Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 86, Saturday 1 August 2026

An icon of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in a church in Koutouloufari in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, we have reached the beginning of a new month today, and tomorrow is the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IX, 2 August 2026).

In many places, in the past, 1 August was known as Lammas, from an Old English word hlāfmæsse, meaning loaf-mass, or as Loaf Mass Day. The name originates from the word ‘loaf’ in reference to bread and ‘Mass’ in reference to the Eucharist. It is a festival to mark the blessing of the First Fruits of harvest, with a loaf of bread being brought to the church for this purpose. Lammastide falls at the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox.

Later today, the Greek community in Stony Stratford is opening its pop-up café at Swinfen Harris Church Hall, London Road. Το Στεκι Μας, Our Place, takes place every first Saturday of the month from 10:30 to 5 pm.

But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist’ by Caravaggio in the Oratory of Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, Malta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 14: 1-12 (NRSVA):

14 At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2 and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3 For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7 so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9 The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10 he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

Father Irenaeus, a monk in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Natrun, shows me the relics in the crypt of Saint John the Baptist below the north wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

This morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 14: 1-12) is in sequence with our Gospel readings throughout the past week. However, we are going to hear it once again near the end of the month, when 29 August is observed liturgically by most Christian traditions, including most Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches, as a day commemorating the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.

That liturgical commemoration is almost as old as the commemoration of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June. In some Orthodox cultures, the day is one of strict fasting.

Saint John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod Antipas through the vengeful request of his daughter Salome. The story of his beheading is a story that places personal integrity, morality and honour in stark contrast to self-centred arrogance, vengeance, and the tyrannical abuse of power.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, Herod, who was Tetrarch of Judea, had imprisoned Saint John the Baptist after he reproved Herod for divorcing his wife and unlawfully marrying Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip.

On Herod’s birthday, Salome, the daughter of Herodias, danced before him and his guests. The drunken Herod was so pleased that he promised her anything she desired, including half his kingdom. When her mother prompted Salome to ask for the head of Saint John the Baptist on a platter, he was executed in prison. The disciples took his body and buried it, but the Gospel accounts say nothing about what happened to his head (Matthew 14: 1-12; Mark 6: 14-29; see Luke 9: 7-9).

According to some Orthodox traditions, Saint John’s disciples buried his body at Sebaste, near present-day Nablus on the West Bank, but Herodias took his head and buried it in a dung heap. Later, Saint Joanna, the wife of one of Herod’s stewards, secretly recovered the head and buried it on the Mount of Olives, where it remained hidden for centuries. In the fourth century, a monk named Innocent is said to have found the buried head, but hid it again.

Over a century later, in the year 452 CE, when Constantine the Great was Emperor, two monks in Jerusalem on a pilgrimage claimed to have found the head once again, but it fell into the hands of an Arian monk, Eustathius. Eventually, Archimandrite Marcellus brought the head to Emesa in Phoenicia.

Yet other traditions say Herodias had the head buried in Herod’s fortress at Machaerus or in Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. It was found during the reign of Constantine and secretly taken to Emesa, where it was hidden until it was found once again in 453.

From Emesa, the head was brought to Constantinople. Although it was moved to Cappadocia in the early ninth century during the iconoclastic persecution, it was returned later to Constantinople.

According to another tradition, the body of Saint John the Baptist remained in Sebaste. However, his shrine was desecrated under Julian the Apostate ca 362. A portion of the rescued relics was brought first to Jerusalem and then to Alexandria in 395. Today, the former tomb in Nablus is at the Nabi Yahya Mosque or Saint John the Baptist Mosque.

Nowadays, several places claim to have the severed head of Saint John the Baptist, including the Church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome, Amiens Cathedral in France, Antioch in Turkey, the Romanian skete of Saint John Prodromos (Saint John the Baptist) on Mount Athos in Greece, and the former Basilica of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus. Because of the traditions relating the head to the Syrian capital, many Muslims believe that Christ’s second coming will take place in Damascus.

In Egypt, when I visited the Coptic Orthodox Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great at Wadi el-Natrun, about 100 km north-west of Cairo, in the Desert of Sceits, Father Irenaeus, a monk in the monastery, showed me the relics of Saint John the Baptist in the crypt of the main church in the monastery.

The Church of Saint Macarius was restored in recent decades at the request of the late Pope Shenouda III. We were told that during the restoration of the church, the monks unearthed the crypt of Saint John the Baptist and the crypt of the Prophet Elisha below the northern wall . The relics were then gathered into a special reliquary and placed before the sanctuary of Saint John the Baptist in the Church of Saint Macarius.

The monastery has spiritual, academic and fraternal links with several monasteries outside Egypt, including Chevetogne in Belgium, Solesmes Abbey and the Monastery of the Transfiguration in France, Deir el-Harf in Lebanon and the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God at the Convent of the Incarnation at Fairacres in Oxford.

Each day, the monastery receives large numbers of Egyptian and foreign visitors, sometimes as many as 1,000 people a day. The monks give special priority to priests, full-time lay workers and Sunday school teachers as visitors, and during the summer holidays, the monastery offers many young people opportunities to spend a few days on retreat, with spiritual direction and guidance.

The monastery is playing a significant role in the spiritual awakening of the Coptic Church. ‘We receive all our visitors, no matter what their religious conviction, with joy, warmth and graciousness, not out of a mistaken optimism, but in genuine and sincere love for each person,’ says the monastery website.

In his book, Church and State, one of the monks, Father Matta el-Meskeen, declares that politics should be entirely separated from religion. ‘Give therefore to emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Matthew 22: 21). In other writings, such as Sectarianism and Extremism, Father Matta warns against the common tendency of minorities to be wrapped up in themselves and to despise others.

The monks say they live out fully the unity of the Church in spirit and in truth, ‘in anticipation of its visible attainment ecclesiastically. Through our genuine openness of heart and spirit to all men, no matter what their confession, it has become possible for us to see ourselves, or rather Christ, in others. For us, Christian unity is to live together in Christ by love. Then divisions collapse and differences disappear, and there is only the One Christ who gathers us all into his holy person.’

And they add: ‘It is our hope that the desert of Scetis will become once more the birth place of good will, reconciliation and unity between all the peoples on earth in Christ Jesus.’

These monks are an example to us all. Meanwhile, in my prayers this morning I am thinking of those places associated with Saint John the Baptist in the Middle East, including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and Egypt, Syria and Turkey. The people there must be in our prayers this morning, including the victims of war and violence, the people starving in a famine that has created through political and military policies, the missing hostages, children and families being forced to move constantly and in terror, the maimed and the dying, whole communities that have been traumatised, the suffering minorities in the region.

I pray this morning that integrity, morality and honour may triumph over arrogance, vengeance and the tyrannical abuse of power, and pray too for an end to the killing of people at the behest of those with too much power and too many weapons.

The beheading of Saint John the Baptist … a fresco in Analipsi Church or the Church of the Ascension in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 1 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 1 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we pray for USPG and all church partners engaged in eradicating human trafficking and abolishing modern slavery. Guide their advocacy, deepen their compassion, and strengthen their efforts to bring justice, protection, and freedom.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that have taken holy things;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
your Son left the riches of heaven
and became poor for our sake:
when we prosper save us from pride,
when we are needy save us from despair,
that we may trust in you alone;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity IX:

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

An icon of Saint John the Baptist in a small chapel in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 85, Friday 31 July 2026

Jesus Unrolls the Book in the Synagogue (Jésus dans la synagogue déroule le livre), James Tissot (1831-1902), Brooklyn Museum (see Matthew 13: 54)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and the week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1556), founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).

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.

Jesus in the Synagogue, as imagined by the Northern Ireland-born artist Greg Olsen

Matthew 13: 54-58 (NRSVA):

54 He came to his home town and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? 55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?’ 57 And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and in their own house.’ 58 And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.

Stained glass windows in my old school chapel at Gormanston College, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Where do you call home, and where do feel most at home?

I have been living for more than four years now in Stony Stratford, on the north-west fringes of Milton Keynes and by the River Ouse, which separates Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

But I was born on Rathfarnham Road in Dublin, spent parts of my childhood near Cappoquin in West Waterford and in Dublin, went to school in Dublin and in Co Meath, began working as a journalist in Lichfield, lived in my early adult years in Wexford, I have lived in different houses in south Dublin from late 1974 until 2017, and I spent five years in parish ministry in west Limerick and north Kerry before moving here.

I have studied in Reading, Dublin, Maynooth, Tokyo, Cambridge and London.

If you were to ask me where I am from, I may look puzzled and sound incoherent as I try to reply. Yet, in my sleep and in my mind’s eye, I still wander easily through the many houses where I have lived and through the classrooms and lecture rooms of the many schools and colleges where I have studied.

I wonder how Jesus would have answered a question like that? He was born in Bethlehem, he spent his early days as a refugee in Egypt, Joseph and Mary seem to have grown up in the small town of Nazareth, they returned there after Jesus’ birth and their exile in Egypt, and he spent his childhood there.

Eventually, though, Jesus moved to the more populated town of Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (see Matthew 9: 1; John 2: 12). He would go on to spend the last period of his ministry in Jerusalem, and was executed outside the city walls.

In this morning’s reading, Jesus returns to visit his ‘home town’, which may have been Nazareth or Capernaum.

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, when he returns to Nazareth, the people try to kill him (see Luke 4: 16-29). This morning’s reading appears to describe a separate occasion.

Both Nazareth and Capernaum, like most towns in that region at that time, had a synagogue. It was common for visiting rabbis to be invited to speak in the synagogue when in town. Jesus did so in Nazareth and Capernaum, and did some miracles there, perhaps of healing, though did not do many (Matthew 13: 58).

The reaction to Jesus’ teaching and his miracles was one of astonishment and rejection, and his own people asked where he got this wisdom and the ability to do these mighty works.

I was back in Dubin briefly earlier this week for a family visit, though in such a short few hours it was not possible to meet all the people I wanted to.

If, as an adult, you live far away from home, what do you do when you return home? Do you return home for Christmas, or for family events such as weddings and funerals?

Do you visit family members … ageing parents, uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins? Have they changed much since you left? Do they think you have changed much?

Do you walk past the old family home? Do you wonder how the families who now live there have changed the rooms inside? Do you want to see inside your own former bedroom, or regret the front garden has been changed to make way for car parking spaces?

Do you visit your old school? Do you contact old school friends or old teachers? Have they changed much since you left? Do they accept who you have become?

Do you visit the church you knew as a child or teenager, where you were baptised, confirmed or married, or your old school chapel? Has it changed much – not just in the clergy who are there, but in its layout and design, in its style of worship and in the ways in which it emphasises its teachings?

My school year from Gormanston in 1969 meet up every now and then, and met again for lunch in Dublin in September 2024. We shared memories of members of our year who have died since we left, including Tom Lappin and John McCarthy who died that year. It was not only yet another opportunity to meet each other but also to find out how we had been getting on over the previous 55 years, and to affirm one another and renew friendships.

But so often, sadly, we want to tie people to the memories we have of them in the past, memories that may have been distorted over the years, and that can no longer be placed back in their original contexts.

And, too often, we know from our life experiences, assumptions and prejudices can blind us to truth. When we think we know something, or someone, we tend to favour those expectations over new information.

Many, many people in the world think they already know all about Jesus. Many, however – including those who claim to be closest to often – often know very little about him, continue in their assumptions and prejudices, and are offended when they are presented with the truth (Matthew 13: 57).

My old school at Gormanston College, Co Meath … has your old school changed since you left? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 31 July 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 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Friday 31 July 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we pray for USPG and all church partners engaged in eradicating human trafficking and abolishing modern slavery. Guide their advocacy, deepen their compassion, and strengthen their efforts to bring justice, protection, and freedom.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that have taken holy things;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
your Son left the riches of heaven
and became poor for our sake:
when we prosper save us from pride,
when we are needy save us from despair,
that we may trust in you alone;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

At No 18 High Street, Wexford, I had the whole top floor of the house – all two rooms – to myself … in my sleep, I still wander easily through the many houses I have lived in (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 84, Thursday 30 July 2026

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers at a kiosk in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and the week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers William Wilberforce (1833), Olaudah Equiano (1797) and Thomas Clarkson (1846).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind’ (Matthew 13: 47) … fishing boats and nets by the harbour in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 13: 47-53 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52 And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’ 53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.

‘When [the net] was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good [fish] into baskets’ (Matthew 13: 48) … a sign outside a fish shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflection:

We have more weeping and gnashing of teeth in this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 47-53), more separating of the righteous and the evil, and more people being thrown into the furnace of fire.

But we also have some more images of what the kingdom of heaven is like:

• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);

• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);

• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);

• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).

So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.

And we hear that ‘every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52).

When the Revd Stephen Hilliard was leaving The Irish Times to enter full-time parish ministry, the then deputy editor, Ken Gray, joked that he was moving from being a ‘column of the Times’ to being a ‘pillar of the Church.’

Later, when I asked Stephen to define the different challenges of journalism and parish ministry, I was told: ‘In many ways they’re the same. We’re supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.’

Nadine Gordimer, in a lecture in London, once argued that a writer’s highest calling is to bear witness to the evils of conflicts and injustice. But that is the calling of a priest too.

When I was moving from journalism in The Irish Times, another colleague asked me, in a tongue-in-cheek way, whether I was moving from being one of the Scribes to being one of the Pharisees.

In my 30 or more years as a full-time journalist and writer, I had tried to work at the point where faith meets the major concerns of the world.

Since leaving The Irish Times back in 2002, I continue to write regularly in other formats too. My daily blog has been a daily exercise: I continue to write occasionally for The Irish Times, the Wexford People, and for local and church-based newspapers and magazines, as well as contributing regularly to books and journals.

But, just as ministry is never exercised as a personal right but always in communion with the Church, so too journalists and writers never write for themselves, but need to heed the needs of editors and readers.

There is a time to be silent in ministry, and there is a time to be silent as a writer. I am humbled whenever I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, If it be your will. He ended many of his concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit. It is a song that I hope is heard at my funeral (later rather than sooner):

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

Until then, I shall continue to write.

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … catching up with the news in ‘The Irish Times’

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 30 July 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 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 30 July 2026, World Day Against Trafficking in Persons) invites us to pray:

God of freedom and justice, we pray for all who are trapped in trafficking and modern slavery. Bring an end to systems and practices that exploit the vulnerable, strengthen those who work to rescue and protect, and lead your Church to act with courage and compassion.

The Collect of the Day:

God our deliverer,
who sent your Son Jesus Christ
to set your people free from the slavery of sin:
grant that, as your servants William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson
toiled against the sin of slavery,
so we may bring compassion to all
and work for the freedom of all the children of God;
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 our redeemer,
who inspired William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers on sale in Athens (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

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52)

Remembering the 200th anniversary of Raffles, his role in Singapore, and his opposition to slavery

The original statue of Sir Stamford Raffles in Singapore … he died 200 years ago on 5 July 1826 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Stamford Raffles, who died on 5 July 1826 on his 45th birthday. Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (1781-1826) is best remembered as the founder of modern Singapore. Tradition says he first landed in Singapore on 28 January 1819 at Raffles Landing. The site is at Boat Quay in the Civic District, in the Downtown Core of the Central Area, Singapore’s central business district.

Stamford Raffles was the British colonial governor of the Dutch East Indies in 1811-1816 and lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen in 1818-1824. He was involved in the capture of the island of Java from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars, although it was returned under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty in 1824. He also wrote The History of Java (1817), and the Rafflesia flowers are named after him.

Raffles played a major role in further establishing the British Empire’s reach in East and South-East Asia. He secured control over the strategically located Singapore from local rulers in 1819 to secure British access along the Strait of Singapore and in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

His ventures were initially not endorsed by the British government and led to tensions between the British and the Dutch. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 established their respective spheres of influence, with the Dutch relinquishing their claims to Singapore while Britain ceded Bencoolen to them. A port was subsequently established in Singapore, and maritime trade between Europe and Asia increased rapidly.

While Raffles is largely credited for the founding of contemporary Singapore, the early running of day-to-day operations was mostly done by William Farquhar, who served was the first Resident of Singapore from 1819 to 1823.

However, his historical role has become a subject of public debate, with critics characterising him as an imperialist. These perspectives argue that celebratory narratives of colonialism can overlook the history of the population that predated his arrival.

The statue of Sir Stamford Raffles at Raffles Landing in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles was born on 5 July 1781 on board the ship Ann, off the coast of Port Morant in Jamaica, to Captain Benjamin Raffles (1739-1811) and Anne (née Lyde) Raffles (1755-1824). The young Raffles went to school at the Mansion House Academy, Hammersmith, where his subjects included Latin, Greek, French, arithmetic, book-keeping and geography.

At the age of 14, he started working as a clerk for the East India Company. In 1804, at the age of 23, Raffles married Olivia Mariamne Devenish, a widow 10 years his senior.  He was sent to Penang Island in British Malaya in 1805, starting his long association with South-East Asia. The British invasion of Java took a total of 45 days, during which Raffles was appointed the lieutenant-governor of the Dutch East Indies by Lord Minto before hostilities formally ceased. As lieutenant-governor, Raffles restricted the local slave trade and tried to replace of the Dutch system of forced agricultural labour.

Raffles was devastated when his wife Olivia died on 26 November 1814. He left Java shorty before it was handed back to the Dutch after the Napoleonic Wars. He set sail for England in early 1816 to clear his name and on his way he visited Napoleon, who was in exile on St Helena, but found him unpleasant and unimpressive.

Back in London, Raffles was knighted in 1817 by the Prince Regent, the future George IV, and on 22 February he married his second wife, Sophia Hull, and they later set sail to Bencoolen, present-day Bengkulu in Indonesia.

Raffles arrived in Bencoolen on Sumatra on 19 March 1818, where he became the lieutenant-governor, and he set about reforms immediately, abolishing slavery.

At the time, Major-General William Farquhar was the British Resident of Malacca. Raffles sailed to Malacca in late 1818 to secure a British presence in the Riau area, especially Singapura, where he secure permission to set up a settlement. At this point in the history of Singapore, the name Lion City was used.

Raffles Hotel, named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, first opened in 1887 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Raffles first landed in Singapore on 28 January 1819 at Raffles Landing. He established a post at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula on 29 January 1819, having ascertained there was no Dutch presence on the island of Singapore. Raffles and Farquhar found Temenggong Abdul Rahman with 400-500 residents in Singapore in Captain John Crawford recalled meeting ‘upwards of 100’ Chinese people there.

A formal treaty was signed with Hussein Shah who claimed to be the ‘lawful sovereign of the whole of territories extending from Lingga and Johor to Mount Muar’. Hussein Shah had been the crown Prince of Johor, but while he was away in Pahang to get married, his father died, and his younger brother was made sultan, supported by some court officials and the Dutch. Raffles decided on behalf of the British Crown to recognise Hussein Shah as the rightful ruler of Johor.

Raffles declared the foundation of what was to become modern Singapore on 6 February, with control of the island transferred to the East India Company with much pomp and ceremony. Farquhar was officially named the Resident of Singapore, and Raffles was named as ‘Agent to the Most Noble the Governor-General with the States of Rhio (Riau), Lingin (Lingga) and Johor’. A small military presence was established with the trading post and, after issuing orders to Farquhar and the remaining Europeans, Raffles left the next day, 7 February 1819.

Raffles returned to Singapore, on 31 May. By then, the initial 500 villagers had grown to become 5,000 merchants, soldiers, and administrators, packed onto the island. Back in Singapore, Raffles established schools and churches in the local languages, he allowed missionaries and local businesses to flourish, a European town was built to segregate the population, separated by a river, carriage roads were built, and cantonments were built for soldiers, before Raffles sailed for Bencoolen once again on 28 June.

In 1820, Raffles appointed Thomas Otho Travers (1785-1844) as the Resident of Singapore, but Farquhar remained in charge. Travers was born and died in Cork, and his wife Mary Leslie was also Irish.

Boat Quay and Raffles Place, the commercial and tourism heart of Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, personal tragedies began to accumulate on Raffles: His eldest son, Leopold Stamford (1819-1821), died during an epidemic on 4 July 1821; his youngest son, Stamford Marsden (1820-1822), died of dysentery on 3 January 1822; and his oldest daughter Charlotte (1818-1822) died 10 days later. A devastated Raffles grew restless and depressed, and decided to visit Singapore for one last time before retiring and heading home to England with his wife Sophia and their only surviving child, Ella.

Raffles was back again in Singapore in October 1822. By then, the colony was a bustling hub of trade and economic activity. But Raffles was disappointed that Farquhar continued to tolerate the slave trade. In response, Raffles drew up the Jackson Plan or Raffles Town Plan, and levelled of a small hill south of Singapore River to create Commercial Square, now Raffles Place.

He originally allocated a piece of land between Hill Street and North Bridge Road in his Town Plan of 1822 for an Anglican church. However, due to a lack of funds, it was another 12 years before work began on building the first church, which eventually became Saint Andrew’s Cathedral.

Raffles dismissed Farquhar in April 1823, and took direct control. John Crawfurd, who had followed Raffles for over 20 years, became the new Resident of Singapore. Raffles also called a meeting that led to the founding of Raffles Institution.

In the final few weeks of his last stay in Singapore, in 1823, Raffles drafted a series of administrative regulations that aimed to govern Singapore, he outlawed gambling, imposed heavy taxation on drunkenness and opium smoking, and banned slavery, a police force and magistracy were set up, and what had been a trading post became a proper city.

Now feeling that he had completed his task in establishing Singapore, Raffles finally boarded a ship for home on 9 June 1823. On the way back, during a final stop in Bencoolen, tragedy befell Raffles once more when his youngest daughter, Flora Nightingall, who was born on 19 September, died on 28 November.

Raffles finally arrived back in England on 22 August 1824, over a year after he left Singapore. His longest tenure in Singapore was only eight months, but ever since he has been regarded as the founder of Singapore.

Sir Stamford and Lady Raffles first convalesced in Cheltenham and then moved to Berners Street, London, at the end of November 1824, before moving to his country estate at Highwood in North London. By then he was seriously much too ill and he died of apoplexy or what we might today call a stroke at Highwood House in Mill Hill, north London, on his 45th birthday, 5 July 1826.

Because of his firm opposition to slavery, Raffles was refused burial inside Saint Mary’s Church, Hendon, by the vicar, the Revd Theodor Williams, whose family had made its fortune in Jamaica in the slave trade. The actual whereabouts of his body was unknown until 1914, when it was found in a vault. A life-size figure in white marble by Sir Francis Chantrey in 1832 sits in Westminster Abbey.

Raffles was survived by his second wife Sophia Hull and their daughter Ella. Ella died in 1840, aged 19. Sophia remained at Highwood House until her death in 1858, at the age of 72.

Two Singapore Slings … and a bag of peanuts … in the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In Singapore, his legacy is commemorated by the Raffles’s Landing Site and the use of his name for many places and institutions, including Raffles City, Raffles Hospital, Raffles Hotel, Raffles College, currently National University of Singapore (NUS), and in the names of a number of primary and secondary schools.

There are three public statues of Raffles in Singapore, one made of white polymarble along the Singapore River, another made of bronze in front of the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall and a contemporary bronze sculpture at Fort Canning Park.

The black statue of Raffles that stands in the shadow of the clock tower of the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall in Empress Place, Singapore, was originally located in the middle of the Padang, facing the sea. It was placed there to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s accession, but it was moved as part of Singapore’s centenary celebrations in February 1919. The statue was moved again at the end of the Japanese occupation, but was placed back in its location after World War II.

However, tourists generally give more attention to a copy of the original statue, a white statue of polymarble made from a cast of the black statue. The copy stands by the Singapore River near Empress Place at the spot believed to be his original landing site. It was placed there in 1972 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Singapore.

Writing about Raffles in the Guardian in 2012, Victoria Glendenning said: ‘He was an idealistic entrepreneur, a romantic imperialist, passionately anti-slavery, and more concerned with transforming the lives of the peasants than making immediate profits for the company. He made no fortune for himself. Volatile, inconsistent, energetic, resilient, he wanted fame, and he wanted to do good.’


Following Raffles on a boat journey on the Singapore River, passing Raffles Landing (Patrick Comerford)

Changes in Bloomsbury reflect how William Penn is losing his place in the memory of Quakers

Friends’ House in London … William Penn’s name has been removed from one of the rooms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was meeting some people in the café in Friends’ House, London, the other day, to discuss shared literary projects, historical research and books. Our conversations over lunch and copious cups of coffee ranged over a wide range of topics, from family history and youth hostelling in Ireland, to the work of the International Atomic Research Agency in Vienna, church architecture and the role of the churches in providing a welcome for refugees and asylum seekers, to football and life in New Zealand, Ireland, Stockton on Tees and Milton Keynes.

It was one of those lingering lunches, where our conversations and imaginations ran apace, and we lost track of time.

But, having arrived at Euston Station a little earlier than I expected, and with a short amount of time on my hands before catching the train back to Milton Keynes, I spent some time strolling through the squares of Bloomsbury and also rummaging in the Quaker bookshop at Friends’ House.

Friends International Centre was once on the corner of Torrington Place and Byng Place, close to Gordon Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the past, on working trips to London when I was a trustee of USPG, I occasionally stayed at the Penn Club in Bedford Place off Russell Square. It was a tradition or habit that dated back to taking part in CND protests and meetings in the 1970s and 1980s, and other members of my family have stayed there too.

So, it was with sadness that I heard a few years ago that the Penn Club was closing at the end of March 2021.

I have vague memories too of staying at another Quaker-run guesthouse in Bloomsbury in the early or mid 1970s. Friends International Centre was in an elegant cluster of houses at the corner of Torrington Place and Byng Place, close to Gordon Square, and a five or seven minute walk from both Friends House and the Penn Club.

The houses at the corner of Torrington Place and Byng Place stand close to the Church of Christ the King on Gordon Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Those houses are built right up against the Church of Christ the King on Gordon Square, once the University Church and now shared by Forward in Faith and Euston Church. The houses now seem to have been incorporated into the conglomerate of university buildings around Bloomsbury. But I was reminded of their past Quaker associations a few days ago when I noticed that one of the houses is now known as William Penn House.

That reminder was all the more surprising because the memory of William Penn has been falling out of favour among Quakers in recent years. Shortly after the Penn Club closed on Bedford Place, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) announced on 10 April 2021, ‘In a step towards becoming an actively anti-racist church, Quakers will cease to name a room in their London offices after William Penn.

Friends’ House on Euston Road houses contains the central offices of Quakers and has conference space that is available to outside groups. About 20 rooms in the building are named after Quakers who have made a difference in the world as a way to share the Quaker story with hundreds of thousands of visitors to Friends’ House each year.

Following much discussion, the decision to end naming a room in Friends’ House after William Penn was made by the yearly meeting trustees, working with the staff at Friends’ House.

William Penn’s name remains on one of the houses (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The statement in 2021 noted that ‘Penn, born in 1644, founded the state of Pennsylvania. He was an avid writer, defending religious freedom, democracy and pacifism … However, he also owned enslaved people.’

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said, ‘Racism today is rooted in the trade of enslaved people. We are committed to tackle racism and to build an anti-racist culture. Commemorating William Penn by having a room named after him is incompatible with that. Some might say we’re rewriting history. Rather, we’re completing history, by telling the whole story and deciding not to commemorate someone who had a direct involvement in slavery. Part of telling a complete history is to acknowledge how it might previously have been understood from a limited perspective. We owe it to those who live with the legacy of slavery to take steps to redress this.’

Friends in Britain were not alone in thinking again about William Penn and other Quaker historic figures. Friends Committee on National Legislation, in Washington DC decided to rename William Penn House, a Quaker-run hostel, due to Penn’s slaveholding.

Back in Friends’ House, I spent a little time browsing in the bookshop beside the café. Looking at the history shelves, I imagine it may take a little longer to change the way William Penn is remembered among Friends. His name remains on one of the paving slabs in the garden celebrating milestones in Quaker history.

William Penn’s name remains on one of the history paving slabs in the garden at Friends’ House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Martin Noell’s almshouses in Stafford, his legacy in slave-trading and bribery, and his death in the plague

Sir Martin Noell’s Almshouses on Earl Street, Stafford, built in 1660 for 12 poor residents of the townn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Close to the town centre of Stafford, Saint Mary’s Church, the courts, Victoria Park and the train station, Sir Martin Noell’s Almshouses form an impressive set of stone buildings on Earl Street. Their small scale contrasts with the large modern block of flats on the opposite corner and the even larger court building next door.

Behind the doors of the almshouses is a hidden chapel. But behind those walls too are stories of slavery and the slave trade, political intrigue and buying office and favour, pirates and debt, plague and death.

Sir Martin Noell (1614-1665) built the almshouses in 1660 for 12 poor residents of the town, and the 12 residents were also given a small pension and a coal allowance from Stafford Corporation.

Noell’s almshouses in Earl Street, also called ‘The College’ or ‘the Old Almshouses’, were built in a Tudor or Jacobean style on a U-plan with a central chapel. This is a group of single storey units with attics, with a central chapel, grouped around three sides of a quadrangle. They have a symmetrical six-window central range, with the chapel breaking forward under a shaped gable with short flanking embattled parapets.

The chapel has a pointed entrance with continuous mouldings in a square-headed architrave, flanking pilasters. A segmental pedimental feature over a drip has a raised panel supporting an architraved panel with the Noell arms, and flanking Doric columns on enriched plinths. The mediaeval stained-glass windows in the chapel are said to have come from the old chapel in Stafford Castle, and in the past the Sub-Rector of Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church held a weekly service there.

The substantial garden in front of the almshouses has shrubbery but no boundary wall, leaving a clear view of the 17th century stone building.

The almshouses have a central chapel with a pointed entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Noell had specific demands about the residents who should benefit from his almshouses. He wrote that one should house an ‘ancient, impoverished minister or some other unblamable Christian qualified with the ability to read and pray daily with the poor.’ Another of the 12 properties should be for ‘a matronly woman who should have an oversight of such as at any time fall sick.’

Noell also made provision for coal and an annual pension for the six poor men and six poor women who were residents. But due to his substantial financial losses before his death, funding for the almshouses and its 12 resident had to be sourced from other benefactors.

The almshouses remained in the hands of Noell’s family until 1691. They were then conveyed to the Mayor of Stafford and four burgesses as trustees, but no ‘alms-folk’ were appointed until 1701. They were later administered by the rectors of Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church and trustees.

The whole building was completely restored around 1866. During alterations in 1925, the front wall was lowered, the old stables and outhouses were demolished, and paving from Bank Passage was taken up and re-laid there. The almshouses were extended in 1960-1962, when the number of apartments was increased from 12 to 23. Today, Sir Martin Noell’s Almshouses are a Listed Grade II* building.

The mediaeval stained-glass windows in the chapel are said to have come from the old chapel in Stafford Castle (Photograph: John Dixon)

Sir Martin Noell (also spelt Noel), the younger son of Edward Noell, a mercer, was born in Stafford in 1614 and was baptised in Saint Mary’s Church on 11 March 1614, when his surname was spelt Nowell. He was MP for Stafford (1656-1659), a London alderman and a successful merchant, entrepreneur and financier who rose to prominence during the Parliamentarian era. He was also notorious for enriching himself through piracy, the slave trade and extracting taxes, and he played a prominent role in Cromwell’s colonial plans.

Noell climbed rapidly from provincial life in Stafford to dominate the transatlantic trade in sugar and other colonial merchandise. He used his brother’s business connections in London and his own marriage to the daughter of a wealthy City draper to enter that trade. While he never travelled far from his London countinghouse, by the late 1640s he was one of the merchant-planters on Barbados, the island at the centre of England’s sugar boom.

After Charles I was executed in 1649, Noell used his contacts to secure lucrative government contracts and to profit from a variety of customs and sales taxes. He collected taxes on salt while he was an investor in salt-production, profiting from both sides of the industry. Oliver Cromwell’s son Richard Cromwell described him as ‘the great salt-master of England’.

Noell’s friend and business partner Thomas Povey said Noell was ‘considerable everywhere … a person of the most spacious interest of any merchant or citizen’ in England’. With his vast financial resources, Noell made substantial loans to Cromwell’s government for its day-to-day running costs, and the Cromwellian regime may have depended on Noell for ready cash and credit more than on any other person. Noell also acted as private money-lender to Oliver Cromwell.

A map of Hispaniola by Nicholas Comberford of Ratcliffe in 1653 … Martin Noell was involved in organising and financing Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ against the Spanish colony of Hispaniola in 1655

Noell and Povey were involved in shaping government policies on the Caribbean colonies, particularly Barbados. Noell played a leading role in organising and financing Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ of 1655 against the Spanish colony of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and it is said Noell suggested the ‘Western Design’ to Cromwell.

However, the ‘Western Design’ was a fiasco, partly because profiteering by Noell and other contractors deprived the expedition of vital supplies and equipment. Driven out of Hispaniola with heavy losses, Cromwell’s troops took Jamaica instead.

But Noell, who owned a plantation in Barbados, managed to profit from the failed expedition and was further rewarded by Cromwell with a grant of 20,000 acres in Jamaica. These gave him a major stake in the English sugar industry and the slave trade that was part and parcel of it.

Noell’s plantation in Barbados had a large number of enslaved Africans working with the sugar-canes. He euphemistically referred to them as his ‘Christian servants’. However, after his re-election as MP for Stafford in 1659, the slaves and their conditions in Barbados brought Noell into conflict with other MPs in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament.

Noell was forced to defend himself against accusations in the Commons that he had violated English ‘liberties’ as a contractor by transporting royalist prisoners to indentured servitude on Barbados. The victims of his ‘most unchristian and barbarous usage’ alleged that they been ‘bought and sold … from one planter to another … as horses and beasts’.

Noell admitted transporting prisoners to the island, but denied he had sold them into slavery or that they had been treated harshly. He claimed the labour conditions for indentured servants on Barbados were better than those of the ‘common husbandman here’. The really hard work, the ‘grinding at the [sugar]-mills and attending at the furnaces or digging in the scorching island’ was mostly undertaken by African slaves, he protested.

Noell, who was joint Postmaster General from 1657 to 1659, survived the challenges in Parliament, and he continued to prosper after the fall of the protectorate and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The diarist Samue Pepys was surprised to hear that Noell had been knighted on 6 October 1662, but conceded that the Noell was still ‘a very useful man’.

A year later, in 1663, Noell invested heavily in England’s largest slave-trading venture, the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa. He and Povey lobbied in the early 1660s for the establishment of a royal-sponsored West Indian company ‘for the better regulating and improving of foreign plantations’.

Noell was one of the first recorded victims of the Great Plague of London in 1665. Samuel Pepys wrote in his Diary in late September: ‘I hear for certain this night that Sir Martin Noell is this day dead of the plague in London, where he hath lain sick of it these eight days’. He was buried at Saint Olave, Old Jewry, on 30 September 1665.

A commemorative plaque and Sir Martin Noell’s coat-of-arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Noell’s debts at his death in 1665 amounted to over £30,000 – over £5.75 million in spending power today – including £1,747 (over £335,000 today) he owed ‘on a contract’ for slaves. Debts led to a major lawsuit by his children that was not settled until 1682.

An inventory of his mansion in St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, indicates Noell’s taste for exotic objects. The contents of his ‘Green Chamber’ included two cabinets, one of ebony, the other an Indian cabinet set on a frame. Many of the most exotic objects were in ‘Yr Lady’s Chamber or Closet’ and included Spanish tables, ‘Jappan trunks’, five figures of wood, two ‘China jarrs’, a snake’s skin, East India flower pots, furniture decorated with ‘East India beasts and birds’, two pieces of corral and one ostrich egg.

Through his loans and dealing with the Cromwellian regime, Noell drew the state into what had previously been the private business of colonisation and trade in the Atlantic. This marked an important step in developing British bases in the Caribbean and Cromwell’s role in growing a global empire.

Despite founding and endowing the almshouses in Stafford, Noell’s most enduring legacy is his role in colonialism, slavery and the slave trade, a legacy that Britain continues to struggle to come to terms with today.

Despite founding and endowing the almshouses in Stafford, Noell’s most enduring legacy is his role in colonialism, slavery and the slave trade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 27, Monday 16 March 2026

Capernaum … with the synagogue on the left and the domes of the Greek Orthodox church in the background

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV, 15 March 2026) and Mothering Sunday. I have a hospital appointment later this morning for an echocardiogram, a non-invasive, ultrasound scan that uses sound waves to create live, moving images of the heart’s chambers, valves, and surrounding vessels. It assesses heart function, blood flow, and structure, and takes 30-60 minutes to diagnose issues such as heart failure, valve disease, and damage from heart attacks.

Meanwhile, 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 Greek Orthodox Church in Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, with the Golan Heights in the distance

John 4: 43-54 (NRSVA):

43 When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee 44 (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honour in the prophet’s own country). 45 When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.

46 Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ 49 The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ 50 Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51 As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ 53 The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54 Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

‘Ecce Signum’, Sean Lynch’s work on a gable end in East Square, Askeaton, Co Limerick … the healing in John 4 is the second of the seven signs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Dominican author and theologian, Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, points out that that in the Bible, seven is the number of perfection. We know of the six days of creation and how God rested on the seventh. In Saint John’s Gospel, we have seven signs and seven ‘I AM’ sayings disclosing s who Jesus truly is.

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 4: 43-54), we have two separate incidents that run together in Saint John’s Gospel: the return of Jesus to Galilee, and the second of the seven signs in the Fourth Gospel.

The first part of this reading (verses 43-45), recalling the return to Galilee, is a bridge passage, a link between two stories of encounters Jesus has with key non-Jewish figures – the Samaritan woman and the villagers of Sychar (see John 4: 1-42) and the royal official from Capernaum (verses 43-54). So with Nicodemus, the woman at the well, and the royal official, we have three key personalities, one Jewish, one Samaritan, and one Gentile.

In between the Samaritans and the Gentiles, Jesus continues on his journey from Jerusalem to Galilee, on the third day he arrives in Cana. So already, we are being prepared to hear about a story of life and death and new life.

We can find a link here between this story and the incident in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 4: 14-21), when Jesus tells us that a prophet is without honour in his own country, and yet he appears at first to be received with honour in Galilee, as he was first received in the synagogues in Galilee when he returned from Jerusalem, according to Saint Luke (see Luke 4: 15).

Jesus says ‘a prophet has no honour in his own country’ (verse 44). But if Jesus believed that he would have no honour in ‘his own country’, why does John tell us that the Galileans ‘welcomed’ him? This same proverb is found in Matthew 13: 57, Mark 6: 4, and Luke 4: 24.

When Jesus comes to Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue, some local people who were there had probably been in Jerusalem when he had performed signs (see John 2: 23; 4: 45). If they had not been in Jerusalem, they would have heard about some of his miracles there. When Jesus arrives in his ‘hometown’, there must have been high expectations. Yet, some people start to ask questions. He may be a popular person and have a growing following. But Nazareth is his hometown, they all know all about him. And so, Jesus performs few miracles there.

He has returned to Galilee, to his ‘own country’ (verse 45), where a prophet is without honour. But when Jesus arrives in Galilee, the people there ‘welcome him’. From what we have seen in Matthew’s account of his arrival at Nazareth, we see virtually the same phenomena. Jesus returns to his ‘hometown’ and receives an initially warm welcome.

The people are aware of the miracles he performed in Jerusalem and now hope to see many more in their own town. But as they reflect on his origins and family background, they find they are not so sure. Has he come to bless the Gentiles as well as the Jews? What seems to start off well ends up in a very disappointing way, both for Christ and for those from his ‘hometown’.

A short-lived, superficial acceptance of Christ is not the same as an informed, long-term commitment. Although the Galileans initially welcomed Christ, this does not mean that they truly accept him as Messiah. His visit home is disappointing because, although he is initially welcomed, he is not truly honoured.

And yet this interlude also tells us that Christ came as the Saviour of Jews (these three verses), of Samaritans (the previous story), and of Gentiles (the next story) … in other words, of all people, and that he is the Saviour of the whole world.

On a first reading, the story about the healing of the royal official’s son in verses 46-54 seems similar to that of the healing of the centurion’s servant or slave (Matthew 8: 5-13; Luke 7: 2-10). But, despite the similarities, there are many differences. They can be summarised:

• The centurion was a Gentile; the royal official was probably a Gentile, although we are not told so – there is a possibility that he was Jewish.

• The centurion’s servant suffered from a paralysis; the royal official’s son was ill with a fever.

• The centurion lives in Capernaum; the royal official lives in Cana.

• The centurion’s faith is praised by Christ; the royal official and others are rebuked for a deficient faith.

• The centurion urges Jesus not to come, but only to speak the word; the royal official urges Jesus to come.

• The Centurion asks Jewish elders to plead his case; the royal official pleads personally with Jesus.

And so the story of Christ healing the royal official’s son is unique to the Fourth Gospel, as is most of the material in Saint John’s Gospel.

Jesus returns to Cana of Galilee (verse 46), where he turned water into wine at a wedding (John 2: 1-11). The NRSV translates βασιλικός (basilikós) as royal official, although other versions call him a ‘nobleman’. He was probably a servant of Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee, who is referred to as a king in the New Testament (see Matthew 14: 9; Mark 6: 14, 22).

Capernaum was a border town, and it was there that this royal official heard that Jesus is back in Cana once again. The official’s son is at the point of death and this father is desperate. Jesus is now his last and only hope to save his son. He makes the 30 km journey to Cana to find Jesus, and there he begs him to return with him to Capernaum immediately and to heal his dying son.

At first reading, Christ’s response to the royal official appears disturbing: Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ The NRSV in a footnote, and other translations, point out that the ‘you’ in verse 48 is plural, and not singular. Therefore, Jesus is speaking to a larger audience and not to, or not just to the royal official.

At first reading, as with the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman in Saint Mark’s Gospel (Mark 7: 24-30), who asks for healing for her daughter, Jesus appears to be caught with his compassion down. But back in Galilee, where a prophet is without honour among his own people, Jesus is not going to rush into performing a miracle to entertain the crowd and to draw attention to himself.

His words of rebuke may be in the hope of dispersing the crowd. He chides them for being interested only in his miracles and not taking to heart what the signs point to.

Certainly the official does not interpret these words as a personal rebuke. For he asks – perhaps even tells – Jesus to come back with him (verse 49).

Perhaps the crowds have left by now. Jesus’ next words are to tell the man: ‘Go; your son will live’ (verse 50). If the crowd has stayed around, these words would have sounded as though they were only intended to get rid of this persistent father, not as words of assurance. He probably headed back home on his own to Capernaum. The crowd disperses, the sign-seekers go away disappointed.

From this story, it appears that the royal official believes – but only to a degree, and not fully. The royal official did not get what we wanted. Jesus did not go back to Capernaum with him. He probably headed home wondering what was happening to his son (verses 51-52).

The man’s belief only comes to full fruition in verse 53, later that evening or perhaps a day later, when he hears that his son was healed at the time Jesus spoke to him. The father now knows he has witnessed a miracle, and he believes, along with his entire household. But this new belief in verse 53 is more informed than the belief in verse 50. It is now a belief in Jesus as the Messiah, as the Saviour of the world.

This is the second sign in Saint John’s Gospel (verse 54). The first sign was at Cana, when Jesus turned the water into wine on the third day, but when most of the guests at the wedding never knew what had happened. It was a ‘sign’ seen only by a few, but it results in the faith of the disciples (see John 2: 1-12).

So too with the second sign, also on the third day. The royal official’s son is healed not in front of the gaping crowd, not even in front of the official’s household. Christ performs this miracle in such a way that only the royal official knows it is a miracle. But when he explained this miracle to his servants, they too become members of the household of faith.

‘He came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine’ (John 4: 46) … an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 16 March 2026):

The theme this week (15-21 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Lament and Hope’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update by Kennedy Jones, Church Engagement and Fundraising Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 16 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We pray for all those still affected by the legacy of slavery and racial injustice. May God guide us to recognise the harm done and to work for reconciliation and healing.

The Collect:

Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
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 God,
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe’ (John 4: 48) … signs and wonders on the High Street in Little Walsingham, Norfolk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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