COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day, which we celebrated on Thursday (29 May 2025), until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday tomorrow week (8 June 2025).
The Church Calendar today celebrated the Feast of the Visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth.
I am back in Stony Stratford this morning after a day of tests in the John Radcliffe Hospital, with a Myocardial Perfusion Imaging Test in the Nuclear Cardiology Test in connection with my sarcoidosis, two long, three-stage bus journeys, a 24-hour period without coffee or chocolate, and all compensated for by Choral Evensong in Pusey House, followed by a sociable recpetion afterwards on the lawns in evening sunshine.
The Stony Live Festival begins today, and I am looking forward to a number of events in Stony Stratford throughout the day, including an promising programme of street music, dancing and entertainment. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 1: 39-49 [50–56] (NRSVA):
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
46 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
[50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
56 And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.]
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflection:
The church today recalls the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, as Saint Luke’s Gospel records
The celebration of the feast first occurred at a Franciscan Order General Chapter in 1263 but quickly spread throughout Europe. Since it is a celebration clearly described in the Gospel, the churches of the Reformation were less inclined to proscribe it than they were other Marian feasts, particularly as it was the occasion for the Virgin Mary to sing her great hymn of praise in honour of her Lord and God.
Just as Saint Luke sees Saint John the Baptist as the last of the prophets of the old covenant, he uses Saint John’s leaping in Saint Elizabeth’s womb as the first time Saint John bears witness to Christ as the promised Messiah. In this way, he links the old covenant with the new. He seems to be saying that just as the old covenant clearly points to Jesus, so does its last prophet, yet to be born.
Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
The words of the canticle Magnificat carved on the wooden screen at the west end of the monastic church in Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 31 May 2025, the Visitation):
We celebrated the Feast of the Ascension on Thursday (29 May 2025) and it has provided the theme for this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections from Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 31 May 2025, the Visitation) invites us to pray:
Lord, as Mary brought the gift of your Son into the world, help us to welcome Christ with the same openness and humility. May we, like Elizabeth, recognise your presence in those around us, and may our hearts be filled with gratitude and awe at the wonders you perform.
The Collect:
Mighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour on your lowly servants
that, with Mary, we may magnify your holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Gracious God,
who gave joy to Elizabeth and Mary
as they recognized the signs of redemption
at work within them:
help us, who have shared in the joy of this eucharist,
to know the Lord deep within us
and his love shining out in our lives,
that the world may rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Easter VII:
O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in the final days of the Season of Advent, today is the Winter Solstice (21 December), tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV, 22 December 2024) and Christmas Day is now just a few days away.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 1: 39-45 (NRSVA):
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflection:
In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 1: 39-45), we continue a series of readings before Christmas that draw on the two nativity narratives found in Matthew 1: 1-24 and Luke 1: 5-79.
During the week before Christmas, the great canticle Magnificat at Evensong traditionally has a refrain or antiphon attached to it proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament. Each name develops into a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.
O Sapientia, or O Wisdom, is the first of these days, and was marked on Tuesday (17 December). It was followed on Wednesday (18 December) by O Adonai, by O Root of Jesse on Thursday (19 December), O Key of David yesterday (20 December), and O Dayspring today (21 December), followed by O King of the Nations tomorrow (22 December), and, finally on 23 December, O Emmanuel.
In the old Sarum rite, these were sung one day earlier, beginning on 16 December, requiring another ascription for 23 December, this being O Virgin of Virgins. Since this was clearly apposite to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and not a ‘title’ of God, it was not adopted much beyond Sarum and, with the revision of the Calendar, Anglicans have adopted the more widely-used formulæ and dating.
The seven majestic Messianic titles for Christ are based on Biblical prophecies, and they help the Church to recall the variety of the ills of humanity before the coming of the Redeemer as each antiphon in turn pleads with mounting impatience for Christ to save his people.
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 1: 39-45), tells the story of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elzabeth, a feast we usually celebrate six or seven months before Christmas, on 31 May 2023.
Just as Saint Luke sees Saint John the Baptist as the last of the prophets of the old covenant, he uses Saint John’s leaping in Saint Elizabeth’s womb as the first time Saint John bears witness to Christ as the promised Messiah. In this way, he links the old covenant with the new. He seems to be saying that just as the old covenant clearly points to Jesus, so does its last prophet, yet to be born.
Immediately after the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary leaves Nazareth and travels south to an unnamed ‘Judean town in the hill country,’ perhaps Hebron outside Jerusalem, to visit Elizabeth. When she arrives, although he is still in his mother’s womb, Saint John the Baptist is aware of the presence of Christ, and the unborn child leaps for joy.
Saint Elizabeth too recognises that Christ is present, and declares to Mary with a loud cry: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy’ (Luke 1: 42-44).
The Virgin Mary responds to Saint Elizabeth immediately with the words that we now know as the canticle Magnificat, which we hear in tomorrow’s readings.
So we see, side-by-side, two women, one seemingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the age that is passing away; and the other woman, seemingly too young to have a child, but about to give birth to him who is the beginning of the age that is not going to pass away.
The Virgin Mary of the canticle Magnificat and of the Visitation is a strong and revolutionary woman, unlike the Virgin Mary of the plaster-cast statues and the Rosary.
The Mary I see as a role model for belief and discipleship is the Mary who sets off in a hurry and a flurry to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the Mary with a gob on her who speaks out of turn when she comes out with those wonderful words we hear in this Gospel reading, the Mary who sings the Canticle Magnificat.
What a contrasting pair these two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, are!
How much they speak to so many of the dilemmas we have in life today!
Elizabeth is the older woman. She has been married for years. Because of social and family pressures, she had started to become embarrassed that after all those years of marriage she has not become pregnant.
In those days, even in many places to this day, this was an embarrassing social stigma. She had no son to inherit her husband’s lands, his family position, the place of Zechariah as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem.
She reminds us too of Sarah, who is so embarrassed at the thought of becoming pregnant in her old age that she laughs in the face of the three visitors, she laughs in the face of the living Triune God.
Today, a woman who became pregnant at her stage in life might not laugh. She might quake with fear. She might ask for amniocentesis or an amniotic fluid test.
And yet Elizabeth takes control of her situation. She turns a predicament into an opportunity, a crisis of a pregnancy so late in life into a blessing for us all.
She is so filled with joy when Mary arrives that as soon as she hears the knock on the door, as soon as she hears the sound of Mary on her doorstep, her joy is infectious, so infectious that even the child in her womb – the child who would grow up to be Saint John the Baptist – leaps with joy in her womb.
Elizabeth’s action is radical. Life is tough enough for her. Her husband has been struck dumb. A dumb priest was unlikely to be able to continue to earn a liturgical living in the Temple in Jerusalem. How was she now going to provide for her child when he was born?
But Elizabeth’s actions are more radical than that.
How many women of her age, and her respectable background, would have been so quick to rush out and welcome her much younger, single and pregnant cousin?
How many women would have been worried: ‘What if she stays here and has the child here? Would we ever live with the shame?’
How many women might have suggested instead that Mary goes off and finds a home where they can find someone else to take care of her child when he is born?
Instead, Elizabeth welcomes Mary with open arms. Elizabeth’s joyful greeting, ‘Blessed are you among women …,’ echoes the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel (see Luke 1: 28), ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’
It is almost as if Elizabeth is saying: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’
Which is precisely what God is saying in the Incarnation, in the precious gift of the Christmas Child: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’
The Visitation depicted in a window in Saint Ailbe’s Church, Emly, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 21 December 2024):
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), has been ‘Joy – Advent’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Sonja Hunter, Priest at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Samoa, Diocese of Polynesia.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 21 December 2024) invites us to pray:
Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus. As we near Christmas, fill every home and church with thankfulness and worship.
The Collect:
O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Advent IV:
God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
‘And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond … In the Tower of Song’ (Leonard Cohen) … angels in a window by Ninian Comper in the south porch in Saint Mary’s Church, Bletchley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
We are in the final stages of countdown to Christmas, with just four days to go to Christmas Day. The last week of Advent began on Sunday with the Third Sunday of Advent or Gaudete Sunday (17 December 2023), and this is a very short Advent this year.
Before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer, reflection and reading this morning.
Throughout Advent this year, my reading and reflection each day includes a poem or song by Leonard Cohen. These Advent reflections are following this pattern:
1, A reflection on a poem or song by Leonard Cohen;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
‘I’m just paying my rent every day / In the Tower of Song’ (Leonard Cohen) … the Shard at London Bridge at night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen: 19, ‘Tower of Song’:
‘Tower of Song’ by Leonard Cohen is the keynote work on his 1988 album I’m Your Man. In a readers’ poll in 2014, Rolling Stone listed it as the eighth favourite Cohen song.
The origins of ‘Tower of Song’ are described in Ira Nadel's Cohen memoir Various Positions (1996). Cohen wanted to ‘make a definitive statement about the heroic enterprise of the craft’ of songwriting. In the early 1980s, he called the work ‘Raise My Voice in Song.’ His concern was with the ageing songwriter, and the ‘necessity to transcend one’s own failure by manifesting as the singer, as the songwriter.’
Cohen had abandoned the song, but then one night in Montreal he finished the lyrics, called an engineer and recorded it in one take with a toy synthesiser.
Cohen later revised the song, which contains the self-deprecating claim,
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice.
Cohen was constantly aware of his reputation as a ‘flat singer’ among critics. But his audiences responded with warmth and humour when he sang or spoke these lines in his concerts.
Cohen admired for Hank Williams, a songwriter he refers to in the song, describing how, when they are both dead and have passed to the their eternal reward, Hank Williams is ‘coughing all night long … a hundred floors above me.’
The lyrics also hint at Cohen’s social conscience, and his engagement with the Jewish mystical concept of tikkum olam or divine justice:
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgement coming
In this song, he also expresses his religious hopes for eternal life, not just for himself but also for these he loves and has loved in the past:
I see you standing on the other side
I don’t know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We’ll never, we'll never have to lose it again
Now I bid you farewell, I don’t know when I’ll be back
They’re moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone
I’ll be speaking to you sweetly from a window
In the Tower of Song
Cohen recited the lyrics of Tower of Song’ in full when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
‘Tower of Song’ has been covered by many artists, notably on the tribute albums I’m Your Fan, with separate covers by Robert Forster and by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and on Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, with separate covers by Martha Wainwright and U2.
The song appears on Marianne Faithfull’s album Vagabond Ways and on Tom Jones’s album Spirit in the Room. Shaar Hashomayim Choir, Willie Nelson, Céline Dion, Peter Gabriel and Chris Martin performed the song at the concert Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen, in Montreal in 2017.
Tower of Song: The Songs of Leonard Cohen is a tribute album to Leonard Cohen, released in on A&M Records in 1995. It takes its name from this song by Cohen on his album I’m Your Man. Oddly, though, the song ‘Tower of Song’ does not actually appear on this tribute album.
The tribute album Tower of Song included Elton John, Sting with the Chieftains, Billy Joel, Peter Gabriel and Bono of U2. The album was the initiative of by Cohen’s manager, Kelley Lynch, who, a decade later, was found liable for fraud, having drained almost all of Cohen’s life savings.
‘I don’t know how the river got so wide … And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed’ (Leonard Cohen) … London Bridge and the River Thames at night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Leonard Cohen, Tower of Song:
Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
In the Tower of Song
I said to Hank Williams, ‘How lonely does it get?’
Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
Oh, a hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here
In the Tower of Song
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all
I’m standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don’t let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song
Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song
[Bridge]
I see you standing on the other side
I don’t know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We’ll never, we’ll never have to lose it again
Now I bid you farewell, I don’t know when I’ll be back
They’re moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone
I’ll be speaking to you sweetly from a window
In the Tower of Song
Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
In the Tower of Song.
‘Mary set out and … she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth’ (Luke 1: 39-40) … the Visitation in the triptych in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 1: 39-45 (NRSVA):
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
The Presentation depicted in a window in Saint Mary the Great Church, Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 21 December 2023):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Joy of Advent.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (21 December 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
We ask you God to heal us, restore our relationships, and finish Your good work in us. Mend this broken world so joy can be felt by all nations.
The Collect:
O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The Fifty days of Easter season came to an end on Sunday with the Day of Pentecost (28 May 2023), or Whit Sunday, and Ordinary Time resumed on Monday (29 May 2023).
Today is the Feast of the Visitation (31 May 2023). Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection. In this first week in Ordinary Time, between the Day of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday (4 June 2023), I am reflecting each morning in these ways:
1, Looking at an image or stained glass window in a church or cathedral I know depicting Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, or the Feast of the Day;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The church today recalls the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, as Saint Luke’s gospel records.
The celebration of the feast first occurred at a Franciscan Order General Chapter in 1263 but quickly spread throughout Europe. Since it is a celebration clearly described in the Gospel, the churches of the Reformation were less inclined to proscribe it than they were other Marian feasts, particularly as it was the occasion for the Virgin Mary to sing her great hymn of praise in honour of her Lord and God.
Just as Saint Luke sees Saint John the Baptist as the last of the prophets of the old covenant, he uses Saint John’s leaping in Saint Elizabeth’s womb as the first time Saint John bears witness to Christ as the promised Messiah. In this way, he links the old covenant with the new. He seems to be saying that just as the old covenant clearly points to Jesus, so does its last prophet, yet to be born.
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 1: 39-56 (NRSVA):
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
46 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
56 And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.
The words of the canticle Magnificat carved on the wooden screen at the west end of the monastic church in Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s prayer:
The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘Pentecost.’ USPG’s Chaplain, the Revd Jessie Anand, introduced this theme on Sunday, reflecting on Pentecost and languages.
The USPG Prayer invites us to pray this morning (Wednesday 31 May 2023):
Let us pray for those who are unable to communicate through speech. May we be attentive to their ways of communicating and find paths to inclusion and community building.
Collect:
Mighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour on your lowly servants
that, with Mary, we may magnify your holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion:
Gracious God,
who gave joy to Elizabeth and Mary
as they recognized the signs of redemption
at work within them:
help us, who have shared in the joy of this Eucharist,
to know the Lord deep within us
and his love shining out in our lives,
that the world may rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45) … a panel from the 19th century Oberammergau altarpiece in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in the last week of Advent, and just a few days away from Christmas Day.
The traditional counting of the ‘O Antiphons’ began on Saturday (17 December) with ‘O Sapientia.’ For eight days before Christmas, the canticle Magnificat at Evensong has a refrain or antiphon proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament.
Each name develops into a prophecy of the forthcoming and eagerly-anticipated Messiah, Jesus, the Son of God. O Sapientia, or ‘O Wisdom’, was followed on Sunday by ‘O Adonai’, then O Radix Jesse (‘O Root of Jesse’) on Monday, followed by O Clavis David (‘O Key of David’) yesterday, O Oriens (‘O Dayspring’) today (21 December), then ‘O King of the Nations’ tomorrow and, finally, on 23 December ‘O Emmanuel’.
Before today gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.
During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:
1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;
2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 1: 39-45 (NRSVA):
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Great Saint Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:
As we read the story of Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea, just outside Jerusalem, pray for all women expecting children. Remember those who have found it hard to conceive and the sadnesses and disappointments they have experienced; pray for single mothers, and those, at whatever stage of pregnancy, who are full of wonder, hope, anxiety, or concern. Pray that the world will be a good home for all new-borns.
Collect:
God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion:
Heavenly Father,
who chose the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of the promised saviour:
fill us your servants with your grace,
that in all things we may embrace your holy wil l
and with her rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Eternal God,
as Mary waited for the birth of your Son,
so we wait for his coming in glory;
bring us through the birth pangs of this present age
to see, with her, our great salvation
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
USPG Prayer Diary:
The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘International Migrants Day.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection on International Migrants Day by Bishop Antonio Ablon, Coordinator of the Filipino Chaplaincy in Europe, part of the Philippine Independent Church.
The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:
Let us pray for churches, charities and NGOs who work with migrants. May we be generous in our giving to support their work and advocacy.
‘The Visitation’ in a stained-glass window in Saint John’s Church, Pallaskenry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen
This Advent has been a time of waiting, a time of preparation, a time of anticipation. For the past three Sundays, in our time of waiting, preparation and anticipation, we have been preparing ourselves in the liturgy and the music, with carol services and quiet days, with the Christmas Market and Santa’s grotto, with the Advent Wreath and the Crib.
The four candles on the Advent wreath have reminded us, week-after-week, of those who prepared us in the past for the Coming of the Christ Child: first the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, our ancestors in faith, including Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob; then the prophets of the Old Testament, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah, who we heard from this morning; then, last week it was Saint John the Baptist.
This Sunday, the fourth and final candle reminds us of the Virgin Mary. This connects with the Canticle Magnificat, which we heard instead of a Psalm, and our Gospel reading, telling the story of her visit to her cousin Saint Elizabeth.
The Canticle Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55) is normally heard during Evening Prayer and not on Sunday mornings.
The great German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), in an Advent sermon in London almost 90 years ago (17 December 1933), said Magnificat ‘is the oldest Advent hymn,’ and he spoke of how she knows better than anyone else what it means to wait for Christ’s coming:
‘In her own body she is experiencing the wonderful ways of God with humankind: that God does not arrange matters to suit our opinions and views, does not follow the path that humans would like to prescribe. God’s path is free and original beyond all our ability to understand or to prove.’
The Gospel reading (Luke 1: 39-55), also tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s visit to her cousin, Saint Elizabeth.
When she visits, they are both pregnant – one with the Christ Child, the other with Saint John the Baptist.
Immediately after the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary leaves Nazareth and travels south to an unnamed ‘Judean town in the hill country,’ perhaps Hebron outside Jerusalem, to visit Elizabeth. When she arrives, although he is still in his mother’s womb, Saint John the Baptist is aware of the presence of Christ, and the unborn child leaps for joy.
Saint Elizabeth too recognises that Christ is present, and declares to Mary with a loud cry: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy’ (Luke 1: 42-44).
The Virgin Mary responds to Saint Elizabeth immediately with the words that we now know as the canticle Magnificat.
So we see, side-by-side, two women, one seemingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the age that is passing away; and the other woman, seemingly too young to have a child, but about to give birth to him who is the beginning of the age that is not going to pass away.
The Virgin Mary of the canticle Magnificat and of the Visitation is a strong and revolutionary woman, unlike the Virgin Mary of the plaster-cast statues and the Rosary.
The Mary I see as a role model for belief and discipleship is the Mary who sets off in a hurry and a flurry to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the Mary with a gob on her who speaks out of turn when she comes out with those wonderful words we hear in this Gospel reading, the Mary who sings the Canticle Magnificat.
What a contrasting pair these two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, are!
How much they speak to so many of the dilemmas we have in Irish society today!
Elizabeth is the older woman. She has been married for years. Because of social and family pressures, she had started to become embarrassed that after all those years of marriage she has not become pregnant.
In those days, even in many places to this day, this was an embarrassing social stigma. She had no son to inherit her husband’s lands, his family position, the place of Zechariah as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem.
She reminds us too of Sarah, who is so embarrassed at the thought of becoming pregnant in her old age that she laughs in the face of the three visitors, she laughs in the face of the living Triune God.
Today, a woman who became pregnant at her stage in life might not laugh. She might quake with fear. She might ask for amniocentesis or an amniotic fluid test.
And yet Elizabeth takes control of her situation. She turns a predicament into an opportunity, a crisis of a pregnancy so late in life into a blessing for us all.
She is so filled with joy when Mary arrives that as soon as she hears the knock on the door, as soon as she hears the sound of Mary on her doorstep, her joy is infectious, so infectious that even the child in her womb – the child who would grow up to be Saint John the Baptist – leaps with joy in her womb.
Elizabeth’s action is radical. Life is tough enough for her. Her husband has been struck dumb. A dumb priest was unlikely to be able to continue to earn a liturgical living in the Temple in Jerusalem. How was she now going to provide for her child when he was born?
But Elizabeth’s actions are more radical than that.
How many women of her age, and her respectable background, would have been so quick to rush out and welcome her much younger, single and pregnant cousin?
How many women would have been worried: ‘What if she stays here and has the child here? Would we ever live with the shame?’
How many women might have suggested instead that Mary goes off and finds a home where they can find someone else to take care of her child when he is born?
Instead, Elizabeth welcomes Mary with open arms. Elizabeth’s joyful greeting, ‘Blessed are you among women …,’ echoes the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel (see Luke 1: 28), ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’
It is almost as if Elizabeth is saying: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’
Which is precisely what God is saying in the Incarnation, in the precious gift of the Christmas Child: ‘It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t matter how other people are going to judge you. I love you.’
Mary for her part is such a wonderful, feisty person. She is, what might be described in the red-top tabloid newspapers today as ‘a gymslip Mum.’ But, instead of hiding herself away from her family, from her cousins, from the woman in her family who is married to a priest, she rushes off to her immediately, to share her good news with her.
And she challenges so many of our prejudices and our values and our presumptions today. Not just about gymslip mums and unexpected or unplanned pregnancies, but about what the silent and the marginalised have to say about our values in society today.
And Mary declares:
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
It is almost like this is the programme or the agenda we can expect when the Christ Child is born.
And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
The words of the canticle Magnificat carved on the wooden screen at the west end of the monastic church in Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Luke 1: 39-45 (46-55) (NRSVA):
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
[46 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’]
‘The Visitation’, by James B Janknegt
Liturgical colour: Violet (Purple), Advent Year C.
Penitential Kyries:
Turn to us again, O God our Saviour,
and let your anger cease from us.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Show us your mercy, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Your salvation is near for those that fear you,
that glory may dwell in our land.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
The Collect:
God our redeemer,
who prepared the blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
Grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Advent Collect:
Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Introduction to the Peace:
In the tender mercy of our God,
the dayspring from on high shall break upon us,
to give light to those who dwell in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1: 78, 79)
Preface:
Salvation is your gift
through the coming of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and by him you will make all things new
when he returns in glory to judge the world:
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
you have given us a pledge of eternal redemption.
Grant that we may always eagerly celebrate
the saving mystery of the incarnation of your Son.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blessing:
Christ the sun of righteousness shine upon you,
gladden your hearts
and scatter the darkness from before you:
The Advent Wreath:
The Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) offers this prayer for lighting the Fourth (Purple) candle on the Advent Wreath:
Lord Jesus, your mother Mary
carried you with tender determination
on the dangerous road to Bethlehem.
May the same flame of love
that drove her on, now bring
courage and hope
to all who carry and nurture children today.
Hymns:
158, God rest you merry, gentlemen (CD 9) Canticle:Magnificat, Luke 1: 46-55 as Hymn 712 (CD 40) 174, O little town of Bethlehem (CD 11) 198, The first Nowell the angel did say (CD 12)
The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin is the largest parish church in Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
During the Seasons of Lent and Easter this year, I took some time each morning to reflect in these ways:
1, photographs of a church or place of worship that has been significant in my spiritual life;
2, the day’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).
Sunday was the Day of Pentecost (23 May 2021), and I am continuing with photographs for the rest of this week from six churches in the ‘Major Churches Network,’ churches once known as the ‘Greater Churches’ in England.
The Major Churches Network was founded in 1991 as the Greater Churches Network. It is a group of Church of England parish churches with exceptional significance, that are physically very large, listed as Grade I, II* or exceptionally II, open to visitors daily, have a role or roles beyond those of a typical parish church, and make considerable civic, cultural, and economic contributions to their community.
These churches are often former monastic properties that became parish churches after the English Reformation, or civic parish churches built at a time of great wealth.
Inside Saint Mary’s … its size reflects the wealth of Saffron Walden at the height of the saffron trade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
This morning (26 May 2021), my photographs are from the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Saffron Walden, the largest parish church in Essex. I have visited this church at times on my way to or from USPG conferences in High Leigh, Hoddesdon (see this prayer diary 17 May 2021), and while I have been staying in Cambridge.
Although Saffron Walden is halfway between Stansted Airport (22 km) and Cambridge (24 km), I imagine the town has few Irish visitors or tourists.
This is truly a pretty, picture-postcard, chocolate-box-cover English market town. The town centre is a conservation area with colourful timber-framed and gabled town houses and cottages dating back to the 15th century, with dozens of Grade I, Grade II and 27 Grade II* listed buildings. There are traditional pubs, antique shops, a market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, a ruined castle, a unique turf maze, and a parish church as large as many an English cathedral.
The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin replaced an earlier building and was built in the perpendicular style between 1470 and 1525. It is 56 metres long, and the spire, at 59 metres, is the tallest church spire in Essex.
The size of Saint Mary’s reflects the wealth of the town at the height of the saffron trade. The church has impressive Gothic arches, decorative wooden ceilings, nine mediaeval brasses and impressive stained-glass windows.
The latter stages of rebuilding in 1450-1525 were supervised by John Wastell, the master mason who was then building King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. The spire was added in 1832 to replace an older lantern tower.
The former Conservative politician, ‘RAB’ Butler (1902-1982), who was MP for Saffron Walden (1929-1965), is buried in the churchyard.
The high altar, reredos and sanctuary in Saint Mary’s Church, seen through the rood screen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 10: 32-45 (NRSVA):
32 They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; 34 they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’
35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ 36 And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ 37 And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ 38 But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 39 They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’
41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
The Presentation depicted in a stained-glass window in Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:
The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (26 May 2021, Saint Augustine of Canterbury) invites us to pray:
Let us give thanks for the life and work of St Augustine. Bless the work of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and all of the Bishops across the Anglican Communion.
The Presentation window in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Candlemas, comes 40 days after Christmas, and marks the end of the Christmas season.
This morning’s Gospel story (Luke 2: 22-40) recalls how the Virgin Mary presents the Christ-Child to the priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. And, because of the poverty of this family, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph bring two cheap doves or pigeons as their offering.
This is the last great festival of the Christmas cycle. As we bring our Christmas celebrations to a close, this day is a real pivotal point in the Christian year, for we now shift from the cradle to the cross, from Christmas to Passiontide – Ash Wednesday and Lent are just two weeks away.
Candlemas bridges the gap between Christmas and Lent. It links the joy of the Christmas candles with the hope of the Pascal candle at Easter. It invites us to move from celebration to reflection and preparation, and to think about the source of our hope, our inspiration, our enlightenment.
We have the contrast between the poverty of this family and the richly-endowed Temple; the young Joseph and Mary with their first-born child and the old Simeon and Anna who are probably childless; the provincial home in Nazareth and the urbane sophistication of Jerusalem; the glory of one nation, Israel, and light for all nations, the Gentiles; the birth of a child and the expectation of death; darkness and light; new birth and impending death.
So, Candlemas is a feast day with a ‘bitter-sweet’ nature. It calls for rejoicing with all in the Temple celebrating the hope and the promise that this new child brings. Yet Simeon speaks in prophetic words of the falling and rising of many and the sword that will pierce the Virgin Mary’s heart. His words remind us sharply that Christmas is meaningless without the Passion and Easter.
After two decades of the darkness of recession and austerity, the economists were trying to look for the light at the end of the tunnel only to find the country in economic paralysis for the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
For many of us, we moved long ago from a time of financial certainty that allowed us to celebrate easily to a time of reflection and uncertainty. Now the double-edged sword of ‘Brexit’ and Covid-19 leave the majority of people with new sets of anxieties and uncertainties.
The lights of Christmas and its celebrations, if they were ever turned on, are dim and distant now. By this Candlemas most people in Ireland continue to live their very ordinary days with uncertainty, trying to grasp for signs of hope, wondering how long we must remain in the dark.
How Mary must have wept in her heart as in today’s Gospel story the old man Simeon hands back her child and warns her that a sword would pierce her heart (Luke 2: 35).
How many mothers are weeping in their hearts and clinging onto the rock of faith just by the end of their fingertips as their hearts, their souls, are pierced by a sword?
Mothers who were forced to give up their babies in the so-called Mother-and-Baby homes and who have been distressed by the recent report and media reports and discussions?
Mothers who see their special needs children denied special needs assistants in our schools?
Mothers who see their children waiting, waiting too long, for care in our hospitals or to move from the uncertainty of hotel rooms or hostels to a house and a home?
Mothers who saw their graduate daughters and sons unable to find employment and have still not returned home?
Mothers whose silent weeping is not going to bring home their adult emigrant children and the grandchildren born in Australia or the US?
Mothers whose gay sons and lesbian daughters are beaten up on the streets just for the fun of it and are afraid if they come out that our Church can only offer tea and sympathy, at best, but moralising prejudice most of the time?
Mothers whose husbands are on low pay, on PUP or dismissed as mere statistics in the figures for poverty?
Mothers whose adult children are caught up in substance abuse and have lost all hope for the future – for a future?
Mothers and grandmothers who have not been able to hug their children and grandchildren for months because of the pandemic lockdown?
These mothers know what TS Eliot calls ‘the certain hour of maternal sorrow.’ Like the Prophet in his poem A Song for Simeon, they ‘Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.’ And they know too how true Simeon’s words are for them this morning: ‘and a sword will pierce your soul too.’
And in the midst of all this heartbreak, these mothers still cling on to the edge of the rock of faith by the edges of their fingernails. Wondering who hears their sobbing hearts and souls.
So often it is difficult to hold on to hope when our hearts are breaking and are pierced. So often it is difficult to keep the lights of our hearts burning brightly when everything is gloomy and getting dark. But Simeon points out that the Christ Child does not hold out any selfish hope for any one individual or one family ... he is to be a light to the nations, to all of humanity.
And, as our leaders – political, social, economic and financial leaders – search in the dark for the hope that will bring light back into our lives, we can remind ourselves that this search will have no purpose and it will offer no glimmer of hope unless it seeks more than selfish profit. This search must seek the good of all, it must seek to bring hope and light to all, not just here, but to all people and to all nations.
And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
The Presentation depicted in a stained glass window in the Church of Saint Martin of Tours, Culmullen, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 2: 22-40 (NRSVA):
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’
33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed — and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.
The Presentation depicted in a stained-glass window in the Church of SS Peter and Paul, Kilmallock, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Liturgical Colour: White.
Bidding Prayer:
The traditional Bidding Prayer for Candlemas:
Dear friends, forty days ago we celebrated the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we recall the day on which he was presented in the Temple, when he was offered to the Father and shown to his people.
As a sign of his coming among us, his mother was purified according to the custom of the time, and we now come to him for cleansing. In their old age Simeon and Anna recognised him as their Lord, as we today sing of his glory.
In this Eucharist, we celebrate both the joy of his coming and his searching judgement, looking back to the day of his birth and forward to the coming days of his passion.
So let us pray that we may know and share the light of Christ.
Penitential Kyries:
Lord God, mighty God,
you are the creator of the world.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary,
you are the Prince of Peace.
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Holy Spirit,
by your power the Word was made flesh
and came to dwell among us.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty and everliving God,
clothed in majesty,
whose beloved Son was this day presented in the temple
in the substance of our mortal nature:
May we be presented to you with pure and clean hearts,
by your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Introduction to the Peace:
In the tender mercy of our God
the dayspring from on high has broken upon us,
to give light to those who dwell in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. (cf Luke 1: 78, 79)
(Common Worship, p. 306)
Preface:
And now we give you thanks
because, by appearing in the Temple,
he comes near to us in judgement;
the Word made flesh searches the hearts of all your people,
to bring to light the brightness of your splendour:
(Common Worship, p. 306)
Post Communion Prayer:
God, for whom we wait,
you fulfilled the hopes of Simeon and Anna,
who lived to welcome the Messiah.
Complete in us your perfect will,
that in Christ we may see your salvation,
for he is Lord for ever and ever.
Blessing:
Christ the Son of God, born of Mary,
fill you with his grace
to trust his promises and obey his will:
The Presentation depicted in a stained glass window in the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Intercessions:
In peace let us pray to the Lord.
By the mystery of the Word made flesh Good Lord, deliver us.
By the birth in time of the timeless Son of God Good Lord, deliver us.
By the baptism of the Son of God in the river Jordan Good Lord, deliver us.
For the kingdoms of this world,
that they may become the Kingdom of our Lord and Christ We pray to you, O Lord.
For your holy, catholic and apostolic Church,
that it may be one We pray to you, O Lord.
For the witness of your faithful people,
that they may be lights in the world We pray to you, O Lord.
For the poor, the persecuted, the sick and all who suffer;
that they may be relieved and protected We pray to you, O Lord.
For the aged, for refugees and all in danger,
that they may be strengthened and defended We pray to you, O Lord.
For those who walk in darkness and in the shadow of death,
that they may come to your eternal light We pray to you, O Lord.
Father, source of light and life,
Grant the prayers of your faithful people,
and fill the world with your glory, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Presentation depicted in a window in Peterborough Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Hymns:
691, Faithful vigil ended (CD 39) 203, When candles are lighted on Candlemas day (CD 13)
A detail from the Presentation Window by the Harry Clarke Studio in Saint Flannan's Church, Killaloe, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
