Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 120, Sunday 7 September 2025, Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) … Christ takes up his Cross, Station 2 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 7 September 2025).

We are spending the weekend visiting family and friends in York, and later this morning I hope to attend the Parish Eucharist in Saint Olave’s Church on Marygate in the city centre. I am disappointed to miss the parish fete at All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this afternoon (2 pm to 4 pm). But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) …the reredos by Sir Ninian Comper above the altar in the south aisle in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 14: 25-33 (NRSVA):

25 Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace, and reminds us of the ‘Cost of Discipleship’

Today’s reflection:

In the various editions of the NRSV translations of the Bible, the heading or sub-heading for the passage that is today’s Gospel reading (Luke 14: 25-33) is ‘The Cost of Discipleship’.

The Cost of Discipleship is the title of one of the best-known books by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed on 9 April 1945 in a German concentration camp before even reaching the age of 40, and just weeks before the end of World War II 80 years ago.

This youthful pastor was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, and he is widely regarded as a modern saint and martyr. His statue by the sculptor Tim Crawley above the West Door of Westminster Abbey places him among the 10 martyrs of the 20th century.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on 4 February 1906 in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau), now in Poland, and grew up in a comfortable professional German home, where his family was nominally Lutheran. When he was 13, he decided to study for ordination.

He studied at the University of Berlin, at the age of 18 visited Rome, and studied at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1930-1931).

Following the rise of the Nazis in 1933, Bonhoeffer saw Nazism as a counter-religion and a danger to Christianity. In October 1933, he became the pastor of two German-speaking parishes in the London area, and began his friendship with Bishop George Bell of Chichester.

On his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer ran the seminary of the Confessing Church at Finkenwalde, which was shut down by the police in 1937. He went to New York in 1939 but chose to return to Germany, aware of the cost of discipleship that lay before him and fearing a Nazi victory would destroy Christian civilisation. For Bonhoeffer, true discipleship now demanded political resistance against the criminal state.

He was arrested in March 1943 and survived as a prisoner until he was executed on 9 April 1945, only a few days before the end of World War II.

For my generation, Bonhoeffer was one of the most influential theologians on our reading lists. We drew endlessly on such books as The Cost of Discipleship, as well as No Rusty Swords and Ethics. We bandied around phrases such as ‘religionless Christianity’ and the ‘man for others,’ perhaps without fully grasping their meaning and implications.

We were quick to dismiss any church activity we deemed unfashionable as purveying ‘cheap grace.’ And we saw Bonhoeffer as a role model for our resistance to racism and apartheid, nuclear weapons and modern warfare, and even the very political and economic foundations of society.

Like all great theologians, like all great thinkers, philosophers and writers who are now dead, it was easy to quote him and to use him for our own ends: he could hardly answer back and say ‘I have been misunderstood’, ‘you have misquoted me’ or ‘you have quoted me out of context.’

Bonhoeffer has been claimed in recent years, on the one hand, by so-called ‘conservative evangelicals,’ who are happy with his theological method but unwilling to take his radical discipleship to the point of challenging social and corporate sin in our society; and, on the other hand, by radical reformers who would tear down all our received wisdom and traditions in their vain attempts to construct their own brand of ‘religionless Christianity.’

Unhappily, in recent years, theological rigour has gone out of fashion in many centres of learning. Where once students were happy to explore how faith could find understanding, many have slipped into the cold comfort of position-taking, relying on their own protestations of faith instead of warming to the challenge of new thinking and exploration. Theologians are no longer great names; even among the general public today, people are less likely to take their questions about faith and belief from the theological giants of the last century, such as Bultmann, Barth and Bonhoeffer, and more likely to be detracted by the silly, peripheral questions about truth and religion raised by Dan Browne in his Da Vinci Code, on the one hand, or Richard Dawkins in his The God Delusion on the other.

So, almost 80 years after his death, we might ask reflect today on who Bonhoeffer was, and why his writings and thoughts continue to have relevance for us in our society today.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had the potential to become a great musician or poet and playwright. Instead, he studied theology in Tubingen, Rome and Berlin, travelled through Rome and North Africa, and later spent time in Barcelona, New York, Cuba, Mexico and London, giving him an experience of the world church that would make a leading contributor to the foundation of the modern ecumenical movement.

He was still in his 20s when Hitler came to power. In a radio address two days after Hitler assumed office in 1933, Bonhoeffer warned against the idolatry of the ‘Fuhrer’ principle. He went on to become involved in the Pastors’ Emergency League, was closely associated with those who signed the Barmen Declaration, helped to form the Confessing Church, and, outside Germany, became a close friend of the saintly Anglican bishop, George Bell.

The Barmen Declaration declared that the Church must not be allowed to become an instrument of political ideology, and rejected ‘the false doctrine that the Church should acknowledge, as the source of its message over and above God’s word, any other events, powers, figures and truths as divine revelation.’

Bonhoeffer paid the price for speaking out. His licence to teach was withdrawn, he was dismissed from his university, and eventually the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde was closed. However, at Finkenwalde, he produced his two best-known books, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) and Life Together (1939).

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer argues that cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the Church. The sacraments and forgiveness are thrown away at cut price. We offer grace without price and grace without cost, instead of offering costly grace, which calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

When synagogues throughout Germany were set on fire in 1938, Bonhoeffer told the Church: ‘Only those who cry out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chant.’ In his Bible, he underlined two passages in the Psalms that read: ‘They are burning the houses of God in the land,’ and, ‘No prophet speaks any longer.’ He marked the date in his Bible and wrote later: ‘The church was silent when she should have cried out.’

When World War II broke out, he became involved in the resistance, making contacts in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. And yet he found time to write his book Ethics. His contacts with George Bell failed to stop Britain’s policy of obliteration bombing and demanding ‘unconditional surrender.’ The German opposition was left without hope, and a disappointed Bell wrote his hymn ‘Christ is the King’:

Let Love’s unconquerable might
God’s people everywhere unite
In service to the Lord of Light. Alleluia.

In prison, Bonhoeffer worked on his Letters and Papers from Prison and wrote: ‘What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed, who Christ really is, for us today … We are moving to a completely religionless time … if therefore man becomes radically religionless – and I think that is already more or less the case … what does that mean for Christianity? How can Christ become Lord of the religionless as well?’

The final chapter of his last, unfinished book begins: ‘The Church is only her true self when she exists for humanity … She must take her part in the social life of the world, not lording it over men, but helping and serving them. She must tell men, whatever their calling, what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.’

He was hanged at Flossenburg at dawn on 9 April 1945. An oft-quoted line from The Cost of Discipleship foreshadowed his death: ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’ His last recorded words as he was led to the scaffold were a message for George Bell: ‘Tell him that for me this is the end, but also the beginning.’

It was not the end, it was only the beginning. By the 1950s and the 1960s, he was the theologians’ theologian, and his influence was immeasurable. More recently he was ‘canonised’ by having his statue placed on the west front of Westminster Abbey. In recent years, he has been the subject of a new made-for-television movie in America. But what is his relevance today?

‘Bonhoeffer is one of the great examples of moral courage in the face of conflict,’ says Martin Doblmeier, director of Bonhoeffer, a recent 90-minute film. ‘Many of the issues Bonhoeffer faced – the role of the church in the modern world, national loyalty and personal conscience, what the call to being a ‘peacemaker’ really means – are issues we continue to struggle with today.’

1 Firstly, Bonhoeffer reminds us that faith assumptions and presumptions are no substitute in the seminary and the theological college for intellectual rigour and questioning. Indeed, he shows us that this is a more effective way of building faith than by trying to impose our individual views on others, and impose them judgmentally.

2 Secondly, in this post-modern world, Bonhoeffer continues to challenge us when we find new ways to make our Christian faith subject to, and relevant to, the overarching fashionable political and social ideologies of our day. Is the ‘Fuhrer principle’ reflected in the calls and slogans at Trump’s rallies or in the campaigns of far-right leaders rising across Central Europe today? How often have the different brands of Christianity been called on in recent decades to justify the nation-state as it embarked on disastrous wars of pride, one after another, whether it was the Falklands War, or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or indeed whether it was Catholic Croats or Orthodox Serbs indulging in ethnic cleansing to create nation states with a single religious identity.

3 Thirdly, Bonhoeffer’s story of the Church remaining silent when it should have spoken out as the synagogues were burned down in 1938 is a challenge to us today. Once again synagogues and mosques too are being attacked and burned down, this time in the US, and being daubed and attacked across Europe. The stranger is not being welcomed, the refugee is being turned back, many of our new immigrants are the victims of pernicious racism, migrants are left isolated and in cramped, dehumanising conditions. The Cross, in this case the Cross of Saint George, has become a weapon in the hands of bigots and hate-mongers. Civilians – including children, the elderly, hospital patients and staff, journalists – are being slaughtered in Gaza. Hostages are still being held by Hamas almost two years after they were abducted. Are we speaking out, speaking out now, before our silence becomes complicity in something even worse?

4 Fourthly, in his concern with growing secularisation, a concern so well articulated in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer tells us we need to face up to the growing secularisation of society and of humanity. If he could see in the 1940s our need to speak about God in a secular way, how much more pressing is that need today? We are so obsessed with maintaining not so much our Church structures but our Church pomp and sense of self-importance, leaving us unable to reach out to a secular world with a ‘religionless Christianity.’ We often use Christianity as a garment to cloak and protect us and to ringfence our prejudices about others and their sexuality, class, ethnicity and background, rather than asking, like Christ, what they need and accepting Christ’s charge to go out into the world. How can we find the language that enables us to speak in a secular way about God, and how can we live up to our missionary charge in the world today by being able to present to postmodern humanity Jesus who is ‘the man for others’?

5 Fifth and finally, how as a Church can we resist the temptation to continue dispensing cheap grace? So often, success in the Church is measured by how well we fill the pews, and whether we send people out happy and clapping. But sometimes prophetic voices can be isolated and left speaking to empty pews. A congregation that goes out into the world feeling uncomfortable but challenged may be better prepared to take the light of Christ into the world of darkness. Dispensing cheap grace should never be the task of the truly prophetic priest.

It is not easy to rejoice in these challenges. But we can accept them as blessings, and must give thanks for prophetic life and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyr priest and prophet, who challenged us to consider ‘the Cost of Discipleship’.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer questioned the proper role of a Christian in the midst of political turmoil … ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die’

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 7 September 2025, Trinity XII):

The theme this week (7 to 13 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Cementing a Legacy’ (pp 36-37). This theme is introduced today with reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG:

How can one person’s legacy spark lasting change?

A remarkable act of generosity and hard work is bearing fruit in the Diocese of South West Tanganyika, part of the Anglican Church of Tanzania. This ambitious project has culminated in a brand new housing and retail complex which has roots that stretch back decades – to the life and legacy of Ms Eira Lloyd.

Ms Lloyd served as a missionary and teacher in Tanzania for 35 years, between the 1940s and 1980s. She dedicated her life to the Anglican Church of Tanzania, working closely with Mothers’ Union. Tanzania became her home and her love for her community endured beyond her lifetime. When she passed away, she left a legacy gift to the diocese, enabling this project to take shape in her memory.

The diocese, recognising the potential of her gift, fundraised to acquire land and developed a detailed plan with support from USPG. Thanks to funding from Trinity Church Wall Street and local efforts, the vision became a reality. The rental income from the 12 hostel rooms and retail space will support the diocese’s educational work and care for orphans, women, and young people in the region.

‘It takes a lot of planning and hard work to get to this point. It proves what tremendous fruit can come from the small seed of faithful service,’ reflected The Revd Canon Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary USPG, drawing on the wonderful legacy of Ms Eira Lloyd.

Inspired? Visit uspg.org.uk to find out more about leaving a legacy.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 7 September 2025, Trinity XII) invites us to read and meditate on Luke 14: 25-33.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of all mercy,
in this eucharist you have set aside our sins
and given us your healing:
grant that we who are made whole in Christ
may bring that healing to this broken world,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (seventh from left) among the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (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

Patrick Comerford’s sermon in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on 5 February 2006, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was published in ‘A Year of Sermons at Saint Patrick’s, Dublin’ (pp 19-22)

‘Under an oak, in stormy weather, I joined this rogue and whore together’: Jonathan Swift’s wedding in Lichfield

Comberford Hall glimpsed from the train between Tamworth and Lichfield on a foggy morning yesterday … where was the oak tree near Lichfield where Dean Jonathan Swift conducted a wedding? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

When I travel on the train between Tamworth and Lichfield, I take familial pleasure in stretching my neck to catch a swift glance of Comberford Hall, in the rich rolling green Staffordshire countryside, surrounding by mature, spreading trees.

I wondered as passed Comberford Hall on a foggy morning yesterday about a curious account by Dean Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) of a visit to Lichfield almost 300 years ago, when he recalls a clandestine wedding he conducted while he was sheltering from the rain beneath the branches of a spreading tree.

Local lore now associates the story with the name of Shire Oak, near Walsall. But I sometimes wonder whether Swift might instead have conducted that hasty wedding near Lichfield, beneath a spreading oak tree between Tamworth and Lichfield.

Or, as he was travelling on from Lichfield to Chester, could Swift’s wedding have taken place beneath one of the spreading trees along Cross in Hand, on the north-west fringes of Lichfield, once the opening stage of the ancient pilgrim route between Lichfield and Chester, a journey of 142 km (88 miles)?

The last oak of Shire Oak remembered in the pub signs at the Shire Oak, on the corner of Lichfield Street and Chester Street, near Walsall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Jonathan Swift never married, despite persistent speculation about whether he secretly married Esther Johnson (‘Stella’) in 1716. He also had an interesting relationship with Esther Vanhomrigh (‘Vanessa’), but they never married either, and she died in 1723.

Three years later, in March 1726, the Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral travelled from Dublin to London to deliver the manuscript of Gulliver’s Travels to his publisher, Benjamin Motte. Motte recognised a best-seller but also realised this was an anti-Whig satire and risked prosecution. Swift may have had the manuscript copied so his handwriting could not be used as evidence in any prosecution.

Motte grudgingly gave Swift only £200, and cut, edited or altered many passages and added other material. He used five printing houses to speed production and to avoid piracy, and the first edition of Gulliver’s Travels was published in two volumes on 28 October 1726. By then Swift was back in Dublin. On the return journey, he travelled on foot or on horse from London back to Chester.

Swift later recounted how he stopped near Lichfield on that return journey and sought shelter from what he described as ‘a summer tempest’ under a large oak by the road. I imagine a Swift looking diminutive beneath the Lichfield oak, like Gulliver in Brobdingnag, the land of giants.

While he was there, a man and a pregnant woman joined him, also seeking shelter from the rain under the same spreading tree. Swift recalled the incident later in a letter to his friend Alexander Pope, and how he engaged the pair in conversation. He found they were on their way to Lichfield to be married, but it was obvious the woman was heavily pregnant and that little time was left for a wedding to take place. Every drop of rain was the loss of yet another fretful moment.

The dean realised no time should be lost. He proposed to save the couple the rest of their journey to Lichfield and offered to marry them there and then. His offer was gladly accepted, the ceremony was performed and as the rains cleared and the skies brightened, the newly-weds were about to set off home. But as they were about to leave, the groom realised they needed a certificate to convince their families that they had been married legally and had a church wedding.

When he asked the dean for paper confirmation of the nuptial legalities, Swift pulled out some crumpled paper and a pen, and wrote wittily:

Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and whore together;
And none but he who rules the thunder
Can put this rogue and whore asunder.

The monument to Jonathan Swift in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From Lichfield, Swift travelled on to Chester, and from there to Holyhead to board a boat back to Dublin. His Thoughts on various subjects, also published in 1726, Swift mused again on marriage: ‘Matrimony has many children; Repentance, Discord, Poverty, Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, Loathing, &c.’

Swift was back in England one more time in 1727, and again stayed with Alexander Pope. The visit was cut short when Swift received the news that Esther Johnson was dying and rushed back home to be with her. She died on 28 January 1728, though Swift was not present at her death and was too ill to attend her funeral in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. He died on 19 October 1745.

The Shire Oak area near Walsall is named after an ancient tree that was said to have been the sole survivor of the original Walsall Wood. The oak stood on the London to Chester road, marking the boundary between Walsall and Shenstone. Local legend there says that this was the oak where Swift had sheltered and had married the couple on their way to Lichfield. All that now remains of that oak is a piece preserved with a plaque at Shire Oak School

The Shire Oak public house stands at the corner of Lichfield Road and Chester Road in Walsall. The Royal Oak off Chester Road closed in 2015 and was abandoned.

The Shire Oak public house stands at the corner of Lichfield Road and Chester Road in Walsall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Of course, there other oaks and spreading trees near Lichfield with literary credentials. The local history group Lichfield Discovered has asked whether a spectacular ancient oak tree on Cannock Chase, west of Lichfield, inspired JRR Tolkien.

Tolkien spent time at military camps on the Chase during World War I. When he was in Lichfield in September 1915, he met three close schoolfriends at the George Hotel on Bird Street – a gathering that may have inspired his writing about young hobbits contemplating heading off to war.

Lichfield Discovered has also suggested that the ancient oak tree on Cannock Chase inspired the Ents, tree-like creatures led by Treebeard who fought alongside the forces of good in The Lord of the Rings.

In his poem Ghosts, written in Lichfield on 19 December 1940, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) may be referring to the ghost story of the White Lady at the Swan on Bird Street. Larkin refers to Beacon Park when he says ‘this corner of the park was haunted’, and he refers to people in Lichfield who recounted being touched by something

Like a slim wind with an accusing hand –
Cold as this tree I touch.

Trees also feature in Christmas 1940, a poem written by Larkin that same night:

‘High on arched field I stand
Alone: the night is full of stars:
Enormous over tree and farm
The night extends,
And looks down equally to all on earth.

‘So I return their look; and laugh
To see as them my living stars
Flung from east to west across
A windless gulf?

– So much to say that I have never said,
Or ever could.’

The trees along Cross in Hand Lane prompted an exchange with the poet and songwriter Frank Callery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The morning fog was a mere memory yesterday afternoon when I went for a walk along Cross Hand Lane behind the Hedgehog after the mid-day Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral. When I was in Tamworth and Lichfield about this time in February last year, I posted photographs on Facebook taken that day of both Comberford Hall and of the spreading trees along Cross in Hand Lane. In reply, the Dublin-born poet and songwriter Frank Callery, who now lives in Kilkenny, shared with me his song ‘The Lichfield Oak’, which he describes as ‘a mock Traditional / Folk song in search of a singer’:

The Lichfield Oak by Frank Callery:

O the Lichfield Oak was tall and grand,
For centuries it made its stand;
And many folk who passed that way
Admired its shade by night and day!

Inclement weather being the scene,
For shelter, there reposed the Dean;
From Chester came an urgent pair
And with the Dean they sheltered there!

The woman, she was big with child,
She told the Dean, in accents mild,
‘In Lichfield soon we must be wed
Before my bundle’s brought to bed!’

‘Ah!’ says the Dean, ‘No time be lost!
I’ll wed you here without the cost!
And save a journey too, no doubt,
When stops the rain, just turn about!’

‘But what about the ‘Cert’? they cried,
‘ ’Tis requisite — they’ll think we’ve lied!’
From out his pocket came the pen,
And this is what he wrote for them:

Chorus:

‘Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and wench together,
And none but he who rules the thunder,
Can put this wench and rogue asunder.’

The Lichfield Oak was strong and straight
A Parson might officiate
For those who wished to jump the broom —
The high road for a honeymoon!

And if a cert be requisite
The Parson’s word is law and writ,
To prove the couple truly wed
And give them licence for the bed.

But the Dean being straighter nor the Oak
His holy writ contained no joke,
With crumpled paper and with pen
He made them ‘man and wife’, Amen!

Chorus:

‘Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and wench together,
And none but he who rules the thunder,
Can put this wench and rogue asunder.
Can put this wench and rogue asunder!’

Spreading trees offer shelter on Cross Hand in Lane in Lichfield, along the old pilgrim road to Chester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Lichfield Oak © Frank Callery, 23 July 2021.

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 6, Wednesday 6 November 2024

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) … the Crucifixion on the rood beam in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Leonard, a sixth century hermit, and William Temple (1881-1944), Archbishop of Canterbury and teacher of the faith. In many parts of Ireland, today is also the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland.

Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) … the Cross above the High Altar in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 14: 25-33 (NRSVA):

25 Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.’

Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace, and reminds us of the ‘Cost of Discipleship’

Today’s reflection:

In the various editions of the NRSV translations of the Bible, the heading or sub-heading for the passage that provides today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist is ‘The Cost of Discipleship’.

The Cost of Discipleship is the title of one of the best-known books by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed on 9 April 1945 in a German concentration camp before even reaching the age of 40, and just weeks before the end of World War II in 1945.

This youthful pastor was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, and he is widely regarded as a modern saint and martyr. His statue by the sculptor Tim Crawley above the West Door of Westminster Abbey places him among the 10 martyrs of the 20th century.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on 4 February 1906 in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau), and grew up in a comfortable professional home, where his family was nominally Lutheran. At the age of 13, he decided to study for ordination.

He studied at the University of Berlin, at the age of 18 visited Rome, and studied at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1930-1931).

Following the rise of the Nazis in 1933, Bonhoeffer saw Nazism as a counter-religion and a danger to Christianity. In October 1933, he became the pastor of two German-speaking parishes in the London area, and began his friendship with Bishop George Bell of Chichester.

On his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer ran the seminary of the Confessing Church at Finkenwalde, which was shut down by the police in 1937. He went to New York in 1939 but chose to return to Germany, aware of the costs that lay before him and fearing a Nazi victory would destroy Christian civilisation. For Bonhoeffer, true discipleship now demanded political resistance against the criminal state.

He was arrested in March 1943 and survived as a prisoner until he was executed on 9 April 1945, only a few days before the end of World War II.

For my generation, Bonhoeffer was one of the most influential theologians on our reading lists. We drew endlessly on such books as The Cost of Discipleship, as well as No Rusty Swords and Ethics. We bandied around phrases such as ‘religionless Christianity’ and the ‘man for others,’ perhaps without fully grasping their meaning and implications.

We were quick to dismiss any church activity we deemed unfashionable as purveying ‘cheap grace.’ And we saw Bonhoeffer as a role model for our resistance to racism and apartheid, nuclear weapons and modern warfare, and even the very political and economic foundations of society.

Like all great theologians, like all great thinkers, philosophers and writers who are now dead, it was easy to quote him and to use him for our own ends: he could hardly answer back and say ‘I have been misunderstood’ or ‘you have quoted me out of context.’ Bonhoeffer has been claimed in recent years, on the one hand, by so-called ‘conservative evangelicals,’ who are happy with his theological method but unwilling to take his radical discipleship to the point of challenging social and corporate sin in our society; and, on the other hand, by radical reformers who would tear down all our received wisdom and traditions in their vain attempts to construct their own brand of ‘religionless Christianity.’

Unhappily, in recent years, theological rigour has gone out of fashion in many centres of learning. Where once students were happy to explore how faith could find understanding, many have slipped into the cold comfort of position-taking, relying on their own protestations of faith instead of warming to the challenge of new thinking and exploration. Theologians are no longer great names; even among the general public today, people are less likely to take their questions about faith and belief from the theological giants of the last century, such as Bultmann, Barth and Bonhoeffer, and more likely to be detracted by the silly, peripheral questions about truth and religion raised by Dan Browne in his Da Vinci Code.

So, almost 80 years after his death, we might ask reflect today on who Bonhoeffer was, and why his writings and thoughts continue to have relevance for us in our society today.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had the potential to become a great musician or poet and playwright. Instead, he studied theology in Tubingen, Rome and Berlin, travelled through Rome and North Africa, and later spent time in Barcelona, New York, Cuba, Mexico and London, giving him an experience of the world church that would make a leading contributor to the foundation of the modern ecumenical movement.

He was still in his 20s when Hitler came to power. In a radio address two days after Hitler assumed office in 1933, Bonhoeffer warned against the idolatry of the ‘Fuhrer’ principle. He went on to become involved in the Pastors’ Emergency League, was closely associated with those who signed the Barmen Declaration, helped to form the Confessing Church, and, outside Germany, became a close friend of the saintly Anglican bishop, George Bell.

The Barmen Declaration declared that the Church must not be allowed to become an instrument of political ideology, and rejected ‘the false doctrine that the Church should acknowledge, as the source of its message over and above God’s word, any other events, powers, figures and truths as divine revelation.’

Bonhoeffer paid the price for speaking out. His licence to teach was withdrawn, he was dismissed from his university, and eventually the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde was closed. However, at Finkenwalde, he produced his two best-known books, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) and Life Together (1939).

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer argues that cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the Church. The sacraments and forgiveness are thrown away at cut price. We offer grace without price and grace without cost, instead of offering costly grace, which calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

When synagogues throughout Germany were set on fire in 1938, Bonhoeffer told the Church: ‘Only those who cry out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chant.’ In his Bible, he underlined two passages in the Psalms that read: ‘They are burning the houses of God in the land,’ and, ‘No prophet speaks any longer.’ He marked the date in his Bible and wrote later: ‘The church was silent when she should have cried out.’

When World War II broke out, he became involved in the resistance, making contacts in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. And yet he found time to write his book Ethics. His contacts with George Bell failed to stop Britain’s policy of obliteration bombing and demanding ‘unconditional surrender.’ The German opposition was left without hope, and a disappointed Bell wrote his hymn ‘Christ is the King’:

Let Love’s unconquerable might
God’s people everywhere unite
In service to the Lord of Light. Alleluia.

In prison, Bonhoeffer worked on his Letters and Papers from Prison and wrote: ‘What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed, who Christ really is, for us today … We are moving to a completely religionless time … if therefore man becomes radically religionless – and I think that is already more or less the case … what does that mean for Christianity? How can Christ become Lord of the religionless as well?’

The final chapter of his last, unfinished book begins: ‘The Church is only her true self when she exists for humanity … She must take her part in the social life of the world, not lording it over men, but helping and serving them. She must tell men, whatever their calling, what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.’

He was hanged at Flossenburg at dawn on 9 April 1945. An oft-quoted line from The Cost of Discipleship foreshadowed his death: ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’ His last recorded words as he was led to the scaffold were a message for George Bell: ‘Tell him that for me this is the end, but also the beginning.’

It was not the end, it was only the beginning. By the 1950s and the 1960s, he was the theologians’ theologian, and his influence was immeasurable. More recently he was ‘canonised’ by having his statue placed on the west front of Westminster Abbey. In recent years, he has been the subject of a new made-for-television movie in America. But what is his relevance today?

‘Bonhoeffer is one of the great examples of moral courage in the face of conflict,’ says Martin Doblmeier, director of Bonhoeffer, a recent 90-minute film. ‘Many of the issues Bonhoeffer faced – the role of the church in the modern world, national loyalty and personal conscience, what the call to being a ‘peacemaker’ really means – are issues we continue to struggle with today.’

Firstly, Bonhoeffer reminds us that faith assumptions and presumptions are no substitute in the seminary and the theological college for intellectual rigour and questioning. Indeed, he shows us that this is a more effective way of building faith than by trying to impose our individual views on others, and impose them judgmentally.

Secondly, in this post-modern world, Bonhoeffer continues to challenge us when we find new ways to make our Christian faith subject to, and relevant to, the overarching fashionable political and social ideologies of our day. Is the ‘Fuhrer principle’ reflected in the calls and slogans at Trump’s rallies or in the campaigns of far-right leaders rising across Central Europe today? How often have the different brands of Christianity been called on in recent decades to justify the nation-state as it embarked on disastrous wars of pride, one after another, whether it was the Falklands War, or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or indeed whether it was Catholic Croats or Orthodox Serbs indulging in ethnic cleansing to create nation states with a single religious identity.

Thirdly, Bonhoeffer’s story of the church remaining silent when she should have spoken out as the synagogues were burned down in 1938 is a challenge to us today. Once again synagogues and mosques too are being attacked and burned down, this time in America, and being daubed and attacked across Europe. The stranger is not being welcomed, the refugee is being turned back, many of our new immigrants are the victims of pernicious racism, migrants are left isolated and in cramped, dehumanising conditions. Children, teenagers and elderly adults are still being held hostage in Gaza 13 months after they were abducted. Civilians – including children and the elderly – are being slaughtered throughout the Middle East. Are we speaking out, speaking out now, before our silence becomes complicity in something even worse?

Fourthly, in his concern with growing secularisation, a concern so well articulated in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer tells us we need to face up to the growing secularisation of society and of humanity. If he could see in the 1940s our need to speak about God in a secular way, how much more pressing is that need today? We are so obsessed with maintaining not so much our Church structures but our Church pomp and sense of self-importance, leaving us unable to reach out to a secular world with a ‘religionless Christianity.’ We often use Christianity as a garment to cloak and protect us and to ringfence our prejudices about others and their sexuality, class, ethnicity and background, rather than asking, like Christ, what they need and accepting Christ’s charge to go out into the world. How can we find the language that enables us to speak in a secular way about God, and how can we live up to our missionary charge in the world today by being able to present to postmodern humanity Jesus who is ‘the man for others’?

Fifth and finally, how as a Church can we resist the temptation to continue dispensing cheap grace? So often, success in the Church is measured by how well we fill the pews, and whether we send them out happy and clapping. But sometimes prophetic voices can be isolated and left speaking to empty pews. A congregation that goes out into the world feeling uncomfortable but challenged may be better prepared to take the light of Christ into the world of darkness. Dispensing cheap grace should never be the task of the truly prophetic priest.

It is not easy to rejoice in these challenges. But we can accept them as blessings, and must give thanks for prophetic life and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyr priest and prophet, who challenged us to consider ‘the Cost of Discipleship’.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer questioned the proper role of a Christian in the midst of political turmoil … ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die’

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 6 November 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), is ‘Conflict, Confluence and Creativity’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Rebecca Boardman, former Operations Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 6 November 2024) invites us to pray:

We pray for all who have a desire and passion for theology, that they may be given the opportunities to study and learn more, and that they are able to share their knowledge with the wider communion.

The Collect:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love
in the hearts of the saints:
grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect:
as in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
touch our lips with the fire of your Spirit,
that we with all creation
may rejoice to sing your praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (seventh from left) among the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (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

Patrick Comerford’s sermon in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on 5 February 2006, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was published in ‘A Year of Sermons at Saint Patrick’s, Dublin’ (pp 19-22)

Skeffington House in Leicester recalls family feuds, Comberford links and a lost Lichfield estate

Skeffington House, the only surviving Elizabethan urban gentry house in Leicester … built by Thomas Skeffington in 1560-1583 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Leicester last month, I went twice to see Skeffington House, the only surviving Elizabethan urban gentry house in Leicestershire. It was built between 1560 and 1583 by Thomas Skeffington (1550-1600), who was MP for Leicestershire in 1593 and the Sheriff of Leicestershire on four occasions: 1576-1577, 1588-1589, 1596 and 1599-1600.

The survival of Skeffington House in Leicester over the past 450 or more years was a reminder of the close connections that once linked the Skeffington family and the Comberford family in Staffordshire, and of how the Skeffington family of Fisherwick were once – albeit briefly – a powerful political family in Lichfield and Tamworth in the 17th century.

The Skeffington family took their name from Skeffington, a village 15 km (10 miles) east of Leicester, where they lived from the mid-13th century. In the early 16th century, Sir William Skeffington was the Lord Deputy of Ireland during the reign of Henry VIII. It was he who battered down the walls of Maynooth Castle with cannon, and he devised a contraption of torture known as the ‘Skevington maiden.’ When he died in Kilmainham in 1534, he was buried in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

Fisherwick Hall, the long lost home of the Skeffington family near Lichfield

His son, Sir John Skeffington, was the founder of the Staffordshire branch of the family. This John Skeffington was a London alderman and wool merchant. He was the Sheriff of London in 1521, and in that same year he bought the Manor of Fisherwick, about 6 km (4 miles) east of Lichfield, between Whittington and Elford and immediately north of Comberford. Fisherwick was in Saint Michael’s Parish, Lichfield, and many members of the Skeffington family of Fisherwick were baptised, married and buried at Saint Michael’s Church – the same church where the parents of Samuel Johnson were buried later.

John Skeffington married Elizabeth Pecke, and Fisherwick was inherited by their son, Sir William Skeffington of Fisherwick. This William married Isa or Joan (Elizabeth) Leveson, a daughter of James Leveson of Liilleshall, Shropshire, and Trentham, Staffordshire. When Sir William died in 1637, he too was buried at Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield.

William Skeffington’s daughter Mary married her neighbour, William Comberford (1551-1625) of Comberford Hall and the Moat House, Tamworth, in 1567, probably in Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield, while his son Sir John Skeffington (1534-1604) inherited Fisherwick.

Comberford Hall … Mary Skeffington married Thomas Comberford of Comberford Hall and the Moat House, Tamworth, in 1567 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mary Comberford’s brother Sir John Skeffington was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1556. He married Alice Cave, daughter of Sir Thomas Cave, and when he died on 7 November 1604 he too was buried at Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield.

Sir John Skeffington’s son and Mary Comberford’s nephew, Sir William Skeffington of Fisherwick, was a prominent figure in Staffordshire life. Sir William Skeffington was twice Sheriff of Staffordshire, in 1601 and again in 1623, when he succeeded his uncle by marriage, William Comberford, and he was given the title of baronet in 1627. He married Elizabeth Dering and died on 13 September 1635. He was buried on 16 September 1635.

Sir William Skeffington’s two sons found themselves on opposing sides in the English Civil War: Sir John Skeffington (1584-1651), who inherited Fisherwick and the family title as the second baronet, was a faint-hearted royalist, while his younger brother, Sir Richard Skeffington (1590-1647), was an MP for Tamworth in 1627 and later an MP for Staffordshire in the Long Parliament of 1646.

The Moat House, Tamworth … Sir Richard Skeffington, MP for Tamworth, was a grandson of Mary Comberford’s brother (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The elder son, Sir John Skeffington, spent more than two years at the Middle Temple, but may not have been a diligent student: he was twice fined for missing readings and once for being absent at Christmas. Sir John became entangled in the affairs of the Skeffington family in Leicester when he married his distant cousin Ursula (or Cicely) Skeffington, one of the four daughters of Thomas Skeffington who built Skeffington House in Leicester.

At the time of their marriage, the Leicestershire branch of the Skeffington family was threatened with extinction. Ursula’s father had died in 1605, leaving his estates between his two sons, Sir William Skeffington and John Skeffington. The elder brother William was in an unhappy childless marriage, and shortly after he died in 1605 his widow, Lady Katherine Skeffington, married her groom, Michael Bray.

John Skeffington resented his widowed sister-in-law marrying the groom. The family arguments ended up in court of Westminster in 1613 and a settlement seemed near when the case was adjourned. During the adjournment, John Skeffington and Michael Bray ran into each other in the Hoop Tavern in 1613. They fought and brawled, swords were drawn, and each man ran his sword through the other at the same time, murdering each other in one swift moment.

The Skeffington estates in Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Lincolnshire, said to be worth £1,500 a year, were now divided between the four surviving sisters of William and John: Mary, Catherine, Elizabeth and Ursula. The youngest sister, Ursula, became engaged to a man named Palmer, but she returned his ring and instead married her distant cousin, Sir John Skeffington of Fisherwick, a grandson of Mary Comberford’s brother.

Sir John Skeffington moved to Leicestershire, and when he was knighted in 1624 he was described as living at Skeffington. However, his bride did not make him especially wealthy, as the twice widowed Katherine Bray continued to draw an income from her first husband’s Leicestershire estates.

It seems, though, that John Skeffington exaggerated his poverty. For example, he claimed in 1623 that he was unable to provide a light horse for the militia because he was living on less than £100 a year. Yet in 1627 he told Chancery that his estate was worth around £300 a year.

Skeffington was knighted in 1624 and in 1626 he was elected MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme – a constituency represented almost 200 years earlier by William Comberford in 1442. Skeffington was elected with the support of his brother-in-law Sir William Bowyer and of the Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire, the 3rd Earl of Essex, who may also have been responsible for the election of Skeffington’s brother, Sir Richard, as MP for Tamworth the previous year.

Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield … Sir John Skeffington was involved in the legislation to make Saint Mary’s a parish church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As one of the MPs for Staffordshire, Sir John Skeffington was involved in the legislation to annex Freeford prebend to the vicarage of Saint Mary’s in Lichfield and make Saint Mary’s a parish church. But he seems to have become disillusioned with Parliament, and in a letter he described the House of Commons as a place ‘to please none, to displease all and bear all his own charges’.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, may have been involved in securing the title of baronet for Skeffington’s father in 1627, a title John Skeffington would eventually inherit himself.

Sir John Skeffington inherited his father’s title and his estates in Staffordshire in 1635. He returned to live at Fisherwick, and was appointed Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1637, although his enthusiasm for this office seems to have waned. His portion of the family’s Leicestershire estate increased when one of his sisters-in-law, Elizabeth Jeter, died childless in 1637. By the early 1650s, he was able to put the income from his wife’s estate at £700 a year, out of which £140 continued to be paid to Lady Katherine Bray.

When the English Civil War broke out, he initially supported the king, agreeing to contribute six horsemen to the royalist army. However, by October 1642 he was beginning to have second thoughts and he was negotiating with his Roundhead brother, Sir Richard, to defect. Sir Richard Skeffington (1597-1647) was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and was knighted in 1624. He was MP for Tamworth in 1625 and for Staffordshire in 1646-1647. When he died on 2 June 1647, he was buried at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.

In the event, John Skeffington never switched sides. The parliamentarians sequestered his estates, and in March 1650 he was allowed to compound for his Staffordshire properties at a sixth of their value. In July 1651, his fine was fixed at £1,616 18s 8d, but there is no evidence he ever paid that sum.

Generations of the Skeffington family were married and buried at Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Sir John Skeffington died in November 1651 and was buried on 20 November in Skeffington, Leicestershire, rather than in Saint Michael’s, Lichfield. Despite his behaviour and fines as a student, his funeral monument says was learned and was skilled in English, Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Spanish. Towards the end of his life, Skeffington translated El Héroe (1637), by the Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián Morales, which was published after his death with a preface by Izaak Walton.

Sir John Skeffington’s son, Sir William Skeffington, who succeeded as the third baronet and inherited the estate at Fisherwick, died unmarried in April 1652. The title of baronet then passed first to the son of Sir Richard Skeffington of Tamworth, Sir John Skeffington (1632-1695), who was elected to Richard Cromwell’s 1659 Parliament for counties Antrim, Down and Armagh. He later inherited the title of Viscount Massereene through his father-in-law and died in 1695.

His descendants acquired Comberford Hall in the decades that followed, although the descendants of the Comberford family seem to have continued to lived there as tenants of the Skeffington family until the mid-18th century, when they found themselves unable to redeem the mortgages once raised on the Comberford estates.

Capability Brown’s landscape at Fisherwick Hall, a painting by John Spyers (1786) … Fisherwick Hall was inherited along with Comberford Hall by the Chichester family, but was demolished in 1805

Fisherwick Hall, in time, passed from the Skeffington family to the Chichester family, later Earls and Marquesses of Donegall, who also acquired neighbouring Comberford Hall, acquiring the ancestral homes of both the Comberford and the Skeffington families between Lichfield and Tamworth.

Like neighbouring Fisherwick Hall, Comberford Hall descended with the title of Viscount Massereene, until 1755, when Clotworthy Skeffington, 5th Viscount Massereene, sold his mortgaged estates – perhaps to pay the debts of his gambling son, Clotworthy Skeffington – to Samuel Swinfen of Swinfen Hall, in Weeford, near Lichfield, as the trustee of his neighbour Samuel Hill of Shenstone Park.

When Comberford and Fisherwick passed to Hill’s nephew, Samuel Egerton (1711-1780), he told them to their former trustee, Samuel Swinfen. The estate were later sold to Thomas Thynne (1734-1796), 3rd Viscount Weymouth and 1st Marquis of Bath, and then to Arthur Chichester (1739-1799), 5th Earl of Donegall, who rebuilt Fisherwick Hall in 1766-1774 to designs by Capability Brown.

Eventually, the Chichester family, crippled by the gambling debts of a profligate son, was forced to sell Fisherwick Hall and Comberford Hall. Fisherwick Hall was demolished by the Howard family in 1805, although some of its ruins may still be seen. But the Fisherwick name survives in street names in parts of Belfast once owned by the Chichester family.

Skeffington House, Leicester … a reminder of jealousy, feuds and links with Lichfield and the Comberford family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Easter 2024:10, 9 April 2024

Dietrich Bonhoeffer questioned the proper role of a Christian in the midst of political turmoil … he is remembered in the Church Calendar on 9 April

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Second Sunday of Easter (Easter II), sometimes known as ‘Low Sunday’ (7 April 2024). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (9 April) remembers the life and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Lutheran Pastor and Martyr.

Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The life and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) is remembered in the calendar of Common Worship today

John 3: 7-15 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 7 ‘Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ 9 Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ 10 Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

11 ‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.’

The New Synagogue in Berlin … when synagogues throughout Germany were set on fire in 1938, Dietrich Bonhoeffer declared: ‘Only those who cry out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chant’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945):

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), who is remembered in Common Worship today, was born into an academic family. Ordained in the Lutheran Church, his theology was influenced by Karl Barth and he became a lecturer: in Spain, the US and, in 1931, back in Berlin.

He opposed to the philosophy of Nazism, and was one of the leaders of the Confessing Church, a movement which broke away from the Nazi-dominated Lutherans in 1934. Banned from teaching, and harassed by Hitler’s regime, he bravely returned to Germany at the outbreak of war in 1939, despite being on a lecture tour in the US at the time.

His defiant opposition to the Nazis led to his arrest in 1943. His experiences led him to propose a more radical theology in his later works, which have been influential among post-war theologians. He was executed by the Nazi police in Flossenburg concentration camp on 9 April 1945.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (seventh from left) among the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 9 April 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), is the ‘Certificate in Youth Leadership Programme in the West Indies.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Michael B St J Maxwell, Bishop of the Diocese of Barbados.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (9 April 2024) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for efficiency in promoting and presenting the modules of the certificate programme to effectively equip and prepare participants for the exercise of youth ministry and leadership within their parishes and dioceses.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
you have given your only Son to die for our sins
and to rise again for our justification:
grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness
that we may always serve you
in pureness of living and truth;
through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God our Father,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ
you have assured your children of eternal life
and in baptism have made us one with him:
deliver us from the death of sin
and raise us to new life in your love,
in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred:
open the doors of our hearts,
that we may seek the good of others
and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace,
to the praise of God the Father.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Patrick Comerford’s sermon in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on 5 February 2006, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was published in ‘A Year of Sermons at Saint Patrick’s, Dublin’ (pp 19-22)

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

Daily prayer in Lent with early English saints: 33, 17 March 2024, Saint Osmund of Salisbury

Saint Patrick depicted in a window by Burlison and Grylls in the Church of Saint John the Baptist, Spon Street, Coventry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began over a month ago on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and Passiontide – the last two weeks of Lent – begins today. This is the Fifth Sunday in Lent (Lent V), also known as Passion Sunday. But today is also Saint Patrick’s Day (17 March 2024), and I hope to say more about Saint Patrick later today.

Later this morning, I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, and I hope to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day and my name day appropriately later in the day.

Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship.

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

1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

A statue of Saint Osmund in Salisbury Cathedral (Photograph: James Bradley/ Wikipedia/ CC BY 2.0)

Early English pre-Reformation saints: 33, Saint Osmund of Salisbury

Saint Osmund (1099), Bishop of Salisbury, is remembered in Common Worship on 16 July.

Osmund was born the son of a Norman count and came to England in the wake of William the Conqueror, his mother’s half-brother. He was quickly promoted to Chancellor in 1072. Six years later he became Bishop of Salisbury and completed the building of the new cathedral at Old Sarum.

He was a scholar and a good administrator but was best loved for his lack of avarice and ambition, traits apparently not common in the new hierarchy of Church and State. He took part in collecting the information for the Domesday Book and was present at Sarum when it was presented to the king in 1086. He is said to have compiled the Sarum Use.

Saint Osmund died on 4 December 1099 and his remains were translated to the new cathedral in Salisbury on 16 July 1457.

Saint Patrick depicted on cladding during recent restoration work at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 12: 20-33 (NRSVA):

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 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. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.

27 ‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – “Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ 30 Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Saint Patrick receiving his mission to Ireland from Saint Celestine … a stained-glass window in a church in Dundalk, Co Louth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 17 March 2024, Lent V, Passion Sunday, Saint Patrick’s Day):

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 ‘Lent Reflection: True repentance is the key to Christian Freedom.’ This theme is introduced today by the Revd Dr Simon Ro, Dean of Graduate School of Theology at Sungkonghoe (Anglican) University, Seoul, Korea:

Read Luke 13: 1-9

‘Freedom is an idea that permeates most of the major religions in our world. This idea is essential to any spiritual journey, and for many the journey focuses on how to become liberated from a love for self, a state of self-righteousness and complacency.

‘What is Christianity’s approach towards freedom? The Gospel of Luke (13: 1-9) gives insight to answers this question, but a key idea is that of repentance. Jesus Christ stresses the universal need for repentance and shows us that unless we repent and respond to the challenges of our world, we will suffer such “disasters” as hopelessness, loneliness, frustration, anger and fear. Jesus does not want just devotion but rather a deep sincere change in heart and attitude which results in a change of behaviour – both spiritual and physical.

‘For true freedom to happen, true repentance must occur. We are challenged to recognise the need for true repentance and pursue a change in our thinking, attitude, and behaviour. This is definitely a message for consideration and change during this Lent season.’

This is a sample taken from the 2024 USPG Lent Course which can be downloaded and ordered from the USPG website www.uspg.org.uk

The USPG Prayer Diary today (17 March 2024, Lent V, Passion Sunday, Saint Patrick’s Day) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

Praise to you, O Christ, King of eternal glory.
Christ humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him
and given him the name that is above every name.

The Collect:

Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us
that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters
we do also for you:
give us the will to be the servant of others
as you were the servant of all,
and gave up your life and died for us,
but are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
you gave up your Son
out of love for the world:
lead us to ponder the mysteries of his passion,
that we may know eternal peace
through the shedding of our Saviour’s blood,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday: Saint Wulfstan of Worcester

Tomorrow: Saint Anselm of Canterbury

Saint Patrick depicted in a window in Saint Patrick’s Church, Waterford (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