Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 41, Wednesday 17 June 2026

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time and this week began with the Second Sunday after Trinity (14 June 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Samuel Barnett (1844-1913) and Henrietta Barnett (1851-1936), Social Reformers.

Later this evening, I hope to be part of the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 1 ‘Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 ‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

16 ‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’

A T-shirt on sale in the Plaka in Athens … we are challenged to bring together our words and deeds, our needs ‘to be’ and ‘to do’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Gospel reading for the Eucharist this morning (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18) continues our readings from the Sermon on the Mount, and today’s reading is familiar to many as the Gospel reading on Ash Wednesday.

So, this morning I am reflecting on the meaning of the word ‘hypocrite’ which is repeated three times in this passage (verses 2, 5, 16).

Sometimes our comfortable differences can trip us up in ways that surprise or even embarrass us.

A priest colleague who is not from these islands once told me how, within weeks, he came a cropper in a new parish. He comes from a society and a culture where people speak openly and directly. He regards this as a mark of efficiency and a sign of his honesty.

But this did not go down well at all in his new parish. When he told parishioners what he wanted to do, he thought he was being frank, honest and direct. But they immediately saw him as abrupt, abrasive and rude.

In his next parish, he knew he needed to be a little less direct and a lot more diplomatic.

We all know what diplomats mean when they say talks have been frank and honest: bruising encounters with no one behaving in what we might call a civilised manner, or behaving towards each other like Christians.

We respond instinctively as if we expect to be treated politely and that others expect us to treat them politely too.

I offer two examples of how I think Ireland and England are unique in this respect. In other countries, when people pay for a service, they feel that they are doing someone a favour, giving them their custom and their money, and so walk away when the transaction is complete. It is a bonus for them if the person at the till says as they leave, ‘Thank you.’

But here, on these islands, we respond differently: when we pay in a shop or café, or get off a bus or train, it is we, the paying customers, who say ‘Thank You!’

Or again: How often have I asked someone for information that I know or expect them to have – looking for directions on the street, or asking for information at an airport or a train station. And every now and then we meet someone who is curmudgeonly, who got out on the wrong side of the bed, or is just downright rude. And they answer brusquely, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘Look at the timetable.’

And what do I say in reply? I say, ‘Thank You!’

I am just too Anglo-Saxon with my manners for my own good at times. I put on a polite mask, and I put up.

And sometimes we confuse those good manners with the answer we expect to that perennial question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’

Well, when we look at what Jesus does in so many Gospel readings, we may be shocked. English is a polite language, and translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.

This morning, we hear what sounds like Jesus being very rude about some very religious people. He calls them hypocrites seeking the praise of others in public places (verses 2, 5), and accuses them of being tow-faced (verse 16) on false .

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite who puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

But when Jesus says other religious leaders or teachers are hypocrites, he is challenging them to drop the mask and to own the words they speak and to own the reasons for their prayers and rituals.

I bought a T-shirt in the Plaka in Athens some years ago that said:

To do is to be – Socrates
To be is to do – Plato
Do be do be do – Sinatra

If what we pray or say does not match how be behave or what we do, if our words are not reflected in actions, then we are hypocrites, using the words of others but behaving in our own way.

We should beware whenever prayer and piety get in the way of true religion: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself. Beware when our piety separates us from others, for then it also separates us from God.

‘When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing’ (Matthew 6: 3) … a classical-style statue at Vergina restaurant in Platanias, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 17 June 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 14 to 20 June 2026 (pp 10-11), is ‘Rooted in Compassion’. This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Ven Titus Oluwalusi, the Anglican Chaplain at Saint John’s Church in Casablanca, Morocco.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 17 June 2026) invites us to pray:

Father, in a community where many come and go, we pray that the ministry of Saint John’s may nurture faith, foster connection, and provide a firm spiritual foundation for all who pass through.

The Collect of the Day:

Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son:
sustain us with your Spirit,
that we may serve you here on earth
until our joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Faithful Creator,
whose mercy never fails:
deepen our faithfulness to you
and to your living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites’ (Matthew 6: 16) … empty tables at a restaurant in Panormos near Rethymnon (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

26 million sq m in Sicily, 26 million in greater Seoul, $26 million spent on golf, or 26 million US bots?

Views of the Sicilian coast and the Ionian Sea from the garden Saint George’s Church, Taormina … Sicily has an area of 26 million sq metres or 26,000 sq km (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This blog passed yet another record landmark with 26 million views by late evening Kuching time yesterday (1 March 2026) or in the early afternoon Irish time. The views yesterday (318,307) were the highest daily figure I have ever recorded.

Last month (February), indeed this year so far, has had a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog, reaching a volume of readers that I never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (13 million) have been within less than nine months, and the February total of hits was the highest monthly total ever, at 3,386,504.

Yesterday’s total followed little more than a day after this blog passed a new milepost of 25.5 million (28 February). Indeed, it passed the half-million mark seven times in all last month: 25 million four days ago (26 February), 24.5 million hits earlier last week (22/23 February Sarawak or Irish time), 24 million the previous week (20 February 2026), 23.5 million (17 February 2026), 23 million (12 February 2026), and 22.5 million (4 February).

At the end of 2025, this blog had 21 million hits by New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 5 million hits or visitors for 2026, and February 2026 has been the busiest month ever, with over 3.3 million hits.

I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached seven times last month alone. Half of the 26 million hits – 13 million – have been within less than nine months, since 17 June 2025.

Throughout last year and this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Eight of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog have been in February alone, one was this month (March), one was in January, and two were in January last year:

• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 280,802 (26 February 2026)
• 273,022 (27 February 2026)

• 261,422 (13 January 2026)
• 195,391 (20 February 2026)
• 190,630 (23 February 2026)
• 190,467 (21 February 2026)
• 188,376 (19 February 2026)
• 183,317 (22 February 2026)

The rise in the number of readers is overwhelming this year and last, with the daily averages currently running at over 110,000 a day, and over 200,000 a day over the past week. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.

Enjoying the beach at Recanati, near Giardini Naxos in Sicily (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.’ It may only be a hunch, but I have not failed to notice that some of the record traffic on this blog has been around the days Trump declared war on Iran, his state of the union address, attacked Venezuela, in the week before and after his inauguration and his damp-squib military parade in Washington DC. Indeed, the overwhelming number of hits are not from Ireland, the UK and Greece, as I might expect, but from the US.

It is not paranoid to imagine how the bots at work in some ugly, dim basement in Washington are trawling far and wide for anyone critical of the Trump regime. The costs may be minimal, but it’s still money that could be better spent on healthcare, education, rehiring air traffic controllers or reinstating DEI programmes. But I doubt my criticisms of Trump, Rubio, Vance, Hegseth and Musk are going to make it easy to get a visa to visit the US over the next four years, should I ever want to under the present dystopian regime.

I’d prefer to boost my ego and convince myself that my popularity is growing and that I have become a ‘must-read’ writer for so many people every day. But, sadly, I don’t think that is so. And if a minor critic of the Trump regime outside the US such as me is being intimidated at this level, try to imagine how many critics inside the US feel they really are being monitored, intimidated and bullied into silence.

To put this figure of 26 million in context:

UN reports show 26 million people in Sudan are experiencing acute hunger, with over 10 million displaced. About 26 million people are forced into poverty every year due to extreme natural disasters.

The populations of Australia and Mali are about 26 million each, and a similar number live in the Seoul metro area in South Korea.

Greece welcomed almost 26 million foreign visitors between January and August last year, marking a 4.1 per cent increase over the same period the previous year.

The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011 had a total average audience of 26 million viewers.

Several analyses, including those based on data from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and media reports, show US taxpayers spent over $26 million on Donald Trump’s golf outings at his own courses during the first 100 days of his second term of office. Reports last year indicate a crypto business associated with the Trump family generated roughly $26 million in unrealised profit.

Financial disclosures show the Trump Organisation received more than $26 million in income from partnerships with Dar Global, a Saudi Arabian real-estate firm, for projects in Dubai and Muscat. The 2017 Trump inaugural committee paid $26 million to WIS Media Partners, a firm set up by a friend of Melania Trump.

26 million metres is 26,000 km and 26 million sq metres is 26,000 sq km: Sicily, with a land area of about 26,000 sq km, is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and Italy’s largest region; the North Island is the larger of New Zealand’s two main islands, with an area of about 26,000 sq km; Rwanda is slightly larger at 26,338 sq km.

And 26 million minutes is 49 years, 5 months, and 20 days, or more than 180,55 days, or over 433,333 hours. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take almost 49½ years to reach today’s 26 million mark.

It is almost four years since I retired from active parish ministry. These days, though, about 100 people on average are reading my daily prayer blog posted on this blog each morning. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 700 or more people each week.

Today, I am very grateful to the real readers among those 26 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I remain grateful to the faithful core group of about 100 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each day.

The Lady Chapel in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching ... I am grateful to the readers who join me on this blog each day for prayer and reflection (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 8, Tuesday 10 February 2026

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Second Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just over a week away (18 February 2025).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Scholastica (ca 543), sister of Saint Benedict, Abbess of Plombariola. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 7: 1-13 (NRSVA):

1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles). 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God) – 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Sometimes our comfortable differences can trip us up in ways that surprise or even embarrass us.

I was talking to a priest colleague, who is not from these islands, who once told me how, within weeks, he came a cropper in a new parish. He comes from a society and a culture where people speak openly and directly. He regards this as a mark of efficiency and a sign of his honesty.

But when he arrived in that new parish, this did not go down well at all.

When he told parishioners what he wanted to do, he thought he was being frank, honest and direct.

But his parishioners immediately saw him as abrupt, abrasive and rude.

In his next parish, he knew he needed to be a little less direct and a lot more diplomatic.

We all know what diplomats mean when they say talks have been frank and honest: bruising encounters with no one behaving in what we might call a civilised manner, or behaving towards each other like Christians.

We respond instinctively as if we expect to be treated politely and that others expect us to treat them politely too.

I offer two examples of how I think England and Ireland are unique in this respect. In other countries, when people pay for a service, they feel that they are doing someone a favour, giving them their custom and their money, and so walk away when the transaction is complete. It is a bonus for them if the person at the till says as they leave, ‘Thank you.’

But here, on these islands, we respond differently: when we pay in a shop or café, or get off a bus or train, it is we, the paying customers, who say ‘Thank You!’

Or again: How often have I asked someone for information that I know or expect them to have – looking for directions on the street, or asking for information at an airport or a train station.

And every now and then we meet someone who is curmudgeonly, who got out on the wrong side of the bed, or is just downright rude. And they answer brusquely, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘Look at the timetable.’

And what do I say in reply? I say, ‘Thank You!’ Or I do the apologising.

I am just too Anglo-Saxon with my manners for my own good at times. I put on a polite mask, and I put up.

And sometimes we confuse those good manners with the answer we expect to that perennial question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’

Well, look at what Jesus does over in our Gospel readings over these two weeks, and we’re in for something of a shocker.

Over these two weeks, we are going to come across what appear to be interesting, front-parlour meetings with Jesus. But that’s because English is such a polite language, and the translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.

In today’s reading, we hear what sounds like Jesus being very rude to some very religious people, who come with real doubts and with polite questions.

How does he respond? He calls them hypocrites.

And to add to that, in the reading on Thursday, Jesus goes on to compare a woman who comes to him in distress with dogs, and he seems to call her daughter what amounts to – in the original Greek – a ‘little bitch’ (Mark 7: 24-30, 12 February 2026).

Then in the reading on Friday, he meets a man who is deaf and dumb – and he sticks his fingers in his ears and spits on him (Mark 7: 31-37, 13 February 2026).

Hypocrites, dogs, little bitches, poking at someone, spitting at them. Now, imagine if I responded in any one of these ways to someone who gives me a curt answer when I try to find my way through a busy train station or a crowded airport, or if they responded to me like that!

In today’s reading, the Pharisees come to Jesus with a genuine question that arises from rules they apply in their religious life, and rules that are radical, reforming, and easy for us to identify with when the reasons behind them are explained.

We need to keep in mind that the Pharisees are very religious, pious and good people. Too often we forget that Saint Paul boasts he is a Pharisee, that among the different Jewish groups of the day the Pharisees are the closest in tradition and practice to Jesus, and that Pharisaic Judaism is the spiritual ancestor of all modern forms of Judaism today.

The Pharisees looked at the demands the religious law of the Book of Leviticus made on the priests in the Temple. This priestly class included some of Jesus’ own family, such as Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist.

Purity and cleanliness were part of their role in the Temple. Before they ate or handled any sacred food, they had to wash their hands thoroughly. But these rules only applied when they were on the rota for priestly duties in the Temple. They took it in turn, and outside that turn, those rules did not apply. Nor did they apply to the people in general, the average, everyday Jew on the street or at home.

But after the people return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, the Pharisees see the whole people as a royal people, a holy priesthood. And to make the people conscious of how holy the whole nation is, they suggest people should take on those priestly practices, to show they are holy.

In time, this becomes so accepted that people who do not bother washing their hands ritually before they eat are seen as being hypocrites if, at the same time, they are supposed to be holy and religious people.

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word ὑποκριτής (hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are using someone else’s words but do not necessarily understand why those rules and regulations came about.

It is not that washing my hands before I eat is a bad idea, or that I am a hypocrite if I do so. If I habitually fail to wash my hands before I eat, I am going to get sick, quickly and often.

But if I forget why I have to wash my hands, I am a hypocrite if I then expect others to do so. And sometimes we leave ourselves in danger of going hungry if we insist on washing our hands before we eat: the facilities to wash my hands properly are not always to hand conveniently on a long train journey or a long flight.

The Pharisees had their own rituals, and I would be silly to think that only they had these problems. We all have our own rituals associated with eating and cleanliness.

It is said one of the principal causes of domestic arguments in the kitchen is about what way to stack the dishwasher, and how to empty it. Should the knives stand up or down? Which sides do you place the glasses and the cups on? Do you rinse the plates before they go in?

To tell the truth, it probably does not matter. But it is still irritating to open the dishwasher and to find someone else has packed it.

The level of questioning from the Pharisees is about a ritual that is probably more important than how you and I stack the dishwasher. And the level of response from Jesus is not as rude as we might first think.

But when he says the Pharisees are hypocrites, Jesus is challenging them to drop the mask and to own the words they speak and to own the reasons for those rituals.

Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hatred as much as we put into seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church, or as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?

If we are worried about how clean the patten and chalice are at Holy Communion, how clean the church is, how clean the coffee cup is when it comes out of the dishwasher, how much more should be worried about how clean the Church is as an institution, how worthy it is to be called – for us to be called – the Body of Christ.

How we stack the dishwasher can be a domestic ritual of cleanliness … and the cause of many domestic arguments (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 10 February 2026):

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: ‘Safe Routes’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 10 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Guard the children and parents separated across the English Channel. Shine your light on them, especially those waiting to be reunited safely.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 144, Friday 3 October 2025

‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me’ (Luke 10: 16) … listening ears in street art on Tottenham Court Road, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 28 September). Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers George Bell (1881-1958), Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker (3 October).

I may have a lengthy return journey to Heathrow Airport later today. The choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church begins a new term later this evening, with rehearsals in Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and 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.

‘They would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes' (Luke 10: 13)’ … could the disciples have expected the same rejection in Galilean towns and in Phoenician towns? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 10: 13-16 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 13 ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But at the judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum,

will you be exalted to heaven?
No, you will be brought down to Hades.

16 ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’

‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me’ (Luke 10: 16) … the Ear of Dionysius, near Syracuse in Sicily, where legend says the tyrant Dionysius I eavesdropped on prisoners (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We have been reading in Saint Luke’s Gospel this week how Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, and a Samaritan village had refused to welcome his messengers (Luke 9: 51-62). But Christ rebuked James and John for their response to this rejection, and he then sent out 70 (or 72) disciples on a mission of healing and proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God.

In this morning’s readings, Christ tells the Seventy to expect but not to be dejected when they meet hostility, and to leave rejection to God’s own judgment and God’s own time.

The term ‘woe’ (Greek: ου̉̀αὶ, ouai) is often used in prophetic literature to express divine displeasure and impending judgment, and it appears frequently in prophetic writings, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and in Christ’s teachings.

Could the disciples could have expected to face rejection in these familiar Galilean town or even similar rejections in the Phoenician towns of Tyre and Sidon?

Chorazin was about 3 km (two miles) north of the Sea of Galilee, and archaeological excavations suggests the small town had a thriving Jewish community. Bethsaida, on the north-east shore of the Sea of Galilee, was the hometown of apostles Peter, Andrew and Philip, and the town where Jesus healed a blind man (Mark 8: 22-26). Capernaum is often called Jesus’ own city (Matthew 9: 1), it served as the centre for his Galilean ministry, and he taught and healed in the synagogue.

Tyre and Sidon were ancient Phoenician coastal cities, known for their wealth and maritime trade. Prophets often denounced them for their pride and wickedness (Ezekiel 26-28, Isaiah 23). Sodom was infamous for its wickedness and destroyed by God in the time of Abraham (Genesis 19), and became a byword for divine judgment and extreme sinfulness among Jews and Christians.

But Jesus and the disciples often retreated to Tyre and Sidon, the Syrophoenician woman in Tyre begged for healing for her daughter (Matthew 15: 21-28; Mark 7: 24-37), and the deaf man was healed in Sidon (Mark 7: 31-36).

The woes serve as both a lament and as a warning, expressing sorrow over the cities’ current state and educating those who are listening about the future consequences of such a state.

They are a challenge too to think of how the very threats we face in life are not always the ones we fear, and those who offer us comfort and support in life may be those we least expect to offer it.

‘Lord God, as we reflect on the history of the Council of Nicaea, renew us afresh with the beautiful truths of who you are’ (USPG Prayer Diary) … ‘Receiving Nicaea’ is a two-day conference at Pusey House, Oxford, on 12-13 November 2025

Today’s Prayers (Friday 3 October 2025):

The theme this week (28 September to 4 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘One Faith: Many Voices’ (pp 42-43). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 3 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord God, as we reflect on the history of the Council of Nicaea, renew us afresh with the beautiful truths of who you are.

The Collect:

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 choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church resumes rehearsals this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 107, Monday 25 August 2025

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees’ (Malheur à vous, scribes et pharisiens), opaque watercolour over graphite on gray wove paper (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began yesterday with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X). If the Festival of Saint Bartholomew was not observed yesterday (Sunday 24 August), it may be observed today.

This is a holiday weekend in England, and today is the Summer Bank holiday that really marks the end of the summer holiday period here. 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.

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 23: 13-22 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 13 ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

16 ‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.” 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, “Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.” 19 How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22 and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.’

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Beatitudes at the beginning of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says eight groups of people are blessed: ‘the poor in spirit … those who mourn … the meek … those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … the merciful … the pure in heart … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness …’ (Matthew 5: 3-10).

Now, as we come close to the end of this Gospel, we come across seven groups of people who are condemned as hypocrites and against whom Jesus pronounces seven woes.

In today’s reading (Matthew 23: 13-22), we hear the first three of these seven woes: woe to you who ‘lock people out of the kingdom of heaven’ (13) … who ‘make the new convert twice as much a child of hell’ (15) … and ‘blind guides’ who swear by the ‘gold of the sanctuary’ (16-22).

We hear two further woes tomorrow (Matthew 23: 23-26): those who tithe mint, dill, and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith; and we hear the final of the seven woes on Wednesday (Matthew 23: 27-32): a double woe on those who on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

A ‘woe’ is an exclamation of grief, similar to what is expressed by the word alas. In pronouncing woes, Jesus is prophesying judgment on the religious leaders of the day for their hypocrisy. He calls them hypocrites, blind guides, snakes and a ‘brood of vipers’.

In some translations, notably the King James Version, there is an eighth woe in verse 14: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.’ However, older manuscripts do not include this verse.

Before Jesus condemns the hypocrisy of religious leaders, they have been following him to test him and try to trick him with questions about divorce (Matthew 19: 3), his authority (Matthew 21: 23), paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22: 17), the resurrection (Matthew 22: 23), and the greatest commandment of the law (Matthew 22: 36).

Jesus prefaces his seven woes by explaining to the disciples that they should obey the teachings of the religious leaders – as they teach the law of God – but not to emulate their behaviour because they do not practice what they preach (Matthew 23: 3).

The first of these seven woes condemns the scribes and Pharisees for keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven: ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them’ (Matthew 23: 13).

The missing woe in verse 14 is found in footnotes in the NRSV and many other modern translations but not in the main text. The most important authoritative early manuscripts do not include verse 14.

Although part or all of the verse is found in some versions, it is almost certainly not original. Elsewhere, Christ condemns these woeful practices (see Mark 12: 40 and Luke 20: 47), and these verse are not disputed textually.

We might ask whether some scribe long ago omitted this woe, and the omission was then repeated in several subsequent manuscripts, or whether some scribe accidentally copied a marginal note from one of the parallel accounts.

Most Biblical scholars argue for the accidental insertion theory. But the woe in verse 14 is still included in what could be described as conservative evangelical versions, albeit often with brackets around the text or a footnote.

It is absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex B (both early 4th century), Codex D (5th century), Codex Z (6th century), Codex L (8th century), Codex Θ, minuscule 33 and 892 (9th century), and other later manuscripts, on into the middle ages. Many early Old Latin manuscripts do not contain it, such as it^a (4th century), it^e (5th century), and others. The majority of the Latin Vulgate manuscripts, including all of the earliest copies, also lack the reading. The verse is missing in the earliest Syriac manuscript, the Sinaitic Palimpsest (4th century), as well as some of the later Palestinian Syriac copies. Most of the Coptic manuscripts also lack the verse, including the middle Egyptian manuscripts, the Sahidic manuscripts, and some of the Bohairic Coptic manuscripts. The Armenian and Georgian translations likewise do not contain it.

The words in Matthew 23: 14 are found in only a few relatively late Greek witnesses. These include Uncial 0233 (8th century), and some later mediaeval manuscripts and lectionaries. The verse is present here in a number of Old Latin manuscripts, including it^b and it^ff2 (both 5th century), and others. It is also found in the late mediaeval Clementine revision of the Vulgate, the second oldest Syriac manuscript, the Curetonian Gospels (5th century), some of the later Palestinian Syriac manuscripts, and some later Bohairic Coptic manuscripts.

The words in Matthew 23: 14 in the KJV appear between verses 12 and 13 in Codex W (late 4th or early 5th century), Codex O, Σ, and Uncial 0104 (all 6th century), Uncial 0102 and 0107 (both 7th century), Codex E (8th century), Codex F, G, H, K, Y, Δ, Π, and Uncial 0133 (all 9th century), as well as the majority of mediaeval manuscripts.

It is present in this place in very few Latin manuscripts, but is the reading in most of the Syriac copies and a few Bohairic Coptic manuscripts. The verse is also found in this alternate location in the Slavonic and Ethiopic translations.

In other words, there is much older, much stronger, more diverse, and vastly more numerous evidence in favour of the words being between 12 and 13 than there is for them being between 13 and 15.

But the earliest sources lack the verse, and it was absent throughout the centuries. Where there is fairly early evidence in some of the ancient translations, in each case there is even earlier evidence without the verse. Modern scholars conclude that the earliest copies in virtually every stream of transmission lack the verse entirely. The strongest evidence indicates that the words of Matthew 23: 14 are not original to this gospel, but were added in by a later scribe.

In the second of the seven woes, Jesus condemns religious leaders for teaching their converts the same hypocrisy that they themselves practice. They ‘cross sea and land to make a single convert’, and then make ‘the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves’ (Matthew 13: 15).

In the third woe, Jesus refers to the religious elite not as hypocrites but as ‘blind guides’ (verse 16) and ‘blind fools’ (verse 17). They regarded themselves as guides of the blind (see Romans 2: 19), but were blind themselves and unfit to guide others. Instead of teaching spiritual truth, they preferred to quibble over irrelevant matters and find loopholes in the rules (Matthew 23: 16-22).

We should remember that the Pharisees are very religious, pious and good people. Too often we forget that Saint Paul boasts he is a Pharisee, that among the different Jewish groups of the day the Pharisees are the closest in tradition and practice to Jesus, and that Pharisaic Judaism is the spiritual ancestor of all modern forms of Judaism today.

The Pharisees looked at the demands the religious law of the Book of Leviticus made on the priests in the Temple. This priestly class included some of Jesus’ own family, such as Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist.

Purity and cleanliness were part of their role in the Temple. Before they ate or handled any sacred food, they had to wash their hands thoroughly. But these rules only applied when they were on the rota for priestly duties in the Temple. They took it in turn, and outside that turn, those rules did not apply. Nor did they apply to the people in general, the average, everyday Jew on the street or at home.

But after the people return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, the Pharisees see the whole people as a royal people, a holy priesthood. And to make the people conscious of how holy the whole nation is, they suggest people should take on those priestly practices, to show they are holy.

In time, this becomes so accepted that people who do not bother washing their hands ritually before they eat are seen as being hypocrites if, at the same time, they are supposed to be holy and religious people.

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

In Athens in the 4th century BCE, the orator Demosthenes ridiculed his rival Aeschines, who had been a successful actor before taking up politics, as a ῠ̔ποκρῐτής (hypokrités) whose skill at impersonating characters on stage made him untrustworthy as a politician. This negative view of the hypokrités, combined with the Roman disdain for actors, shaded into the originally neutral ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis) or hypocrisy.

It is this later sense of hypokrisis as ‘play-acting’ or assuming a counterfeit persona that gives us the modern word hypocrisy with all its negative connotations.

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are using someone else’s words but do not necessarily understand why those rules and regulations came about.

We should beware when piety gets in the way of fulfilling the heart of the law: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself. Let us beware when our piety separates us from others, for then it also separates us from God.

Classical masks from the theatre in Athens on display in the Acropolis Museum … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 25 August 2025):

The theme this week (24 to 30 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is been ‘From Strangers to Neighbours’ (pp 32-33) This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from the Right Revd Antonio Ablon, Chaplain of Saint Catherine’s Anglican Church, Stuttgart, Germany.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 25 August 2025) invites us to pray:

Loving God, you walked with the exiled and the displaced. Be with all migrants, refugees, and political exiles, especially those struggling with uncertainty, loneliness, and rejection. May they find strength in your presence and hope in their journey.

The Collect of the Day:

Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions
make them to ask such things as shall please 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.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of our pilgrimage,
you have willed that the gate of mercy
should stand open for those who trust in you:
look upon us with your favour
that we who follow the path of your will
may never wander from the way of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord of heaven and earth,
as Jesus taught his disciples to be persistent in prayer,
give us patience and courage never to lose hope,
but always to bring our prayers before you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Actors promoting a theatrical performance of classical drama in the square at Monastiraki in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

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

Saint John Henry Newman, the new Doctor of the Church, is remembered in Oxford, Dublin and in Calverton

The bust of John Henry Newman in the Newman University Church in Dublin is by the sculptor Thomas Farrell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

John Henry Newman is to be declared a Doctor of the Church, Pope Leo has announced in recent days. He is the 38th Doctor of the Church recognised by the Vatican, and the third to be associated with England, after the Venerable Bede and Saint Anselm of Canterbury.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890) is celebrated in the calendar of the Church of England today (11 August), the anniversary of his death in 1890, but in the Roman Catholic Church on 9 October, the anniversary of his reception into that Church in 1845.

Newman was one of the most influential figures in Church life in both England and Ireland in the 19th century. He is remembered in England as the most prominent member of the Oxford Movement, reconnecting Anglicanism with its Catholic roots and heritage, and in Ireland as the founding rector of the newly-formed Catholic University of Ireland in 1854. He was also the founding figure in the Newman University Church which built on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin, in 1855-1856.

John Henry Newman was born at 80 Old Broad Street on 21 February 1801 and was baptised in Saint Benet Fink on 9 April 1801 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Newman was canonised a saint in Rome six years ago [13 October 2019], and was beatified 15 years ago on 19 September 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI during his four-day visit to England.

The future Cardinal John Henry Newman was born at 80 Old Broad Street, London, on 21 February 1801 and was baptised in Saint Benet Fink Church on 9 April 1801. At an early stage in life he was seen as evangelical background in the Church of England. He studied at Trinity College Oxford, and became a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1822. He was ordained deacon in Christ Church, Oxford, in 1824, priest in 1825.

Newman remained a fellow of Oriel College from 1822 to 1845. During those years he was also the college chaplain (1826-1831, 1833-1835) and Vicar of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin (1828-1843).

Tom Tower and the Quad at Christ Church, Oxford, where Newman was ordained (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Newman went on a holiday in Italy in 1832 with his friend Richard Hurrell Froude (1801-1836) of Oriel College and his father. He left them in Rome as he travelled on to Sicily, but there he became gravely ill with a fever. When he recovered, the weather delayed his return to England and he was forced to stay on board his ship for a further three weeks.

During those weeks, he wrote one of his best-known and best-loved poems and hymns, ‘Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom’. The poem expresses his sense of complete uncertainty and disorientation, and reveals his sense of groping in the darkness, pleading with God to lead and guide him.

The University Church of Saint Mary, where Newman was Vicar during his days in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On the Sunday he returned to Oxford, 14 July 1833, Newman heard John Keble (1792-1866), Professor of Poetry at Oxford, preach his famous ‘Assize Sermon’ in Newman’s own church, the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin.

Keble’s sermon was an attack on state interference in church affairs, prompted by government moves to reform the diocesan structures of the Church of Ireland, and is now regarded as the beginning of the Oxford Movement.

Newman became the driving force behind the Oxford Movement, alongside Keble and Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), and Oriel is pre-eminently the college of the Oxford Movement, the first phase of which lasted from 1833-1845. Its proponents produced the Tracts for the Times, a series of 90 tracts that gave them the name ‘Tractarians’, and Newman wrote 27 of the tracts.

Besides Newman, Keble and Pusey, other figures of the movement associated with Oriel included Robert Wilberforce (1802-1857), Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-36), GA Denison (1805-1896), Thomas Mozley (1806-1893), Charles Marriott (1811-1858) and RW Church (1815-1890). Richard Whately (1787-1863) was a fellow of Oriel (1811-1821) and Drummond Professor of Political Economy in Oxford (1830-1831) before becoming Archbishop of Dublin (1831-1863).

Oriel College is pre-eminently the college of the first phase of the Oxford Movement (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Many of the Tractarians met in the Rectory in Calverton, near Stony Stratford, including Newman, Pusey, and Edward Manning, and some of the Tracts for the Times were planned if not written at Calverton. At the time, the Revd the Hon Charles George Perceval (1796-1858) was the Rector of Calverton. He was of Irish descent, a devout High Churchman and a supporter of the Tractarians. He came to Calverton in 1821 at the relatively young age of 24, and was a younger brother of George Perceval (1794-1874), who became the 6th Earl of Egmont in 1841.

Meanwhile, Newman was gaining a reputation as a poet and his edited collection, Lyra Apostolica, including ‘Lead, kindly light’, was published in 1836.

In a seminal exposition of Anglicanism in his Prophetical Office of the Church (1837), Newman maintained that the essential points of Anglicanism are its doctrine, its sacramental system and its legitimate claims to be the Catholic Church in England. However, he reached a turning point in 1841 with Tract 90, in which he tried to reconcile the 39 Articles with the decrees of the Council of Trent and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Newman was censured by the university and was silenced by the Bishop of Oxford. He resigned from Saint Mary’s in 1843, and after considerable hesitation became a Roman Catholic and was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Dominic Barbieri on 9 October 1845.

He defended this decision in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Five years later, the Roman Catholic hierarchy was officially founded in England and Wales. Newman founded the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Birmingham, and remained at the Oratory in Birmingham for the rest of his life – apart from a few short years in Dublin.

At the time of Newman’s move, Roman Catholicism in England was going through a traumatic transition. Until the early 19th century, it was dominated by the old landed recusant families – the sort of families who would later figure in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisted. But it was changing with the increasing influx of poor Irish immigrants, and Birmingham became the heart of the Irish slums in the English Midlands.

Newman House, where Newman was Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, and Newman University Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In 1854, Newman moved to Dublin, and for four years he was rector of the newly-founded but short-lived Catholic University of Ireland. His plans for a university were frustrated, yet his stay in Ireland saw him publish his The Idea of a University.

Newman lived at Mount Salus in Dalkey during the autumn of 1854 while he was establishing the Catholic University in Dublin. He wrote, ‘Tastes so differ that I do not like to talk, but I think this is one of the most beautiful places I ever saw.’

His college chapel survives as Newman University Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, beside Newman House, the Department of Foreign Affairs at Iveagh House, and the former sites of the Methodist Centenary Church and Wesley College.

The University Church was designed by John Hungerford Pollen, who was invited to Dublin by Newman as Professor of Fine Art. Newman rejected Pugin’s Gothic style, seeing in it echoes of the pagan forests of Northern Europe; but he also associated the classical style with his Anglican past and Greek and Roman paganism. And so, he favoured the Byzantine style for his university church.

Pollen’s design is the only successful Byzantine-style church in Ireland, and shows the influence of John Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.

Newman House on Saint Stephen’s Green now houses the Museum of Literature Ireland and backs onto the Iveagh Gardens.

Newman University Church, Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin … celebrating John Henry Newman today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Practical organisation was not among Newman’s gifts, and after four unhappy years in Dublin he returned to Birmingham. Little did he know that his efforts to establish a university in Ireland would eventually bear fruit in University College Dublin. The Literary and Historical Society (L&H), which he founded, remains one of the best-known university debating societies in Ireland.

Back in England, a controversy in 1863 and 1864 involving the Anglican social reformer, Charles Kingsley, led Newman to publish his Apologia pro Vita Sua, earning his place as one the greatest Catholic minds of his time. His other great works include The Dream of Gerontius (1865) and the Grammar of Assent (1870).

Newman was not uncritical of his new Church. His opposition to the Pope’s retention of temporal powers led to a breach in his friendship with Cardinal Manning (1801-1892), another former evangelical Anglican and subsequent Tractarian who had been Archdeacon of Chichester and then became Archbishop of Westminster in 1865 and a cardinal in 1875.

Yet Newman retained many Anglican friends throughout his life, including Richard Church, Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, and a nephew of Sir Richard Church, the Cork-born liberator of Greece. He read Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers on the recommendation of Pollen. When Newman heard of Kinglsley’s death he acknowledged Kingsley’s role in prompting his Apologia, his defence of the Athanasian Creed, and how he had preached kindly about Newman in Chester Cathedral, and added: ‘I said Mass for his soul as soon as I heard of his death.’

A copy of the portrait of Newman as a cardinal, by Sir John Everett Milais, in Newman University Church, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Although never a bishop, Newman was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879 at the suggestion of the Duke of Norfolk. He chose as his motto Cor ad Cor Loquitor, ‘Heart Speaks to Heart’.

When he died on 27 February 1891, Newman was buried in Rednall Hill, Birmingham, in the same grave as his lifelong friend, Ambrose St John, who lived with Newman as his companion for 32 years. To thwart attempts to make a cult of his remains, Newman ordered that he should be buried in a rich compost so that his corpse would decompose rapidly. When his body was exhumed some years ago in an attempt to retrieve relics, nothing was found except the brass plate and handles of his coffin.

Was Newman a pious Anglo-Catholic who prefigured those Anglican priests who moved to Rome in recent years?

Or was he essentially an Anglican who continued to resist Papal encroachments on the Church and on the conscience of the individual?

What has been called the ‘battle for Newman’s legacy’ took on a new intensity at the time of his beatification with John Cornwell’s book, Newman’s Unquiet Grave: the reluctant saint.

Pope Benedict once claimed that Newman was a faithful supporter of the papal magesterium and pontifical dogmas on many issues, and was an opponent of Catholic dissent. However, John Cornwell portrayed Newman as a dissident when it came to papal authority, infallibility, the downgrading of the laity and the primacy of papal dogma over individual conscience.

‘I shall drink to the Pope if you please,’ Newman once wrote, ‘… still to conscience first and the Pope afterwards.’ He once wrote of the ageing Pope Pius IX: ‘He becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know fact, and does cruel things without meaning it.’

Newman’s hymns include ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height’ and ‘Firmly I Believe’, both from his poem ‘The Dream of Gerontius’. A third, well-loved Newman hymn, ‘Lead, kindly light’, shows how he was never a man for easy answers or the ready acceptance of imposed dogma and authority.

The timber relief of Cardinal John Henry Newman by Sean McDonnell in the Church of the Assumption, Dalkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Newman is remembered in the Church of the Assumption in Dalkey, Co Dublin, with a sculpted timber relief by Sean McDonnell. In the same niche is a plaque with the closing words from a sermon Newman preached on 19 February 1843, two years before he became a Roman Catholic: ‘May he support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen and the evening comes; and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in his mercy may he give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest and peace at the last.’

The legacy of the Oxford Movement continues to inform life at Oriel College, Oxford. The college traditions include singing the ancient hymn Phos Hilaron (‘Hail Gladdening Light’) on feast days and other special occasions.

The space once used by both Whately and Newman was rebuilt in 1991 as an oratory and memorial to Newman and the Oxford Movement. A stained-glass window designed by Vivienne Haig and realised by Douglas Hogg was installed in 2001.

Newman has also given his name to one of the five quads at Keble College, Oxford: Liddon, the largest, named after Henry Parry Liddon; Pusey, named after Edward Bouverie Pusey; Hayward, named after Charles Hayward; De Breyne, named after Andre de Breyne; and Newman, previously the Fellows’ Garden.

A well-known prayer by John Henry Newman has been adapted in prayer books throughout the Anglican Communion:

Support us, O Lord,
all the day long of this troublous life,
until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
the busy world is hushed,
the fever of life is over
and our work is done.
Then, Lord, in your mercy grant us a safe lodging,
a holy rest, and peace at the last;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The oriel above the chapel entrance in Oriel College once formed part of a set of rooms occupied by Archbishop Richard Whately and by Cardinal John Henry Newman (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 40, Wednesday 18 June 2025

Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time and this week began with Trinity Sunday (15 June 2025), and tomorrow is the Feast of Corpus Christi (19 June 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Bernard Mizeki (1896), Apostle of the MaShona, Martyr, 1896.

I spent much of yesterday in London, but there was an interesting dimension, with visits to five or six churches and chapels in Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Mayfair. I am planning to go to a coffee morning this morning to celebrate 50 years of the library in Stony Stratford. There is no choir rehearsal in Stony Stratford this evening as the choir begins its summer recess. But before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 1 ‘Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 ‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

16 ‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’

A T-shirt on sale in the Plaka in Athens … we are challenged to bring together our words and deeds, our needs ‘to be’ and ‘to do’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading for the Eucharist this morning (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18) continues our readings from the Sermon on the Mount, and today’s reading is familiar to many as the Gospel reading on Ash Wednesday.

So, this morning I am reflecting on the meaning of the word ‘hypocrite’ which is repeated three times in this passage (verses 2, 5, 16).

Sometimes our comfortable differences can trip us up in ways that surprise or even embarrass us.

A priest colleague who is not from these islands once told me how, within weeks, he came a cropper in a new parish. He comes from a society and a culture where people speak openly and directly. He regards this as a mark of efficiency and a sign of his honesty.

But this did not go down well at all in his new parish. When he told parishioners what he wanted to do, he thought he was being frank, honest and direct. But they immediately saw him as abrupt, abrasive and rude.

In his next parish, he knew he needed to be a little less direct and a lot more diplomatic.

We all know what diplomats mean when they say talks have been frank and honest: bruising encounters with no one behaving in what we might call a civilised manner, or behaving towards each other like Christians.

We respond instinctively as if we expect to be treated politely and that others expect us to treat them politely too.

I offer two examples of how I think Ireland and England are unique in this respect. In other countries, when people pay for a service, they feel that they are doing someone a favour, giving them their custom and their money, and so walk away when the transaction is complete. It is a bonus for them if the person at the till says as they leave, ‘Thank you.’

But here, on these islands, we respond differently: when we pay in a shop or café, or get off a bus or train, it is we, the paying customers, who say ‘Thank You!’

Or again: How often have I asked someone for information that I know or expect them to have – looking for directions on the street, or asking for information at an airport or a train station. And every now and then we meet someone who is curmudgeonly, who got out on the wrong side of the bed, or is just downright rude. And they answer brusquely, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘Look at the timetable.’

And what do I say in reply? I say, ‘Thank You!’

I am just too Anglo-Saxon with my manners for my own good at times. I put on a polite mask, and I put up.

And sometimes we confuse those good manners with the answer we expect to that perennial question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’

Well, when we look at what Jesus does in so many Gospel readings, we may be shocked. English is a polite language, and translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.

This morning, we hear what sounds like Jesus being very rude about some very religious people. He calls them hypocrites seeking the praise of others in public places (verses 2, 5), and accuses them of being tow-faced (verse 16) on false .

The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word (ὑποκριτής, hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’

So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite who puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.

But when Jesus says other religious leaders or teachers are hypocrites, he is challenging them to drop the mask and to own the words they speak and to own the reasons for their prayers and rituals.

I bought a T-shirt in the Plaka in Athens some years ago that said:

To do is to be – Socrates
To be is to do – Plato
Do be do be do – Sinatra

If what we pray or say does not match how be behave or what we do, if our words are not reflected in actions, then we are hypocrites, using the words of others but behaving in our own way.

We should beware whenever prayer and piety get in the way of true religion: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself. Beware when our piety separates us from others, for then it also separates us from God.

‘When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing’ (Matthew 6: 3) … a classical-style statue at Vergina restaurant in Platanias, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 18 June 2025):

‘Crossing the Channel’ is the theme this week (15-21 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 18 June 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, give wisdom and compassion to political leaders and advocates. Please inspire a spirit of compassion so that harmful policies are changed.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you have given us your servants grace,
by the confession of a true faith,
to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity
and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity:
keep us steadfast in this faith,
that we may evermore be defended from all adversities;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
and live and reign in the perfect unity of love:
hold us firm in this faith,
that we may know you in all your ways
and evermore rejoice in your eternal glory,
who are three Persons yet one God,
now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
faithful and unchanging:
enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth,
and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love,
that we may truly worship you,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Collect on the Eve of Corpus Christi:

Lord Jesus Christ,
we thank you that in this wonderful sacrament
you have given us the memorial of your passion:
grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries
of your body and blood
that we may know within ourselves
and show forth in our lives
the fruits of your redemption;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites’ (Matthew 6: 16) … empty tables at a restaurant in Panormos near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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