Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 43, Wednesday 1 April 2026 Wednesday of Holy Week (‘Spy Wednesday’)

‘The Taking of Christ in the Garden’ by Caravaggio (1598), the National Gallery of Ireland … the betrayal of Christ is a major theme for the Wednesday of Holy Week

Patrick Comerford

We are half-way through Holy Week, the last week in Lent, as we prepare for Good Friday and Easte. Today is the Wednesday of Holy Week (16 April 2025), known in many places as ‘Spy Wednesday’, and in some places 1 April is also ‘April Fools’ Day’. Passover also begins this evening (1 April 2026) and continues until Thursday next week (9 April 2026).

I hope to sing with the choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church today at the funeral of Dave King, who gave so much and so cheerfully to the life of the parish and the community in Stony Stratford. Later in the evening, the choir continues its rehearsals for the rest of Holy Week and for Easter.

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.

‘The Betrayal by Judas’ by Giotto (ca 1304-1306)

John 13: 21-32 (NRSVA):

21 After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, ‘Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ 22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. 23 One of his disciples – the one whom Jesus loved – was reclining next to him; 24 Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. 25 So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ 26 Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’ So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. 27 After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’ 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the festival’; or, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.

‘The Ship of Fools’ by Hieronymus Bosch (ca 1450–1516)

Today’s Reflections

Today [1 April] is marked throughout much of the English-speaking world and in many parts of Europe as April Fools’ Day, a day for people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other, so that victim becomes the April fools.

My long-time friend and former colleague in journalism and history projects in Wexford, the late Nicky Furlong (1929-2022), managed to make me the victim of his April Fool’s prank in the Echo group of newspapers in Co Wexford – the Wexford Echo, the Enniscorthy Echo and the New Ross Echo – back in 2009.

On their front pages on 1 April 2009, the Echo newspapers carried reports and photographs of sharks spotted variously in Wexford Harbour, in the Slaney at Enniscorthy and in the Barrow near New Ross. The sightings were confirmed by no less an expert in large fish than one Mr Ray Whiting.

But I had to turn to page 36 inside the 1 April editions to find a report by Nicky that the Pugin churches of Co Wexford were suffering a unique infestation that threatened the demolition of the Pugin churches – and only the Pugin churches. And right beneath the dateline on the page, Nicky also carried the following preposterous report: ‘Wexford man’s church promotion’, claiming, quite preposterously, that I was to ‘become Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin’.

He gilded the lily, saying I had spent ‘holidays in Greece, Armenia, Ethiopia and even Soviet Russia when religion of any kind was forbidden’, and that I was the author of a whimsical work The Tower that ‘was a comic delight in Wexford associations’.

Two of my all-time April Fool pranks were the work of the BBC and the Guardian.

In 1957, the BBC staged the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest prank, with a fake news report of Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti. The BBC was later flooded with questions about buying spaghetti plants.

The Guardian’s successful April Fool joke was a seven-page travel supplement on the tiny tropical republic of San Serriffe on 1 April 1977. San Serriffe was ‘a small archipelago, its main islands grouped roughly in the shape of a semicolon, in the Indian Ocean,’ and was celebrating 10 years of independence.

The name San Serriffe and the shape of the islands were concocted from printing and typesetting terms. The two main islands were Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse, the indigenous islanders were Flongs, and the Republic is ruled by a dictator General MJ Pica. School subjects included A-level pearl-diving.

The supplement was designed by Philip Davies, the editorial was the work of the Foreign Editor, Geoffrey Taylor, and the advertising agency J Walter Thompson filled the advertising space on four of the seven pages, including one from Kodak running a competition for photographs of San Serriffe,

My mother, who could hold some unusual evangelical opinions, would have nothing to do with April Fool’s Day, insisting it was a continuation of the Gospel stories of Christ being mocked during his sufferings and passion before the crucifixion (see Matthew 27, Mark 15, John 19) and on the Cross (see Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke: 23).

So, how did 1 April become April Fool’s Day?

The earliest record may be in an ambiguous reference in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392). The ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two. However, many scholars now believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote ‘Syn March was gon.’ If so, then this passage meant 32 days after April, or 2 May, which was the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia in 1381.

Readers apparently misunderstood Chaucer’s line to mean ‘32 March,’ or 1 April. In Chaucer’s tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.

For centuries, the mediaeval Christian Feast of Fools took place in January. In the opening passages of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo describes ‘rowdy theatricals and underworld parades of lay Parisians ... on the sixth of January 1482’ as a combined celebration ‘of the day of the kings and the Feast of Fools.’

The actual feast was developed in the late 12th and early 13th centuries and was finally forbidden by the Council of Basle in 1435, despite its fictional survival in Victor Hugo’s novel.

‘The Ship of Fools’ by Hieronymus Bosch (ca 1450-1516) is a fragment of the left wing of a triptych, painted ca 1490-1500 in oil on an oak panel. It measures 58 cm x 33 cm, and was given to the Musée du Louvre, Paris, by Camille Benoît of Paris in 1918.

This painting is rich with symbolism and is probably a satirical comment on Albrecht Dürer’s frontispiece of Sebastian Brant’s book of the same name. As it is seen today in the Louvre, it is a fragment of a triptych that was cut into several parts. ‘The Ship of Fools’ was painted on one of the wings of the altarpiece, and is about two thirds of its original length. The bottom third of the panel belongs to Yale University Art Gallery and is exhibited under the title ‘Allegory of Gluttony’.

The wing on the other side, which has more or less retained its full length, is the ‘Death and the Miser’, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The two panels together would have represented the two extremes of the prodigal who is condemned and the miser who is caricatured.

Sebastian Brant’s The Ship of Fools (Das Narrenschiff) is a book of satire published in 1494 in Basel, Switzerland. Brant was a conservative German theologian. In a prologue, 112 brief satires, and an epilogue, all illustrated with woodcuts, the book includes the first commissioned work by Dürer, a great Renaissance artist and engraver. Much of the work was critical of the state of the Church at the time. Brant tackles the weaknesses and vices of his time, and creates the fictional Saint Grobian, who becomes the patron saint of vulgar and coarse people.

The Ship of Fools was inspired by a frequent motif in mediaeval art and literature, particularly in religious satire, due to a pun on the Latin word navis, which means both a boat and the nave of a church.

The theme of foolishness is a frequent literary device for criticism before the Reformation. Examples are provided by Erasmus in his In Praise of Folly, by Martin Luther in his Address to the Christian Nobility, and by the role of court jesters or fools. By writing in the voice of the fool, Brant found an acceptable literary device for his criticism of the Church. Dürer carved many of the woodcuts for the first edition, and the book found immediate popularity. However, it is still debated whether The Ship of Fools is a humanist work or just a late example of this mediaeval genre.

But the association of foolishness, pranks and 1 April may not have developed until the 16th century, after Pope Gregory XIII restored 1 January as New Year’s Day in the Gregorian Calendar. The change was important because the Julian calendar meant the March equinox was occurring well before 21 March, and the date is important to the Church because it is fundamental to the calculation of the date of Easter. To reinstate the association, the reform advanced the date by 10 days: Thursday 4 October 1582 was followed by Friday 15 October 1582.

Before the Gregorian Calendar was introduced, New Year’s Day was celebrated on 25 March, the Feast of the Annunciation, in many parts of Europe. It developed in some places into a week-long holiday ending on 1 April. Perhaps those Catholics who celebrated the New Year on 1 January made fun of those Protestants who continued to celebrate it from 25 March to 1 April. They were seen as foolish, and so became April Fools.

The change was widespread throughout Europe – although Britain, Ireland and what became Canada and the US did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.

The first unambiguous British reference to April Fools’ Day is by the diarist John Aubrey to ‘Fooles holy day’ in 1686 – although he might have been referring to Germany: ‘We observe it on ye first of April … And so it is kept in Germany everywhere.’

More recently, Ship of Fools has been adapted as the name of a satirical, church-related website that has its roots in a student print magazine, Ship of Fools, first launched in 1977. The print magazine, folded in 1983 after ten issues. It was revived again on April Fools’ Day 1998 as a website, and has quickly grown into an online community as well as a webzine.

‘We’re here for people who prefer their religion disorganised,’ according to Simon Jenkins, editor and designer of the website. ‘Our aim is to help Christians be self-critical and honest about the failings of Christianity, as we believe honesty can only strengthen faith.’

Ship of Fools describes itself as iconoclastic and debunking but also committed to the ultimate value of faith, and aims to attract readers more interested in searching questions than simplistic answers. Regular features include the Mystery Worshipper.

The co-editor of Ship of Fools is Stephen Goddard, who met Simon Jenkins at theological college in London in the late 1970s. ‘As committed Christians ourselves, we can’t help laughing at the crazy things that go wrong with the church, and we’re also drawn to those questions which take us beyond easy believing. In the end, we want to make sense of the Christian faith in today’s complex world.’

The notion of ‘holy fools’ has a long, respected place in Jewish and Christian traditions. Hebrew prophets were often scorned as mad or eccentric for pronouncing unwelcome or uncomfortable truths, the Apostle Paul talked to the Corinthians about becoming ‘fools for Christ’ (I Corinthians 4: 10). Eastern Orthodoxy still sees the ‘holy fool’ as a type of Christian martyr or wise paradoxically and saintly.

The Catholic theologian and priest Professor John Saward is a Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars in the University of Oxford and the author of Perfect Fools: Folly for Christ's Sake in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality (1980). He writes: ‘If the wisdom of the world is folly to God, and God’s own foolishness is the only true wisdom, it follows that the worldly wise, to become truly wise, must become foolish and renounce their worldly wisdom.’

The Yale theologian Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006) was a Lutheran pastor who joined the Orthodox Church in later life. In Fools for Christ (2001), he looks at various ‘fools’ and explores the motif of fool-for-Christ in relationship to the problem of understanding the numinous: ‘The Holy is too great and too terrible when encountered directly for men of normal sanity to be able to contemplate it comfortably. Only those who cannot care for the consequences run the risk of the direct confrontation of the Holy.’

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
– John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

The Guardian’s seven-page travel supplement on the tiny tropical republic of San Serriffe was a successful April Fool joke on 1 April 1977

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 1 April 2026, Wednesday of Holy Week, ‘Spy Wednesday’):

The theme this week (29 March-4 April 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is a ‘Holy Week’ reflection’ (pp 42-43). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by the Revd Kenson Li, Assistant Curate of Manchester Cathedral and a Trustee of USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 1 April 2026, Wednesday of Holy Week, ‘Spy Wednesday’) invites us to pray:

Generous God, we remember how Judas betrayed you for silver. Transform hearts ruled by love of wealth rather than love of you and your people. Give us generous hearts to know that to give is to receive, and to love our neighbour is to love you.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who in your tender love towards the human race
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
you humbled yourself in taking the form of a servant,
and in obedience died on the cross for our salvation:
give us the mind to follow you
and to proclaim you as Lord and King,
to the glory of God the Father.

Additional Collect:

True and humble king,
hailed by the crowd as Messiah:
grant us the faith to know you and love you,
that we may be found beside you
on the way of the cross,
which is the path of glory.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘the fools, the fools, the fools!’ … street art depicting O’Donovan Rossa in Skibbereen, Co Cork (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 Saint Patrick’s Day ‘virtual tour’ of a dozen churches and cathedrals dedicated to Saint Patrick

A statue of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day [17 March], and this afternoon I am allowing my mind’s eye to travel on a ‘virtual tour’, revisiting a dozen cathedrals and churches dedicated to Saint Patrick.

To mark Saint Patrick’s Day two years ago, I offered a similar ‘virtual tour’ to a dozen cathedrals and churches in Ireland dedicated to Saint Patrick: Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; the two Saint Patrick’s Cathedrals in Armagh; the Saint Patrick’s Cathedrals in Trim, Co Meath, and in Cavan; the two Saint Patrick’s Churches in Donabate, Co Dublin; and Saint Patrick’s Church in Dalkey, Co Dublin, Wicklow Town, Ballysteen, Co Limerick, and Waterford City; and the ruins of Saint Patrick’s Church, at the end of High Street, where I once lived in Wexford.

In today’s ‘virtual tour’ with Saint Patrick, I am returning to two cathedrals or pro-cathedrals in Ireland, the college chapel where I graduated, the two churches where my both sets of grandparents were married, two churches in Co Limerick, where I lived for five years, a church in Skerries where I did ‘Sunday duty’ during a vacancy many years ago, a church in Co Kilkenny where another Canon Comerford was once parish priest, and three churches named after Saint Patrick that I have visited within the last six months or in Belfast, London and Sarawak.

1, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen, Co Cork:

Saint Patrick’s on North Street, Skibbereen, Co Cork … is it a cathedral, or is it a parish church? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on North Street, Skibbereen, West Cork, is the 200-year-old Roman Catholic parish church in Skibbereen. It is often referred to as the cathedral of the Diocese of Ross, although Cork and Ross is now a united diocese.

The foundation stone was laid in 1825, and the church was designed as a plain Greek Revival T-plan church by the Revd Michael Augustine Riordan, a priest-architect from Doneraile, Co Cork.

A plaque on the west gable is inscribed: Deo Opt Max et Beato Patritio Parochus Populusque extruere AD 1825 Venite adoremus et procidamus ante Deum (‘To the great glory of Almighty God and the Blessed Patrick, the parish priest and people built this church in AD 1825. Come let us adore and fall down before God’).

George Coppinger Ashlin gave the cathedral the splendour it retains to this day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The most significant improvement to Saint Patrick’s was carried out in the early 1880s, when Bishop William Fitzgerald commissioned AWN Pugin’s son-in-law, the Cork-born architect George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921), to design a radical modernisation of the church. Ashlin was also the architect of Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, for the Diocese of Cloyne.

Ashlin gave the cathedral the splendour it displays to this day, and reconfigured the church in the shape of a Latin cross. The east wall behind the original High Altar was opened; a semi-circular apse was added; the apse was embellished by three stained-glass windows; the High Altar, dedicated to the memory of Bishop Michael O’Hea (1858-1876), and the Marian Altar, supplied by Pearse and Sharpe of Dublin, were erected.

The arcade of three arches above the sanctuary and two dividing the transepts from the nave, the polished pillars of granite, the coffered ceiling which they support, all date from 1882-1883.

The white marble altar rail was the work of Pearse and Sharp of Dublin; James Pearse was the father of the 1916 leader Padraig Pearse. The wrought iron panels, with their floral and leaflet decoration, were the work of Eugene McCarthy of Skibbereen.

The High Altar was consecrated on the first Sunday in May 1883 and the reconstructed church was blessed and re-opened.

2, Saint Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral, Dundalk, Co Louth:

Saint Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral, Dundalk, Co Louth … Thomas Duff modelled the exterior on the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Modern Dundalk was first laid out by James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Clanbrassil, in the mid-18th century. Around the same time, Dundalk Grammar School was founded as a Charter School in 1739. The town continued to grow and prosper in the 18th and 19th centuries, thanks to the patronage of the Jocelyn family, Earls of Roden, the industrial revolution and the arrival of the railway.

The growing Roman Catholic population was becoming more prosperity, and the architecture of their new churches reflects their growing confidence. The principal Roman Catholic church is Saint Patrick’s, known locally as the Pro-Cathedral. It was designed by the Newry architect Thomas Duff (1792-1848), who modelled the interior on Exeter Cathedral, where Richard FitzRalph of Dundalk was consecrated bishop, and the exterior on King’s College Chapel in Cambridge – it is curious to note that the Vicar of Dundalk at the time, the Revd Elias Thackeray, was a former Fellow of King’s College.

Thomas Turner’s entry curtain at Saint Patrick’s in Perpendicular Gothic (1850) was inspired by the curtain at King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Building work on Saint Patrick’s began in 1834. The travel writer and Church of Ireland clergyman, the Revd Caesar Otway, met Duff in Cambridge the following year making drawings of King’s College Chapel for his new designs. At the same time, Duff also designed the Methodist Church in Jocelyn Street (1834) in the Greek revival or classical style, and the Presbyterian Church across the street (1839) in the Tudor Gothic style.

Duff died in 1848 following a stroke after his daughter’s death. Thomas Turner’s entry curtain in Perpendicular Gothic, inspired by the curtain at King’s College, Cambridge, was erected two years later. But the Famine disrupted work at Saint Patrick’s, and did not resume until 1860. The church was completed by JJ McCarthy, the ‘Irish Pugin,’ who designed the high altar, the reredos and the Gothic sedilia in Caen stone. Pugin’s son-in-law, George Coppinger Ashlin, designed the Italian mosaics in the chancel by Oppenheimer and the pulpit. The stained glass is by Mayer and Earley, who had worked on many of Pugin’s churches in Dublin. Ashlin’s later tower was modelled on Gloucester Cathedral, although it interrupts the grand Cambridge-like main façade.

3, Saint Patrick’s College Chapel, Maynooth, Co Kildare:

The chapel at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I received my BD in theology from the Pontifical University in the chapel in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare, in 1987. Later, I was a post-graduate student in history at Maynooth, and I spent a day on a retreat in the chapel before my ordination as priest in 2001. Since then, I have been a visiting lecturer in Maynooth, co-chaired conferences, contributed chapters, papers and book reviews to books and journals edited in Maynooth, and I was involved in organising a retreat for students from the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (CITI) in Maynooth in 2016.

Those books include a recent history of Maynooth, We Remember Maynooth: A College across Four Centuries, edited by Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan (Dublin: Messenger Publishing, 2020).

Inside the chapel at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare … I received my BD in the chapel in 1987 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The chapel, built by public subscription, was designed by the architect JJ McCarthy, the foundation stone was laid in 1875, and the chapel opened on 24 June 1891.

It is in French 14th-century Gothic style, and is more ornate than AWN Pugin’s college buildings in Maynooth. The interior was designed by the architect William Hague, the stained glass windows are by Mayer of Munich, Lavers and Westlake of London and Cox Buckley of London and Youghal, and NHC Westlake designed the Pre-Raphaelite style Stations of the Cross and the ceiling panels.

The carved oak choir-stalls that fill the whole church were produced by Connollys of Dominick Street, Dublin. Many of the mosaics are in Italian glass by the Earley Studios of Camden Street, Dublin.

4, Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate … George Luke O’Connor was inspired by Pugin’s cathedral in Birmingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My paternal grandparents, Stephen Comerford (1867-1921) of Rathmines and Bridget Lynders (1875-1948) of Portrane, were married in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, on 7 February 1905. The witnesses at their wedding were her cousin Lawrence McMahon and her younger sister Mary Anne Lynders (1879-1956), who later married John Sheehan.

Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, was designed by the Dublin architect George Luke O’Connor, for the Very Revd W Magill, PP, and was consecrated by Archbishop Walsh of Dublin on 9 August 1903.

O’Connor designed many churches, schools and cinemas, and it always strikes me that his church in Donabate is strongly influenced by Pugin’s designs for Birmingham Cathedral.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This is a Gothic, gable-fronted cruciform church with an apse and tower. The family tradition is that much of the work in the church interior is my grandfather’s work. The high altar, erected in 1906, is the work of Patrick Tomlin & Sons of Grantham Place. The canted apse has a painted ceiling.

This red brick church is built in English garden wall bond. The features include decorative buttressing, limestone dressing and string courses, terracotta details in the eaves, pointed arched doors with limestone surrounds, the exposed timber truss, barrel vaulted ceiling, tongue and grooved timber doors with elaborate cast-iron hinges, cast-iron pillars, marble columns, encaustic tiles, the ornate rose west window, lancet windows and the Harry Clarke stained glass.

5, Saint Patrick’s Church, Millstreet, Co Cork:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Millstreet, was designed by the priest-architect Michael Augustine Riordan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church is an imposing feature on the streets of Millstreet, and its fine façade marks out the church as the most accomplished historic building in the town. The church, built in 1833-1835, was designed by the Revd Michael Augustine Riordan (1783-1848), a priest-architect from Doneraile who founded the South Presentation Monastery (1828) in Cork, and whose best-known work is probably Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen.

My maternal grandparents, Thomas Michael ‘Corduroy’ Murphy (1882-1949), later of Mackay, Queensland, Australia, and Maria Crowley (1882-1953) of Millstreet, were married in Saint Patrick’s 110 years ago, on 3 March 1915.

The west front porch has a timber panelled double-leaf door, stepped-profile carved limestone surround with plinths and Celtic interlace decoration in relief. Above the door, the carved limestone pediment has a cross finial, and a render, relief panel has a crucifixion scene between an image of the Good Shepherd and a scene of Saint Patrick baptising Saint Aonghus at Cashel.

The east front porch has a moulded archivolt with scroll keystone, all set into a carved limestone doorcase with carved limestone panelled pilasters, decorative capitals and a carved limestone open-bed pediment with cross finial. Above the timber panelled double-leaf doors, the tympanum has a render scene depicting an outdoor Mass, perhaps at a penal rock.

The carving above the west porch door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church has a window attributed to Harry Clarke and two windows by Clement Watson & Co of Youghal and erected by the Crowley in memory of my maternal great-grandparents Denis and Margaret Crowley, who are buried in the churchyard outside.

Saint Oliver Plunket is depicted in a window with the inscription: ‘Erected to the memory of Denis and Margaret Crowley of Millstreet by their son Cornelius. 1944.’ Facing it, a a second window depicts the Apparition at Lourdes and has the same wording.

Denis Crowley died on 8 March 1912 at Drishane Rectory, Liscahane, Millstreet, the home of his son Con Crowley, later of Finnstown House, Lucan, Co Dublin – so, you could say, I was the third generation in four in my family to live in a rectory. Margaret Crowley died at the home of her daughter, my grandmother Maria Murphy, on Main Street, Millstreet, on 9 March 1923.

6, Saint Patrick’s Church, Clare Street, Limerick:

Saint Patrick’s graveyard, Limerick … the site of a mediaeval church dedicated to Saint Patrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There were five parishes in the mediaeval city of Limerick: Saint John’s, Saint Mary’s, Saint Michael’s, Saint Munchin’s and Saint Patrick’s. As one of these five original mediaeval parishes, Saint Patrick’s once included the old parishes of Ballysimon, Derrygalvin and Kilmurry (now Monaleen).

Saint Patrick’s Well in Singland was once in a small field but is now surrounded by housing estates. It is half-way along Saint Patrick’s Road, on the west side, at the bottom of the hill on which Saint Brigid’s Church stands.

Local lore claims that this well is where Saint Patrick baptised Cairtheann, the son of Blatt and the Chief of the Dál gCais, in the year 440 CE. According to the legend, when Saint Patrick was building his church, he could not find any water to help in the project. He prayed for water and the well sprang up.

It is claimed that the print of his feet can be seen on one of the rocks at the well, and there was supposed to be a rocky bed where Saint Patrick slept. It is claimed that the water cures sore eyes, although looking into the well this week the water looks more likely to cause infections than to cure anything.

Saint Patrick’s Well at Singland in Limerick … the statue was erected in 1904 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A statue of Saint Patrick was erected at the well in 1904 by the priests and parishioners, and a plaque behind the statue lists their names. But over a century later, while the grass and the paths around the well are well maintained, the water in the well is filthy and Saint Patrick’s mitre has been broken, not standing the test of time over more than a century.

On the top of the hill, Saint Patrick’s Church may have stood on the site of Saint Patrick’s Graveyard, next to Saint Brigid’s Church, which dates from the 1970s.

Saint Patrick’s civil parish was situated on both banks of the River Shannon and was distributed over three baronies in Co Limerick and Co Clare: Bunratty Lower, Clanwilliam and the barony of the City of Limerick.

There was a church on the site in Singland from at the mediaeval period. But it was in ruins by the 17th century. The Down Survey Map of 1683 shows a round tower on the site, but this had fallen by the early 19th century.

By 1711, Saint Nicholas’s Parish in the Roman Catholic Church had been joined with Saint Patrick’s. The Harold family built a church in Pennywell in 1750 to serve the needs of Roman Catholics in this area.

Meanwhile, the old Saint Patrick’s graveyard continued in use. The oldest identified headstone was erected by John Sexton for his parents who died in 1770 and 1771. The tombs include the crumbling and part-shattered tomb of John Young (1746-1813), Bishop of Limerick (1796-1813).

7, Saint Patrick’s Church, Clare Street, Limerick:

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church on Clare Street, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church on Clare Street, Limerick, was built over 200 years ago in 1816, and replaced a Penal Chapel on the Rhebogue Road. The church was built while Father Patrick McGrath was Parish Priest. Bishop Charles Tuohy of Limerick, dedicated it to Saint Patrick on 25 August 1816.

It is a simple, but well-built example of a pre-Emancipation church and it claims to be the oldest purpose-built Catholic church in Limerick City that is still in use. It is a simple nave and transept or T-plan, gable-fronted stone church with a bell-cote and a wooden ceiling. The ceiling is high and large wooden beams hold up the ceiling of the church. The church was renovated in 1835.

With its good masonry and fine roof, it is an important part of the streetscape in this area of Limerick. The central window at the front gable has stone moulding. Below is an ogee-headed front entrance with a clustered, carved limestone bull-nose moulding surmounted by pinnacles with replacement stone finials. Inside the church, there is an elaborate timber roof with a groin vault.

The statue of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Inside the church, there is a stained-glass window of Saint Patrick over the main entrance to the church, and stained-glass windows depicting the Sacred Heart, Saint Joseph, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Saint Brigid and Saint Ita.

There is a large crucifix on the stone wall above the high altar, and the reredos, donated by the Presentation Sisters has six statues, three male saints and three female saints: Saint Columba, Saint Munchin, Saint Patrick, Saint Bridget, Saint Ita and Saint Lelia. The front of the altar is carved with a Judgment scene and a mosaic on the floor in front of the altar depicts the Lamb of God with a flag. To the right of the altar there is a large, colourful statue of Saint Patrick.

To meet the needs of the growing population in the area, Bishop Henry Murphy created the new parish of Monaleen in 1971 from the area in the west of Saint Patrick’s parish. Saint Brigid’s Church, on the hill off the N7, was dedicated by Bishop Jeremiah Newman in 1975.

The old graveyard at Saint Patrick’s, on the hill beside Saint Brigid’s, is now closed to burials. Saint Patrick’s Church celebrated its bicentenary in 2016.

8, Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, Co Dublin:

Holmpatrick Church and the wetlands at Kybe Pond in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When I was living in Co Dublin, Skerries was one of my favourite choices for a beach walk. I have known Skerries since my teens, and around 2010-2011, during a vacancy, I was privileged to do ‘Sunday duty’ in Holmpatrick Church, and to speak at Lenten talks. I also organised a number of Ash Wednesday retreats in Skerries for CITI staff and students.

Holmpatrick Parish Church is a Gothic Revival, pre-disestablishment church, built in 1867. It has an ornate interior, with neo-mediaeval decoration, and interesting stained glass windows, especially those on the balcony.

The Church was designed by the architect and artist James Edward Rogers (1838-1896) was consecrated on 2 September 1868. The limestone came from the Milverton quarries, near Skerries, and Walter Doolin was the contractor. Other churches by Rogers include Saint Mary’s Church, Howth; Kenure Church and the nearby Rectory in Rush, Co Dublin, built for Sir Roger Palmer (1832-1910) of Kenure Park; Kilfergus Church, Glin, Co Limerick; Saint Patrick’s Church, Kilcock, Co Kildare; Kilkeedy Church, Clarina, Co Limerick; Saint Columba's Church, Omagh, Co Tyrone; as well as the former Saint Bartholomew’s Vicarage and the parochial hall in Ballsbridge.

Looking across to the towers and spires of Holmpatrick from Skerries Mills (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Holmpatrick Church has some memorial tablets from an older church that stood nearby. One describes James Hamilton of Holmpatrick as a ‘gentleman who during a long and most active life displayed that zealous energy and ingenious integrity that forms a useful and virtuous man … He died the 20th of October 1800, in the 73rd year of his age … Of the uncommonly numerous offspring of thirty six children he was survived by eight sons and eight daughters.’

I think he gave new meaning to ‘zealous energy’! Hamilton’s descendants include Richard Branson, but with his ‘uncommonly numerous’ 36 children born 2½ centuries ago, Hamilton must be the ancestor of thousands upon thousands of people living in Ireland today.

Behind the church stand the ruins of an earlier church built in 1722 by the Hamilton family after they acquired Holmpatrick from the Earls of Thomond in 1720. When the church was demolished in the 1860s, the square tower was left standing – supposedly as a landmark for ships, although it is also a reminder of the mediaeval monastic past of this site.

Local lore says that when Saint Patrick was expelled from Wicklow he moved to Saint Patrick’s Island off Skerries in 432 CE. Legend says that one day, while Saint Patrick was on shore buying groceries, the people of Skerries rowed over to his island where he kept a goat for milk, stole the goat, took her back to the mainland and ate her. When Saint Patrick returned he was angry, and with one great step he bounded from his island to Red Island. There he questioned the local people, and when they denied their theft he took away their powers of speech. They could only bleat like goats, until they eventually admitted their crime.

It is said that on Red Island there is still a mark on the rock that is nothing less than Saint Patrick’s footprint. In all my visits to Skerries, I have failed to see the saint’s footprint on Red Island.

9, Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyraggett, Co Kilkenny:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, stands on the site of an earlier, Penal-era chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Both Saint Patrick’s Church, the Roman Catholic parish church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, and Ballyragget Castle are difficult to find, with the church at the end of a side street between the Square and Castle Street, and the castle at the end of a lane behind locked gates. The obscure location of the church is explained because it stands on the site of an earlier chapel that may have been built first during the Penal days in the 18th century.

Saint Patrick’s is an imposing large-scale church built in 1842 under the direction of William Kinsella, Bishop of Ossory (1793-1845), for Father John Foran, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died in 1843, to designs by William Deane Butler (ca 1794-1857).

Butler, who was also the architect of Saint Kieran’s College, Kilkenny, designed the church in the Gothic Revival style. It is similar in many details to other contemporary parish churches in the area, including Castlecomer and Freshford, representing a form of house style developed by Butler while he was the resident architect for the Diocese of Ossory.

The grave of Canon James Comerford, who died in 1948 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Gothic-style reredos in Caen stone was designed in 1869 by Pugin’s son-in-law, George Coppinger Ashlin and depicts the Sacrifice of Abraham, the Crucifixion and the Sacrifice of Melchizedek. The front of the altar depicts the worship of the Lamb on the Throne (see Revelation 4). The mosaic work in the sanctuary is by Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd (1915).

The church was renovated in 1924 and again in 1983-1985, and some new windows were added after 2000.

Because the church saw few interior alterations after the Second Vatican Council (1963-1965), it retains its rich interior scheme, with high quality carpentry, decorative plasterwork, and stained-glass windows.

The churchyard on the north side of the church has many cut-limestone Celtic High Cross-style gravestones dating back to 1842, including the grave of Canon James Comerford, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died on 12 June 1948 at the age of 69.

10, Saint Patrick’s Church, Donegall Street, Belfast:

Saint Patrick’s Church on Donegall Road, Belfast, was built in the 1870s, replacing a church built in 1815 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street, Belfast, is a Victorian gem and an oasis of peace in the heart of the city and it is part of community life in the city centre. The church serves a large local resident community and a thriving population in the Cathedral Quarter, the city’s cultural and social heartland, and the students and staff in the neighbouring Belfast campus of Ulster University, along with a busy hospital, a large primary school, and residential and care homes.

The first church on the site was built in 1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo, and it was the second Catholic church built in Belfast since the Reformation. The present Saint Patrick’s Church, the second on the site, was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Timothy Hevey (1846-1878) and Mortimer Thomspon. It is said the church was built ‘by the pennies of the poor’.

Two of the six windows in the south transept illustrating the life and mission of Saint Patrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The original windows in the right transept were destroyed by an explosion during the ‘Troubles’, but six newly-installed windows illustrate the life and mission of Saint Patrick.

The church has a triptych by Sir John Lavery, who was baptised in the older, smaller church. He painted ‘The Madonna Of The Lakes’ (1919), with his second wife, Hazel Trudeau, as the model for the Virgin Mary and his daughter Eileen and step-daughter Helen as models for Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid.

The triptych originally stood on an altar designed by Edwin Lutyens, a friend of Lavery, and was illuminated by two candlesticks by Lutyens. Both the altar and the candlesticks were lost during reordering works out in the 1960s and 1970s, and the frame around the triptych, decorated with Celtic knotwork, remains the only Lutyens-designed artefact in Northern Ireland.

11, Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho:

Saint Patrick’s Church on Soho Square is one of the oldest post-Reformation Catholic parish churches in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Patrick’s on Soho Square is one of the oldest post-Reformation Catholic parishes in London, and the original church on the site was the first Catholic place of worship to open in London after the Roman Catholic Relief Acts were passed in 1778 and 1791 and the first post-Reformation church in England dedicated to Saint Patrick.

The first church on the site was in a building behind Carlisle House and was consecrated in 1792. The present church, built in 1891-1893, is a Grade II* listed building designed by the Leeds architect John Kelly.

Father Arthur O’Leary (1729-1802), a celebrated Irish Capuchin preacher from Fanlobbus, Dunmanway, Co Cork, is the founding figure of this church.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, designed by the Leeds architect John Kelly and built in 1891-1893 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The present church on Soho Square was designed by John Kelly of Leeds and was built in 1891-1893. The church was built in the Italian Renaissance style. The main entrance has a Roman-style porch with Corinthian columns. Above the entrance is the inscription: Ut Christiani ita et Romani sitis (‘Be ye Christians as those of the Roman Church’), a quotation from the writings of Saint Patrick.

Many alterations have been made to Kelly’s church since it was built, and Saint Patrick’s Church was renovated and refurbished at a cost of £4 million in 2010-2011. Today, only a handful of resident Catholics remains in the parish. Hundreds of people continue to attend Saint Patrick’s Church, but they are mostly visitors, tourists and people working in the area. The church also attracts immigrants and migrant workers from across London, and Mass is regularly celebrated in both Spanish and Portuguese.

12, Saint Patrick’s Church, Semadang, Sarawak:

Saint Patrick’s Chapel (left), in orange and white, and Saint Patrick’s School (right), in green and white, beneath the mountain in Semadang, south of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Chapel, a mission chapel in Semadang, dates back to the 1930s, and neighbouring Saint Patrick’s School dates from 1953. They are among the churches, chapels and schools in the Diocese of Kuching that I visited Father Jeffry Renos Nawie during a recent visit to Sarawak.

Semadang is about a 1½-hour drive south from Kuching, half-way between Kuching and the border with Indonesia, and just a few miles north of the Equator. The Sarawak River in this area is known as the River Semadang (Sungai Semadang).

Two villages in the area, Kampung Semadang and Kampung Danu, are home to the Bidayuh community.

Saint Patrick’s Chapel, Semadang, was first built in the 1930s and was rebuilt and dedicated in 2009 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Church is in striking, bright orange and white colours, and the school beside it is in bright, striking green and white colours, so that the whole site looked to this Irish visitor like a bright eye-catching display of green, white and orange.

Perhaps the colour scheme is nothing more than coincidence, and I imagine few other visitors notice the vivid and colourful combination or make a mental association with the Irish flag.

Saint Patrick’s Chapel dates from the 1930s, and was probably given its name by missionaries from the Anglican mission agency SPG (now USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel). The present church building was consecrated on 3 May 2009 by Bishop Bolly Lapok of Kuching. Bishop Bolly also became the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of South East Asia in 2012 and was installed in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching. He retired in 2017.

The present priest-in-charge of Saint Patrick’s is the Revd Kamor Diah. Parishioners told me how Saint Patrick’s has a congregation of about 200 on Sundays, but these numbers can reach 800 at major festivals and celebrations.

Visiting Saint Patrick’s School in Semadang, beside Saint Patrick’s Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 25, 18 January 2024

Saint Peter (right) and Saint Paul (left) in windows in the west porch in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today (18 January 2023), and this week began with the Second Sunday of Epiphany (14 January 2024). Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Amy Carmichael (1951), founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship and spiritual writer. Today is also the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Before today begins, I am taking some time for reflection, reading and prayer. My reflections each morning during the seven days of this week include:

1, A reflection on one of the seven people who give their names to epistles in the New Testament;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

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

5, Saint Peter:

Saint Paul does not give his own name to any of his letters, but seven people give their names to a total of seven of the letters or epistles in the New Testament: Timothy (I and II Timohty), Titus, Philemon, James, Peter (I and II Peter), John (I, II and III John), and Jude.

The attribution of the authorship of the two letters of Peter (I and II Peter) to the Apostle Peter has been challenged by many commentators and critics in recent years.

I Peter is addressed, with a Trinitarian invocation, to the ‘exiles of the Dispersion’ scattered throughout ‘Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,’ five Roman provinces in Asia Minor (see I Peter 1: 1).

The author of I Peter presents himself as Saint Peter the Apostle, and the epistle was traditionally said to have been written while he was either Bishop of Rome or Bishop of Antioch. However, these titles are not used in the epistle.

The author describes himself as ἀπόστολος (apostolos, apostle; I Peter 1: 1) and as συμπρεσβύτερος (sympresbyteros, fellow priest; see I Peter 5: 1), a title that appears a little later in the development of early ecclesiology.

Saint Peter lived his early life in Bethsaida, which was granted city status under Philip the Tetrarch. Philip was a Helleniser or advocate of Greek culture, and Bethsaida probably had a large Greek speaking population.

There is general consensus, because of an internal reference to ‘Babylon’ (see I Peter 5: 13), that the epistle was written from Rome.

Those who favour the Petrine authorship date the letter to sometime shortly before Saint Peter’s martyrdom, which may have been as late as 68 CE. The reference to Silvanus at the end of the letter may indicate a date following Saint Paul’s arrival in Rome, and it may then date from as early as 63-64 CE.

The language, dating, style, and structure of this letter have led many scholars to conclude that I Peter letter is pseudonymous. They see evidence that the author had a formal education in rhetoric and philosophy, advanced knowledge of Greek, along with geometry, arithmetic and music, and a reading of classical authors such as Homer.

Some say it is most likely that I Peter was written during the reign of Domitian in the year 81, when the persecution of Christian became widespread – a date that is long after the death of Peter. On the other hand, the persecutions described in this letter do not need a time period outside of the Saint Peter’s lifespan.

Other scholars doubt the letter’s Petrine authorship. They say I Peter is dependent on the Pauline epistles – especially Ephesians, Colossians and the Pastoral Letters (I and II Timothy and Titus) – and so it was written after Saint Paul’s ministry. Yet others argue that it makes little sense to attribute the work to Saint Peter when it could have been ascribed to Saint Paul.

One theory supporting the Petrine authorship is the ‘secretarial hypothesis,’ which suggests that I Peter was dictated by Peter and was written in Greek by his ‘faithful brother; or secretary, Silvanus (see I Peter 5: 12). However, we could ask whether Silvanus was not the secretary, but the courier or bearer of I Peter?

Some scholars believe the language, dating, literary style and structure of the letter make it implausible to conclude that I Peter is the work of Saint Peter. They say I Peter is a pseudonymous letter, written later by one of Saint Peter’s disciples in his honour.

Yet there are similarities with Saint Peter’s speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, and the earliest attestation of Peter as author comes from II Peter (see II Peter 3: 1) and the letters of Clement.

One possible context for I Peter is by provided the trials and executions of Christians in the Roman province of Bithynia-Pontus under Pliny the Younger. In a letter to Emperor Trajan, written in 112 CE, Pliny asks Trajan if the accused Christians should be punished for the name ‘Christian’ alone, or for crimes associated with the name (for the use of the word ‘name,’ see I Peter 4:14-16). But this theory is rejected by those who argue the suffering in I Peter is caused by social, rather than official, discrimination.

The second letter, II Peter, is the first book in the New Testament to regard other New Testament writings as scripture (see II Peter 3: 15-16). The letter is addressed to the churches in general. II Peter is written to warn Christians about false teachers and to exhort them to grow in their faith in and knowledge of Christ.

II Peter opens with greeting: ‘Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ’ (II Peter 1: 1). The letter is ascribed by some scholars to Saint Peter, and the letter says that it is written shortly before the apostle’s death (II Peter 1: 14), and that it is Peter’s second letter (see II Peter 3: 1).

According to the letter, it was composed by the Apostle Peter, an eyewitness to Christ’s ministry. It criticises ‘false teachers’ who distort the authentic, apostolic tradition, and predicts judgment for them.

II Peter contains eleven references to the Old Testament, and also shows some knowledge, albeit, perhaps, second-hand knowledge of marginal apocryphal books. II Peter also refers to many of Saint Paul’s letters (II Peter 3: 15) and specifically (II Peter 3: 15, 16) to one letters (see I Thessalonians 4: 13 to 5: 11).

Most noticeably, though, II Peter quotes from Jude and adapts from that letter extensively, sharing a number of passages with the Epistle of Jude.

When it comes to dating II, commentaries vary, placing the letter in almost every decade between 60 and 160.

II Peter was not accepted into the Biblical canon without some difficulty, but doubts about the letter’s authorship were never used for definitive rejection. By the time of Jerome (ca 346-420) it had been mostly accepted as canonical.

Saint Peter’s Day (29 June) and Petertide are one of the two traditional periods for the ordination of new priests and deacons – the other being Michaelmas, around 29 September.

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

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

When Pope Francis marked the feast of Saint Peter and Paul some years ago, he stressed the importance of unity in the Church and allowing ourselves to be challenged by God, urging people to spend less time complaining about what they see going wrong, and more time in prayer.

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

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

Saint Peter in chains (see Acts 12) … the window by Charles Eamer Kempe in Lichfield Cathedral commemorating Dean Herbert Mortimer Luckock (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 3: 7-12 (NRSVA):

7 Jesus departed with his disciples to the lake, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; 8 hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. 9 He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; 10 for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. 11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ 12 But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 18 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: ‘Climate Justice from Bangladesh perspective.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Shourabh Pholia, Bishop of Barishal Diocese, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (18 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for ourselves, asking God to guide us so that we can play the stewardship role and take responsibility to heal the planet and protect it for future generations.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
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 glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection (James)

Continued tomorrow (John)

Saint Peter and Saint Paul in a pair of stained glass windows in Saint John’s Church, Wall, near Lichfield (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

Praying through poetry and with USPG: 26 January 2023

The Conversion of Saint Paul … a modern icon

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I have been reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

I interrupted that pattern for the past week to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which came to an end yesterday.

Today is my birthday, and yesterday was the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.

I was born on Rathfarnham Road, Dublin, beside a synagogue and opposite a cinema, on the afternoon of an international rugby match between Ireland and France. My mother intended to call me Paul. But my father’s half-brother, my Uncle Arthur, took me to be baptised, he decided instead to call me after his step-mother’s father, my great-grandfather Patrick Lynders. My mother continued to call me Paul for the rest of her days.

It seems appropriate, then, that my choice of a poem this morning, that my choice of a poem this morning is ‘The Conversion of St. Paul’ by Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984).

John Betjeman was always more popular with the British public than with the literary establishment.

As a boy at Highgate School in London, Betjeman was taught by TS Eliot, but his time at school was less than impressive. At Highgate School, his teachers included the poet TS Eliot. From there he went to the Dragon School, Oxford, and Marlborough College, Wiltshire, where his friends and contemporaries included the Irish poet Louis MacNeice, the spy Anthony Blunt, and the illustrator and cartoonist Graham Shepard.

Betjeman entered Oxford with difficulty, having failed the mathematics part of the matriculation exam, and was admitted to Magdalen College. However, his tutor, CS Lewis, regarded him as an ‘idle prig,’ while Betjeman found Lewis unfriendly, demanding and uninspiring, describing him as being ‘breezy, tweedy, beer-drinking and jolly.’

Betjeman appears to have spent most of his time at Oxford indulging his social life, developing his interest in church architecture, and following his own literary pursuits. He had a poem published in Isis, the university magazine, and in 1927 was the editor of Cherwell, the student newspaper whose contributors included WH Auden, Graham Greene, Cecil Day-Lewis and Evelyn Waugh.

But Betjeman never completed his degree at Oxford. He twice failed the compulsory Scripture examination, Divinity, known to students as ‘Divvers,’ and was later allowed to enter the Pass School. His tutor, CS Lewis, told the tutorial board he thought Betjeman would not achieve an honours degree of any class. Betjeman passed ‘Divvers’ at a third sitting, but finally left Oxford at the end of Michaelmas term 1928 after failing the Pass School.

For the rest of his life he blamed his failure on CS Lewis, and the two writers were never reconciled, even later in life. Nonetheless, Betjeman had an enduring love of Oxford, and received an honorary doctorate in 1974. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1972, a post he held until his death.

Betjeman was a troublesome poet who persisted in believing, and in his poetry he explored his thoughts about his Anglican faith, about Englishness and about Christianity in general.

He remains one of the most significant literary figures of our time to declare his Christian faith. In a letter written on Christmas Day 1947, he said: ‘Also my view of the world is that man is born to fulfil the purposes of his Creator i.e. to Praise his Creator, to stand in awe of Him and to dread Him. In this way I differ from most modern poets, who are agnostics and have an idea that Man is the centre of the Universe or is a helpless bubble blown about by uncontrolled forces.’

He was a practising Anglican and his religious beliefs and piety inform many of his poems. In response to a radio broadcast by the humanist Margaret Knight, he expressed his views on Christianity in The Listener in 1955 with the poem I have chosen this morning.

Saint Paul (left) and Saint Peter (right) in windows in the west porch in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Conversion of St. Paul, by John Betjeman:

Now is the time when we recall
The sharp Conversion of Saint Paul
Converted! Turned the wrong way round –
A man who seemed till then quite sound,
Keen on religion – very keen –
No one, it seems, had ever been
So keen on persecuting those
Who said that Christ was God and chose
To die for this absurd belief
As Christ had died beside the thief.
Then in a sudden blinding light
Paul knew that Christ was God alright –
And very promptly lost his sight.

Poor Paul! They led him by the hand
He who had been so high and grand
A helpless blunderer, fasting, waiting,
Three days inside himself debating
In physical blindness: “As it’s true
That Christ is God and died for you,
Remember all the things he did
To keep His gospel message hid.
Remember how you helped them even
To throw the stones that murdered Stephen.
And do you think that you are strong
Enough to own that you were wrong?”

They must have been an awful time,
Those three long days repenting crime
Till Ananias came and Paul
Received his sight, and more than all
His former strength, and was baptised.
Saint Paul is often criticised
By modern people who’re annoyed
At his conversion, saying Freud
Explains it all. But they omit
The really vital point of it,
Which isn’t how it was achieved
But what it was that Paul believed.
He knew as certainly as we
Know you are you and I am me
That Christ was all He claimed to be.

What is conversion? Turning round
From chaos to a love profound.
And chaos too is an abyss
In which the only life is this.
Such a belief is quite alright
If you are like Mrs Knight
And think morality will do
For all the ills we’re subject to.
But raise your eyes and see with Paul
An explanation of it all.
Injustice, cancer’s cruel pain,
All suffering that seems in vain,
The vastness of the universe,
Creatures like centipedes and worse –
All part of an enormous plan
Which mortal eyes can never scan
And out of it came God to man.
Jesus is God and came to show
The world we live in here below
Is just an antechamber where
We for His Father’s house prepare.

What is conversion? Not at all
For me the experience of St Paul,
No blinding light, a fitful glow
Is all the light of faith I know
Which sometimes goes completely out
And leaves me plunging into doubt
Until I will myself to go
And worship in God’s house below —
My parish church — and even there
I find distractions everywhere.

What is Conversion? Turning round
To gaze upon a love profound.
For some of us see Jesus plain
And never once look back again,
And some of us have seen and known
And turned and gone away alone,
But most of us turn slow to see
The figure hanging on a tree
And stumble on and blindly grope
Upheld by intermittent hope.
God grant before we die we all
May see the light as did St Paul.



USPG Prayer Diary:

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity came to an end yesterday (25 January), and the theme in the USPG Prayer Diary last week was the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The theme this week is the ‘Myanmar Education Programme.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection from a report from the Church of the Province of Myanmar.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for educators and trainers. May they impart a joy in learning and a vision of a world where change is possible.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow