Dublin for a day yesterday, to collect some books needed for work reasons and to see my GP for a Vitamin B12 injection and for advice for a major travel trip planned in the New Year.

The busy preparations and demands of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany and the extra rounds of school visits and church meetings mean I have spent little time in Dublin in recent weeks.

After yesterday’s working morning in Dublin, two of us decided to take a break and spend the afternoon in Skerries.

The storms and high waves the previous night meant the harbour was quiet and most small boats had been lifted over the previous day or two.

In the rain and with high waters, the harbour looked forbidding, even foreboding, but still very beautiful. There is a beauty to winter weather that I never appreciated when I was much younger.

Darkness was closing in, and we decided against a walk on the beach on such a wet, cold afternoon, and instead went for lunch in the Olive on Strand Street and then crossed to Gerry’s, where the wine shelves are still the most fascinating in any supermarket I know, and to buy some candy canes for a sermon illustration on the Sunday after Christmas.

As we made our way back along the north coast, Loughshinny and Rush were blanketed in a winter darkness that I have learned to appreciate at Christmas-time.

Google Maps warned us to avoid the traffic on the M50. We should have ignored the warning. We ended up on narrow, remote, dark and flooded roads in parts of north and west Dublin that I am sure I have never seen in daylight or sunlight. If Chris Rea is using Google Maps, then I understand why he is still ‘driving home for Christmas.’

Back in Knocklyon, I read a report in The Guardian that while a diet like mine is generally healthy, low in cholesterol and protective of heart disease, people like me must take vitamin B12 supplements or risk a condition that causes permanent numbness in their hands and feet.

The report cited experts who say most people get their vitamin B12 from milk, but the plant-based substitutes do not have high enough levels to protect adults and children from peripheral neuropathy, which is irreversible.

I had been warned about all this over 10 years ago when a battery of tests confirmed both my sarcoidosis and my severe Vitamin B12 deficiency, and I had heard the warnings then of the danger of a serious neuropathy. Other risks include bone fractures as a result of lower bone density.

I was glad I had visited my GP earlier in the day. But the walk around the harbour at Skerries also lifted my spirits before returning to Askeaton today. I may have sarcoidosis and a Vitamin B12 deficiency – but they will never have me.

In Olive on Strand Street, Skerries, for a late afternoon lunch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Summer sun shines on the harbour and the beaches in Skerries

Summer sunshine at the harbour in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

After a busy weekend, and another busy round facing me this week, I took a day off in Dublin today [23 July 2019], and went for a walk on the beaches and along the harbour in Skerries in north Co Dublin.

For many years, while in I was living in Dublin and working in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Skerries was one of my favourite places for a walk on the beach at the weekend, along with Bray, Greystones and Kilcoole in Co Wicklow , Bettystown and Laytown in Co Meath, and Donabate, Portrane, Rush and Loughshinny in north Co Dublin.

It was almost seven months (29 December 2018) since I had been on a walk on the beaches in Skerries, and even that visit came after an absence of two years (December 2016).

There was a strong breeze, but the temperatures were in the high 20s, and there was a holiday atmosphere in Skerries, with families taking shelter on the grassy areas above the sand, children picking their way through the rockpools, teenagers hiring kayaks at the harbour, long queues for ice cream outside ‘Storm in a Teacup,’ and all available space taken or booked in the cafés, bars and restaurants lining the harbour.

The North Beach and summer sunshine at the Harbour in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

On the walk around the headland, there were clear views of the Skerries rocks and the islands, and the Mourne Mountains in the distance, sweeping down to the sea.

I could hardly visit Skerries and not stop in Gerry’s for the newspapers and a bottle of wine – I have long extolled the taste of the wine buyers in Gerry’s.

The pleasure of summer wine during a late lunch in the Olive Café in South Strand Street, Skerries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Later, two of us lingered over lunch and summer wine in the summer sunshine in the garden at the back of the Olive Café on Strand Street.

All around us, people were talking about the election of Boris Johnson in tones that showed they were somewhere between being aghast and disgusted.

But at least the summer sunshine is a promise that life goes on, and it brings too the hope that he may wither away by winter.

We returned through Loughshinny and Rush, with clear views of Lambay Island in the distance, and passed the cricket club at Kenure, recalling with pride how Eoin Morgan embodies so many of the positive gifts Ireland has to offer England.

The sun shines on the beach in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The spirit and the humour that comes with the joys of an afternoon of Cricket

At yesterday’s One Day International between Ireland and England at Malahide (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Summer must be near when I find myself enjoying the best part of a day watching Cricket. I had a ticket for yesterday’s One Day International in Malahide between Ireland and England, and although play was delayed for two hours in the morning, the threatened rain only came in light showers.

Despite Ireland’s defeat by four wickets, it turned out to be a very pleasant way to look forward to the beginning of summer.

I was never one of the ‘jocks’ at school, and I was never very good at any sports I tried to take part in. But I was happy to try, and happy to stand on sidelines, whether it was Soccer, Hurling, Rugby or Cricket.

As a schoolboy, we enjoyed street cricket and beach cricket, and through English boys’ comics I studiously learned the meanings of terms from Googly to Silly Mid On and Silly Mid Off with all the effort a boy needed to become fluent in a new language. Indeed, I still played Cricket with The Irish Times – badly, very badly – when I was in my late 30s.

I’m still a happy supporter of Aston Villa – even happier than expected at the moment, of Leinster Rugby, of the Wexford hurlers, and of Irish Cricket. I also enjoy rowing on the River Deel occasionally, although I had no-one to share my joys with when Cambridge won the boat race last month.

Moving to Askeaton two years ago taught me to take an interest too in the Limerick hurlers, and last year I got to lift both the Liam McCarthy Cup (on two occasions) and the Sam Maguire Cup in West Limerick. But celebrations were not as enthusiastic when it came to Limerick Cricket Club’s run to the 2018 National Cup Final.

Since then, there is a new interest in Cricket in the south-west, and a second Limerick club, Limerick City CC, is taking part in competitions this year. I noticed in the programme yesterday that two Limerick schools – Villers School and CBS Sexton Street – are taking part in Munster schools competitions this year.

It is hard to explain to friends who have little or no interest in Cricket that the game has a much wider appeal than they can imagine. Malahide is at the heart of north Dublin cricket, which spreads from Balrothery and Balbriggan through Skerries, Rush and Donabate to Malahide and Clontarf.

England’s captain Eoin Morgan began playing for the Rush Under-9s at Kenure, was first capped for Ireland at the age of 16. England’s seam pace bowler Tom Curran was born in Cape Town but also qualifies to play for Ireland. Ireland’s Boyd Rankin played for England before returning to Ireland in in 2016.

It is hard too to explain to the fans of other games the good atmosphere at Cricket matches. The Barmy Army was in fine form at Malahide yesterday, although their repertoire was limited to ‘Karma Chameleon,’ a hit for Boy George and Culture Club in 1983, Tony Christie’s ‘Amarillo,’ and one single rendition on a trumpet of ‘In the Bleak Mid-Winter’ – perhaps a reference to the threat of rain throughout the day rather than an act of piety – and a moving and well-choreographed rendition of Jerusalem, the real English national anthem.

Although I often say in jest that I am so tired after busy Sunday mornings I am fit for nothing better on a Sunday afternoon than to sit peacefully through Choral Evensong or to sit watching Cricket, there are, of course, links between piety and Cricket.

When I was working on doctoral research on Irish Anglican missionaries in South Africa, one of the people I came to know as ‘my missionaries’, Canon (William) Patrick ‘Pat’ Glyn McCormick (1877-1940), worked in the Transvaal in 1903-1910. His father, Canon Joseph McCormick (1834-1914), played Cricket for Ireland under the alias of J Bingley, the name of one of the schools he had attended, to disguise his participation from his parishioners in Dunmore East, Co Waterford.

Away from Cricket, McCormick was distinguished in other sports. He rowed in the Cambridge Boat in March 1856, helping to defeat Oxford in 22 minutes 45 seconds.

His son Pat McCormick played for Devon and had one first class match for MCC in 1907, and also played Rugby for Transvaal. He later succeeded Dick Shepherd as Vicar of Saint Martin in the Fields in London, and continued his work among the ‘down and outs.’ Another son, Joseph Gough McCormick (1874-1924) became Dean of Manchester, and also played with distinction for Norfolk 1899 to 1909, scoring four hundreds.

But how do I explain the pleasures of Cricket to those who refuse to understand it?

An amusing and entertaining explanation from the 1970s put it this way:

Cricket: As explained to a foreigner ...

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.

Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.

When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.

Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.

There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.

When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

Seven Last Words (6): ‘It is finished’

Mission must never ignore the centrality of the liturgy and our responsibility for creation

The 24 elders and four evangelists before the Lamb of God on the Throne … the Altar in a church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 24 February 2019,

The Second Sunday before Lent (Sexagesima), The Creation.

11.30 a.m. Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, The Parish Eucharist (Holy Communion 2).

Readings: Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25; Psalm 65; Revelation 4; Luke 8: 22-35.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is very easy to be misunderstood, for someone else to understand our motivations and the reason behind what we do.

It’s natural: it is easier to judge than to understand, it is easy to ask questions without waiting for and listening to answers.

And usually answers are not simple and they do not come easily.

So, when it comes to the environment, we all know we as humans are responsible for what is happening. We want someone to do something about carbon emissions – as long as it does not make demands on me that I feel are too demanding.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The workers in factories blame the farmers, the farmers say the people in the towns do not understand their dilemma. Everyone blames the politicians, but I continue to add to my carbon footprint when I book yet another cheap flight.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The blame sharing that goes on between industry and agriculture ought to be turned around to sharing not just responsibility but developing our vision for a better and brighter future – a better and brighter future that may be a symbol, a sign, a sacrament of what the Kingdom of God is like.

Working together, industry and agriculture, town and country, in sharing our responsibility for the creation and the environment might be a very good way to introduce the partnership that we are supposed to share in – between God and humanity – when it comes to responsibility for the environment and the creation.

God’s creation is good, we are told in our Old Testament reading (Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25). This is the second account of the Creation narrative in the Book Genesis. Forget, for a moment, about the mythological ways of telling stories about creation, and think for a moment about the purpose of telling the story, and what lessons it tries to teach.

This story tells us that without God’s gift of rain and without human presence ‘to till the ground,’ there would be no growth in the soil.

This second account of creation therefore presents humanity as co-creators with God, or partners with God in God’s plan for bringing creation to full fruition and growth.

Humanity is given responsibility for creation, but there are limits on the use of creation. We are not to see everything as ours, to do with it what we decide. We are created from the soil of the earth – the Hebrew name adam means ‘from the dust of the ground’ – and we are to cultivate and care for the earth (verse 15). Being God’s partners in the creation brings responsibilities for caring for that creation.

Our Psalm (Psalm 65) is a song of thanks for the Earth’s bounty.

All flesh, all people, all humanity, praise God for the harvest of the earth. He answers prayers and he forgives us our transgressions. The place to thank God for the goodness of creation is in prayer and in worship, for God is ‘the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas’ (verse 5).

This psalm praises him for creation, for the earth and the seas, for soil and the rain, for the pastures and the hills, for the meadows and the valleys.

The Gospel reading (Luke 8: 22-35) introduces two miracles of very different kinds. One shows that Christ is the Lord of Creation, the other shows he the Lord of humanity. Together they show that he has authority over chaos in nature and chaos in humanity. We see the calming of the stormy seas, and the calming of a stormy personality, the calming of the waves and the calming of the mind.

Christ and the disciples have left the crowd behind them (see Luke 8: 19), they get into the boat, and Jesus sends them to the other side of the lake crowd away. The act of sending is at the heart of mission. Mission begins with God so loving the world that he sends his only Son so that we may know that love. And Christ then sends those with him on a journey that is fraught with danger to a strange place where they expect to find disturbing realities and disturbing people.

Sending is the foundation of mission – and the sending of the disciples is a sending on mission, just as our dismissal at the end of the Eucharist marks, not so much the end of the liturgy, but the beginning of mission.

Christ invites the disciples get into the boat and sends them to a strange place. But, instead of finding that the boat or the church empowers them for mission, the disciples treat it as a place to take them away from the crowds and the world. They see it as their own cocoon, their safe territory.

How wrong they are. When the storm comes, when the waves batter them, when the wind rises up against them, they find that we cannot be in the church and be without Christ and without the crowd.

Christ falls asleep on the boat and seems unaware of the peril at sea as they sail towards the other side of the lake.

When Christ shows his power over the stormy reality of creation, he challenges the disciples and asks, ‘Where is your faith?’

They are afraid and amazed. Are they more afraid and amazed when it comes to Christ’s command of the wind and the waves than they are of the wind and the waves themselves?

Their faith has been tested, and it has been found to be weak, in the deep waters it is found to be shallow.

On the other side of the lake, they arrive in the country of the Gerasenes, east of the Jordan and deep in Gentile territory. The wilderness and the deserts were regarded as places where demons and destructive forces lived, and the abyss was the realm of Satan and home to demons. They seemed to be parts of creation beyond God’s attention and without human tilling.

The man they meet is not like Adam and Eve in our first reading, who are unaware of being naked. This man is aware of his desperate, naked plight in a wilderness place. Yet, he falls down before Christ in an act of humility and worship.

This man recognises Christ for whom he is, ‘Son of the Most High God’ (verse 28), unlike the disciples in the earlier part of this reading, who have just asked, ‘Who then is this …?’ (verse 25)

When the people come to see Christ, this man is now sitting at his feet, like a disciple sits at the feet of a teacher or master. Like the disciples in the boat in the first miracle in this reading, they too are afraid.

Later, after this reading, we are told that this man becomes a missionary to his fellow Gentiles (verse 39). This is a dramatic story with dramatic consequences, and this man is about to tell people ‘throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him’ (verse 39).

So, Christ is the Lord of Creation, and the mission of the Church is only going to work in harmony when God and humanity work in partnership in creation.

If we do this well, then, the Book of Revelation tells us, the whole of creation is invited into the Kingdom of God.

In his exile on the island of Patmos, Saint John the Divine has an ecstatic vision of the heavenly throne.

Around the throne of God are 24 thrones with 24 elders who are wearing white robes and golden crowns. The number 24 could be read as symbolising a new or perfect creation, doubling the number of disciples, who double the number of the days of creation.

Around the throne too are four living creatures – a lion, an ox, a human person and an eagle – who came later to represent the four evangelists.

God is worshipped by these 24 elders or priests and by these four living creatures or evangelists as the Lord God who has created all things and by whose will all things exist and are created.

Later, as this vision continues, we are told that this is Lamb on the throne (see Revelation 5: 6-8).

In our liturgy and worship, the Church invites the whole of Creation into the Kingdom of God. Indeed, at the heart of the liturgy, our worship, is our concern for the whole of God’s creation.

There are five marks of mission that we agree on in the Anglican Communion. The fifth mark is, ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’

Our co-responsibility for creation is not peripheral to mission, it is at the heart of mission, and underpins it.

At the General Synod of the Church of England last week, the Revd Andrew Lightbown expressed concern that the material prepared for a debate on mission and evangelism was ‘a bit thin — I worry that mission and evangelism is reducible to conversion.’

If we reduce mission to evangelism, and miss out on the centrality of the liturgy of the Church and on our responsibility for creation, then the Church misses out on the opportunity to invite all creation, through the Church, into the Kingdom of God.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sunset at the Rectory in Askeaton last night … our responsibility for creation is at the heart of the mission of the Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 8: 22-35 (NRSVA):

22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, 23 and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’ – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

‘He got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake’ (Luke 8: 22) … fishing boats in the harbour in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
Teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit
reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift the tree of life was set at the heart
of the earthly paradise,
and the Bread of life at the heart of your Church.
May we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s Cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘He woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm’ (Luke 8: 24) … window in a church in Rush, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

58, Morning has broken (CD 4)
612, Eternal Father, strong to save (CD 35)
346, Angel voices, ever singing (CD 21)

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

‘The integrity of creation and … the life of the earth’ are not marginal to mission

Sunset at the Rectory in Askeaton last night … our responsibility for creation is at the heart of the mission of the Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 24 February 2019,

The Second Sunday before Lent (Sexagesima), The Creation.

9.30 a.m. Castletown Church, Kilcornan, Morning Prayer;

Readings: Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25; Psalm 65; Revelation 4; Luke 8: 22-35.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is very easy to be misunderstood, for someone else to understand our motivations and the reason behind what we do.

It’s natural: it is easier to judge than to understand, it is easy to ask questions without waiting for and listening to answers.

And usually answers are not simple and they do not come easily.

So, when it comes to the environment, we all know we as humans are responsible for what is happening. We want someone to do something about carbon emissions – as long as it does not make demands on me that I feel are too demanding.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The workers in factories blame the farmers, the farmers say the people in the towns do not understand their dilemma. Everyone blames the politicians, but I continue to add to my carbon footprint when I book yet another cheap flight.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The blame sharing that goes on between industry and agriculture ought to be turned around to sharing not just responsibility but developing our vision for a better and brighter future – a better and brighter future that may be a symbol, a sign, a sacrament of what the Kingdom of God is like.

Working together, industry and agriculture, town and country, in sharing our responsibility for the creation and the environment might be a very good way to introduce the partnership that we are supposed to share in – between God and humanity – when it comes to responsibility for the environment and the creation.

God’s creation is good, we are told in our Old Testament reading (Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25). This is the second account of the Creation narrative in the Book Genesis. Forget, for a moment, about the mythological ways of telling stories about creation, and think for a moment about the purpose of telling the story, and what lessons it tries to teach.

This story tells us that without God’s gift of rain and without human presence ‘to till the ground,’ there would be no growth in the soil.

This second account of creation therefore presents humanity as co-creators with God, or partners with God in God’s plan for bringing creation to full fruition and growth.

Humanity is given responsibility for creation, but there are limits on the use of creation. We are not to see everything as ours, to do with it what we decide. We are created from the soil of the earth – the Hebrew name adam means ‘from the dust of the ground’ – and we are to cultivate and care for the earth (verse 15). Being God’s partners in the creation brings responsibilities for caring for that creation.

Our Psalm (Psalm 65) is a song of thanks for the Earth’s bounty.

All flesh, all people, all humanity, praise God for the harvest of the earth. He answers prayers and he forgives us our transgressions. The place to thank God for the goodness of creation is in prayer and in worship, for God is ‘the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas’ (verse 5).

This psalm praises him for creation, for the earth and the seas, for soil and the rain, for the pastures and the hills, for the meadows and the valleys.

The Gospel reading (Luke 8: 22-35) introduces two miracles of very different kinds. One shows that Christ is the Lord of Creation, the other shows he the Lord of humanity. Together they show that he has authority over chaos in nature and chaos in humanity. We see the calming of the stormy seas, and the calming of a stormy personality, the calming of the waves and the calming of the mind.

Christ and the disciples have left the crowd behind them (see Luke 8: 19), they get into the boat, and Jesus sends them to the other side of the lake crowd away. The act of sending is at the heart of mission. Mission begins with God so loving the world that he sends his only Son so that we may know that love. And Christ then sends those with him on a journey that is fraught with danger to a strange place where they expect to find disturbing realities and disturbing people.

Sending is the foundation of mission – and the sending of the disciples is a sending on mission, just as our dismissal at the end of the Eucharist marks, not so much the end of the liturgy, but the beginning of mission.

Christ invites the disciples get into the boat and sends them to a strange place. But, instead of finding that the boat or the church empowers them for mission, the disciples treat it as a place to take them away from the crowds and the world. They see it as their own cocoon, their safe territory.

How wrong they are. When the storm comes, when the waves batter them, when the wind rises up against them, they find that we cannot be in the church and be without Christ and without the crowd.

Christ falls asleep on the boat and seems unaware of the peril at sea as they sail towards the other side of the lake.

When Christ shows his power over the stormy reality of creation, he challenges the disciples and asks, ‘Where is your faith?’

They are afraid and amazed. Are they more afraid and amazed when it comes to Christ’s command of the wind and the waves than they are of the wind and the waves themselves?

Their faith has been tested, and it has been found to be weak, in the deep waters it is found to be shallow.

On the other side of the lake, they arrive in the country of the Gerasenes, east of the Jordan and deep in Gentile territory. The wilderness and the deserts were regarded as places where demons and destructive forces lived, and the abyss was the realm of Satan and home to demons. They seemed to be parts of creation beyond God’s attention and without human tilling.

The man they meet is not like Adam and Eve in our first reading, who are unaware of being naked. This man is aware of his desperate, naked plight in a wilderness place. Yet, he falls down before Christ in an act of humility and worship.

This man recognises Christ for whom he is, ‘Son of the Most High God’ (verse 28), unlike the disciples in the earlier part of this reading, who have just asked, ‘Who then is this …?’ (verse 25)

When the people come to see Christ, this man is now sitting at his feet, like a disciple sits at the feet of a teacher or master. Like the disciples in the boat in the first miracle in this reading, they too are afraid.

Later, after this reading, we are told that this man becomes a missionary to his fellow Gentiles (verse 39). This is a dramatic story with dramatic consequences, and this man is about to tell people ‘throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him’ (verse 39).

So, Christ is the Lord of Creation, and the mission of the Church is only going to work in harmony when God and humanity work in partnership in creation.

If we do this well, then, the Book of Revelation tells us, the whole of creation is invited into the Kingdom of God.

In his exile on the island of Patmos, Saint John the Divine has an ecstatic vision of the heavenly throne.

Around the throne of God are 24 thrones with 24 elders who are wearing white robes and golden crowns. The number 24 could be read as symbolising a new or perfect creation, doubling the number of disciples, who double the number of the days of creation.

Around the throne too are four living creatures – a lion, an ox, a human person and an eagle – who came later to represent the four evangelists.

God is worshipped by these 24 elders or priests and by these four living creatures or evangelists as the Lord God who has created all things and by whose will all things exist and are created.

Later, as this vision continues, we are told that this is Lamb on the throne (see Revelation 5: 6-8).

In our liturgy and worship, the Church invites the whole of Creation into the Kingdom of God. Indeed, at the heart of the liturgy, our worship, is our concern for the whole of God’s creation.

There are five marks of mission that we agree on in the Anglican Communion. The fifth mark is, ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’

Our co-responsibility for creation is not peripheral to mission, it is at the heart of mission, and underpins it.

At the General Synod of the Church of England last week, the Revd Andrew Lightbown expressed concern that the material prepared for a debate on mission and evangelism was ‘a bit thin — I worry that mission and evangelism is reducible to conversion.’

If we reduce mission to evangelism, and miss out on the centrality of the liturgy of the Church and on our responsibility for creation, then the Church misses out on the opportunity to invite all creation, through the Church, into the Kingdom of God.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘He got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake’ (Luke 8: 22) … fishing boats in the harbour in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 8: 22-35 (NRSVA):

22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, 23 and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’ – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

The 24 elders and four evangelists before the Lamb of God on the Throne … the Altar in a church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
Teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit
reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever.

‘He woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm’ (Luke 8: 24) … a window in a church in Rush, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

58, Morning has broken (CD 4)
612, Eternal Father, strong to save (CD 35)
346, Angel voices, ever singing (CD 21)

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 unique building on Dame Street, Dublin, has links with some important churches

No 31 Dame Street was built in 1868-1870 as new premises for the Caledonian Fire and Life Insurance Company (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Some of the unique churches designed by the architect and artist James Edward Rogers (1838-1896) are celebrating their 150th anniversary this year. They include Saint Mary’s Church, Howth, consecrated by the Archbishop of Dublin on 3 July 1866, and Kenure Church in Rush, Co Dublin, consecrated on 4 December 1866.

Saint Mary’s Church, Howth, was built between 1864 and 1866 as a new church to replace a church built 200 years ago in 1816. The tower in the north-west corner is the only part of older church building that was retained. The new church, built to accommodate 450 people, has a five-bay nave with north and south aisles, and a private door for Lord Howth at the east end of the south aisle. Building work started late in 1864. The contractor was Walter Doolin, and the church, which was built at a cost of £2,600, was consecrated on 3 July 1866.

Kenure Church and the nearby Rectory in Rush, Co Dublin, were built for Sir Roger Palmer (1832-1910) of Kenure Park and his estate workers and the church was consecrated on 4 December 1866. Rogers also designed the stained glass in the west window in memory of Mary Ellen Peel, executed by James Powell & Sons.

Rogers was also the architect of Holmpatrick Parish Church in Skerries, Co Dublin, which was consecrated on 2 September 1868. The limestone for the building came from the Milverton quarries, near Skerries, and once again the contractor was Walter Doolin.

Other churches designed by Rogers include Kilfergus Parish Church, Glin, Co Limerick (1865-1870), which was built in the grounds of Glin Castle incorporating the west tower of the old church; Saint Patrick’s Church (1868-1870), Kilcock, Co Kildare, built in the 13th century Gothic style in 1868-1870, and consecrated on 17 March 1870; Kilkeedy Church, Clarina, Co Limerick (post 1868); and Saint Columba's Church, Omagh, Co Tyrone (1871). Rogers was also the architect of Saint Bartholomew’s Vicarage (1872-1873) and the parochial hall in Ballsbridge.

Kenure Church was designed by Rogers and celebrated its 150th anniversary on 4 December 2016 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

While they were working on these churches, Rogers and Doolin also worked together on building No 31 Dame Street. This architectural gem is often ignored because of the surrounding ugly and tacky modern buildings on Dame Street, but it is a charming part of the decorative heritage of this street even though is all too easy to pass it by and to ignore it. Yet this is a building I have come to appreciate in recent years because of its proximity to Christ Church Cathedral.

No 31 Dame Street was built in 1868-1870 as new premises for the Caledonian Fire and Life Insurance Company. It is a two-bay Ruskin-style Gothic building with Romanesque elements, strongly influenced by Ruskin's architectural principles.

No 31 was built at a cost of £6,000, and once again Walter Doolin was the builder.

The architect and artist James Edward Rogers was born in Dublin in 1838 and went to school in England at Guildford Grammar School before matriculating at Trinity College Dublin in 1855. He then became a pupil of Sir Thomas Newenham Deane’s partner, Benjamin Woodward, while Woodward was working on the Oxford Museum.

Rogers visited the site at Oxford on more than one occasion, and is mentioned as the companion of two leading Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. At the time, they were decorating Woodward’s debating hall at the Oxford Union with scenes from Arthurian legends, and the three went ‘hunting in the parish churches on Sunday evenings to find a Guinevere.’

When Woodward was dying from tuberculosis, he spent the winter of 1859 in Madeira. Rogers went to meet him in Algiers or the South of France in the early spring of 1860. He was later described by his lifelong friend, Sir John Pentland Mahaffy (1839-1919), as ‘Woodward’s favourite pupil.’

After Woodward’s death in May 1861, Rogers remained for only a short period with the Deanes. He graduated BA from TCD in 1861 and may have set up his own architectural practice in 1862. By 1863, he was working from his father’s home at 20 Upper Mount Street.

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (FRIAI) in 1864, and by then he was working from an office at 205 Great Brunswick Street. His first important commission was the Carmichael School of Medicine in North Brunswick Street, Dublin, in 1864.

From 1865, he was living in Cambridge Road, Rathmines, and he was the architect to the Diocese of Meath until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869. By 1870, Rogers had moved to 179 Great Brunswick Street, where his friend James Franklin Fuller and William Stirling also had their offices. Most of his recorded work was in connection with the Church of Ireland, and at this time he designed or worked on churches in Dublin and the west of Ireland.

It was during this period that Rogers designed No 31 Dame Street, as well as his churches in Howth, Kenure, Holmpatrick, Glin and Kilcock, as well as the new Vicarage on Clyde Road for Saint Bartholomew’s Church.

But Rogers’s abiding interests were drawing and painting in watercolours rather than architecture. He exhibited at the Exhibition of Fine and Ornamental Arts in Dublin in 1861 and at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1870 on. He was elected an associate of the RHA on 4 December 1871.

He published two picture books of nursery rhymes, Ridicula Rediviva (1869) and Mores Ridiculi (1871). He also provided illustrations for the second edition of The Fairy Book (Macmillan, 1870), and for Present Pastimes of Merrie England (Cassell, 1873).

Rogers was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1874, proposed by James Franklin Fuller, James Joseph McCarthy and Thomas Newenham Deane. But Rogers resigned as FRIAI in October 1874 and moved to London in 1876. He does not appear to have practised as an architect there, and he resigned his fellowship of the RIBA in 1877. However, he continued to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Hibernian Academy until he died. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy (1881, 1882 and 1884), at the Irish Exhibition in London (1888), and at exhibitions of the Dublin Sketching Club and the Dublin Art Club.

Many of his paintings are of subjects in Holland and Germany. In 1889, Rogers and his friend, the Revd John Pentland Mahaffy, future Provost of TCD, published Sketches from a tour through Holland and Germany. In 1891, he also illustrated Troubadour-Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc (1891) by the historian and hymn-writer, the Revd Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924), who is best remembered for hymns such as ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ and ‘Now the Day Is Over.’

Rogers lived at 35 Fitzroy Road, Regent’s Park, from 1894 until he died in London on 18 February 1896.

No 31 Dame Street was designed by the architect and artist James Edward Rogers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The builder of No 31 Dame Street and of many of the churches designed by Rogers was Builder, of Dublin, was Walter Doolin (1819-1900). Walter Doolin was a son of the Dublin carpenter and builder, Walter Doolin of Westland Row.

By 1842, the younger Walter Doolin was working in the family business, and was described by his father as having ‘all the life and fun and amusement of his mother,’ as well as being very clever at business, ‘able to make out an estimate of any work, ever so extensive or difficult.’

When Walter Doolin senior died, in 1842 or 1843, his business passed to his sons, William and Walter Doolin. The brothers ran the firm in partnership from 22 and 23 Westland Row until 1857 or later, but by 1863 Walter Doolin was running the business alone.

In 1857, while the Doolin brothers were still in partnership, the firm was engaged to build additions designed by the English architect George Goldie to the Vincentian Church in Phibsborough, Dublin. This contract became the subject of protracted litigation in 1868, when the builders sued Father Dixon for the balance of payment they claimed they were due to them. The case lasted for more than six months, was finally settled by arbitration.

For some time, Walter Doolin also owned the Ballinasloe lime quarries in Co Galway. He had retired for some years when he died at the age of 81 in September 1900 at his home, The Bungalow, Saint Mary’s Road, Dublin.

Walter Doolin was the builder of No 31 Dame Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In pursuit of an afternoon espresso and some summer sun by the sea

Balcarrick Beach in Donabate in the summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Summer has arrive. Or so half of the north-side Dublin seems to think.

The temperatures in Dublin soared to 20 and a little above in the early afternoon. I had been in Christ Church Cathedral from early morning, preaching at the Cathedral Eucharist. As I stood outside the south porch door as the canon-in-residence for this week, greeting and welcoming visitors, the curious and the regular members of the congregation, I already felt that the sun was going to break through and that this was going to be a warm, bright and sunny Sunday.

After coffee in the crypt, two of us emerged from the darkness below the cathedral into the sunshine.

Initially, we had thought of having lunch in the city centre, and after yesterday’s busy day by the banks of the Shannon, we thought of snatching a few lazy hours in the back garden, sipping cold white wine.

But this sunny Sunday afternoon seemed like an opportunity that was too good to be missed.

And, to our chagrin, so did most Dubliners, it now appears.

We were now looking forward to lunch at the Olive on Strand Street in Skerries, before a walk along the beach in the sunshine, followed, perhaps, by ice creams drizzled with double espressos at Storm in a Teacup on the pier, before another walk around the harbour.

Little did we realise how are plans had been frustrated even before we got to Skerries.

We managed to get into Skerries but soon realised that every street and laneway was being closed off for a cycling race. Every parking space had been taken or was blocked off. As we drove around in circles, we thought we could be circling for hours. Would we ever get out? Certainly there was no prospect of lunch, and even less prospect of those by-now badly-needed double espressos.

Eventually, we found a gap near Holmpatrick Church, and headed south along the coast road. Although Loughshinny is beautiful, sunshine or no sunshine, there is nowhere for lunch, and certainly nowhere for double espressos.

We parked outside the Thatch on Main Street in Rush, but found to our disappointment that it is closed. There was a paper promise in the window that it is going to reopen soon under new management. But obviously not this afternoon, and certainly not in time for much-needed coffee.

Down at the harbour, there was no available parking wither. Not only were we not going to have lunch in Rush, but we were not going to have a walk on the beach there either.

Ardgillan Castle in Balbriggan? Or Donabate?

We eventually settled on Donabate. We stopped at Mrs Jones Farm Kitchen, at Ballymadrough, about 4 km from Donabate, close to Exit 4 on the M1. There the espressos are good, the panini are generous, and the sunshine made us feel exceptionally lazy as we lunched outdoors.

We finally stirred ourselves, and headed east towards Donabate. Once again, the roads were clogged with traffic, not because of any cycle race, but simply because so many people had realised that was the best and sunniest afternoon we have had so far this year, and this was a day to be beside the sea.

The queues for ice creams outside the shops in the village made me wonder whether more heat was being generated than would be sated by consuming the final purchases.

At first glance, the beach at Balcarrick seemed crowded this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Eventually, we found one of the few available parking spaces in new car park beside the Waterside Hotel, and walked down to the beach at Balcarrick.

The beach was crowded with families, adults, children, babies and dogs. The tide was out, the golden sand was firm beneath our feet, the sea and the skies were blue, and some children were brave enough to make their way into the water.

As we walked further south along the beach, towards the Malahide Estuary, the numbers of people began to thin out. If there had been some well-managed sunbeds, a few quiet beach bars, and someone walking up and down selling donuts and beer, this could have been a scene in the Mediterranean.

Certainly, it was a glorious afternoon to be by the sea, and all our efforts were worth it.

We returned home by another way … and there was still enough sunshine left in the early evening to enjoy that glass of cold white wine.

The beach at Balcarrick became less-and-less crowded the further south I walked along the shoreline (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)