Dungarvan-born High Sheriff dies at home in Liverpool

With Professor Helen Carty, then High Sheriff of Merseyside, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Revd Patrick Kelly, at Judges’ Service in Liverpool Cathedral on Sunday 16 October 2011

Patrick Comerford

It was sad to read today of the death in Liverpool of Professor Helen Carty, who died at home earlier this week [23 April 2017]. As High Sheriff of Merseyside, Dr Carty warmly welcomed me to Liverpool in October 2011, when I was invited by Archbishop Justin Welby, the then Dean of Liverpool, to preach at the Annual Judges’ Service in Liverpool Cathedral.

Archbishop Welby was about to be consecrated Bishop of Durham later that month. But he was delighted that Helen was attending the service, and she was delighted to welcome an Irish theologian who was preaching in the city she had made her home. Later that day, I was the guest of honour at a lunch Helen and her husband Austin hosted for the judges in the Artists’ Club in Liverpool.

Helen Carty had a distinguished career as a radiologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, and her career gained wide international recognition.

Professor Carty was born Helen M.L. Moloney in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, and spent most of her working life with children and their families.

She received her degrees in Medicine and Surgery Obstetrics from University College Dublin in 1967. Her clinical studies were in the Mater Hospital. Initially, she studied internal medicine, obtaining membership of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and she was subsequently elected a Fellow.

Shen then began training in radiology and completed her residency in radiology at Saint Thomas’ Hospital, London. In 1974, she became a fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and in 1975 she became Consultant Radiologist in 1975 at the Royal Liverpool Children’s NHS Trust, Alder Hey, becoming Director of Radiological Services there in 1977. She continued to hold that post for 27 years.

Shortly after her appointment as a consultant, she was appointed a lecturer in radiology and orthopaedic radiology at Liverpool University. In 1996, she became Professor of Paediatric Radiology at Liverpool University and Alder Hey, a position she held until she retired from clinical practice in 2004.

She had broad interests within paediatric radiology, and she introduced interventional procedures to the children’s hospital. She had a special interest in the radiology of non-accidental injuries and lectured extensively on that subject.

She believed she and Austin were fortunate to work in radiology at a time of unprecedented development, when many of the techniques now taken for granted were developed, including Ultrasound, CT and MR were all developed.

She seized the opportunity to introduce and adapt these techniques for use in children and to develop paediatric radiology, locally, nationally and internationally. The first CT scanner in Alder Hey was bought through a public appeal that raised £1.25 million. She was the medical lead for this appeal which raised the money in 1984-1987, a tribute to the generosity of the people of Merseyside.

She became involved in European radiology through the European Congress of Radiology (ECR), founded in 1991 in Vienna, and she contributed to the development of Radiology particularly in Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism. Her election as President of ECR in 2004 marked the culmination of a lifetime’s work.

She was President of the Liverpool Medical Institution (1993-1994) and served on many committees of the Royal College of Radiologists, including serving a four-year term as Warden of the College. She was also an external examiner or supervisor of MD and PhD theses in Dublin, Pakistan, Malaysia and Singapore, and on many occasions she was a visiting professor or lecturer in Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, South America, South Africa and the US.

She published extensively on many aspects of paediatric radiology, and was editor-in-chief of a two-volume textbook of paediatric radiology. Her many honorary fellowships included the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Faculty of Radiologists of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Austin is also a radiologist, and they were married in 1967. They have three children and six grandchildren. They retired on the same day to have time to spend with each other and their children.

She was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Merseyside in 2005 and was the High Sheriff of Merseyside for the year 2011-2012.

Helen is survived by Austin, their three adult children Tim, Jenny and Sarah, and by six grandchildren, Robyn, Sebastian, Barney, Lauren, Tom and Charlie.

Her private cremation next week is for her family only. Later next month, a Service of Remembrance will be held in Liverpool Cathedral at 11 a.m. on Tuesday 30 May. She has asked for no flowers, but donations can be made to the Liverpool Cathedral Foundation 2024 Appeal.

Judges’ service hears of shared values of justice and mercy

The current edition [December 2011] of the Church Review, the Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Magazine, carries the following half-page news report and photograph on page 9:

Judges’ service hears of shared
values of justice and mercy

Canon Patrick Comerford (right) at the Judges’ Service in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr Patrick Kelly, and the High Sheriff of Merseyside, Professor Helen Carty

Justice and mercy “are both demands for the Church and for the Law,” Canon Patrick Comerford told the Annual Judge’s Service in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. “They are not mutually exclusive, even though the Church tends to see mercy as our preserve and justice as the prerogative of the law.”

Canon Comerford, who is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, was preaching the cathedral service marking the beginning of the Legal Year in the Merseyside area.

“In truth,” he said, “the Church has not been good in the past in living up to its call and claim to exercise a ministry of mercy.” He gave examples from the opposition of Pope Innocent III to Magna Carta, and said “the Church was short on mercy throughout the Crusades, the Inquisitions and the Reformation, convinced it was giving its priority to justice.”

He pointed out that only one Church of England bishop had spoken in the House of Lords in favour of the abolition of the death penalty in 1948. “But mercy slowly began to win hearts, and by 1956 eight bishops voted for its abolition and one against; by 1969, 19 bishops voted for the abolition of the death penalty but, unbelievably, there was still one who voted against. By 1988, the Lambeth Conference called for the abolition of the death penalty.”

“Mercy and justice, justice and mercy, they go together as an inseparable couplet or pair,” he said. “When we serve both, we serve the God who reveals himself to us in the Law and in the Prophets, and who comes to be present among us in Christ Jesus.”

Earlier in his sermon, Canon Comerford said the Warrington bombers, who murdered Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball in 1993 “never faced justice.”

“This was a tragedy that struck me personally, for Johnathan’s mother was Marie Comerford,” he said. “In 2001, the parents of these two young boys met Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness. After the meeting, Martin McGuinness declined to say whether he had apologised to those parents on behalf of the IRA.”

“The Warrington bombers never faced justice, and no mercy was shown to their victims by a man who is now a presidential candidate in the Republic of Ireland.” And he asked: “Is it any wonder that Marie Comerford died of a broken heart two years ago?”

The service began with processions by people involved in the civic, academic and judicial life of Merseyside, including High Court and Crown Court judges, the High Sheriffs of Merseyside and Lancashire, the Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside, and the Lord-Lieutenant of Merseyside.

The service was conducted by the Acting Dean of Liverpool and Canon Precentor, Canon Myles Davies. The attendance included the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr Patrick Kelly, and the Anglican Dean of Auckland, the Very Revd Jo Kelly-Moore.

Canon Comerford and Barbara Comerford were also guests of honour at the Judges’ Dinner in Liverpool the previous evening and at a lunch and reception hosted by the High Sheriff of Merseyside, Dr Helen Carty, the Irish-born former Professor of Paediatric Radiology at Liverpool University.

The same edition of the Church Review carries this photograph and caption on page 74:

Right Revd Chad Gandiya, Bishop of Harare, with Revd Dr John Bartlett (l) and Canon Patrick Comerford in Christ Church Cathedral

Saint Andrew: book-ending the Church year with a commitment to mission

Church and Cult … Saint Andrew’s Church reflected in a shop window in Suffolk Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

30 November 2011: Saint Andrew the Apostle

Church of Ireland Theological Institute,

5 p.m., the Community Eucharist.

Isaiah 52: 7-10; Psalm 19: 1-6; Romans 10: 12-18; Matthew 4: 18-22.

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

First of all, “Happy Name Day” (χρόνια πολλά για το όνομα σου) to every Andrew among us. Your name day may come at the end of the year, but alphabetically you managed to be ahead of the class and first to be picked for much of your childhood ... it is just as well you were named after Andrew and not after Zebedee in this evening’s Gospel reading.

Our two Andrews may be prejudiced in favour of noticing these sorts of things.

So too may the Director, who is not only a graduate of St Andrews, but has served in two parishes where there have been churches named Saint Andrew’s, in Coleraine and in Lurgan.

But how many among you have noticed the two churches in Dublin that are named after Saint Andrew?

One is Saint Andrew’s in Westland Row, close to the Dart station at the east end of Trinity College Dublin; the other is on the corner of Suffolk Street and Saint Andrew’s Street, close to the West or main entrance to TCD, near the bus stop many of us use in Suffolk Street.

Both churches continue the name of a mediaeval church, built on a site near the City Hall, close to Dublin Castle, and dating from the early 13th century.

In the 17th century, the Church of Ireland parish church of Saint Andrew’s was relocated east, so it could be nearer to the newly developing suburbs around Trinity College. There it also became the parish church of the Irish Parliament and the Stock Exchange. An oddly-shaped church with a cone-shaped roof, it was known as the “Round Church.”

It was replaced in 1800 by another new, round church, designed by Francis Johnston. You may notice how that round shape is still reflected in the bend on the street at Suffolk Street and Saint Andrew Street, with Church Lane and Trinity Street leading down to College Green.

But the new church suddenly lost its social appeal when Parliament was abolished at the Act of Union in 1800. Greater disaster came when it burned to the ground in 1860.

The cloister-like colonnade on the north side of the former Saint Andrew’s Church in Suffolk Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Yet another new church, the present building, was built. Instead of rebuilding a round church, this one was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Lanyon and Lynn of Belfast. However, the church never recovered its parochial life, and it lost its potential for mission and ministry in that part of the city centre.

I remember Saint Andrew’s being used by the Ministry of Healing, certainly in the 1970s and the 1980s. But, when it closed in 1993, it had only two remaining parishioners. The building was sold, and since 1996 it has housed the Dublin Tourism Information and Booking Office.

Saint Andrew, carved by Edward Smith, crowns the portico of Saint Andrew’s Church in Westland Row, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Although Francis Johnston was also one of the architects, Saint Andrew’s in Westland Row was built in a very different architectural style. The other architects, designers and decorators included John Boulger and James Lever, and they built it in the classical style with echoes of the baroque of the Roman tradition, rather than the Gothic of the Church of Ireland’s Saint Andrew’s.

Outside, the church has a Doric portico, crowned by a statue of Saint Andrew, sculpted by Edward Smith.

He holds the X-shaped or saltire-style cross on which the apostle was said to have been martyred.

These two Saint Andrew’s churches bookend Trinity College Dublin – one at the east end and one at the west end. What an ecumenical – albeit unplanned – gesture. But Saint Andrew’s Day also bookends the Church year. This is the first great saint’s day in this new Church Year, which began on Sunday last, the First Sunday of Advent. And, in a rare occurrence, Saint Andrew’s Day is both the first and last great feastday of this church year, coming before the First Sunday in Advent, which falls on 2 December in 2012.

But these two churches also speak about the mission of the Church today.

One is seeking its relevance today, trying to attract local business people with its experiments in “no-questions-asked” confessions, Gospel choirs and Masses that try to attract local business people.

The other, in some ways, speaks about our failures or inadequacies in inner-city mission. Despite the healing services and lunch-time Holy Communions, the church had long lost its relevance before we all woke up to what was happening in the 1990s.

Let me digress for a moment. Some years ago, I was introducing a group of visiting Irish Church leaders to a Patriarch in an Eastern Mediterranean city. Bishops, priests and mission personnel were being received generously. On a table before us, there was a display of large icons, and I alone realised these were about to be presented to us as gifts as part of the hospitality.

But the mood then changed inexplicably. A monk was called over. The Patriarch nodded. The large icons were whisked away, and a tray of smaller icons was brought out. The Patriarch then immediately began to criticise the Western Church – all branches of the Western Church – for losing our priorities in mission.

He told us how he had seen churches in the inner cities in northern Europe turned into curry houses, garages, shops and cinemas. He told us how difficult it was for Christians to keep open their churches in mainly Muslim countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. But he insisted these churches should stay open, despite social and financial difficulties, because they are signs of mission and signs of the commitment of the Church, the whole Church, to where we find ourselves incarnationally.

We were asked: Are we committed to commerce? Or are we partners in mission?

And then smaller and less significant icons were handed out as parting gifts to the visitors, left with these harsh but pertinent questions: Are we committed to commerce? Or are we partners in mission?

The Apostle Andrew is a Gospel example of how we can be excited about mission.

Saint Andrew the Apostle was a fisherman, an every-day ordinary-day commercial occupation, working on the Lake of Galilee in partnership with his brother Simon Peter. He was a disciple of John the Baptist, and it is said that when Saint John the Baptist began to preach, Saint Andrew became one of his closest disciples. The story goes that Saint John the Baptist then sent two of his own disciples, the future Saint Andrew and Saint John the Evangelist, to Christ, declaring Christ to be the Lamb of God.

When he heard Christ’s call to follow him, Saint Andrew hesitated for a moment, not because he had any doubts about that call, but because he wanted to bring his brother with him. He left his nets behind and went to Peter and, as Saint John’s Gospel tells us in another account of his calling, he told him: “We have found the Messiah … [and] he brought Simon to Jesus” (John 1: 41, 42).

In answering our call to ministry and mission, we must not forget those who are closest to us, those in our families and those who have worked with us. But, at the same time, like Saint Andrew, we must be happy about leaving behind the nets of yesterday and not getting caught up in them.

Tradition says Saint Andrew was so obstinate and so stubborn at his martyrdom in Patras, in today’s western Greece, that he insisted on being splayed on an X-shaped cross. He said he was unworthy to be crucified on a cross of the same shape as the one on which Christ had been crucified.

Unlike the other disciples named in our Gospel reading – Peter and James and John, the sons of Zebedee – Andrew never gave his name to an Epistle, never gave his name to a Gospel. But Andrew, the first-called of the Apostles, truly took up his cross and followed Christ. And he called others to do the same.

His stubborn and obstinate commitment to mission, to travelling for the Gospel, has made him the patron saint of mission work and the patron saint of Constantinople, Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Scotland.

That stubborn and obstinate commitment to Christ, to the point of a martyr’s death, makes Andrew an appropriate saint to start off the Church Year at the beginning of Advent. As Sunday’s Gospel reading (Mark 13: 24-37) reminded us, Christmas is meaningless without looking forward to the coming of Christ again in glory.

This evening, Saint Andrew, the first-called of the Apostles, reminds us of the meaning of our call to ministry and mission.

The other day, I was looking at the sad reflection of old Saint Andrew’s in the windows of a shop in Suffolk Street called, of all things, “Cult.”

If the Church is to remain Church and not become a cult, then we must have a new commitment to relevance and to mission.

When you leave here, casting aside the nets of study, assignments and dissertations, may you remain stubborn and obstinate, like Saint Andrew, the first-called of the Apostles, in your commitment to Christ, to his Church and to his mission.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral. This sermon was preached on Saint Andrew’s Day, 30 November 2011, at the Community Eucharist in the institute chapel.

Tender moments in the loving presence of God

‘Then they will see the Son of Man coming’ (Mark 13: 26) … the King of Kings and Great High Priest, an icon from Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 27 November 2011,

The First Sunday of Advent

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin,

11 a.m., the Cathedral Eucharist

Isaiah 64: 1-9;
Psalm 80: 1-8, 18-20;
I Corinthians 1: 3-9;
Mark 13: 24-37

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

I was on my way to work the other morning after a beautiful sunrise, exceptional for this time of the year, and along the banks of the River Dodder in Rathfarnham I was watching the last late autumn leaves still decked out in an array of yellow, orange, brown and green.

I was stuck in traffic, but it was almost a heavenly pleasure.

And in a moment of idleness I thought how this year, throughout this year, throughout 2011, I had managed to find myself visiting places that are snatches of heaven to me – waking up looking out onto the banks of the River Slaney on a crisp early Spring morning; a few days here or a few days there back in Lichfield, in Cambridge, and in Greece; walks on the beach in Skerries, Portrane and Bettystown. And there were tender moments of love with those I love and those who love me; and prayerful moments of being conscious of and anticipating the presence of God.

Late autumn colours along the banks of the River Dodder in Rathfarnham in late November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

And I mused, in that idle moment on Wednesday morning, that if these were my last days then this year alone I had managed to visit and to stay in places that are so close to my heart.

It is natural, as the year comes to an end, to think of final things and closing days. Earlier in the month, we had All Saints’ Day, (in some churches) All Souls’ Day, and Remembrance Sunday:

At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

At the end of November we then move towards thinking of the end, not in a cataclysmic way, but because with the beginning of Advent we begin to think of the world as we know it giving way to the world as God wants it to be, to the Kingdom of God.

For many people in Ireland today, the world as they know it is coming to an end. Their businesses have closed. Their jobs have been lost. Their savings and investments have withered away. A large question mark hangs over their pensions and their provisions for the future.

And watching and waiting for the Budget next week offers them no hope for the future.

There is no doubt that in this country two of the major contributors to, causes of, poverty are ill-health and inadequate access to education.

Charging more for health care and for education ensures that more people are going to join those who are in the poverty trap, those who cannot pay more for health care and access to education, and those already there, cannot find hope for the future.

They may feel they are being fed with the bread of tears and given the abundance of tears to drink (Psalm 80: 6), that they are to become the derision of their neighbours (Psalm 80: 7).

Many of us are afraid not only of the coming budget but that our whole financial and economic system is teetering on the brink of collapse. We look at what has happened in Greece, and wonder is there worse waiting around the corner not only for this country, for the whole of Europe too.

The Bank of Greece ... is every European country waiting for a similar economic collapse? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The word often used to describe these fears is apocalyptic – we talk of apocalyptic fears and apocalyptic visions.

Our Old Testament and Gospel readings are classical apocalyptic passages in the Bible. The passage in this morning’s reading in Saint Mark’s Gospel is part of what is sometimes known as the “Little Apocalypse.”

You can imagine the first readers of Saint Mark’s Gospel. They have heard of – perhaps even seen – the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Like their fellow Christians in other parts of the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps the first Christians in Alexandria have been thrown out of the synagogues, have been disowned by those they once worshipped with, they have been disowned by friends, perhaps even by their closest family members, and face discrimination, loss of social standing, and perhaps even loss of income.

The world as they knew it was coming to an end. They saw their heaven and their earth torn apart (Isaiah 64: 1). And they, like us today, needed some reassurances of love and we, like them, need some signs of hope.

But the tree bearing fruit is a sign that God promises new life. In darkness and in gloom, we can know that God’s summer is always new, there are always rays of hope and glimpses of love (Mark 13: 28).

And everywhere the messengers of God’s good news, the angels, appear in the Gospel, they almost always begin to speak with the words: “Be not afraid.” These are the angel’s opening words to Zechariah in the Temple as he is about to be told of the imminent birth of John the Baptist (Matthew 1: 13). These are the angel’s words to Mary at the Annunciation (Luke 1: 30). These are the angels’ opening words to the shepherds on the hillside on the first Christmas night (Luke 2: 10). They are the angel’s opening words to Joseph wondering is he facing a future of disdain and a family disaster (Matthew 1: 20).

If we believe in God’s promises, we must not only set aside our fears. But we need too to show others how we believe, how we expect and how we look forward to being the beneficiaries of hope, being the recipients, the agents and the messengers or ministering angels of love.

It is said Martin Luther was once asked what he would do if he was told the world was going to end tomorrow, and he replied he would plant a tree.

The recent heavy rains destroyed an olive tree I was given this year as a present and that I was hoping to see grow in my back garden. But its leaves faded and it was taken away with the rains and the wind (see Isaiah 64: 6).

An olive grove on a hillside in Crete, looking out over the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

If these were my closing days, I too would like to plant an olive tree, despite the unmeasurable variations in weather we are experiencing in Ireland in recent winters.

Some of us receive bad news from time to time. More of us know and love someone who has recently received truly bad news.

But if you were told the end is coming, if you were told there was no tomorrow, or no next week, what would you do?

Would you want to spend those last few days closing that business deal?

Would you finish a long-delayed project?

Would you want to take that world cruise?

Would you finish that great novel?

Would you join me in planting that olive tree?

Or would you rise early to glory in the sunrise, listen to the waves rolling in onto the beach, stand beneath the last autumn leaves falling from the trees by the river bank, or prayerfully watch the sunset?

Sunrise in Knocklyon a few days ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

And even though all those are true pleasures and blessings at one and the same time, I think, if I was told that the end is coming, that these are my final days, then most of all I would want to tell those I love how much I love them, and hear once again, what I know already, that I too am loved.

And I would want to tell God how much I love God and to thank God for all the blessings, all the love, that I have received throughout my life. Because of God’s generosity I have not been lacking in anything … in anything that really matters at the end of my days (I Corinthians 1: 4, 7).

So, if that’s what we would do if we were told these are the closing days, maybe we should ask: Why not do that now?

Would you tell your children, your partner, your parents, your brothers and sisters, that one last time, that you love them?

Would you wrap the person you should love the most in one long, tender embrace?

We are the doorkeepers of our souls and our hearts (Mark 13: 34-37).

And if Christ comes this evening, tonight, early in the morning, or on my way to work tomorrow, will he find me sleeping on my responsibilities to be a sign of hope and a living example of true, deep, real love? (Mark 13: 35-36).

Will he find the Church sleeping on its call, its mission, to be a sign of the kingdom, a beacon of hope, a true and living sacrament of love?

In days of woe and in days of gloom, the Church must be a sign of hope, a sign of love, a sign that if even if things are not going to be get better for me and for others in my own life time, God’s plan is that they should be better (Mark 13: 27, 31).

In a world that needs hope, in a world that is short on love, then the Church, above all else, must be a visible sign of hope, must be a visible sign of love. If we cannot love one another in the Church, how can expect to find signs of hope and love in the world?

Advent calls us again to be willing to be clay in the hands of God who is our Father and who is the potter (Isaiah 64: 8), so that we can be shaped into his vessels of hope and of love, so that we can be signs of the coming Kingdom, so that our hope and our love give others hope and love too in the dark days of our winters.

Advent calls on me to create new space and to reorder my priorities. To be still. To experience some quiet. To be reminded who we are – God’s beloved children.

Mark Twain once said: “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

What would you do if the world were to end tomorrow? You do not need to wait. You can do those things now.

Finish the work you started. Be reconciled to those who need you. Be faithful to the people and tasks around you. Undertake some small and wonderful and great endeavour. Be a sign of hope. But most of all – love the ones you want to and ought to love.

Why not? For Christ has come, Christ is coming, and Christ will come again, in the name of love.

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

Collect:

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God our deliverer,
Awaken our hearts
to prepare the way for the advent of your Son,
that, with minds purified by the grace of his coming,
we may serve you faithfully all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Cathedral Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral on 27 November 2011.

Waiting for the crib, or waiting for the King?

The earliest portrayal of the Last Judgment is in a sixth century mosaic in Ravenna

Sunday, 20 November 2011

The Kingship of Christ, the Sunday before Advent

Saint George’s Church Balbriggan, Co Dublin
12 noon: The Eucharist (Holy Communion).

Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Matthew 25: 31-46.

Patrick Comerford

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

It must be a sign of getting older that each year I moan earlier and earlier that Christmas is coming earlier and earlier.

The Christmas decorations have been up in our local shopping centre for two weeks or more. The shops want usto believe that Christmas has already arrived as they try to ooze a festive air, despite the economic gloom and doom and the recent floods. Reports say Irish shoppers are planning to spend more in these weeks before Christmas than our counterparts across Europe.

People love the carols, the tradition, the goodwill and the good feelings we get from even just thinking about Santa Claus and the elves, the tree and the lights, the crib and the Baby Jesus. But I have already seen a crib scene in decorative lights on the outside of a south Dublin church … and Advent has not yet begun.

If Christ must be at the heart of Christmas, then waiting for Christ, anticipating Christ, must be at the heart of the Advent season, which begins next Sunday.

We have made Christmas a far-too comfortable story, with images of a sweet baby Jesus, surrounded by adoring, cute little animals and being visited by benign kings. In reality, though, Christmas is never a comfortable story in the Gospels.

Christmas is a story about poverty and about people who are homeless and rejected and who find no place to stay.

It is a messy story about a now-born child surrounded by the filth of animals and the dirt of squalor.

It is a story of shepherds involved in dangerous work, staying out all night in the winter cold, watching for wolves and sheep stealers.

It is a story of political deceit and corruption that lead to a cruel dictator stooping to murder, the murder of innocent children, to secure his grip on power.

Those images do not sell Christmas Cards or help to get the boss drunk under the mistletoe at the office party.

That is why in the weeks before Advent the Gospel readings remind us of what the coming of Christ into the world means, what the Kingdom of God is like, how we should prepare for the coming of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

The Feast of Christ the King is a recent innovation, dating only from 1925, when the concept of kingship was losing credibility in western societies, not so much to democracy but to the wave of fascism sweeping across Europe.

The mere mention of kings and monarchy today evokes images of extravagance or anachronism. But Christ comes not as a cute cuddly babe wrapped away in the manger in the window of a large department store. Nor does he come as a remote European monarch, whether barmy or benign.

Instead, our Gospel reading tells of Christ coming in glory as the Son of Man (verse 31), as the king (verses 34 and 40), and as Lord (verses 37 and 44).

It is so stark and challenging it forces us to ask what the coming of Christ, the second coming, will be like, and what Christ has to say to us about the way we live and the world we live in today.

The division of people into sheep and goats is a good image. We all love to divide people into insiders and the outsiders, us and them, friends and foes, Manchester United supporters and ABU fans. We do it all the time, and sheep and goats are a good short-hand term for what we do.

Sheep and goats behave differently, but in Palestine of Christ’s time they were fed together. Even to this day, in Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, sheep and goats are often difficult to tell apart until they are separated. And when it came to insiders and outsiders, goats were insiders and sheep were outsiders.

Goats are lively animals and very curious. They are happy living either in herds with other goats or on their own. Sheep are more docile, easily led, and always stay in groups.

Goats are gentle browsers, sheep are destructive grazers.

Goats nibble here and there, sampling and chewing on a lot of things without actually eating them. Sheep eat grass and plants all the way down to the ground. They are greedier than goats, and are more likely to overeat if they find more food than they need.

Goats are climbers: they almost never slip or fall; sheep, on the other hand, are much less sure-footed and easily fall and get stuck upside down.

The parable of the lost sheep just would not have had the same resonance if it were told as the parable of the lost goat.

Sheep can and will stay out all night, and are more resilient in bad weather. That is why the shepherds on the first Christmas night were out on the hills tending their sheep. But goats need warmth at night, so might even have been in the stable alongside the ox and the ass.

So: sheep are outsiders, goats are insiders. And what happens to the insiders and the outsiders in this parable would be a shocking end to the story for those who heard it for the first time in the Eastern Mediterranean.

A scene of Christ in Majesty at the Last Judgment in a fresco in the Orthodox Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

This story is so stark and so challenging that it has inspired great works of art, from doom walls in English mediaeval churches, to popular images in Greek and Romanian churches to this day; from sixth century mosaics in Ravenna to Fra Angelico in Florence and Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.

Perhaps because of Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, and other artists, we often see this story as one about individual judgment and individual condemnation, rather than the judgment of the nations spoken of in this reading.

The story opens with Christ coming again in glory, sitting on his throne of glory (verse 31), and the nations gathered before him (verse 32). We see not isolated individuals are gathered before the throne of Christ, but the nations – all the nations – assembled and being asked these searching questions.

These are questions directly related to that first Christmas story. They challenge us to ask whether we have taken on board the values of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 3-11; Luke 6: 20-31), and whether we truly accept the values Christ proclaimed at the start of his ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4: 16-19).

The questions he asks are put not just to us as individuals and as Christians. They are put to the nations, to all of the nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, pánta to ethne), each and every one of them.

And that is where Christ comes into the world, both at Christmas and at the second coming, with the Kingdom of God. At his birth, the old man in the Temple, Simeon, welcomes him as “a light for revelation to the nations” (φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν, phos eis apokálypsin ethnon) (Luke 2: 32).

Which nations on earth, at this very moment, would like to be judged by how enlightened they are; to be compared with the Kingdom of God when it comes to how they treat and look after those the enthroned Christ identifies with: those who are hungry; those who are thirsty; those who are strangers and find no welcome; those who are naked, bare of anything to call their own, or whose naked bodies are exploited for profit and pleasure; those who are sick and left waiting on hospital trolleys or on endless lists for health care they cannot afford; those imprisoned because they speak out, or because they are from the wrong political or ethnic group, or because they do not have the right papers when they arrive as refugees or asylum seekers?

When did we ever see Christ in pain on hospital trolley in Beaumont or being mistreated at passport control kiosks in the airport arrivals area?

But – as long it was done in the name of our nation, we did it to Christ himself.

In his second coming, Christ tells us the kind of conduct, of morality, towards others that is expected of us as Christians. But he also tells us of the consequences of not caring for others.

Our Gospel reading makes a direct connection with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. This Gospel reading challenges us in a way that is uncomfortable, but with things that must stay on our agenda as Christians and on the agenda of the Church and the agendas of the nations.

At the same time, our epistle reading challenges us to ask: What are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints (Ephesians 1: 18)? What is the immeasurable greatness of his great power (verse 19)?

Christ in Majesty ... John Piper’s window in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield

The genius of great power is revealed in those who have it and can use it but only do so sparingly. Christ’s choice is not to gratify those who want a worldly king, whether he is benign or barmy. Instead, he displays supreme majesty in his priorities for those who are counted out when it comes to other kingdoms.

Christ is not coming again as a king who is haughty and aloof, daft and barmy, or despotic and tyrannical. Instead he shows a model of kingship that emphasises what true majesty and graciousness should be – giving priority in the kingdom to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner (verses 35-36).

As we prepare for Christmas, we can look forward to seeing the Christ child in the crib and to singing about him in the carols. But we can also look forward to seeing him in glory. Let us be prepared to see him and welcome in the hungry, the thirsty, the unwelcome stranger, those who are naked and vulnerable, those with no private health care, those who are prisoners, those who have no visitors and those who are lonely and marginalised.

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

Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
Keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that plenteously bearing the fruit of good works
they may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Parish Eucharist in Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, on 20 November 2011.

Separating people like sheep and goats

The Last Judgment (ca 1425) by Fra Angelico

Sunday, 20 November 2011

The Kingship of Christ, the Sunday before Advent

Holmpatrick Parish Church, Skerries, Co Dublin
10.30 a.m., Morning Prayer.

Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Matthew 25: 31-46.

Patrick Comerford

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

I must be getting older, because every year I seem to moan earlier and earlier that Christmas is coming earlier and earlier.

The Christmas decorations have been up in our local shopping centre for two weeks or more. The shops want us to believe that Christmas has already arrived as they try to ooze a festive air, despite the economic gloom and doom and the recent floods. Reports say Irish shoppers are planning to spend more in these weeks before Christmas than our counterparts across Europe.

People love the carols, the tradition, the goodwill and the good feelings we get from even just thinking about Santa Claus and the elves, the tree and the lights, the crib and the Baby Jesus. But I have already seen a crib scene in decorative lights on the outside of a south Dublin church … and Advent has not yet begun.

If Christ must be at the heart of Christmas, then waiting for Christ, anticipating Christ, must be at the heart of the Advent season, which begins next Sunday.

We have made Christmas a far-too comfortable story, with images of a sweet baby Jesus, surrounded by adoring, cute little animals and being visited by benign kings. In reality, though, Christmas is never a comfortable story in the Gospels.

Christmas is a story about poverty and about people who are homeless and rejected and who find no place to stay.

It is a messy story about a new-born child surrounded by the filth of animals and the dirt of squalor.

It is a story of shepherds involved in dangerous work, staying out all night in the winter cold, watching for wolves and sheep stealers.

It is a story of political deceit and corruption that lead to a cruel dictator stooping to murder, the murder of innocent children, to secure his grip on power.

Those images do not sell Christmas Cards or help to get the boss drunk under the mistletoe at the office party.

That is why in the weeks before Advent the Gospel readings remind us of what the coming of Christ into the world means, what the Kingdom of God is like, how we should prepare for the coming of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

The Feast of Christ the King is a recent innovation, dating only from 1925, when the concept of kingship was losing credibility in western societies, not so much to democracy but to the wave of fascism sweeping across Europe.

The mere mention of kings and monarchy today evokes images of extravagance or anachronism. But Christ comes not as a cute cuddly babe wrapped away in the manger in the window of a large department store. Nor does he come as a remote European monarch, whether barmy or benign.

Instead, our Gospel reading tells of Christ coming in glory as the Son of Man (verse 31), as the king (verses 34 and 40), and as Lord (verses 37 and 44).

It is so stark and challenging it forces us to ask what the coming of Christ, the second coming, will be like, and what Christ has to say to us about the way we live and the world we live in today.

The division of people into sheep and goats is a good image. We all love to divide people into insiders and the outsiders, us and them, friends and foes, Manchester United supporters and ABU fans. We do it all the time, and sheep and goats are a good short-hand term for what we do.

Sheep and goats behave differently, but in Palestine of Christ’s time they were fed together. Even to this day, in Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, sheep and goats are often difficult to tell apart until they are separated. And when it came to insiders and outsiders, goats were insiders and sheep were outsiders.

Goats are lively animals and very curious. They are happy living either in herds with other goats or on their own. Sheep are more docile, easily led, and always stay in groups.

Goats are gentle browsers, sheep are destructive grazers.

Goats nibble here and there, sampling and chewing on a lot of things without actually eating them. Sheep eat grass and plants all the way down to the ground. They are greedier than goats, and are more likely to overeat if they find more food than they need.

Goats are climbers: they almost never slip or fall; sheep, on the other hand, are much less sure-footed and easily fall and get stuck upside down.

The parable of the lost sheep just would not have had the same resonance if it were told as the parable of the lost goat.

Sheep can and will stay out all night, and are more resilient in bad weather. That is why the shepherds on the first Christmas night were out on the hills tending their sheep. But goats need warmth at night, so might even have been in the stable alongside the ox and the ass.

So: sheep are outsiders, goats are insiders. And what happens to the insiders and the outsiders in this parable would be a shocking end to the story for those who heard it for the first time in the Eastern Mediterranean.

A scene of Christ in Majesty at the Last Judgment in a fresco in the Orthodox Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

This story has inspired great works of art, from doom walls in English mediaeval churches, to popular images in Greek and Romanian churches to this day; from sixth century mosaics in Ravenna to Fra Angelico in Florence and Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.

Perhaps because of Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, and other artists, we often see this story as one about individual judgment and individual condemnation, rather than the judgment of the nations spoken of in this reading.

The story opens with Christ coming again in glory, sitting on his throne of glory (verse 31), and the nations gathered before him (verse 32). We see not isolated individuals are gathered before the throne of Christ, but the nations – all the nations – assembled and being asked these searching questions.

These are questions directly related to that first Christmas story. They challenge us to ask whether we have taken on board the values of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 3-11; Luke 6: 20-31), and whether we truly accept the values Christ proclaimed at the start of his ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4: 16-19).

The questions he asks are put not just to us as individuals and as Christians. They are put to the nations, to all of the nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, pánta to ethne), each and every one of them.

And that is where Christ comes into the world, both at Christmas and at the second coming, with the Kingdom of God. At his birth, the old man in the Temple, Simeon, welcomes him as “a light for revelation to the nations” (φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν, phos eis apokálypsin ethnon) (Luke 2: 32).

Which nations on earth, at this very moment, would like to be judged by how enlightened they are; to be compared with the Kingdom of God when it comes to how they treat and look after those the enthroned Christ identifies with: those who are hungry; those who are thirsty; those who are strangers and find no welcome; those who are naked, bare of anything to call their own, or whose naked bodies are exploited for profit and pleasure; those who are sick and left waiting on hospital trolleys or on endless lists for health care they cannot afford; those imprisoned because they speak out, or because they are from the wrong political or ethnic group, or because they do not have the right papers when they arrive as refugees or asylum seekers?

When did we ever see Christ in pain on hospital trolley in Beaumont or being mistreated at passport control kiosks in the airport arrivals area?

But – as long it was done in the name of our nation, we did it to Christ himself.

In his second coming, Christ tells us the kind of conduct, of morality, towards others that is expected of us as Christians. But he also tells us of the consequences of not caring for others.

Our Gospel reading makes a direct connection with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. This Gospel reading challenges us in a way that is uncomfortable, but with things that must stay on our agenda as Christians and on the agenda of the Church and the agendas of the nations.

At the same time, our epistle reading challenges us to ask: What are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints (Ephesians 1: 18)? What is the immeasurable greatness of his great power (verse 19)?

Christ in Majesty ... John Piper’s window in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield

The genius of great power is revealed in those who have it and can use it but only do so sparingly. Christ’s choice is not to gratify those who want a worldly king, whether he is benign or barmy. Instead, he displays supreme majesty in his priorities for those who are counted out when it comes to other kingdoms.

Christ is not coming again as a king who is haughty and aloof, daft and barmy, or despotic and tyrannical. Instead he shows a model of kingship that emphasises what true majesty and graciousness should be – giving priority in the kingdom to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner (verses 35-36).

As we prepare for Christmas, we can look forward to seeing the Christ child in the crib and to singing about him in the carols. But we can also look forward to seeing him in glory. Let us be prepared to see him and welcome in the hungry, the thirsty, the unwelcome stranger, those who are naked and vulnerable, those with no private health care, those who are prisoners, those who have no visitors and those who are lonely and marginalised.

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

Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
Keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at Morning Prayer in Holmpatrick Parish Church, Skerries, Co Dublin, on 20 November 2011.

Waiting for Advent and the coming Kingdom

Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican

Sunday, 20 November 2011

The Kingship of Christ, the Sunday before Advent

Kenure Church, Rush Co Dublin
9.30 a.m., The Eucharist (Holy Communion).

Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Matthew 25: 31-46.

Patrick Comerford

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

I must be getting older, because it seems each year I moan earlier and earlier that Christmas is coming earlier and earlier … long Advent has begun.

Waiting for Christ, anticipating Christ, is at the heart of Advent, which begins next Sunday.

We have made Christmas a far-too comfortable story, with images of a sweet baby Jesus, surrounded by adoring, cute little animals and being visited by benign kings. In reality, though, Christmas is never a comfortable story in the Gospels.

Christmas is a story about poverty and about people who are homeless and rejected and who find no place to stay.

It is a messy story about a now-born child surrounded by the filth of animals and the dirt of squalor.

It is a story of shepherds involved in dangerous work, staying out all night in the winter cold, watching for wolves and sheep stealers.

It is a story of political deceit and corruption that lead to a cruel dictator stooping to murder, the murder of innocent children, to secure his grip on power.

Those images do not sell Christmas Cards or help to get the boss drunk under the mistletoe at the office party.

That is why in the weeks before Advent the Gospel readings remind us of what the coming of Christ into the world means, what the Kingdom of God is like, how we should prepare for the coming of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Our Gospel reading tells of Christ coming in glory as the Son of Man (verse 31), as the king (verses 34 and 40), and as Lord (verses 37 and 44).

It is so stark and challenging it forces us to ask what the coming of Christ, the second coming, will be like, and what Christ has to say to us about the way we live and the world we live in today.

A scene of Christ in Majesty at the Last Judgment in a fresco in the Orthodox Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The story opens with Christ coming again in glory, sitting on his throne of glory (verse 31), and the nations gathered before him (verse 32). We see not isolated individuals are gathered before the throne of Christ, but the nations – all the nations – assembled and being asked these searching questions.

These questions challenge us to ask whether we have taken on board the values of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 3-11; Luke 6: 20-31), and whether we truly accept the values Christ proclaimed at the start of his ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4: 16-19).

The questions are put not just to us as individuals but to the nations, all the nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, pánta to ethne), each and every one of them.

And that is where Christ comes into the world, both at Christmas and at the second coming, with the Kingdom of God. At his birth, the old man in the Temple, Simeon, welcomes him as “a light for revelation to the nations” (φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν, phos eis apokálypsin ethnon) (Luke 2: 32).

Which nations on earth, at this very moment, would like to be judged by how enlightened they are; to be compared with the Kingdom of God when it comes to how they treat and look after those the enthroned Christ identifies with: those who are hungry; those who are thirsty; those who are strangers and find no welcome; those who are naked, bare of anything to call their own, or whose naked bodies are exploited for profit and pleasure; those who are sick and left waiting on hospital trolleys or on endless lists for health care they cannot afford; those imprisoned because they speak out, or because they are from the wrong political or ethnic group, or because they do not have the right papers when they arrive as refugees or asylum seekers?

Our Gospel reading makes a direct connection with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. This Gospel reading challenges us in a way that is uncomfortable, but with things that must stay on our agenda as Christians and on the agenda of the Church and the agendas of the nations.

Christ in Majesty ... John Piper’s window in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield

Christ is coming again as a king who shows a model of kingship that emphasises what true majesty and graciousness should be – giving priority in the kingdom to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner (verses 35-36).

And as we prepare for Christmas, we can look forward to seeing the Christ child in the crib and singing about him in the carols. But we can also look forward to seeing him in glory.

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

Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
Keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that plenteously bearing the fruit of good works
they may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached on 20 November 2011.

Remembering my grandfather on Remembrance Sunday

Looking down on the city of Thessaloniki and out to the Thermaic Gulf ... and recalling my grandfather’s days here during World War I (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

The Second Sunday before Advent,

Sunday 13 November 2011 (Remembrance Sunday)

11.30 a.m., The Eucharist

Judges 4: 1-7; Psalm 123; I Thessalonians 5: 1-11; Matthew 25: 14-30

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

I missed being here for our previous residential weekend because I had a prior commitment to preaching in Liverpool Cathedral, and earlier I had spent a week in Thessaloniki.

I love Greece, and often get there twice a year – sometimes more.

Thessaloniki has long been a favourite place of mine. But there were special family reasons too for being there last month.

One sunny afternoon, I climbed up through the narrow back streets, cobbled alleyways and steep steps that lead up to the old city, or Ano Poli (Άνω Πόλης) and the Kastra or Castle and the Byzantine Walls that mark out the top of the hills overlooking the city. There you can see the monastery of Aghios Pavlos (Άγιος Παύλος) hanging precariously over a cliff edge, almost as though it were about to fall down on the city.

It is a demanding climb for those who walk it rather than taking the easy option of a taxi. But it is a climb that is worth it, for this is truly picture-postcard Greece, with hanging balconies, houses painted in bright primary colours, and tiny cafés.

As the city fell away beneath my gaze, and the view of the Thermaic Gulf spread out below, I thought of my grandfather, who had been brought there with his regiment, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, having barely survived the disasters at Gallipoli and Suvla Bay in 1915.

As the Turkish gunners looked down at those poor young, frightened soldiers being landed on the beaches below them, did they think, with their 20th century equivalents of chariots and troops, that those innocent Irish soldiers had been given into their hands, like a scene from our reading this morning from the Book of Judges? (see Judges 4: 7).

Only three years beforehand, Thessaloniki had been liberated and incorporated into the modern Greek state.

Stephen Edward Comerford and Bridget Lynders on their wedding day, 7 February 1905, in Donabate

As I made my way up above that city, I wondered: was my grandfather, Stephen Comerford, housed in a makeshift camp on these slopes and hills I was climbing?

He must have prayed so often that bitter winter for his wife, Bridget (Lynders), my grandmother, and his sons and daughters left at home in Ireland. Did he imagine he would ever see them again?

He was then 46 or 47 years old. As he watched his comrades die from the wounds they received in Balkan battles, from the bitter cold of winter and from the frostbite – many of them young enough to be his sons, perhaps encouraging them, building them up (I Thessalonians 5: 12) – how could he imagine he would ever have another son?

Were his wife and children praying in Ranelagh for his safe homecoming?

His parents were long dead. But were my grandmother’s parents, Patrick and Margaret Lynders, praying in Portrane for their son-in-law’s safe homecoming?

On my way up, I was conscious of his presence on those slopes in Thessaloniki, and imagined the prayers he prayed as I stopped at a church here, a monastery there.

On those slopes, did my grandfather lift up his eyes towards those monasteries and churches, towards God enthroned in the heavens, praying that he would “have mercy upon us ... for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of the arrogant, and of the contempt of the proud” (Psalm 123: 1-5)?

I was heading up those hills and slopes to the Monastery of Vlatádon – the Holy, Royal, Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of Vlatádon (Η Μονή Βλατάδων) – and for the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, which is part of the monastery complex.

The church in the monastery dates back to the 14th century, but is said to stand on the point where the Apostle Paul preached to the people of Thessaloniki. There are beautiful views across the city, and there are dozens of friendly peacocks – bred by the monks because the peacock was traditionally seen as a sign of the resurrection.

Once again, I prayed in thanks that my grandfather had returned alive from this city – otherwise, my father would not have been conceived, and I would not have been born.

The people of Thessaloniki, the Thessalonians, who Saint Paul preached to on those cliff edges, are the same people who received his two Letters to the Thessalonians. Over the past few weeks in our lectionary readings, we have been reading from I Thessalonians. Those readings come to a conclusion this week, but they only began the Sunday after I was in Thessaloniki, the Sunday of that last residential weekend I missed.

Saint Paul, in our reading this morning, repeats a common experience that when people just come to the point of thinking they have peace and security, sudden destruction comes upon them, and there is no escape (I Thessalonians 5: 3).

Having been sent into Serbia, Grandfather Stephen returned to Thessaloniki, and suffered – like so many in the Thermaic Gulf in those days – an attack of malaria, perhaps as he fell asleep on those slopes.

He was sent home, and would die – not from heroic action or war wounds – but from the onset of madness that then inevitably followed malaria, and was buried in the small Church of Ireland churchyard in Portrane.

Were those men who were disgorged heartlessly onto the beaches of Gallipoli and Suvla Bay, in fives and twos and ones – were they wasted talents, misspent by capricious and careless generals who never answered for the talents that had been entrusted to them?

Certainly, as I look at my grandfather’s grave, I think those generals literally and truly went and hid in the ground the talents entrusted to them (see Matthew 25: 25).

Did those men who were left to die of frostbite on the hills of Thessaloniki or to contract malaria from the waters in the gulf below, feel it was they and not their generals who had been thrown into the outer darkness, where they found there was weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 25: 30)?

The Monastery of Vlatádon .. a quiet and undisturbed corner in the hills above Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

As I left the Monastery of Vlatádon, I was still thinking of my grandfather’s time in Thessaloniki almost a century ago. I never knew him; he died when my father was only two.

But I reminded myself that had he not survived his time there, my father would never have been born. And so I cannot be angry, I cannot even be upset. “For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thessalonians 5: 9).

The malaria my grandfather contracted in Thessaloniki eventually killed him. But it was because of this malaria that he was sent back to Dublin. And it is because of that, I know, I am alive today.

I have much to be sad about in that city, but I have much to be thankful for too. This city is part of my life and part of my story, and this is my Thessaloniki too.

The peacocks in Vlatádon ... bred by the monks as a sign of the Resurrection (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

As I walked back down to the city from Vlatádon, I reminded myself of the friendly peacocks in the monastery courtyard – the peacocks bred by the monks as signs of the resurrection.

In war or peace, in prosperity or adversity, no matter how others see us or how they treat us, we can be assured of how God sees us, and how God treats us.

“When they say, ‘There is peace and security’, then sudden destruction will come upon them ... and there will be no escape” (I Thessalonians 5: 3) … Saint Paul preaching in Thessaloniki, a fresco in the Cathedral Church of Saint Gregory Palamas in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

And I was reminded too that on the Sunday I was missing here that you were reading that opening passage from Saint Paul’s first Letter to the Thessalonians, in which he commends the people of Thessaloniki for their resurrection faith and tells them not to be afraid. He rejoices that they have become imitators of the Lord, “for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy ... and ... you turned to God ... to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming” (I Thessalonians 1: 7-10).

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

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Eucharist in the institute chapel on Sunday 13 November 2011.

Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
Grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory,
we may be made like him
in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Post Communion Prayer

Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament you give substance to our hope.
Bring us at the last to that pure life for which we long,
through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

C. of I. Theological Institute lecturer preaches at prestigious Liverpool service

The current edition [4 November 2011] of the Church of Ireland Gazette carries the following half-page news report and photograph on page 3:

C. of I. Theological Institute
lecturer preaches at
prestigious Liverpool service

Canon Patrick Comerford (right) at the Judges’ Service in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr Patrick Kelly, and the High Sheriff of Merseyside, Professor Helen Carty

Justice and mercy “are both demands for the Church and for the Law,” Canon Patrick Comerford told the Annual Judge’s Service in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. “They are not mutually exclusive, even though the Church tends to see mercy as our preserve and justice as the prerogative of the law.”

Canon Comerford, who is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, was preaching the cathedral service marking the beginning of the Legal Year in the Merseyside area.

“In truth,” he said, “the Church has not been good in the past in living up to its call and claim to exercise a ministry of mercy.” He gave examples from the opposition of Pope Innocent III to Magna Carta, and said “the Church was short on mercy throughout the Crusades, the Inquisitions and the Reformation, convinced it was giving its priority to justice.”

He pointed out that only one Church of England bishop had spoken in the House of Lords in favour of the abolition of the death penalty in 1948. “But mercy slowly began to win hearts, and by 1956 eight bishops voted for its abolition and one against; by 1969, 19 bishops voted for the abolition of the death penalty but, unbelievably, there was still one who voted against. By 1988, the Lambeth Conference called for the abolition of the death penalty.”

“Mercy and justice, justice and mercy, they go together as an inseparable couplet or pair,” he said. “When we serve both, we serve the God who reveals himself to us in the Law and in the Prophets, and who comes to be present among us in Christ Jesus.”

Earlier in his sermon, Canon Comerford said the Warrington bombers, who murdered Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball in 1993 “never faced justice.”

“This was a tragedy that struck me personally, for Johnathan’s mother was Marie Comerford,” he said. “In 2001, the parents of these two young boys met Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness. After the meeting, Martin McGuinness declined to say whether he had apologised to those parents on behalf of the IRA.”

“The Warrington bombers never faced justice, and no mercy was shown to their victims by a man who is now a presidential candidate in the Republic of Ireland.” And he asked: “Is it any wonder that Marie Comerford died of a broken heart two years ago?”

The service began with processions by people involved in the civic, academic and judicial life of Merseyside, including High Court and Crown Court judges, the High Sheriffs of Merseyside and Lancashire, the Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside, and the Lord-Lieutenant of Merseyside.

The service was conducted by the Acting Dean of Liverpool and Canon Precentor, Canon Myles Davies. The attendance included the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr Patrick Kelly, and the Anglican Dean of Auckland, the Very Revd Jo Kelly-Moore.

Canon Comerford and Barbara Comerford were also guests of honour at the Judges’ Dinner in Liverpool the previous evening and at a lunch and reception hosted by the High Sheriff of Merseyside, Dr Helen Carty, the Irish-born former Professor of Paediatric Radiology at Liverpool University.

In its editorial comment this week on the presidential election, the Church of Ireland Gazette also says:

“It was instructive to see the ferocity with which Martin McGuinness was subjected to the most probing criticism of his past, not least from our own straight-talking Canon Patrick Comerford.”

The same edition of the Church of Ireland Gazette carries this photograph of me with the Bishop of Harare, the Right Revd Chad Gandiya, and the Director of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, the Revd Dr Maurice Elliott:

‘What we will be has not yet been revealed’

All Saints … a modern icon

Patrick Comerford

Tuesday, 1 November 2011, All Saints’ Day,

8.30 a.m., The Eucharist;

Jeremiah 31; 31-34; Psalm 34: 1-10; Revelation 7: 9-17 or I John 3: 1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12.

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

Back to work after a bank holiday weekend.

How many of you were spooked last night with little children scurrying around your front door, with outstretched bags and beseeching arms as they wailed: “Trick or Treat.”

But how many of those children knew what Halloween means … that it means the eve of All Hallows, the Eve of All Saints’ Day?

It is a name that survived for centuries in the Monastery of All Hallows, the Augustinian monastery to the east of Dublin founded in 1166 and the site on which Trinity College Dublin was built in 1592.

Some of us are familiar too with All Hallows, the theological college in Drumcondra on the north side of Dublin, founded in 1842.

This day has nothing to do with spooky pranks or ghoulish games. The Feast of All Hallows is the Feast of All Saints, one of the seven great feasts of the Church, first introduced during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor, Leo VI “the Wise” (886–911).

Saints and kings on the west facade of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

In recent weeks, I found myself looking up once again at the West Fronts of Lichfield Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. In Lichfield, the west front is decorated with carved images of saints, mixed through with Anglo-Saxon and English kings. In Westminster Abbey, the west facade has ten niches that were filled in 1998 with statues of 20th century saints and martyrs, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero.

Those ten niches had been left empty from the late Middle Ages. But if you were to pick your own modern saints, the saints who had influenced you in your faith journey, modern exemplars of Christian faith and discipleship, who would you name? From the past? From the present? And would you leave a place for the saints of the future?

Three evangelists, Saint Matthew, Saint Mark and Saint Luke ... a window in All Saints’ Church, Antrim (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Our readings this morning bring together the saints of the past, the saints of the present, and the saints of the future. Together we are the Body of Christ.

The Church Triumphant and the Church Militant are one. And the living saints remember those who died but who are alive in Christ – with gratitude and as examples of true discipleship and faithfulness, that we may be blessed today (Matthew 5: 3-11) and in the future kingdom (Matthew 5: 12).

And we look forward to being saints of the future, even though we are told in the reading from I John that “what we will be has not yet been revealed” (I John 3: 3).

This day is not so much a day to remember people and what they have done as a day to remember what God has done for people and through people. It is a testimony to and celebration of the fact that the Gates of Hell have never prevailed against the Church. For God has redeemed people from every generation to be his own.

And together we are blessed, happy, fortunate. The Greek word repeated constantly in the beatitudes in our Gospel reading, μακάριος, is loaded with meaning: it can mean blessed, saintly, happy fortunate.

Today we remember that there is a prayerful, spiritual, sweet communion between the whole church, between all of us gathered before the Lamb on the Throne (Revelation 7: 9), and that there are no barriers of time and space – past, present or future – for those barriers have been broken, shattered, by Christ in his death and resurrection. And in that we are blessed, sanctified, fortunate, happy, to rejoice.

As we say together later in this Eucharist at the fraction: “We being many are one body, for we all share in the one bread.”

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

Collect:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
Grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness
and giver of all good things:
May we, who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth,
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This sermon was preached at the All Saints’ Day Eucharist in the institute chapel on 1 November 2011.