Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 111, Thursday 27 August 2026

‘Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’ (Matthew 24: 42) … night-time on Bore Street in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Monica (387), the mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo.

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.

‘Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’ (Matthew 24: 42) … night-time on Souliou Street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 24: 42-51 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

45 ‘Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked slave says to himself, “My master is delayed”, 49 and he begins to beat his fellow-slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. 51 He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

‘If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake’ (Matthew 24: 43) … an empty house at night in Agios Georgios in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We are entering the final phase of weekday readings in Saint Matthew, which conclude on Saturday (29 August 2026). We are going to read selected readings from chapters 24 and 25 that form what is known as the ‘Eschatological Discourse’. This is the fifth and final discourse, each of which is a collection of the teachings of Jesus and they are a feature of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. This discourse is concerned with the end of all things, and the second and final coming of Christ to bring all things together.

The earlier part of chapter 24 includes the foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem, an event that for the Jews of the time, including those who had converted to Christianity, must have seemed like the end of the world.

The early Christians had expected to see the Second Coming in their lifetime and the sacking of Jerusalem and the sacrilegious destruction of the Temple must have seemed the certain signs of the ἔσχατον (eschaton, ‘last thing’). But by the time Saint Matthew’s Gospel was written or in circulation, that was already at least 15 years in the past. The end, although certain to happen, did not seem any more quite so imminent.

Saint Matthew includes as part of the discourse a number of Parousia (παρουσία) or final coming parables. Following a pattern in other parts of this gospel, they are seven in number. We have two short ones in today’s reading. Both consist of an exhortation for readiness to welcome the final coming of the Lord.

In the first we should be as alert in watching for the coming of the Lord as a householder would be to prevent his house being broken into and robbed. Like a thief, Jesus will come when we least expect him.

In the second parable, Jesus compares us to a servant who has been put in charge of the house while the master is away. This may refer to the community leaders in Saint Matthew’s church and, by extension, to leaders of communities everywhere. It will be well for that servant when the master unexpectedly returns and finds his servant diligently doing his job.

Being burgled at night is a frightening and a traumatic experience for anyone who has suffered it.

It is one thing to come home from a day’s work, or from a holiday, to find your house has been broken into. It is another to wake up and realise that as you were sleeping a thief has broken into your home, and is downstairs or in the next room.

It happened to me once, in a house I was living in, in south Dublin.

It was in the days before mobile ’phones and cordless ’phones. I had been working late the night before in The Irish Times and came downstairs to answer a mid-morning ’phone call.

Unknown to me, the thieves were in the next room, having already gone through the kitchen. They were in there, having made themselves something to drink, had cut the lead to the video recorder, and were squatting on the floor, armed with the ‘kitchen devil,’ straight from the cutlery drawer, sorting through the other possessions in the front room.

They must have remained very quiet. Instead of stealing any goods, they stole out the back door before I ever put the ’phone down or realised what had happened.

It is a frightening experience, and it made me extra vigilant: extra bolts and locks, rethinking the alarm system, and so on. The police knew who the ‘likely suspects’ were, but they could offer no guarantees that I was never going to be broken into again … and again.

It is an experience that was also a reminder of my own vulnerability, and a reminder that what I own and possess is not really mine, and not mine for very long. Finding the ‘kitchen devil’ on the floor was also a sharp reminder that even my life is not mine for very long.

And so, the image of Christ in this Gospel reading, of a thief coming unexpectedly to break into my house, may not be a very comforting one for those of us brought up with the image of ‘Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild.’

And yet it is an image that has echoes in the poetry of some of the great mystical writers in Anglican history. It reminds me, for example, of the words of John Donne (Holy Sonnets XIV):

Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

It is the passionate language of love, of passionate love. But then, of course, Christ demands our passion, our commitment, our love.

Christ has left the Temple and is on the Mount of Olives, teaching them about the kingdom (Matthew 24: 3). But in some of the other Gospel accounts, as he speaks to them, someone in the crowd – like a heckler – interrupts and asks a question (see Luke 12: 13).

The inner circle of the Disciples must have felt at times they were being broken into by those on the rims, those in the crowd of outsiders, the crowd or multitude following Christ but who were not among the Disciples. So Christ’s demands are made not just of some inner circle, for some elite group within the Church, for those who are seen as pious and holy.

This is a demand he makes also to those on the margins, for the sake of those on the margins, that he makes on the whole Church for the sake of those on the margins.

We are to be ever vigilant that we do not keep those on the margins on the outside for too long. They may appear like thieves trying to break in. But when we welcome in those on the outside who we see as thieves, we may find we are welcoming Christ himself.

And in welcoming Christ himself, into our inner sanctum, we are making it a sign of the Kingdom. The Church needs to be a place not where we feel secure, but where the outsider feels welcome, where they can feast and taste what the Kingdom of God is like.

What is this Kingdom like?

Where is it?

When shall we find it?

Earlier in this chapter, Christ tells them that ‘the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations’ before the end will come (verse 14).

The word for master Christ uses throughout thus reading (verses 45, 46, 48, 50) is κύριος (kyrios), Lord, the word used in the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament for the Lord God by Jews who found the use of the name of God offensive and blasphemous. But using the word master for κύριος hides away God’s work, confusing the Lord, the ‘Son of Man’ (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ho yios tou anthropou), with the ‘master of the house,’ the householder (οἰκοδεσπότης, oikodespótēs).

The Lord who arrives at an unexpected hour, day or night in this reading is the same Christ who says: ‘Behold, I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me’ (Revelation 3: 20).

He comes in ways we do not expect, and at ‘the unexpected hour,’ the time we ‘think nothing of’ (ᾗ οὐ δοκεῖτε ὥρᾳ he ou dokeite ora, verse 44) – ‘an hour that seems like nothing.’ He does not bother trying to tear down our puny defences. He sneaks around them instead.

Expect the unexpected.

Prepare to welcome the stranger who knocks at the door at the unexpected hour.

Allow the stranger among you, and the stranger within you, to open that door and discover that Christ is not a thief trying to steal what you have, but is the Lord who is trying to batter our hearts and tear down our old barriers so that we can all feast together at the new banquet:

Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
…
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

‘For you as yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend’ … a bust of John Donne at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 27 August 2026):

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

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 27 August 2026) invites us to pray:

God of wisdom, open our hearts and minds as we learn more about the history of the Church. Help us listen carefully, understand deeply, and remember that you promise to restore all that is broken.

The Collect of the Day:

Faithful God, who strengthened Monica, the mother of Augustine, with wisdom, and through her patient endurance encouraged him to seek after you: give us the will to persist in prayer that those who stray from you may be brought to faith in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

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

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’ (Matthew 24: 42) … night-time at the Tree Top restaurant in Kuching (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

Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge, has moved from harsh criticism and divisive schism to being open to questions

Saint Paul’s Church on the corner of Hills Road and Saint Paul’s Road is less than a mile from the centre of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I often walk past Saint Paul’s Church on the corner of Hills Road and Saint Paul’s Road on my way between the train station and the centre of Cambridge. But I took some time to look at the church last week for the first time as I walking back to the train station after a day in Cambridge with a visiting friend from Ireland.

Saint Paul’s is a Grade II listed building less than a mile from the centre of Cambridge, and is known to all who are interested in the Gothic revival in church architecture because of the criticism it drew from AWN Pugin and the Cambridge Camden Society in The Ecclesiologist and because of its interesting links with the architects George Gilbert Scott and Temple Moore.

Saint Paul’s traces its origins to the mediaeval parish of Saint Andrew the Less on the Newmarket Road. This Augustinian community of Barnwell Priory took charge of the parish ca 1200, and the prior became the rector of the parish, with the right to receive its tithes, as well as its patron, with the right to appoint the clergy. In effect, the priors of Barnwell appointed vicars to look after ministry in the parish.

At the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, the priory was dissolved in 1538 and the prior’s rights passed to the crown and were then sold on.

The present church owes its origins to the work in the 1840s of the Revd Charles Perry (1807-1891), later the first Anglican Bishop of Melbourne, who was the first Vicar of Saint Paul’s.

Charles Perry was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1835 when he bought the advowson of the living of Saint Andrew-the-Less, with the right to appoint the clergy. He has been described as a ‘stout evangelical clergyman, equally opposed to ritualistic and rationalistic tendencies.’

As part of his evangelistic work among the railway workers and tradesmen who were beginning to settle in the Newtown area of Cambridge, Perry established a mission hall on Hills Road that became Saint Paul’s. He secured a district of its own, and was licensed by the Bishop of Ely as its first ‘perpetual curate’.

The parish was formed out of Saint Andrew the Less, with the addition of some land to the west of Hills Road that had previously been part of the parish of Saint Andrew the Great, near the Market Square in the centre of Cambridge. In his history of Saint Paul’s, Gerald Bray describes how Saint Paul’s became a separate district in the parish of Saint Andrew-the-Less in 1842, and became a new parish in its own right in 1845.

Perry began introducing extensive reforms, commissioned a new church that would became the centre of a new parish and also built Christ Church on Newmarket Road to replace Saint Andrew the Less as the parish church in 1846.

Perry became the first Anglican Bishop of Melbourne in 1847 and spent 29 years in Australia. When he retired, he returned to England and became one of the founders of Ridley Hall, the evangelical Anglican theological college in Cambridge, and of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge, was designed by Ambrose Poynter and was heavily criticised by the Cambridge Camden Society, ‘The Ecclesiologist’ and AWN Pugin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Paul’s Church was designed by the architect Ambrose Poynter (1796-1886), a founding member of the Institute of British Architects. Poynter was born in London into a family of Huguenot origin. He worked with John Nash in 1814-1818, and then travelled through Italy, Sicily and the Ionian Islands (1819-1821).

Poynter lived in Paris between 1830 and 1832. Back in London, he began his own practice as an architect and became noted for his Palladian and Tudor Gothic fusion architecture. He was secretary of the Institute of British Architects in 1840, 1841, and 1844, and also its vice-president, and in the mid-1840s he became Professor of Fine Arts at King’s College London. When Poynter went blind, some of his commissions were taken over by William Burges.

Poynter designed three churches in Cambridge: Christ Church, Newmarket Road (1837-1839), Saint Paul’s, Hills Road (1841), and Saint Andrew the Great, Saint Andrew’s Street (1842-1843). The nave and the west tower of Saint Paul’s were built in 1841.

Saint Paul’s was criticised by the Cambridge Camden Society in the first issue of its journal, The Ecclesiologist (November 1841), in an attack that was supported by AWN Pugin. The Cambridge Camden Society was established in 1839 to study ‘ecclesiastical antiquities.’ The society published The Ecclesiologist from 1841 to 1868, arguing that architects should adopt a religious stance in their work.

The issue was withdrawn, but an offer then to review another of the Poynter churches was not conciliatory. Saint Paul’s had been called a ‘cheap church’, and in 1843 Saint Andrew’s was called ‘miserable and meagre’.

Historic England designates Saint Paul’s as a Grade II Listed Building, pointing to its historically significance as one of the new churches harshly criticised in the Ecclesiologist, ‘an important publication of the Gothic Revival but which possesses visual interest in its own right.’

Poynter intended the exterior of Saint Paul’s to be an interpretation of Great Saint Mary’s in the Market Place, Cambridge, but in brick. However, the Ecclesiologist vilified Poynter’s original design for not having a chancel, for its use of brick instead of stone, and for its unornamented, late 16th or early 17th century style. The design was criticised because its ‘style of architecture and plan of internal arrangement should have been after some approved ancient model.’

The critique was toned down in the second edition, following objections from senior church leaders to the first edition. Still, it said ‘there are many arrangements and details in this church which are on every other ground quite indefensible, even on the ground of cheapness. Such are the huge clock; the disproportionate octagonal turrets; the great four-centred belfry windows without cusping or mouldings; the figures 1841 in the spandrils of the clock; the square clerestory-windows; the enormous windows in the aisles; the mullions made to stand on the same plane as the wall; the square heads; the want of foliation; the jambs without mouldings; the graduated parapet of the nave; the thin mullions and tracery of the east windows; the difference between the supports of the western and the other galleries; the startling contrast of the red brick and the white quoins of dressed ashlar; the trellis-work of black bricks; and many other things which time forbids us to notice.’

Pugin reprinted the original critique in his Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture (1842-1843), and suggested it should be circulated as a warning to be ‘hung up in terrorem in every church-competing architect’s office.’ At the time, Pugin was working on Saint Andrew’s Church, a few steps further north along Hills Road, on the corner of Lensfield Road, and the first post-Reformation Roman Catholic church in Cambridge. A few years later, Pugin would play an important role in the restoration, decoration and furnishing of the mediaeval fabric of the chapel of Jesus College in 1846-1849.

The chancel and vestry of Saint Paul’s were added in 1864, perhaps by HG Elborne. The north and south transepts were added in 1893 to designs by the Tullamore-born architect Temple Lushington Moore (1856-1920). Despite later reordering and change, the interior of Saint Paul’s retains spatial interest and some fixtures of note, including the work in the 1890s by Temple Moore (1856-1920) and the stained glass windows.

Temple Moore also designed the east range and south part of Westcott House, Cambridge, in 1914 and was the architect of Pusey House, Oxford. His only son, Richard Temple Moore (1891-1918), was killed when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed and sunk off Dublin a mere month before the end of World War I.

Temple Moore has been described as ‘England’s leading ecclesiastical architect from the mid-Edwardian years’. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner said that he was ‘always sensitive in his designs and often interesting.’ His designs reflect his Anglo-Catholic practice and values. His work can be seen across England; he is known for a series of fine Gothic Revival churches built about 1890 and 1917 and he also restored many churches and designed church fittings.

The stained glass windows in Saint Paul’s include: the chancel north window, after Holman Hunt, by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (1906); the south transept east window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (1920); and the east window, ‘The Conversion of Saint Paul’, by Alfred Wilkinson (1960).

The World War II war memorial at Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Charles Perry was succeeded at Saint Paul’s from 1847 to 1860 by the Revd John Scott, a brother of the architect George Gilbert Scott. The former parsonage built in Saint Paul’s Road behind the church in 1853-1854 was designed by George Gilbert Scott for his brother and is now the Cambridge Muslim College.

Perry’s immediate successors were styled ‘perpetual curates’ but in 1891 Canon Henry Paine Stokes (1849-1931) became the first vicar (1891-1917). Stokes came from an Irish family and was a former chaplain and a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was President of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society (1909-1911) and President of the Jewish Historical Society (1914-1916). He moved to Little Wilbraham in 1917, and died in 1931.

Meanwhile, the original parish was subdivided in the late 19th and early 20th century with the creation of Saint Barnabas (1888) and Saint Philip (1902).

The Revd Mark Ruston, who was a curate at Saint Paul’s in 1954-1955, later became the vicar of the Round Church (Holy Sepulchre) in the centre of Cambridge. There he developed a student ministry that continues to this day, though it is now located in the Saint Andrew the Great.

The Revd Herbert Moore Carson (1922-2003) was a controversial Vicar of Saint Paul’s in 1958 to 1964. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin and was ordained in the Church of Ireland by the Bishop of Connor. He had two curacies in Belfast, then worked as the travelling secretary of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship and spent five years at Saint Michael and All Angels, Blackheath Park, from 1953. He moved to Cambridge in 1958 and was the Vicar of Saint Paul’s for almost seven years.

He resigned from Saint Paul’s in December 1964, and seceded from Anglicanism in 1965 because of misgivings about liturgy, establishment, bishops, and infant baptism. Subsequently, he was baptised as a believing adult with his wife Delphine. He assisted Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel London, and then became the minister of Hamilton Road Baptist Church, Bangor, Co Down, in 1967. He moved to Leicester in 1982 and was the minister of Knighton Evangelical Free Church until he retired in 1988.

When he left the Church of England, Carson split the congregation in the process. The damage caused by this was considerable but it was repaired to a degree by the Revd John Gwyn-Thomas, who had a popular ministry of preaching and counselling.

Saint Martin’s parish was also carved out of Saint Paul’s parish in 1961.

Canon Michael Robert Wedlake Farrer, Vicar in 1978-1992, was Rural Dean of Cambridge (1984-1989), a canon of Ely Cathedral (1988-1992), and senior chaplain to the Bishop of Ely (1992-1995). He died in 2018 at the age of 96.

The Revd Michael Shaun Beckett was the priest-in-charge and then vicar for over 30 years until he retired in 2021. He is the author of Gospel in Esther. In a foreword to the book, Stephen Sykes, a former Bishop of Ely, describes Saint Paul’s as a ‘parish church long noted for its attentiveness to the work of preaching’.

Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge, hosts a variety of meals and runs an active community programme throughout the week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Paul’s Church was Listed Grade II in 1972. The interior became a multi-use space in 1996, designed by Freeland Rees-Roberts. Meeting rooms and porch were added 2012-2013.

The Revd Imogen Nay has been the vicar of Saint Paul’s since 2022. She has been the Rector of Saint Andrew’s, Rugby, and the Canon for Evangelism and Discipleship in Chelmsford Cathedral. The Revd Dr Becky Applin Warner is the self-supporting assistant curate.

Despite its background and its turbulent history into the second half of the 20th century, Saint Paul’s describes itself today as a church that travels with questions, not firm answers, that seeks to have healthy conversations, learning from the world around us, and open to the Spirit and new forms of truth. ‘This is the Anglican way: balancing Scripture, Tradition and Reason. We are guided in our searching through conversation with the Bible, the historic creeds and the traditions of the church’.

Each week, Saint Paul’s hosts a variety of meals and runs an active community programme, and also runs a Fairbite social supermarket.

‘We are a member of inclusive church and we try and make church an accessible and safe place for all. However, we know this is an ongoing journey, and we don't always get it right.’

• Sunday Services in Saint Paul’s are Holy Communion at 10:30 am and a variety of reflective services at 6 pm. The church is open Monday to Friday 10 to 4 pm.

The Revd Imogen Nay has been the vicar of Saint Paul’s since 2022 (Photograph: Saint Paul’s Parish website)

Saint Peter and Saint Paul, paired saints, once faced each other on the same street in Stony Stratford

The Old Cross Keys … a late mediaeval hostel for priests and an inn remembered at 97 High Street, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Today in the Church Calendar has been the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Apostles (29 June 2026). Although there are many churches dedicated to these two apostles individually, they are often paired in the naming of churches and cathedrals, and in the past I have blogged about a number of cathedrals and churches dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

In recent years, I have blogged or written about a number of churches and cathedrals dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, including the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Sheffield, the cathedral in Ennis, Co Clare, Selskar Abbey in Wexford, and Peterborough cathedral, which has an unusual triple dedication to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew.

In addition, there are churches dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul that I have visited recently in Aston, Buckingham, Newport Pagnell, Olney and Watford, and in Ireland churches in Athlone, Co Westmeath, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, Monasterevan, Co Kildare, three church in Kilmallock, Co Limerick, and the Russian Orthodox Church in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

In Greece, Saint Peter and Saint Paul is the dedication of a former monastery I have visited in Iraklion in Crete and a chapel in Vlatádon Monastery in Thessaloniki. I have also visited churches with this name in Krakow and in Singapore.

The Cross Keys at the north end of High Street is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on this day (29 June) recalls the martyrdom of the two apostles in Rome. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, this feast is one of five additional feasts ranked as a great feast. Many countries mark this feast day as a public holiday, and today is also a public holiday in some Swiss cantons.

In London, there were two, paired minster churches dedicated to these saints, so that the formal name of Westminster Abbey is the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, while the east minster is Saint Paul’s Cathedral in the City.

So, it is interesting that in Stony Stratford, Saint Peter and Saint Paul almost faced each other, diagonally across the street from one another, at the north end of the High Street.

The former Cross Keys Inn in Stony Stratford still displays its old signs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The former Cross Keys at 97 High Street is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Stony Stratford. The Cross Keys was often a popular name for pubs and inns in mediaeval England. They took their name from the crossed keys of Saint Peter, the symbol representing Saint Peter as holding the gates of the kingdom heaven or guardian of Christian truth. Christ says to Saint Peter in this morning’s Gospel reading: ‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’ (Matthew 16: 19).

Historically, pubs with this name were often near a church dedicated to Saint Peter. Some pubs named after Saint Peter or saints and popes also subtly renamed ‘Cross Keys’ at the Reformation. These pubs often stood on to land previously owned by abbeys or monasteries, or had served as church-linked hospitals and guesthouses.

The former Cross Keys Inn in Stony Stratford still has its mediaeval timber structure and a moulded archway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The former Cross Keys Inn at 97 High Street still displays its old signs, and retains much of its mediaeval timber structure, dating from ca 1480, with a moulded archway. It was also known as Saint Peter’s Keys, and may originally have been a church-related lodging house or hostel, known in the Middle Ages as hospitals. The building retains the earliest external visible feature in the town, dating from the late 15th or early 16th century.

The building was once the town’s Guild Hall, and it later became the town’s first courtroom. The murderers of Grace Bennet, Lady of the Manor of Calverton, were tried there in 1697. Later it was tea house and curiosity shop, and today it is a hairdresser’s shop, Hair Master.

When the inn closed, and then the tea house, the early name continued in use in Stony Stratford in the Cross Keys Continental Café in Cofferidge Close in the 1970s and 1980s.

Saint Paul’s in Stony Stratford, including its former chapel ... designed by by George Goldie and Charles Edwin Child, and built in 1863-1864 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Across the street from the former Cross Keys on the High Street, Saint Paul’s Court is one of the most imposing buildings in Stony Stratford, and was designed by the architectural partnership of Goldie and Childe, run by George Goldie (1828-1887) and Charles Edwin Child (1843-1911). It first opened opened in January 1864 as a grammar school ‘to be conducted on the Public School system, by graduate clergy.’

This Victorian complex of buildings was built in a lavish style by the Revd William Thomas Sankey, Vicar of Saint Giles Church (now Saint Mary and Saint Giles) from 1859 to 1875. Saint Paul’s College opened in 1864, with Sankey as the first Warden, and later became Fegan’s Home for Orphaned Boys.

For ten years, from 1962 to 1972, it was a preparatory school run by Franciscan monks. The school chapel became a restaurant in recent years and the other buildings in the complex are now offices, craft workshops and apartments. The restaurant is undergoing a transformation and is expected to reopen soon as the Chapel Chophouse and Bar.

But it is interesting on this day that Saint Peter and Saint Paul at one time almost faced each other on the High Street in Stony Stratford.

The school chapel has been a restaurant in recent years and other parts of the buildings are offices, craft workshops and apartments (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 53, Monday 29 June 2026, Saint Peter and Saint Paul

The Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul holding the church in unity … an early 18th century icon in the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary time in the Church Calendar. The week began with Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV, 28 June 2026) and today is the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (29 June). This time of the year is known sometimes as Petertide, because of the ordinations at this time of the year.

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.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the paired niches above the south porch in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 16: 13-19 (NRSVA):

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

The statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the porch of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on Queen Street, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Last week I was marking the 25th anniversary of my ordination as priest (24 June 2001) and the 26th anniversary of my ordination as deacon, on both occasions by Archbishop Walton Empey in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin In recent days, many of ordained colleagues have been posting photographs on social media celebrating the anniversaries of their ordinations too.

Today is the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Apostles (29 June), and this time of the year is known in Anglican tradition as Petertide, one of the two traditional periods for the ordination of new priests and deacons – the other being Michaelmas, in the days close to 29 September.

The Cambridge poet-priest Malcolm Guite has said on his blog that Saint Peter’s Day and this season are appropriate for ordinations because Saint Peter is ‘the disciple who, for all his many mistakes, knew how to recover and hold on, who, for all his waverings was called by Jesus “the rock,” who learned the threefold lesson that every betrayal can ultimately be restored by love.’

Saint Peter argues with Saint Paul at Antioch, and Paul rebukes Peter for seemingly trying to insist that Gentiles must become Jews if they are to convert to Christianity (see Galatians 2: 11-13). But if Saint Peter gets it wrong in Antioch, he goes on to get it right at the first Council of the Church in Jerusalem (see Acts 15: 7-20). He later refers to Saint Paul as ‘our beloved brother’ and his letters as ‘scripture,’ even when they may be difficult to understand (see II Peter 3: 16-17).

A later Church tradition says Saint Peter and Saint Paul taught together in Rome, founded Christianity in the city, and suffered martyrdom at the same time, so that an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, standing side-by-side, is a popular icon of Church unity and ecumenism in the Orthodox Church.

In the Orthodox Church, Saint Peter and Saint Paul are seen as figures of Church Unity, sharing a common faith and mission despite their differences. They are often seen as paired, flanking images at entrances to churches, and the icon of Christian Unity in the Orthodox tradition shows the Apostles Peter and Paul embracing each other – signs of the early Church overcoming its differences and affirming its diversity.

As they embrace each other in these icons, Peter and Paul are almost wrestling, arms around each other, beards so close they are almost intertwining. This icon reminds me of Psalm 133:

How very good and pleasant it is
when [brothers] live together in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life for evermore.

So, despite many readings of the New Testament, especially the Acts of the Apostles, that see Peter and Paul in conflict with each other rather than complementing each other, they can be models for Church Unity.

We may rejoice in the Church that our differences may complement each other. Pope Francis marked the feast of Saint Peter and Paul in 2020 by stressing the importance of unity in the Church and allowing ourselves to be challenged by God, urging people to spend less time complaining about what they see going wrong, and more time in prayer.

He noted that Saint Peter and Saint Paul were two very different men who ‘could argue heatedly’ but who ‘saw one another as brothers, as happens in close-knit families where there may be frequent arguments but unfailing love.’

God, he said, ‘did not command us to like one another, but to love one another. He is the one who unites us, without making us all alike.’

Saint Peter and Saint Paul depicted in the window commemorating William Cowper in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Churh, Olney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 29 June 2026, Saint Peter and Saint Paul)

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 28 June to 4 July 2026 (pp 14-15), is ‘Living Stones’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a reflection by the Very Revd Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, President and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School.

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 29 June 2026, Saint Peter and Saint Paul) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, you called apostles to proclaim a love that disrupted power and turned the world upside down. Help us, as living stones, to support one another in courageous truth-telling and bearing witness against empire.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul
glorified you in their death as in their life:
grant that your Church,
inspired by their teaching and example,
and made one by your Spirit,
may ever stand firm upon the one foundation,
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:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Peter and Saint Paul depicted in statues on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 35, Thursday 11 June 2026, Saint Barnabas the Apostle

An icon of Saint Barnabas in Saint Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I, 7 June 2026). The Church Calendar today commemorates Saint Barnabas the Apostle (11 June).

Later day, I plan to meet a visiting writer from New Zealand at lunchtime in London. I hope to be back in Stony Stratford this evening in time to watch the openi match of the World Cup, between Mexico and South Africa, although this time round I plan to watch only matches played in Mexico and Canada, and to avoid any matches played at venues in the US, in my own personal protest against the Trump regime and the way it has hijacked this World Cup in very politically-motivated way. Before today begins, meanwhile, 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.

An icon of Saint Barnabas in Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 12-17 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.’

Saint Paul (left), the Prophet Elijah (centre) and Saint Barnabas (right) in a window in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Later this month, I hope to mark the 25th anniversary of my ordination as pariest in 2001 and the 26th anniversary of my ordination as deacon in 2000. Shortly before my ordination, over diner with our friend Canon Norman Ruddock at the Rectory in Wexford, Bishop Noel Willoughby, told me about what he called his ‘Barnabas File.’

He had retired as Bishop of Cashel and Ossory and was then living in Wexford. As a bishop, he told me, he regularly got letters moaning and groaning about what he had done or what he had failed to do. He read them, acted on them if he needed to, and then dumped them. But when he got encouraging letters, praising him, or just simply nice letters, he filed them away in his ‘Barnabas File’ and then take them out and read them when the pressures of ministry and the critics were grinding him down. Those letter writers were to him what Saint Barnabas was to the Apostle Paul on their shared missionary journeys.

In the Church Calendar, today is the Feast of Saint Barnabas. The lectionary readings for the Eucharist today include Acts 11: 19-30, set in Antioch, where we are called Christians for the first time. Earlier, Barnabas had sold all his goods and had given his money to the apostles in Jerusalem (Acts 4: 36-37). Now, in Acts 11, Barnabas arrives in Antioch. He then brings Saul from Tarsus to Antioch, and the two are sent out together.

Barnabas and Paul travel together for such a long time that their names are almost inseparable. When a dispute arises about taking John Mark with them, that dispute ends with Paul and Barnabas taking separate routes.

In today’s Gospel reading (John 15: 12-17), we are reminded that the great commandment Christ gives us is to love one another as Christ loves us (verse 12), and that we are called to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last (verse 16).

Christ tells us we have been given his commands so that we may love one another (verse 17). If we love one another, and if that becomes our priority in ministry, then we too can be like Barnabas to the other Pauls we meet in our Christian life.

Love one another. And that is enough.

Saint Barnabas (left) among the icons in the Baptistry in the west apse of Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 11 June 2026, Saint Barnabas the Apostle):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 7 to 13 June 2026 (pp 8-9), is ‘Safe Churches in Zambia’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Senior Regional Manager for Africa, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 11 June 2026, Saint Barnabas the Apostle) invites us to pray:

God of encouragement, as Saint Barnabas strengthened the early Church, strengthen leaders in Zambia. Help them build churches where every person is treated with dignity and respect.

The Collect:

Bountiful God, giver of all gifts,
who poured your Spirit upon your servant Barnabas
and gave him grace to encourage others:
help us, by his example,
to be generous in our judgements
and unselfish in our service;
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:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

With Canon Norman Ruddock (left) and Bishop Noel Willoughby (right) in Wexford in 1998 … a reminder of the ‘Barnabas Files’

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

‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ A lesson from Saint Paul in Athens in this morning’s readings

The Hill of the Areopagos in Athens, looking across to the Acropolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

An early Christian thinker, Tertullian, once asked, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’

What have the ways of the world got to do with the way we live our life as Christians?

How does God respond to the cry of the poor?

How is God present in our lives?

How do we live a life of love that shows we know the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

How do we respond in love and in faith and love to suffering in the world and to suffering of those we love?

Where do we find God in the midst of all this?

All these questions are asked regularly, and the first morning reading at the Eucharist this morning was a reminder that God never leaves us alone.

Saint Paul’s words inscribed on a plaque on the Areopagos in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today has been the Sixth Sunday of Easter (10 May 2026), and at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning I read the first readings (Acts 17: 22-31), in which the Apostle Paul is at the Areopagos in Athens.

The people who worshipped the unknown God on the slopes beneath the shadow of the Acropolis were assured that God had heard their prayers, and they are now being invited to join in communion with this God through Saint Paul’s proclamation.

The Stoa of Attalos is one of the many splendid buildings beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens. This stoa (στοά), a covered walkway or portico in the Agora, was built by and named after Attalos II (159-138 BCE), King of Pergamon. Its arcades were divided into shops and stalls, and it was a popular place for wealthy Athenians to meet and gossip.

There were many stoas in Athens, including the Stoa Poikile or Painted Porch, built in the fifth century BCE on the north side of the Agora.

‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ (Tertullian) … the Stoa of Attalos, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This is where we find Saint Paul in today’s morning, in one of the most famous sites in ancient Athens. Its fame was enhanced by the paintings and loot from wars displayed there. It was in this porch that Zeno of Citium (ca 333-262 BCE) taught Stoicism, the philosophical school that takes its name from this place.

The Stoics believed in a god, and this god played an important role in their general philosophy. But Stoic theology was fluid in its concept of god. Zeno argued that the cosmos is an intelligent being, although he seems not to have explicitly identified that intelligent being as God.

According to the Roman orator and philosopher Cicero, the Stoics recognised four main questions in theology: they prove that the gods exist; they explain their nature; they show that the world is governed by them; and that they care for the fortunes of humanity.

Essentially, Stoicism is a philosophy of personal ethics. It teaches that the path to happiness is found in accepting this moment as it presents itself, by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure or our fear of pain, by using our minds to understand the world around us and to do our part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others in a fair and just manner.

The Stoics taught that emotions resulted in errors of judgment that were destructive, due to the interaction between cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will that is in accord with nature. To live a good life, they taught, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they taught that everything is rooted in nature.

Later Stoics believed that virtue is sufficient for happiness.

The steps leading up to the top of the Areopagos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

During his visit to Athens, the Apostle Paul debates with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in the stoa, the marketplace or the agora. They take him to the shrine of the unknown god at the Areopagos (see Acts 17: 16-19).

Saint Paul tells them that they already know God in their hearts, they just have to come to realise who God is. In his speech at the Areopagos, Saint Paul also quotes the Cretan philosopher Epimenides: ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’

Epimenides was a poet and philosopher from Knossos, so he was familiar with the ancient Greek myths. All of his works are now lost, but he is remembered because he popularised the story in Crete that Zeus was dead, which led him to being condemned as a liar by his Greek contemporaries, and because he is quoted by Saint Paul not once but twice in the New Testament.

At the Areopagos in Athens (see Acts 17: 22-34), Saint Paul, quotes from Epimenides, referring him as one of ‘your own poets,’ when he says: ‘For “In him we live and move and have our being”.’

Later, when Saint Paul writes to Saint Titus about his mission in Crete, he commits a logical fallacy by quoting Epimenides: ‘It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.” That testimony is true’ (Titus 1: 12-13a).

The ‘lie’ of the Cretans is that Zeus was mortal, for Epimenides believed that Zeus is dead. The logical inconsistency of a Cretan asserting that all Cretans are always liars may not have occurred to Epimenides, nor to Callimachus, who both used the phrase to emphasise their point, without irony.

However, Saint Paul must have thought long about the idea of a dead god and the dead god’s tomb as he sought to preach the Resurrection Athens and in Crete.

The American theologian John Piper is a fundamentalist whose views on women and Jews I find misogynist and bordering on the antisemitic. Dismissing the horrors of domestic violence, he has said, ‘If her husband isn’t requiring her to sin, but simply hurting her, then i think she endures verbal abuse for a season, she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.’

In one of his books, Coronavirus and Christ, Piper claimed that Covid-19 was God’s judgment on society, and he singled out, among other things, gay people as a deserving ‘due penalty.’ When I hear things like this, I wonder whether preachers like this believe in the dead Zeus rather than the Risen Christ and the God in whom ‘we live and move and have our being.’

The old myths and superstitions are dead and gone, and with them the false expectations and demands they made on us. But the one true God has been with us always. This is Saint Paul’s message to the people of Athens in the first century. We do not believe in a superstitious way in a god like Zeus who exerts his control over weak humans in an angry and vengeful way, sending plagues and viruses to wipe us out as a way of asserting his control. We look to a loving God who has always been at work among people who seek to do God’s will: the Samaritan woman at the well comes to understand this; the Ethiopian eunuch who meets Saint Philip comes to understand this.

During the pandemic lockdown, as people asked where God was in the middle of that crisis, many of us, hopefully, realised that God is at work through everyone who is already doing God’s work. And we should rejoice in this and affirm this.

Epimenidou Street in Rethymnon … the philosopher from Crete gives his name to streets in towns and cities throughout Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Acts 17: 22-31 (NRSVA)

22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor[a] he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God[b] and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,

“For we too are his offspring.”

29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

Looking across the Hill of the Areopagos and Athens from the Acropolis (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

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 33, Thursday 7 May 2026

‘God is Love, God is Light, God is with us’ … a panel in the north ambulatory in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V, 3 May 2026).

Today is election local day in many parts of this island. Although there are no elections for Stony Stratford Town Council, there are elections in Stony Stratford ward in the Milton Keynes local election, with 15 candidates standing for three seats, so that each voter has three votes as they choose from 15 candidates. My local polling station is is in Stony Stratford Library and is open from 7 am to 10 pm. Before today begins, and before I go out to vote, 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.

A side aisle in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 9-11 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 9 ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.’

Southwark Cathedral was at the heart of the movement known as ‘South Bank Religion’ in the late 20th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

While Mervyn Stockwood (1913-1995) was Bishop of Southwark (1959-1980), the term ‘South Bank Religion’ came into vogue in the 1960s and was associated with the Bishop and the Diocese and those in his theological circle.

Mervyn Stockwood was known for making unusual, radical, but successful appointments, including John Robinson, David Sheppard and Michael Marshall as his suffragan Bishops of Woolwich, and Hugh Montefiore and Keith Sutton as Bishops of Kingston.

Bishop Stockwood memorably appeared with Malcolm Muggeridge on the BBC’s Friday Night, Saturday Morning in 1979, arguing that the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian was blasphemous and telling John Cleese and Michael Palin they would ‘get [their] thirty pieces of silver.’

Bishop Stockwood was born in Wales, and became an Anglo-Catholic at All Saints’ Church, Clifton. He then studied theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and Westcott House, where he became a socialist. As the Vicar of Great Saint Mary’s, Cambridge, his sermons drew large numbers of undergraduates and earned him a national reputation.

The term ‘South Bank Religion’ was particularly associated with John Robinson’s Honest to God and Layman’s Church, a collection of essays introduced by Timothy (later Lord) Beaumont, and including essays from several of the figures associated with ‘South Bank Religion’, including John Robinson. Its cover features ‘Christ in Majesty’, made for Llandaff Cathedral in 1954-1955 by Jacob Epstein, who also sculpted ‘Saint Michael and the Devil’ (1956-1958) for the exterior of Coventry Cathedral.

I had a memorable taste of another brand of ‘South Bank Religion’ once at a day-long meeting of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG in the offices in Southwark.

The offices are just a short walk from Southwark Cathedral, the Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre on the South Bank. As the meeting opened, we were led in a Bible study of the same Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary today at the Eucharist (John 15: 9-11) and that continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in Saint John’s Gospel:

9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

I was then invited to introduce a reading about the life of Peter Chanel (1803-1841), a 19th century French missionary and martyr in the South Pacific, who was clubbed to death on 28 April 1841.

One of his catechumens said of him: ‘He loves us; he does what he teaches; he forgives his enemies. His teaching is good.’

And that seems a perfect summary of what Christianity is about – whether it is branded as ‘South Bank Religion’, or Woke, or anything else. And it seems a perfect summary of what mission is about too.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

A taste of ‘South Bank Religion’? … Saint Paul’s Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge seen from the South Bank (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 7 May 2026):

In my prayers this morning, I am thinking of the candidates and the voters in today’s elections. Would that we could say of all the candidates, to paraphrase what that catechumen said of him of Peter Chanel, ‘They love us; they do what they should teach; they forgive their enemies. Their teaching is good.’ Sadly, that is not true of many of them.

‘Following God’s Lead’ provides the theme this week (3-9 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 52-53. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Father Thanduxolo Noketshe, Vicar of Saint Mary’s and Christ Church in Cayon, St Kitts & Nevis.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 6 May 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the young people of Saint Mary’s and Christ Church. Guide each one with the love and support of family, of all generations.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen 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:

Eternal God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life:
grant us to walk in his way,
to rejoice in his truth,
and to share his risen life;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Risen Christ,
your wounds declare your love for the world
and the wonder of your risen life:
give us compassion and courage
to risk ourselves for those we serve,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The polling station for today's local elections in Stony Stratford is in the library on Church Street (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