Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 133, Friday 18 September 2026

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘The Holy Women’ (‘Les femmes saintes’), 1886-1896 (Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 13 September 2026).

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.

The Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first Anglican woman priest, was ordained priest in 1944

Luke 8: 1-3 (NRSVA)

1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Inside Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, where the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi was ordained deacon in 1941 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the three short verses in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 8: 1-3), Saint Luke describes the team of men and women who travel with Jesus, accompanying him in his ministry. They are men and women: the Twelve (verse 1), and a group of women, including three named women, and ‘many others, who provided for them out of their resources’ (verses 2-3).

The women and men are referred to in a way that implies that their ministry is equal. The three named women are Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Cuza, and Susanna. But, in addition, there are ‘many others.’

These women are women of independent means and are supporting Jesus ‘out of their resources’ or ‘out of their own means’ (Luke 8: 3b). The original text in Greek says αἵτινες διηκόνουν αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐταῖς, meaning they served, provided or ministered using their own resources.

The Greek verb here is διακονέω (diakoneō), which throughout the New Testament means to minister to, to fill the office of διάκονος (diakonos, deacon), to perform the duties of deacon, to serve. In this verse, it is found in the imperfect tense, meaning continual and habitual activity in the past. They supply Jesus’ financial needs again and again.

These women are the first supporters of Jesus’ mission, and they generously met the needs of Jesus and his band out of their own personal wealth. The Greek word is the substantive of ὑπάρχω (hyparchō), ‘what belongs to someone, someone’s property, possession, means’.

If being a true disciple means putting everything that one has at the disposal of Jesus and his ministry, then these three women are, indeed, role models for ministry.

There were celebration two years ago (2024) marking the 80th anniversary of the ordination as priest of the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi (1907-1992) in Hong Kong on 25 January 1944. She was the first woman to be ordained a priest in a Church in the Anglican Communion.

Florence Li Tim-Oi was born in a fishing village in Hong Kong on 5 May 1907. Her father, a doctor turned headmaster, called her ‘Much Beloved’ because he valued her as a daughter even if other parents preferred sons. When she was baptised as a student, Tim-Oi chose the name Florence after Florence Nightingale, the 19th century ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who felt she had a vocation that was ignored by the Church.

At the ordination of a deaconess in Hong Kong Cathedral in 1931, Florence heard and responded to the call to ministry. She took a four-year course at the theological college in Guangzhou (Canton), she was ordained deacon in 1941, and she was given charge of the Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao, which was thronged with refugees from war-torn China.

When a priest could no longer travel from Japanese-occupied territory to preside at the Eucharist, for three years Florence Tim-Oi was licensed to preside as a deacon. Bishop Ronald Owen Hall of Hong Kong then asked her to meet him in Free China, where on 25 January 1944 he ordained her ‘a priest in the Church of God.’

Bishop Hall knew that this was as momentous a step as when the Apostle Peter baptised the Gentile Cornelius. As Saint Peter recognised that God had already given Cornelius the baptismal gift of the Spirit, so Bishop Hall thought he was merely confirming that God had already given Florence the gift of priestly ministry – although he resisted the temptation to rename her Cornelia.

Although Bishop Hall’s action was well received in his diocese, it caused a storm of protest throughout the wider Anglican Communion, and pressure was brought on the bishop to have her relinquish the title and role of a priest.

When she became aware of the concern of the wider Church and of the pressure on her bishop, Florence did not get angry and leave the Church. Instead, she decided in 1946 to surrender her priest’s licence, but not her Holy Orders. For the next 39 years, she served faithfully under very difficult circumstances, when the knowledge that she had been ordained priest later helped to carry her through the worst excesses of the Maoist era in China.

She moved to the far south of China, near the Vietnamese border, where she ran a maternity home to protect female babies. The Communist Government closed down all churches in China from 1958 to 1974 and Tim-Oi was designated as a counter-revolutionary, persecuted by the Red Guards. Forced to work on a chicken farm, and then in a factory, she was unable to openly practice her Christian faith or meet people she knew were Christians, lest she got them into trouble.

While she was officially recognised as a priest in the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau in 1971, she was not allowed to retire from her factory work until 1974. At the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1979, she resumed her ministry in the Church in China.

Arrangements were made for her to move to Canada in 1983, and she was appointed an honorary assistant at Saint John’s Chinese congregation and Saint Matthew’s parish in Toronto. By then, the Anglican Church in Canada had approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and in 1984, and on the 40th anniversary of her ordination, with great joy and thanksgiving, she was reinstated as a priest.

The anniversary was also celebrated at Westminster Abbey and at Sheffield Cathedral, although the Church of England had not yet approved the ordination of women.

She was invited to Lambeth Palace that year to meet Archbishop Robert Runcie. Until then, he had not been convinced about women’s ordination, but their meeting changed his thinking: ‘Who am I to say whom God can or cannot call?’

She returned briefly to China in 1987, when Bob Brown made a film about her, Return to Hepu: Li Tim-Oi Goes Home.

Until she died in 1992, she exercised her priesthood with such faithfulness and quiet dignity that she won tremendous respect for herself and gathered increasing support for other women seeking ordination. The very quality of her ministry in China and in Canada and the grace with which she exercised her priesthood helped convince many throughout the Anglican Communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the Church far exceeded the expectations of those involved in her ordination in 1944.

She was awarded Doctorates of Divinity by the General Theological Seminary, New York, and Trinity College, Toronto. She died in her sleep on 26 February 1992, reportedly after phoning several elderly people who were confined to home, praying with them and offering them pastoral counsel. She is buried in Toronto.

The Anglican Church of Canada agreed in 2004 to include Florence Li Tim-Oi in the Calendar of Holy Persons in the Book of Alternative Services – on the anniversary of her death, 26 February. She was made a permanent part of the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints in 2018.

Her name continues in the Li Tim-Oi Foundation, which helps women in the Two-Thirds World train for ministry and vocational work in their communities.

Her story is told by Ted Harrison in Much Beloved Daughter (1985) and in her own memoir, Raindrops of My Life (1996).

The Revd Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok Sau Tseng, her father, and Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as deacon in Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, on Ascension Day 22 May 1941

Today’s Prayers (Friday 18 September 2026):

The theme this week (13 -19 September 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Witness as With-ness’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Canon Dr Peniel Rajkumar, Director of Global Mission and Theologian, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 18 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Holy God, unsettle my comfort when it keeps me distant from those who struggle. Make me an instrument of your presence in places of exclusion and hardship.

The Collect of the Day:

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in 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:

Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
defend your Church from all false teaching
and give to your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow


The story about Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion, and how she drew her strength from her faith in God

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

The Shrewsbury peerage case and how branches of the Talbot family fought over old titles and lands

The Talbot Arms in Rugeley became the Shrewsbury Arms after Lord Talbot became the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1860 … it is now called ‘The Shrew’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was saying in a posting yesterday how the intricacies in the family trees of the Talbot and Chetwynd families are difficult to untangle, and produce many obstacles and problems for genealogists and family historians.

The Shrewsbury Peerage Case (1858-1860) was a landmark case before the House of Lords in a dispute over the succession to prestigious titles in both England and Ireland and to vast estates in Staffordshire and other parts of England. The decision by the House of Lords in the case established legal precedents in peerage law and estate inheritance.

The Earls of Shrewsbury were the premier earls in both England and Ireland, and their string of titles include Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Waterford and Earl of Wexford. The titles dated back to mid-15th century, when the celebrated warrior John Talbot was made the first Earl of Shrewsbury in 1442 and first Earl of Waterford and Wexford in 1445. The earls also held the hereditary title of Lord High Steward of Ireland, an office that traditionally allowed them to carry bear a white staff at the coronation of the monarch.

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1445 … a detail from the Talbot Shrewsbury Book … note the white talbot at his feet to the left

George Talbot (1719-1787), 14th Earl of Shrewsbury, had succeeded his uncle in 1743. George had no children, and when he died, he was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Talbot, as the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1812, Charles Talbot to lay out the extensive gardens at Alveton Lodge, Staffordshire, which had been in the Talbot family since the 15th century and would become Alton Towers.

When the 15th earl died, the titles were inherited by his nephew John Talbot as the 16th earl. When the principal home of the Talbot family at Heythrop, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, was destroyed by fire in 1831, he moved to Alton Towers.

John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers, commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, including Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The 16th earl was a noted patron of the architect AWN Pugin. This John Talbot married Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), daughter of William Talbot of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, Mary (O’Toole) in Bath on 27 June 1814, and both branches of the Talbot family were patrons of Pugin and his church building programmes in Staffordshire and Co Wexford.

Maria died on 6 June 1856, in Paris, France, at the age of 61, and was buried at Alton Towers. Maria and John were the parents of three children, a son who died in infancy, and two daughters:

1, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), born on 29 May 1815, married Prince Filippo Andrea Doria-Pamphili-Landi, and died in Rome on 18 December 1858, aged 43.

2, John Talbot (1816-1817), their only son, born 27 November 1816, died 20 March 1817 in Paris.

3, Lady Gwendoline Catherine Talbot (1817-1840), born on 5 December 1817 in Cheltenham, married Prince Marcantonio Borghese, and died in Rome on 27 October 1840.

John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, died from malaria in Naples on 9 November 1852. Because he had no surviving sons, he was succeeded as the 17th Earl of Shrewsbury by his second cousin once removed and his adopted heir, Bertram Arthur Talbot, according to the rules of male-preference primogeniture. Bertram was the great-grandson of George Talbot, a younger son of Gilbert Talbot (died 1711), second son of the 10th Earl of Shrewsbury.

The Tame of the Talbot family and the Earls of Shrewsbury has gives name to pubs and inns throughout England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bertram, who has been described as having a mild disposition, was an invalid with delicate health. He had been informally adopted by the 16th earl and he was a Knight Commander of Malta, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pope Pius IX. He was also about to be nominated a knight of the Order of Saint Patrick.

When Bertram succeeded to the title in 1852, he was still under age, and when he. Having reached the age of 21, he took his seat in the House of Lords in February 1854, and he began proceedings to claim the office of Hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland, a claim that was referred to the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords.

Bertram arrived at Lisbon hoping to travel on to Cintra, and accompanied on the trip by Anne Talbot from Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, a sister the late Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, Father Charles Brierley Garside (1818-1876), his domestic chaplain, and Dr Mervyn Crawford, his personal doctor. But their plans were delayed by an outbreak of cholera in Lisbon. Bertram moved into the Hotel Braganza, where his symptoms deteriorated rapidly. Bertram died on 10 August 1856 in Lisbon at the age of 23; he was unmarried and childless, and left no direct Catholic successor.

The arms of the Talbot family, Earls of Shrewsbury, represented on the doors of Saint Giles’s Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Talbot family tree is widespread, with many branches, and when Bertram died it became difficult to disentangle the tree and to identify clearly the heir to the family estates and titles. His will reflected his staunch Catholicism by making the inheritance of the Talbot family estates conditional on the heir being a Roman Catholic.

The 17th earl believed he was the last descendant in the male line of the first Earl of Shrewsbury and so he tried to leave much of his extensive property to a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. Without a Catholic heir, the terms of Bertram’s will devolved the properties were to devolve to two prominent Catholics, Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps de Lisle (1809-1878) and Lord Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard (1855-1947), a son of the Duke of Norfolk. To conform to the terms of Bertram’s will, Edmund later changed his name by royal licence and was known from 1876 to 1922 as Lord Edmund Talbot.

But Bertram’s will was contested by relatives, and there were four separate contenders for the title of Earl of Shrewsbury, the associated titles and the Talbot family estates:

1, Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, the primary contender for the titles and estates, who also held the titles of Viscount of Ingestre and Baron Talbot. Bertram Talbot and Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot were so distantly related that their shared ancestor was nine generations back: John Talbot, who died in 1549. He was a descendant in the male line of Sir Gilbert Talbot (died 1518), third son of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury.

2, The Duke of Norfolk, as guardian of the interests of his infant son, to whom Bertram Talbot had tried to bequeath Alton Towers.

3, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), known as Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi, the only surviving child of John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury.

4, Major William Talbot (JP (1789-1861) of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, who traced his ancestry back to William Talbot, fourth son of George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury. His sister, Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), had married John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1814, and he was an uncle of Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi.

The ‘Great Shrewsbury Case’ was heard by the House of Lords, and hearings began in 1857.

The Shrewsbury Chapel in Sheffield Cathedral was built in the 16th century to house the Tudor monuments of the Earls of Shrewsbury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When Earl Talbot’s printed document formally asserting his claims to the earldoms of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford was laid on the table of the House of Lords it ran to 41 pages of genealogical and other matters. The House of Lords referred it to the committee of privileges on 9 May 1857.

After a long and expensive legal case, the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords ruled in 1860 in favour of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, who then became the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford. He was also awarded much of the family estates. The Committee of Privileges rejected the rival petitions from Major Talbot, the Duke of Norfolk on behalf of his infant son, and Princess Doria Pamphili, who was dead by then, having died in Rome on 18 December 1858.

A further suit was heard in the Court of Chancery for possession of the Talbot estates at Alton Towers and other places in Staffordshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Berkshire. Legal costs depleted the intended legacies, reducing Phillipps de Lisle’s share to £11,000, and so thwarting the 16th Earl's efforts to preserve Catholic control over his family patrimony.

Saint Michael’s Church, Brereton, was Saint Michael’s Church was built on a site donated by Charles Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot, father of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot and 18th Earl of Shrewsbury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The protracted litigation, lasting many months, resulted in exorbitant costs that eroded intended bequests. Phillipps de Lisle eventually received only £11,000 of his £40,000 legacy after legal expenses.

The other beneficiary, Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard, was the second son of the 14th Duke of Norfolk. He was known as the Hon Edmund Fitzalan-Howard and later as Lord Edmund Fitzalan-Howard until 1876, and then as Lord Edmund Talbot from 1876 and 1921. He was the principal beneficiary in Bertram Talbot’s will, provided he took the surname and arms of Talbot, which he did in 1876. However, the legal litigation and contests over the titles and the terms of the wills, eventually left Edmund with only scattered minor lands.

He was the Conservative MP for Chichester from 1894 to 1921. On 27 April 1921, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the first Roman Catholic to hold the office since 1685 during the reign of James II. His appointment was made possible through the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

He returned to the use of his paternal name in 1921, shortly after being made a peer in his own right with the title of Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent, a day after his appointment as Lord Lieutenant. However, he was in office for only a year and a half. The post was abolished when the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, and he was replaced by the Governor-General of the Irish Free State and the Governor of Northern Ireland. He died on 18 May 1947 at 91, and was succeeded in his titles by his only son, Henry.

Dublin Castle … Lord Edmund Talbot, later Lord Derwent, was the last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Shrewsbury peerage case drew attention to the tensions the creation of religious stipulations in wills and statutory inheritance rules that seemed to continue to favour Protestant lines of descent in the decades immediately after Catholic Emancipation. The verdict also served to emphasise underscored the legal primacy of bloodline inheritance over testamentary conditions favouring religious affiliation in 19th-century peerage law.

The 18th Earl of Shrewsbury had an eventful naval career. He had been a senior naval office, commanding the Philomel at the battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827, and eventually became an Admiral in 1865 and naval ADC to Queen Victoria. He was also MP for South Staffordshire (1837-1849). With his new titles he also became Hereditary High Steward of Ireland, and took part in the installation of the Prince of Wales as a Knight of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1868. As Earl of Shrewsbury, he was also Earl of Waterford, while, interestingly, his wife Lady Sarah Elizabeth Beresford (1807-1884), was a daughter of the Marquess of Waterford.

When the 18th earl died, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles John Chetwynd-Talbot (1830-1877), as the 19th earl. This was the first time in over 200 years, since the death of the 11th earl in 1667, that the title of Earl of Shrewsbury had passed from father to son.

The 20th earl created a scandal in Victorian England by eloping with a married woman, Ellen Miller-Mundy. They were later married, but after he died in 1921, another bitter court battle over the estate was fought by his widow Ellen and his grandson, John Talbot, 21st Earl of Shrewsbury, who claimed his grandfather was not of sound mind when writing his will and won a court settlement.

Today, the titles are held by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 22nd Earl of Shrewsbury, who succeeded his father in 1980. He was suspended from the House of Lords for his part in a lobbying scandal in 2022, and was barred from carrying out his family’s role at the coronation of King Charles in May 2023. Since then, he was suspended again for making false travel expenses claims and using a House of Lords rail season ticket for non-parliamentary business.

Ironically, the present Earl of Shrewsbury is also known for selling off alluring but meaningless titles such as ‘deputy lord high stewardship of Ireland’. Some years ago, Manorial Auctioneers were offering the title of the ‘Barony of Dungarvan,’ Co Waterford. Later, this supposed feudal barony was back on the market again with an online business known as nobility.co.uk. Although the Barony of Dungarvan was granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1446, it is doubtful that the title still survives as any kind of legal entity.

There is no territorial Barony of Dungarvan in Co Waterford, yet the site was offering the ‘Barony of Dungarvan, Ireland,’ along with the titles of ‘Baron and Baroness,’ and said it was ‘once held by Earl of Shrewsbury, Premier Earl of England and High Steward of Ireland.’ Potential buyers were told that ‘the list price’ for this title was once £45,000, but the selling price had been reduced to £20,000.

Lord Shrewsbury also called in recent years for a change of law so daughters can inherit hereditary titles from their parents. If such a change had been made before the ruling in the Shrewsbury case in 1860, Lord Shrewsbury would not hold his present titles, and they might be held by some Italian prince or princess, or by a member of the Talbot family in Co Wexford.

The Talbot Hotel, Wexford … remembering the link between two branches of the Talbot family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 172, Friday 31 October 2025

Liverpool Cathedral, where Justin Welby introduced a Hallowe’en service as ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, which changes to Kingdom-time or the Kingdom Season tomorrow with All Saints’ Day. In the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and Exciting Holiness, today is not marked as Hallowe’en but, instead, remembers Martin Luther.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Stony Stratford prepares for Hallowe’en … but does Christ make a Hallowe’en choice between trick or treat? (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 14:1-6 (NRSVA)

1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 2 Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?’ 4 But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. 5 Then he said to them, ‘If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?’ 6 And they could not reply to this.

‘Ars Longa, Vita Brevis’ … words from Hippocrates at the Medical School in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Tomorrow is All Saints’ Day, although this may be celebrated in many parishes and churches on Sunday (2 November 2025) as All Saints’ Sunday.

But if All Saints’ Day is not celebrated properly and appropriately in our churches, with a celebration of the Eucharist, whether that is tomorrow or on Sunday, how do we explain to a younger generation what Hallowe’en is truly about?

Hallowe’en is the ‘Night of the Living Dead’ ... for the saints are alive, and we are part of the Communion of Saints, the Church Triumphant (Ecclesia Triumphans) and the Church Militant (Ecclesia Militans), which are part of the one Church, and we are together.

Hallowe’en, or the Eve of All Hallows, is the evening before celebrating All the Saints, All the Holy Ones in Glory, the Saints of every time and place. This is the Eve of a Great Feast of Light – the Solemnity of All Saints, the saints in glory who have ‘inherited the light’ (Colossians 1: 12-13), whether we are alive or dead, whether we have been canonised or faded into obscurity, whether they have given heroic examples in their lives or are unsung and unknown. We are all with God in endless joy.

When he became Dean of Liverpool in 2007, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, found himself in one of England’s largest and most deprived cathedrals. He doubled attendances, abseiled from the roof, and allowed John Lennon’s Imagine to be played on the cathedral bells – despite the line ‘imagine there is no heaven.’

He also encouraged a ‘Night of the Living Dead’ service on Hallowe’en, when a coffin was carried into the cathedral and a man rose from a coffin to represent the Resurrection.

If we cannot explain Hallowe’en and All Saints’ Day, how can we hope to explain the greater truths of Christmas and Easter?

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 14:1-6), we are faced with a ‘trick or treat’ conundrum. It is the sabbath and Jesus is going to eat dinner at the home of a local religious leader: if he ignores the sick man’s plight, does he ignore that love and compassion are the core of true religion? Or, if heals this man, is he going to be accused of breaching religious rules, regulations traditions.

The discussion this prompts is not about whether Christ has the duty or responsibility, he legal right or power, the appropriate qualifications or the authority, to heal the man with dropsy, but whether doing this on the Sabbath shows disdain for the law of God.

This is the sole, lone and only Gospel incident in n which the Greek word ὑδρωπικός (hydropikos) is used to describe a person suffering from dropsy. It is a pathological retention of fluid that causes abnormal swelling. Although it is a medical term, its single New Testament appearance here becomes theologically rich when placed within the Gospel narrative.

In the world of the Biblical Mediterranean, dropsy was seen as incurable and associated with other systemic illnesses. Swelling of the limbs and abdomen visibly marked the sufferer, making him ritually unclean by religious understanding of the ay and socially marginalised.

Physicians such as Hippocrates discussed the malady, yet effective treatment was scarce. A hydropic person embodied chronic suffering and exclusion, providing a stark contrast to the wholeness of life envisioned in God’s covenant promises.

Should this man be left, as it were, among the living dead?

By asking whether it is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not (verse 3), Jesus exposes the discrepancy between the Law’s intent and the tradition-bound application of it. When he heals the man and sends him away whole, he affirms the Sabbath as a day ‘for doing good’.

Of course, the man is not dying. Although he has dropsy, his healing could take place on any other day, indeed at any other venue. But, even before they speak, Christ’s response to his potential protagonists is to ask a question: ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?’ (verse 4).

If they say no, they show their ignorance of the law and the rabbinical tradition; if they say yes, how could they possibly disagree with what they know he is about to do?

After this healing miracle, Christ goes on to share two parables about humility and the heavenly banquet (Luke 14: 7-24). The hydropic man’s restoration anticipates the inclusive feast of the Kingdom, where the physically and spiritually bloated pride of the self-righteous is contrasted with the humble who accept the invitation.

If mercy towards animals or family members is permitted, how much more should mercy for a suffering image-bearer of God be celebrated?

What better day is there than the Sabbath, a day meant to promote God’s commitment to humanity’s well-being, for the restoration of a man with a debilitating illness?

Trick or Treat?

In his response, Christ allows this man to return to work with dignity, and restores him to his full and rightful place in the community of faith that may have been denied to him by the very people who are present that Sabbath.

The man who must once have thought he might as well have been dead is given new life, and is assured he is a Child of God.

Later this evening, as children go knocking on doors in this town, under the watchful and loving eyes of parents or older siblins, I shall remind myself that in Christ there is no trick, there is only treat. And it would be reflective and approopriate to return to a prayer attributed to Saint Ambrose of Milana has become part of Anglican tradition as part of the office of Compline in the Book of Common Prayer:

Before the ending of the day,
Creator of the world, we pray
That thou with wonted love wouldst keep
Thy watch around us while we sleep.

O let no evil dreams be near,
Or phantoms of the night appear;
Our ghostly enemy restrain,
Lest aught of sin our bodies stain.

Almighty Father, hear our cry
Through Jesus Christ our Lord most high,
Who with the Holy Ghost and thee
Doth live and reign eternally. Amen.

A sign in Lichfield Cathedral this week about the true meaning of Hallowe’en (Photograph: Hugh Ashton, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 31 October 2025):

The theme this week (26 October to 1 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Bonds of Affection’ (pp 50-51). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 31 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, we pray that one day the group may get to meet in person in order that the bonds of affection might be strengthened.

The Collect:

Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of all grace,
your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry
with the bread of his life
and the word of his kingdom:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your true and living bread;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God,
teach us to be faithful in change and uncertainty,
that trusting in your word
and obeying your will
we may enter the unfailing joy of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of All Saints’ Day:

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 your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A carvwd Hallowe’en pumpkin in Stony Stratford (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

A Magnolia tree in Milton Keynes Hospital has come to symbolise recovery, life and love

The magnolia tree in a courtyard in n the Eaglestone Restaurant Courtyard at Milton Keynes University Hospital this afternoon … a reminder of my recovery from a stroke three years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have been in and out of Milton Keynes University Hospital twice over a 48-hour period, having an ECG heart monitor fitted to me on Thursday afternoon and then returning with it this afternoon (5 April 2025).

It has been a painless but awkward experience, with the minor embarrassments of having wires hanging out of me and dangling around the top of my trousers, unable to take a shower for the past two days.

It is all part of the way, it seems, that everything is being monitored at the moment: my heart, my lungs, my breathing, my kidneys, my B12 levels, my sarcoidosis, my calcium intake, my bone density … I have been reassured about a slight mark on my heart that seems to have been caused by my pulmonary sarcoidosis and about a small cyst on my kidney that is benign and seems to come with age.

It seems I am getting the ‘full MoT’, and I cannot be loud enough or vocal enough about how good the NHS is and how caring and attentive everyone is in the hospital in Milton Keynes.

Each time I was in the hospital this week, I went to see the magnolia tree that is in full bloom at the moment in the Eaglestone Restaurant Courtyard on Level 1 of the Blue Zone. When I was in the same hospital three years ago, Charlotte and I sat under this tree so often in the early Spring sunshine in those weeks after my stroke. The tree came to symbolise the road to recovery from my stroke in 2022, and the love and care that sustained me through those weeks on that journey.

The magnolia tree in the churchyard in Tamworth, close to the Comberford Chapel, earlier this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The magnolia is one of the most ancient plants, and fossils from two to 65 million years, when vast forests surrounded the arctic regions, prove this.

In all, there are 300 species of magnolia in the wild. The first magnolia to come to Britain was an American species, M. virginiana, acquired by Henry Compton, Bishop of London, from John Bannister in 1687. It was followed in 1730 by another American species, M. grandiflora, collected by Mark Catesby ( 1682-1749), a botanist who wrote The Natural History of Carolina.

This is the best time of the year to see magnolias in full bloom, and I seemed to notice them everywhere earlier this week while I was walking around Tamworth and Comberford village by the banks of the River Tame in rural Staffordshire.

I spent Tuesday in Tamworth where I was invited by the Tamworth and District Society to speak on the tercentenary of the Comberford family plaque erected in 1725 by Joseph Comerford in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church.

On Tuesday morning, when I arrived at the church, a beautiful spreading magnolia tree was blossoming in the churchyard, on the north side of the church, close to the Comberford Chapel in the former north transept inside the church.

A magnolia tree in a garden beside a farm in Comberford village on Tuesday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

As I walked around Comberford in the early April sunshine, in the village, by the river, and through the fields, there was a smaller magnolia in a garden beside a farm.

Then, as I walked back into Tamworth in the afternoon, a tall magnolia tree was in full bloom in a front garden on Comberford Road close to the corner with Gillway Lane.

I realised as I was walking around Tamworth and Comberford on Tuesday that it was 1 April and the third anniversary of the day Charlotte had come to collect me when I was discharged from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. I had been moved there from Milton Keynes Hospital on 29 March and able to leave on 1 April. After another overnight stay in Oxford, I returned to Milton Keynes two weeks after Charlotte had first taken me to hospital with that stroke on 18 March 2022.

Since then there have been numerous return visits to Milton Keynes Hospital and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, and two visits to the hospital in Sheffield. When I went in search of the magnolia tree in the courtyard in Milton Keynes Hospital yet again this afternoon, the flowering leaves were falling, and the tree was surrounded by what I imgained briefly as a thin, gentle, soft pink silk scarf on the ground.

There is so much to be thankful for in life and in love on this evening.

A tall magnolia tree in full bloom in a front garden on Comberford Road in Tamworth on Tuesday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 133, Friday 20 September 2024

James Tissot (1836-1902), The Holy Women (Les femmes saintes), 1886-1896 (Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (15 September 2024). Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers John Coleridge Patteson (1871), First Bishop of Melanesia, and his Companions, Martyrs.

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.

The Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first Anglican woman priest, was ordained priest 80 years ago on 25 January 1944

Luke 8: 1-3 (NRSVA)

1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

A notice board in Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, London, remembers the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi, who was ordained 80 years ago in 1944 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

In the three short verses in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist, Saint Luke describes the team of men and women who travel with Jesus, accompanying him in his ministry. They are men and women: the Twelve (verse 1), and a group of women, including three named women, and ‘many others, who provided for them out of their resources’ (verses 2-3).

The women and men are referred to in a way that implies that their ministry is equal. The three named women are Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Cuza, and Susanna, but there are ‘many others.’

These women are women of independent means and are supporting Jesus ‘out of their resources’ or ‘out of their own means’ (Luke 8: 3b). The original text in Greek says αἵτινες διηκόνουν αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐταῖς, they served, provided or ministered using their own resources.

The Greek verb here is διακονέω (diakoneō), which throughout the New Testament means to minister to, to fill the office of διάκονος (diakonos, deacon), to perform the duties of deacon, to serve. In this verse, it is found in the imperfect tense, meaning continual and habitual activity in the past. They supply Jesus’ financial needs again and again.

These women are his first supporters of Jesus’ mission, and they generously met the needs of Jesus and his band out of their own personal wealth. The Greek word is the substantive of ὑπάρχω (hyparchō), ‘what belongs to someone, someone’s property, possession, means’.

If being a true disciple means putting everything that one has at the disposal of Jesus and his ministry, then these three women are, indeed, role models for ministry.

Throughout this year (2024), there have been celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the ordination as priest of the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi (1907-1992) in Hong Kong on 25 January 1944. She was the first woman to be ordained a priest in a church in the Anglican Communion.

Florence Li Tim-Oi was born in a fishing village in Hong Kong on 5 May 1907. Her father, a doctor turned headmaster, called her ‘Much Beloved’ because he valued her as a daughter even if other parents preferred sons. When she was baptised as a student, Tim-Oi chose the name Florence after Florence Nightingale, the 19th century ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who felt she had a vocation that was ignored by the Church.

At the ordination of a deaconess in Hong Kong Cathedral in 1931, Florence heard and responded to the call to ministry. She took a four-year course at the theological college in Guangzhou (Canton), was ordained deacon in 1941, and was given charge of the Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao, which was thronged with refugees from war-torn China.

When a priest could no longer travel from Japanese-occupied territory to preside at the Eucharist, for three years Florence Tim-Oi was licensed to preside as a deacon. Bishop Ronald Owen Hall of Hong Kong then asked her to meet him in Free China, where on 25 January 1944 he ordained her ‘a priest in the Church of God.’ He knew that this was as momentous a step as when the Apostle Peter baptised the Gentile Cornelius. As Saint Peter recognised that God had already given Cornelius the baptismal gift of the Spirit, so Bishop Hall thought he was merely confirming that God had already given Florence the gift of priestly ministry – although he resisted the temptation to rename her Cornelia.

Although Bishop Hall’s action was well received in his diocese, it caused a storm of protest throughout the wider Anglican Communion, and pressure was brought on the bishop to have her relinquish the title and role of a priest.

When she became aware of the concern of the wider church and of the pressure on her bishop, Florence did not get angry and leave the Church. Instead, she decided in 1946 to surrender her priest’s licence, but not her Holy Orders. For the next 39 years, she served faithfully under very difficult circumstances, when the knowledge that she had been ordained priest later helped to carry her through the worst excesses of the Maoist era in China.

She moved to the far south of China, near the Vietnamese border, where she ran a maternity home to protect female babies. The Communist Government closed down all churches in China from 1958-74 and Tim-Oi was designated as a counter-revolutionary, persecuted by the Red Guards. Forced to work on a chicken farm, and then in a factory, she was unable to openly practice her Christian faith or meet people she knew were Christians, lest she got them into trouble.

While she was officially recognised as a priest in the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau in 1971, she was not allowed to retire from her factory work until 1974. At the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1979, she resumed her ministry in the Church in China.

Arrangements were made for her to move to Canada in 1983, and she was appointed an honorary assistant at Saint John’s Chinese congregation and Saint Matthew’s parish in Toronto. By then, the Anglican Church in Canada had approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and in 1984, on the 40th anniversary of her ordination, with great joy and thanksgiving, she was reinstated as a priest.

The anniversary was also celebrated at Westminster Abbey and at Sheffield Cathedral, although the Church of England had not yet approved the ordination of women.

She was invited to Lambeth Palace that year to meet Archbishop Robert Runcie. Until then, he had not been convinced about women’s ordination, but their meeting changed his thinking: ‘Who am I to say whom God can or cannot call?’

She returned briefly to China in 1987, when Bob Brown made a film about her, Return to Hepu: Li Tim-Oi Goes Home.

Until she died in 1992, she exercised her priesthood with such faithfulness and quiet dignity that won tremendous respect for herself and gathered increasing support for other women seeking ordination. The very quality of her ministry in China and in Canada and the grace with which she exercised her priesthood helped convince many throughout the Anglican Communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the Church far exceeded the expectations of those involved in her ordination in 1944.

She was awarded Doctorates of Divinity by the General Theological Seminary, New York, and Trinity College, Toronto. She died in her sleep on 26 February 1992, reportedly after phoning several elderly people who were confined to home, praying with them and offering them pastoral counsel. She is buried in Toronto.

The Anglican Church of Canada agreed in 2004 to include Florence Li Tim-Oi in the Calendar of Holy Persons in the Book of Alternative Services – on the anniversary of her death, 26 February. She was made a permanent part of the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints in 2018.

The Li Tim-Oi Foundation which helps women in the Two-Thirds World train for ministry and vocational work in their communities.

Her story is told by Ted Harrison in Much Beloved Daughter (1985) and in her own memoir, Raindrops of My Life (1996).

The Revd Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok, her father, and Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as deacon in Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, on Ascension Day 22 May 1941

Today’s Prayers (Friday 20 September 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The 5-finger prayer from the Diocese of Kuching, Malaysia.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday in reflections as told to Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 20 September 2024) invites us to pray:

Little Finger (yourself): Thank you Father that you know what I need before I ask you. Please help me to grow in mind, body, and spirit.

The Collect:

God of all tribes and peoples and tongues,
who called your servant John Coleridge Patteson
to witness in life and death to the gospel of Christ
amongst the peoples of Melanesia:
grant us to hear your call to service
and to respond trustfully and joyfully
to Jesus Christ our redeemer,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr John Coleridge Patteson:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Matthew:

O Almighty God, whose blessed Son called Matthew the tax collector
to be an apostle and evangelist:
give us grace to forsake the selfish pursuit of gain
and the possessive love of riches
that we may follow in the way of your Son Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The story about Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion, and how she drew her strength from her faith in God

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

The Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi with Archbishop Robert Runcie during a visit to Lambeth Palace 40 years ago in 1984

Two years after a stroke, my eyes have not dimmed and my vigour has not diminished

The blossoming magnolia tree in Milton Keynes Hospital offered fresh hope for health, renewal and new life in the week after my stroke two years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

It is two years today since I suffered a stroke in Milton Keynes on 18 March 2022. At the time, I was on leave from parish ministry in the Diocese of Limerick for compassionate and personal reasons, and I was spending Saint Patrick’s Weekend in Milton Keynes when I had that stroke, unexpectedly and without any warning.

Charlotte and I went back to the hospital this afternoon, to see the magnolia tree that gave me hope in the days and weeks immmediately after that stroke, and to thank each other for the life, health and love that we have enjoyed in the two years since then.

I was admitted to Milton Keynes Hospital immediately after the stroke, and spent two weeks in hospitals, first in Milton Keynes and then from 29 March in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Since that AVM, I have been back to Milton Keynes Hospital for a number of check-ups and consultations, and to Sheffield Hospital for a consultation and overnight for a ‘Gamma Knife’ procedure.

While I was in hospital in Milton Keynes, I was also diagnosed with Covid-19 – for the first time. This did not stop Charlotte visiting me in hospital every day, and eventually, when I was allowed out of isolation, I also took hope for health, renewal and new life from the blossoming magnolia in one of the hospital courtyards, where we sat each afternoon on three consecutive afternoons, sipping coffee and planning our future.

The consequences of that stroke were extensive and far-reaching, beyond the hospital procedures and stays. I had already decided that I was going to retire from parish ministry after that Easter, although I had not yet made any public announcement.

While I was in hospital in Milton Keynes, in advance of being moved to Oxford, I realised I was not going to return to parish ministry in Co Limerick and Co Kerry before my planned retirement date. I agreed with the Dean of Limerick as commissary of the diocese that I would take early retirement at the end of that month, on 31 March 2022.

I was moved to the John Radcliffe Hospital on 29 March and able to leave on 1 April. After another overnight stay in Oxford, I returned to Milton Keynes two weeks after I was first taken to hospital with that stroke.

I eventually moved into a flat in Stony Stratford in early April 2022, and have been living here ever since. I have returned to Ireland four or five times each year for family visits, for research on chapters for books, for interviews with a television station in Montenegro, to meet family members and friends, and I even missed a flight to attend a book launch in Dublin.

In many ways, these have not been two easy years. But there have been many joys too, and Charlotte and I got married last November in Camden Town Hall and Southwark Cathedral. Apart from those visits to Ireland, there have been return visits to Lichfield and Tamworth, visits to York and Sheffield, visits to Hungary and Finland on behalf of the Anglican mission agency USPG, and visits to Venice and Prague and a delayed – although brief – honeymoon in Paris.

I am continuing to write for books, journals, magazines and newspapers, I have now settled down into a flat overlooking the High Street in Stony Stratford – I have mused already on how I could say that over the span of over 50 years it has been a move from one High Street to another, from High Street in Wexford to High Street in Stony Stratford.

There have been continuing consultations with the hospitals in Milton Keynes, Oxford and Sheffield as a follow-up to my stroke two years ago. I had another check-up on my Vitamin B12 levels two weeks ago, and I have another hospital appointment in Milton Keynes next week. At 72, I may not quite be in rude health. But my distant ‘cousin’ Kevin Martin, who died last year (14 June 2023), would greet me on my birthdays with the traditional Jewish greeting of ‘ad meah v’esrim’, ‘may you live until 120!’ (עד מאה ועשרים שנה‎).

Deuteronomy recalls that Moses lived to be 120, at which age ‘his eye had not dimmed, and his vigour had not diminished’ (Deuteronomy 34: 7). Great rabbis of the Talmud, including Hillel, Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, all lived to 120 as well. The blessing carries the implication that the receiver should retain full mental and physical faculties to the end of life.

With those implications, living until I am 120 does not sound so bad a prospect at all. Another half century after my stroke in 2022, and yet another half century after moving into High Street, Wexford, in the early 1970s, may not be so dim or distant a prospect; it might be a real blessing with the love, care and attention I have been receiving over the past two years.

Coffee under the magnolia tree in Milton Keynes Hospital in the week after my stroke two years ago (Photograph: Charlotte Hunter)

Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 33, 26 January 2024

A copy of Lorna May Wadsworth’s monumental altarpiece, ‘A Last Supper’, in St Albans Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today. This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (21 January 2024), and the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Saint Timothy and Saint Titus, Companions of Saint Paul (26 January).

Because I was born a day after the feast of Saint Paul, my mother wanted to call me Paul. Although my uncle, Arthur Comerford, had me baptised with the name Patrick, my mother continued to call me Paul throughout my life – the only person to do so. I might have been fine with the name Timothy too, but I wonder how I would have gone through life calling me Titus.

Before this day begins, I am taking some time for reading, reflection and prayer. Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation next Friday (2 February). The Gospel reading on Sunday (John 2: 1-11) told of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories.

In keeping with the theme of Sunday’s Gospel reading, my reflections each morning throughout the seven days of this week include:

1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

An icon of the Mystical Supper or the Last Supper in a shop window in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

6, The Last Supper:

The Last Supper has always been a popular subject for artists, from early icon writers through the great artists of Renaissance, to today.

Some of the earliest depictions can be seen in frescoes in the Catacombs in Rome, where Christ and the disciples are depicted reclining around semi-circular tables.

The three major themes depicted in paintings of the Last Supper: the washing of the disciples’ feet by Christ, the betrayal by Judas, and the Eucharist meal.

Byzantine artists sometimes used semi-circular tables in their depictions, but more frequently they focused on the Communion of the Apostles, rather than the reclining figures having a meal.

By the Renaissance, the Last Supper was a favourite subject in Italian art, especially in monastic refectories. These paintings often show the reactions of the disciples to the announcement of the betrayal of Christ.

The depictions of the Eucharist meal are generally solemn and mystical. They may show either Christ while he speaks the dominical words or words of institution over the bread and wine, with all still seated, or show the disciples moving forward to receive from Christ, with Christ standing and delivering the bread and wine of the Communion to each apostle, like a priest giving the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ (1498) is considered the first work of High Renaissance art. He balances the varying emotions of the individual apostles when Christ states that one of the 12 would betray him. He shows a variety of attitudes, from anger and surprise to shock.

Most Italian Renaissance paintings present an oblong table rather that a semi-circular one, and sometimes Judas is shown by himself clutching his money bag. With an oblong table, the artist had to decide whether to show the apostles on both sides, so that some of the 12 are seen from behind, or all on one side of the table facing the viewer.

Sometimes, only Judas is on the side nearest the viewer, allowing his bag of money to be seen.

Placing the Disciples on both sides is further complicated when haloes are needed, so that some haloes are placed either in front of the faces of other apostles, or obscure the view. Duccio was the first artist to omit haloes, albeit the haloes of those apostles nearest the viewer. Giotto, in his fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (1305), uses flat haloes, but the view from behind causes difficulties, and Saint John’s halo has to be reduced in size.

As artists became more interested in realism and the depiction of space, a three-sided interior setting became clearer and more elaborate, sometimes with a landscape view behind, as in the wall-paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Perugino.

Some of the apostles are identifiable in some works; Judas often has his bag with 30 pieces of silver visible; Saint John the Evangelist is normally placed on Christy’s right side, usually ‘reclining in Jesus’ bosom’ as his Gospel says, or even asleep; Saint Peter is generally on Christ’s left.

The food on the table often includes a paschal lamb. In Byzantine versions, fish is the main dish. In later works, the bread may look more like a Communion host. Later still, we see more food, eating, and even waiters and servers, including women.

In some paintings, Judas may only be identifiable because he is stretching out his hand for the food, as the other apostles sit with their hands out of sight, or because he has no halo. In the West, he often has red hair. Sometimes Judas takes the sop in his mouth directly from Christ’s hand, and when he is shown eating it a small devil may be shown next to or on it.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, in his ‘Last Supper’ (1480), depicts Judas separately. The painting in Old Saint Peter’s Church, Strasbourg, dating from1485, shows Saint John leaning across, and Judas in yellow carries his 30 pieces of silver in a bag. Pietro Perugino’s paining in Florence (ca 1493-1496), which is regarded as one of his best pieces, also shows Judas sitting separately.

Tintoretto’s ‘Last Supper’ (1590-1592) in the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, depicts the announcement of the betrayal, and includes an array of additional people carrying in food or taking out dishes from the table.

Tintoretto painted the Last Supper several times during his career. His earlier paintings for the Chiesa di San Marcuola (1547) and for the Chiesa di San Felice (1559) from the scene from a frontal perspective, following a convention observed in most paintings at the time, including Leonardo da Vinci’s mural in Milan.

This scene by Tintoretto, painted in his final years, departs drastically from this style of composition. The setting is similar to a Venetian inn, in which the centre is occupied not by the apostles but by secondary characters, including a woman carrying a dish and servants taking the dishes from the table.

This is a complex and radically asymmetrical composition. The apostles sit at table that recedes into space on a steep diagonal. His use of light is also worth noting – see how it appears to come from the light on the ceiling and from Christ’s aureola.

The Last Supper was one of the few subjects that continued in Lutheran altarpieces after the Reformation, sometimes portraying leading Reformers as the apostles. For example, the painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger (1565) portrays leading Reformers as the Apostles, and also show the Elector of Saxony kneeling.

The betrayal scene may also be combined with the other episodes of the meal, sometimes with a second figure of Christ washing Peter’s feet. The ‘Last Supper’ by Rubens (1630/1631) introduces a dog near Judas, perhaps representing Satan (see John 13: 27).

In the 20th century, Salvador Dalí’s depiction combines the typical Christian themes with modern approaches of Surrealism and also includes geometric elements of symmetry and polygonal proportion.

During my visits to St Albans Cathedral earlier this month, I admired a fine print of ‘A Last Supper’ (2009), by the Sheffield artist Lorna May Wadsworth in the north transept. Recently I also saw a charcoal cartoon of the painting in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit in Sheffield Cathedral.

The Jamaican-born fashion model Tafari Hinds was her model for Christ. The original, monumental 12 ft painting is behind the altar in Saint George’s Church in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire. There it was shot at in 2020, and the painting was damaged on Christ’s right side, the same place a Roman solider pierced his body with a spear as he hung dead on the Cross.

Lorna May Wadsworth’s charcoal cartoon for her monumental altarpiece, ‘A Last Supper’, in Sheffield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 10: 1-9 (NRSVA):

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy [other ancient authorities read seventy-two] others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you”.’

The Last Supper … an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 26 January 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Provincial Programme on Capacity Building in Paraná.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Christina Takatsu Winnischofer, Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (26 January 2024, Saint Timothy and Saint Paul) invites us to pray in these words:

Today is the feast of both Saint Timothy and Saint Titus. May we discern our roles in the Church and commit to them, whether in positions of leadership or as faithful members of the laity.

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
who sent your apostle Paul to preach the gospel,
and gave him Timothy and Titus
to be his companions in faith:
grant that our fellowship in the Holy Spirit
may bear witness to the name of Jesus,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Timothy and Titus and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection (The meal with Simon the Pharisee)

Continued tomorrow (The meal at Emmaus)

The Last Supper … a painting in the Chapel of the Holy Grail in Valencia 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

The Last Supper, by Mikhail Damaskinos, ca 1585-1591, in the Museum of Christian Art in the Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai, Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)