COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
The Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick in Derbyshire … the venue for the USPG conference in July (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) has announced details of this year’s annual residential conference, which takes place from Tuesday 1 July to Thursday 3 July at the Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, in Derbyshire.
The theme for this year’s three-day residential conference is: ‘We Believe, We Belong?’ The programme includes guest speakers from across the Anglican Communion, Bible studies and workshops, as well as time for discussion and worship.
This year (2025) marks the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, a key summary of the common faith of the Christian Church agreed at the Council of Nicaea in the year 325, a turning point in Christian history.
The conference in Swanwick is reflecting on how we deepen fellowship and commitment to each other across the diversity of cultures, contexts and languages within the Anglican Communion. It is exploring how core truths unite us, but is also critically examining whether all people feel like they belong within the Church, especially when it comes to the key areas of championing justice – gender, economic, environmental and race.
The speakers this year include:
• The Right Revd Dr Vicentia Kgabe, Bishop of Lesotho, Anglican Church of Southern Africa: she is one of the ‘Africa Six’ female bishops. She is a former rector of the College of the Transfiguration and became Bishop of Lesotho in 2021.
• The Right Revd Phillip Wright, Bishop of Belize, the Church in the Province of the West Indies: he is also the World Council of Churches Regional President for the Caribbean and Latin America.
• Father Wadie Far, Canon Pastor to the Arabic-speaking congregation at Saint George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem, and Vicar of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Jerusalem; he will be leading the Bible Studies at the conference.
USPG expects to announce more speakers in the coming weeks.
Each year, the USPG conference brings together friends, volunteers, supporters and speakers from the Anglican Communion. It features keynote speakers, workshops, and times of worship, focusing on global issues such as social justice, environmental stewardship and racial reconciliation.
‘We Believe, We Belong?’ … the theme of the USPG conference in Swanwick on 1-3 July
This is the first time since 2016 that the conference has taken place in Swanwick. It was due to take place in Swanwick in 2020, immediately before the Lambeth Conference, but both conferences were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I have been at three USPG conferences in Swanwick, in 2008, 2010 and 2016, and it is almost 50 years since I was first at a conference in Swanwick, back in 1976.
The Nicene Creed is also the theme of USPG’s Lent study guide this year, We Believe, with an invitation to explore the creed and to discover how it still shapes the Church today. This study guide invites you to explore the Nicene Creed, a statement of belief which has united Christians worldwide for centuries.
Contributors to the Lenten study guide, from the Philippines to the Middle East, track key elements of the creed, including the nature of Jesus, his resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit. Their questions and prayers encourage discussions about unity, diversity and how to live out Christ’s message of love and justice today.
The USPG Lenten appeal this year, ‘Bring Care In Crisis’, is focussing on delivering urgent medical support to Gaza and the West Bank, where communities are facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Hospitals and clinics, overwhelmed by demand and severely under-resourced, are struggling to provide life-saving care.
Through the Lent appeal, USPG is partnering with the Diocese of Jerusalem to support healthcare services that are a lifeline for people in desperate need. Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, despite being damaged by conflict, continues to provide essential treatment – including specialised burn care and services for people with disabilities – at no cost to patients, placing a heavy financial burden on the Church.
Beyond Gaza, the support extends to hospitals and clinics in the West Bank, including Saint Luke’s Hospital and the Penman Clinic, ensuring that critical medical services remain accessible to vulnerable communities. These facilities provide emergency care, maternal and child health services, and vital education on hygiene and disease prevention.
Last week, USPG held a special online service for peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land. The service was broadcast live and recorded in Saint George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem, and was led by Father Wadie. Archbishop Hosam Naoum, Archbishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, preached.
Online bookings for the USPG conference in Swanwick are now open HERE.
Framed postcards from Lichfield at a window in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
There was a time when I sent postcards to friends and family from all my destinations, whether I was on holidays or on working trips.
And the postcards I received often ended up as bookmarks, along with theatre tickets and restaurant receipts, souvenirs of places I had visited or reminders that people had thought of me when they were away.
Two of us are in Heathrow Airport this evening, hoping to catch a plane to Budapest within the next hour or so for the first leg of a working week in Budapest and Helsinki. Charlotte and I are travelling with two other people from the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) and the Anglican Diocese of Europe, visiting Hungary and Finland to see church-based projects working with Ukrainian refugees.
This is hardly going to be the sort of trip for sending postcards back home. But then, I think, I stopped sending postcards a long time ago. If I buy postcards these days, they are usually as keepsakes, pretty reminders of places I have visited and enjoyed.
Stamped and sent postcards are now such a rarity that they have become collectors’ items, and provide interesting discussions for local history groups.
In Lichfield, the late Dave Gallagher amassed a large collection of postcards that introduced many of the discussions on the Facebook group, ‘You’re probably from Lichfield if …’
After dinner in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield, I have often sat beneath two interesting collections of postcards. One collection includes a postcard showing the house in Lichfield where Samuel Johnson was born and another depicting Samuel Johnson’s statue in the Market Place.
A second collection of postcards includes Lichfield Cathedral, Beacon Gardens and Christ Church, Lichfield, and the back of one postcard has a personal message to Brother Samuel SSF, congratulating him on becoming the Guardian of Hilfield Priory in Dorchester. It is dated 17 March 1992 and signed ‘Anne and Tony.’
Sitting under those photographs in Lichfield again last summer, Charlotte quickly identified the senders of the signed postcard as Anne and Tony Barnard. This is a Pitkin postcard, and Canon Anthony Nevin (Tony) Barnard is the author of the Pitkin Guide to Lichfield Cathedral, as well as a book on Saint Chad and the Lichfield Gospels and a children’s guide to Lichfield.
Tony and Anne Barnard are now living in retirement in Barton under Needwood. I got to know them while he was the Canon Chancellor of Lichfield Cathedral and they were both involved in USPG. They were regular participants in the USPG annual conference in High Leigh and Swanwick, and we took part together in training days in Birmingham Cathedral for USPG volunteers and speakers.
When I met them again in September at the Annual Celebration and Reunion of former USPG staff and mission personnel at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, I told them of how, only a few weeks earlier, Charlotte and I sat beneath the postcard they had sent from Lichfield Cathedral 30 years earlier.
They shared happy memories of visiting the Diocese of Kuching when it was twinned with the Diocese of Lichfield and of visiting Charlotte when she was placed there with USPG.
As we now head off to Budapest and Helsinki on behalf of USPG, I am thinking of how events in life can come full circle over just a few years.
Framed postcards from Lichfield at a window in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Framed postcards from Lichfield at a window in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
‘The Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua’ … 28 December is marked in the Church Calendar as the feast day of the Holy Innocents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
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).
Today, 28 December, is marked in the Church Calendar as the feast day of the Holy Innocents, sometimes described as the first martyrs for Christ.
Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am 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.’
Appropriately, the Christmas poem I have chosen for today is ‘The Holy Innocents’ by Laurence Housman (1865-1959).
Today’s commemoration first appears in the calendar of the Western Church in the Leonine Sacramentary around the year 485, and this day was sometimes known as Childermas.
This day recalls the story of the children who were murdered because of Herod’s rage against Christ (Matthew 2: 16-17). In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, after the visit of the Magi, Herod, in rage and jealousy, slaughtered all the baby boys in Bethlehem and the surrounding countryside in an attempt to destroy his perceived rival, the infant Messiah.
Christian art, poetry and popular piety have treated their memory with tenderness and sympathy, sentiments that have also been accompanied by feelings of indignation against the violence with which they were killed.
On this day it also seems to be appropriate to remember the children who are innocent victims of exploitation, abuse and war throughout the world, and those who suffer violence that threatens their lives, their dignity and their rights.
The poem ‘Holy Innocents’ by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) was written ca 1877. Like so many of her poems, including ‘In the bleak mid-winter,’ which I discussed on Christmas Eve, and her poems about Saint John which I discussed yesterday, her poem ‘Holy Innocents’ was not published until ten years after her death, when it was included in 1904 in The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti:
They scarcely waked before they slept,
They scarcely wept before they laughed;
They drank indeed death’s bitter draught,
But all its bitterest dregs were kept
And drained by Mothers while they wept.
From Heaven the speechless Infants speak:
Weep not (they say), our Mothers dear,
For swords nor sorrows come not here.
Now we are strong who were so weak,
And all is ours we could not seek.
We bloom among the blooming flowers,
We sing among the singing birds;
Wisdom we have who wanted words:
here morning knows not evening hours,
All’s rainbow here without the showers.
And softer than our Mother’s breast,
And closer than our Mother’s arm,
Is here the Love that keeps us warm
And broods above our happy next.
Dear Mothers, come: for Heaven is best.
A second, later poem, but also called ‘Holy Innocents,’ was written before 1893, and was published in the same collection in 1904:
Unspotted lambs to follow the one Lamb,
Unspotted doves to wait on the one Dove;
To whom Love saith, ‘Be with Me where I am,’
And lo their answer unto Love is love.
For tho’ I know not any note they know,
Nor know one word of all their song above,
I know Love speaks to them, and even so
I know the answer unto Love is love.
A third poem, also called ‘Holy Innocents’ but dated 1 July 1853, was published in the same volume, but appears to be about the early death of a child rather about the Holy Innocents commemorated on this day:
Sleep, little baby, sleep;
The holy Angels love thee,
And guard thy bed, and keep
A blessed watch above thee.
No spirit can come near
Nor evil beast to harm thee:
Sleep, Sweet, devoid of fear
Where nothing need alarm thee.
The Love which doth not sleep,
The eternal Arms surround thee:
The Shepherd of the sheep
In perfect love hath found thee.
Sleep through the holy night,
Christ-kept from snare and sorrow,
Until thou wake to light
And love and warmth to-morrow.
John Hutton’s ‘Screen of Saints and Angels’ at the entrance to Coventry Cathedral ... the Coventry Carol, dating from the 16th century, recalls the story of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Much earlier than these Victorian poems is ‘The Coventry Carol,’ which tells the story of the slaughter of the Innocents. This carol dates from the 16th century, and is all that survives from a mystery play:
Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.
That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Also dating from the 16th century, or perhaps even earlier from the late 14th century, is the hymn ‘Unto us is born a son.’ It has been translated by both George R Woodward and Percy Dearmer. I have heard the Woodward version of this hymn at carol services in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, including the third stanza:
This did Herod sore affray,
And grievously bewilder;
So he gave the word to slay,
And slew the little childer.
However, the Christmas poem I have chosen for today is ‘The Holy Innocents’ by Laurence Housman. He was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, a younger brother of the poet AE Housman (1859-1936), who is best known for A Shropshire Lad, including the ‘Six Songs’ and the poem ‘Wenlock Edge,’ set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Laurence Housman first worked as a book illustrator in London, and the first authors he illustrated included the poet Christina Rossetti. At the same time, he also wrote and published several volumes of poetry and a number of hymns and carols.
His first literary successes came with the novel An Englishwoman’s Love-Letters (1900), and the drama Bethlehem (1902). Some of his plays caused scandals because of his depiction of biblical characters and living members of the royal family, and in 1937 the Lord Chamberlain ruled that no British sovereign could be portrayed on the stage until 100 years after the beginning of his or her reign.
Housman also wrote socialist and pacifist pamphlets and edited his brother’s poems which were published posthumously. For the last three or four decades of his life he lived in Street, Somerset.
In 1945, he opened Housman’s Bookshop in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, founded in his honour by the Peace Pledge Union, of which he was a sponsor. The Peace Pledge Union, one of the earliest pacifist organisations in England, was founded in 1934 by Housman’s close friend, Canon Dick Sheppard (1880-1937) of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, a former Vicar of Saint Martin-in–the-Fields (1914-1926) and former Dean of Canterbury (1929-1931) who had been radicalised by his experiences as a slum priest in the East End of London.
In 1959, shortly after his death, the shop moved to 5 Caledonian Road, London, a two-minute walk from all the King’s Cross and Saint Pancras stations. In 1974, an IRA bomb blew up the pillar box directly outside the shop – the building once housed the local King’s Cross Post Office, from the late 19th century until the 1930s. The explosion destroyed the first issue of the newsletter of the Campaign Against Arms Trade, which had just been posted.
Harry Mister in Housman’s Bookshop before his death
I was first introduced to Housman’s Bookshop two years later in 1976 by its co-founder and its manager until that year, Harry Mister, after meeting him with Bruce Kent at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, that year. Harry died on my birthday in 1996, less than a fortnight after his own 92nd birthday; Bruce Kent died earlier this year (8 June 2022). Housman’s Bookshop remains a prime source of literature on pacifism and other radical values, and passing the shopfront on the morning of Bruce Kent's funeral evoked many nostalgic memories.
The Peace Pledge Union has ‘consistently condemned the violence, oppression and weapons of all belligerents.’ It has opposed the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it has promoted the ideals of pacifists such as Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, it played an active role in the first Aldermaston marches, and its members were active in the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
And so, given Housman’s association, even long after his death, with campaigns against war, it is appropriate to select his poem, ‘The Holy Innocents,’ on this day.
The Holy Innocents by Laurence Housman
When Christ was born in Bethlehem,
Fair peace on earth to bring,
In lowly state of love He came
To be the children’s King.
And round Him, then, a holy band
Of children blest was born,
Fair guardians of His throne to stand
Attendant night and morn.
And unto them this grace was giv’n
A Saviour’s name to own,
And die for Him Who out of Heav’n
Had found on earth a throne.
O blessèd babes of Bethlehem,
Who died to save our King,
Ye share the martyrs’ diadem,
And in their anthem sing!
Your lips, on earth that never spake,
Now sound th’eternal word;
And in the courts of love ye make
Your children’s voices heard.
Lord Jesus Christ, eternal Child,
Make Thou our childhood Thine;
That we with Thee the meek and mild
May share the love divine.
A detail from The Killing of the Holy Innocents, by Giotto (ca 1304-1306), in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
USPG Prayer Diary:
The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the USPG Christmas Appeal: Journey to Freedom. The Journey to Freedom campaign supports the anti-human trafficking programme of the Diocese of Durgapur in North India.
The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:
Let us pray for children who are trafficked and exploited. May we be enraged by injustice and seek to protect the vulnerable.
The Slaughter of the Innocents by Domenico Ghirlandaio: the fresco is part of a series of panels in the Cappella Tornabuoni in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, dating from 1486-1490
The icon of the Dormition completed by Alexandra Kaouki for a church in the old town of Rethymnon in Crete
Patrick Comerford
Today in the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship is marked simply as ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary’ (15 August 2022), without any indication of any event in her life or any commemoration.
In some traditions in the Church, this is the Assumption, in others the Dormition, in others this day recalls her death. I have discussed the differences in these traditions in previous blog postings on this day.
The reflection in the parish leaflet in Stony Stratford and Calverton yesterday described the Assumption as ‘the taking up of Mary into the glory of the Resurrection.’ It added, ‘In sharing in the fullness of God’s life and love, we remember that the same promise is made to all believers, as we turn to the Lord for grace and mercy.’
Before the day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose music is celebrated throughout this year’s Proms season. In my prayer diary for these weeks I am reflecting in these ways:
1, One of the readings for the morning;
2, Reflecting on a hymn or another piece of music by Vaughan Williams, often drawing, admittedly, on previous postings on the composer;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’
The icon of the Dormition was completed by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) in Crete, probably before 1567
Luke 1: 46-55 (NRSVA):
46 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
Wilderhope Manor, on Wenlock Edge, Shropshire … here I was first introduced to the music of Vaughan Williams (Photograph: Graham Taylor. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
Today’s reflection: ‘On Wenlock Edge’ (1)
Ralph Vaughan Williams was the composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores, a collector of English folk music and song. With Percy Dearmer, he co-edited the English Hymnal, in which he included many folk song arrangements as hymn tunes, and several of his own original compositions.
For the rest of this week, I intend listening to On Wenlock Edge, a setting by Vaughan Williams of six poems from AE Housman’s Shropshire Lad.
I wrote over the past few days that I was first introduced to the music of Vaughan Williams when I was a 19-year-old and while I was spending some days in Shropshire.
I was staying in Wilderhope Manor, a 16th-century Elizabethan manor house on Wenlock Edge, seven miles south-west of Much Wenlock, seven miles east of Church Stretton. Wilderhope Manor was built in 1585 for Francis Smallman. The house was in a poor state and uninhabited when it was bought in 1936 by the WA Cadbury Trust and opened as a youth hostel in 1937. Many of the original features, including the oaken stairways, oak spiral stairs and plaster ceilings have survived.
In the early 1970s, although I had little musical education and no musical background, I was interested in English folk music, and I was enjoying the way it was being interpreted by folk rock bands such as I was enjoying the music of English folk rock bands such as Steeleye Span, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Lindisfarne and Jethro Thull.
That interest drew the suggestion while I was staying in Wilderhope Manor that I should listen to the music of Vaughan Williams, and, as I was staying on Wenlock Edge in rural Shropshire, that I should listen to On Wenlock Edge and read Housman’s Shropshire Lad.
This became my first memorable introduction to the great English composers. I spent some time on Wenlock Edge and visiting the neighbouring villages before hitch-hiking back to Lichfield – a journey of about 50 miles.
Back in Lichfield, I experienced a self-defining moment in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, and was invited for the first time to the Folk Masses in the Dominican Retreat Centre at Spode House, near Rugeley, about six miles north of Lichfield.
Ever since, I have associated the music of Vaughan Williams, especially his setting of On Wenlock Edge, with my understanding of my own spiritual growth and development.
This morning [15 August 2022], I am listening to ‘On Wenlock Edge,’ the first of the six settings by Vaughan Williams of these poems by AE Housman (1859-1936), published in March 1896.
Alfred Edward Housman was born at Fockbury, near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, on 26 March 1859, the eldest child of Sarah and Edward Housman. His mother died on his twelfth birthday, and the anguished created by this cruel coincidence, led to strong questioning of his Christian faith, although he did not abandon the idea of a God.
Housman studied Classics at Saint John’s College, Oxford, and was Professor of Greek and Latin, University College, London (1892), Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge (1911), and a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, where Vaughan Williams had been an undergraduate from 1892 to 1895. He died on 30 April 1936.
In reacting to the Boer War, in which his brother Herbert was killed, Housman also anticipated the horror and futility of World War I, and his poems would find fresh relevance of with the outbreak of World War I.
His landscape is a mythical, idealised Shropshire, similar to the Wessex of the novels of Thomas Hardy. His dominant themes are love, and a post-industrial pastoral nostalgia, infused with expressions of disillusionment at the sacrifice of the young soldiers going to war, never to return.
A younger brother, the author and playwright Laurence Housman (1865-1959), first worked as a book illustrator, and the first authors he illustrated included the poet Christina Rossetti. Laurence Housman also wrote and published several volumes of poetry, a number of hymns and carols, and socialist and pacifist pamphlets, and he edited his brother’s poems which were published posthumously.
In 1945, Laurence Housman opened Housman’s Bookshop in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, founded in his honour by the Peace Pledge Union, of which he was a sponsor. In 1959, shortly after his death, the shop moved to 5 Caledonian Road, London. I was first introduced to Housman’s in 1976 by its co-founder and manager, Harry Mister, after meeting him with Bruce Kent of CND at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick that year. Housman’s Bookshop remains a prime source of publications on pacifism and other radical values.
Vaughan Williams composed On Wenlock Edge – a cycle of six songs for tenor, piano and string quartet – in 1909, a year after he had spent three months in Paris studying under Maurice Ravel, the French composer, who was three years younger than him. The first performance took place in the Aeolian Hall in London on 15 November 1909.
After a performance of the cycle in May 1920, Ivor Gurney wrote: ‘The French mannerisms must be forgotten in the strong Englishness of the prevailing mood – in the unmistakable spirit of the time of creation. England is the spring of emotion, the centre of power, and the pictures of her, the breath of her earth and growing things are continually felt through the lovely sound.’
Housman, who only heard the first two songs, wrote to his publisher in December 1920: ‘I am told that composers in some cases have mutilated my poems – that Vaughan Williams cut two verses out of ‘Is my team ploughing?’ I wonder how he would like me to cut two bars out of his music.’
When he was asked about this after Housman’s death in 1936, Vaughan Williams showed no remorse, claiming ‘the composer has a perfect right artistically to set any portion of a poem he chooses provided he does not actually alter the sense … I also feel that a poet should be grateful to anyone who fails to perpetuate such lines as ‘The goal stands up, the keeper/Stands up to keep the goal’.’
In the 1920s, Vaughan Williams made an arrangement of On Wenlock Edge for full orchestra that was first performed on 24 January 1924 by John Booth, with the composer conducting. Vaughan Williams preferred this version to his original.
In the accompaniment of the first song, ‘On Wenlock Edge,’ the strings are flaring and quivering in powerful simulation of the gales that trouble Wenlock’s woods, and the emotional gales that have troubled the life of humanity since time began.
Vaughan Williams’s approach to the text works on two levels – that of word-painting, and that of bringing out the meanings inherent in phrases or in an entire text. In this first song, for example, he paints words like ‘high’ and ‘gale,’ and depicts the sense of foreboding in phrases like ‘the wood’s in trouble’ and ‘His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves’ in the accompaniment.
On Wenlock Edge the world’s in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it piles the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
’Twould blow like this through hot and hanger
When Uricon the city stood:
’Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.
Then, ’twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.
There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.
The gale, it piles the saplings double,
It blows so hard, ’twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.
Afternoon light pours into the Lady Chapel in Saint Laurence’s Church, Winslow, Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)
Today’s Prayer:
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who looked upon the lowliness of the Blessed Virgin Mary
and chose her to be the mother of your only Son:
grant that we who are redeemed by his blood
may share with her in the glory of your eternal kingdom;
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 Most High,
whose handmaid bore the Word made flesh:
we thank you that in this sacrament of our redemption
you visit us with your Holy Spirit
and overshadow us by your power;
strengthen us to walk with Mary the joyful path of obedience
and so to bring forth the fruits of holiness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Monday 15 August 2022 (The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary):
The theme in the USPG prayer diary this week is ‘Human Trafficking in Durgapur.’ This them was introduced yesterday by Raja Moses, Project Co-ordinator of the Anti-Human Trafficking Project, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:
Today we celebrate the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. May we be inspired by her story and encouraged by her words.
‘The Slaughter of the Innocents’ by Domenico Ghirlandaio: the fresco is part of a series of panels in the Cappella Tornabuoni in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, dating from 1486-1490
Patrick Comerford
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose music is celebrated throughout this year’s Proms season.
In my prayer diary for these weeks I am reflecting in these ways:
1, One of the readings for the morning;
2, Reflecting on a hymn or another piece of music by Vaughan Williams, often drawing, admittedly, on previous postings on the composer;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’
The Gospel reading at Morning Prayer in Common Worship this morning is:
Luke 22: 39-46 (NRSVA):
39 He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. 40 When he reached the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.’ 41 Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, 42 ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.’ [[43 Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. 44 In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.]] 45 When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, 46 and he said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.’
Today’s reflection: ‘The Holy Innocents’
Ralph Vaughan Williams was the composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores, a collector of English folk music and song. With Percy Dearmer, he co-edited the English Hymnal, in which he included many folk song arrangements as hymn tunes, and several of his own original compositions.
This morning I have chosen Vaughan Williams’s setting of ‘The Holy Innocents’ by Laurence Housman. Houseman was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, a younger brother of the poet AE Housman (1859-1936), who is best known for A Shropshire Lad, including the ‘Six Songs’ and the poem ‘Wenlock Edge,’ set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Laurence Housman first worked as a book illustrator in London, and the first authors he illustrated included the poet Christina Rossetti. At the same time, he also wrote and published several volumes of poetry and a number of hymns and carols.
His first literary successes came with the novel An Englishwoman’s Love-Letters (1900), and the drama Bethlehem (1902). Some of his plays caused scandals because of his depiction of biblical characters and living members of the royal family. As a consequence, the Lord Chamberlain ruled in 1937 that no British sovereign could be portrayed on the stage until 100 years after the beginning of his or her reign.
Housman also wrote socialist and pacifist pamphlets and edited his brother’s poems which were published posthumously. For the last three or four decades of his life he lived in Street, Somerset.
In 1945, he opened Housman’s Bookshop in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, founded in his honour by the Peace Pledge Union, of which he was a sponsor. The Peace Pledge Union, one of the earliest pacifist organisations in England, was founded in 1934 by Housman’s close friend, Canon Dick Sheppard (1880-1937) of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, a former Vicar of Saint Martin-in–the-Fields (1914-1926) and former Dean of Canterbury (1929-1931) who had been radicalised by his experiences as a slum priest in the East End of London.
In 1959, shortly after his death, the shop moved to 5 Caledonian Road, London, a two-minute walk from all the King’s Cross and Saint Pancras stations. In 1974, an IRA bomb blew up the pillar box directly outside the shop – the building once housed the local King’s Cross Post Office, from the late 19th century until the 1930s. The explosion destroyed the first issue of the newsletter of the Campaign Against Arms Trade, which had just been posted.
I was first introduced to Housman’s Bookshop two years later in 1976 by its co-founder and its manager until that year, Harry Mister, after meeting him with Bruce Kent at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, that year. Harry died on my birthday in 1996, less than a fortnight after his own 92nd birthday.
Housman’s Bookshop remains a prime source of literature on pacifism and other radical values. Many memories rushed to the fore as I walked past the shop last month on my way to Bruce Kent’s funeral.
The Peace Pledge Union has ‘consistently condemned the violence, oppression and weapons of all belligerents.’ It opposed the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it has promoted the ideals of pacifists such as Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, it played an active role in the first Aldermaston marches, its members were active in the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and in recent years it has protested against the war in Iraq.
Today, the Peace Pledge Union stands in solidarity with peace campaigners in Ukraine, Russia and throughout the world who are resisting the war in Ukraine. Condemning the invasion of Ukraine and renouncing all war, it stands against both Russian militarism and NATO militarism.
The PPU is supporting the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, the Russian Movement for Conscientious Objectors and other groups who resist militarism in their own countries and seek to tackle the causes of war.
And so, given Housman’s association, even long after his death, with campaigns against war, as the USPG prayer diary this week reminds us of the plight of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, and in the week we remember of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, it is appropriate on this day to select his poem, ‘The Holy Innocents.’
The Holy Innocents by Laurence Housman
When Christ was born in Bethlehem,
Fair peace on earth to bring,
In lowly state of love He came
To be the children’s King.
And round Him, then, a holy band
Of children blest was born,
Fair guardians of His throne to stand
Attendant night and morn.
And unto them this grace was giv’n
A Saviour’s name to own,
And die for Him Who out of Heav’n
Had found on earth a throne.
O blessèd babes of Bethlehem,
Who died to save our King,
Ye share the martyrs’ diadem,
And in their anthem sing!
Your lips, on earth that never spake,
Now sound th’eternal word;
And in the courts of love ye make
Your children’s voices heard.
Lord Jesus Christ, eternal Child,
Make Thou our childhood Thine;
That we with Thee the meek and mild
May share the love divine.
Harry Mister in Housman’s Bookshop before his death
Today’s Prayer:
At the annual conference of the USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) in High Leigh last week, we were updated on the work of USPG’s partners in Ukraine, Russia and with USPG’s partners with Ukrainian refugees. The theme in the USPG prayer diary this week is ‘Refugee Support in Poland,’ and was introduced by the Revd David Brown, Chaplain of the Anglican Church in Poland.
Wednesday 3 August 2022:
The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:
Let us pray for the people of Ukraine as they rebuild their lives in the wake of the war with Russia.
In the back row (right) in Roebuck House with Bruce Kent (front right) and Sean MacBride and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the early 1980s
Patrick Comerford
Bruce Kent, the world-known peace activist and retired Catholic priest, has died at age of 92 after a short illness.
I have been friends with Bruce Kent for almost 50 years since we first met at a peace conference in Swanwick, Derbyshire, in 1976. In recent years, he was the Vice-President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and I have been President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Irish CND).
Bruce went to school in Stonyhurst and spent his conscription years in the Royal Tank Regiment before completing a law degree at Brasenose College, Oxford. He was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Westminster, and between 1958 and 1987 he worked in several London parishes, as chaplain to the University of London (1966-1974) and a chaplain to Cardinal Heenan.
When I first met Bruce in 1976, he had become a monsignor and was active in Pax Christi, Christian CND the Campaign Against the Arms Trade and War on Want. He was the chair of CND in 1977-1979, general secretary of CND (1980-1985) and chair again (1987-1990). In those years, he was one of the most vocal critics of Margaret Thatcher’s military and nuclear policies when public opposition to the deployment of Trident and cruise missiles was escalating.
I was involved in CND during those years, and for many years sat with Bruce on the council of CND. In those years, I was chair, secretary and vice-chair of Irish CND and Christian CND at different times. We spoke together at rallies and protests throughout Britain and Ireland in those heady days, icluding a large anti-war rally in Hyde Park at the height of the Falklands War in 1982.
Bruce was often my guest when he visited Dublin, and on one memorable evening we shared dinner with the Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Sean MacBride, who was President of Irish CND before me, at his home in Roebuck House.
Bruce stepped back from the priesthood in 1987. Despite rumours that Cardinal Basil Hume had tried to stop his involvement in politics, he insisted he never applied for laicisation, nor was he ever laicised.
In later years he continued to return to Ireland regularly. When the future President Michael D Higgins was honoured as the first recipient of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize, Bruce was present at the ceremony in the Mansion House in Dublin in 1992.
That year, Bruce stood as the Labour candidate in Oxford West and Abingdon, but came third.
Bruce From 1985-1992, he succeeded the late Sean MacBride as President of the International Peace Bureau. We met in Dublin again when the council of the IPB met in Ireland in 2012 for the first time in its over 100-year history. He was honoured with the IPB Sean MacBride Peace Award in 2019.
On hearing of Bruce’s death, Kate Hudson, general secretary of CND, said Kent transformed the scope and confidence of the anti-nuclear movement beyond all recognition. ‘His leadership of CND in the 1980s was the embodiment of integrity, creativity and sheer determination.’
Professor Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford and President of the Movement for the Abolition of War, said he was an utterly determined advocate for peace, and ‘a relentless campaigner against the idiocy of nuclear weapons for more than 50 years.’ He added: ‘He never let up and was forever optimistic and inspiring, even at the most difficult of times.’
Bruce died on Wednesday. At the time of his death, he was a vice-president of Pax Christi and emeritus president of the Movement for the Abolition of War. He was an honorary fellow of Brasenose College and in the past year he and Valerie Flessati were jointly awarded the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism.
Bruce Kent and Valerie Flessati were married in 1988 and lived in Harringay, North London. He would have turned 93 later this month (22 June 2022). He is survived by Valerie, his sister Rosemary Meakins and his sister-in-law Ruth Kent.
The Good Samaritan Window in Christ Church, Spanish Point, Co Clare … the question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ ran through today’s discussions at the annual conference of USPG (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)
Patrick Comerford
I spent much of today online, taking part in the second day of this year’s annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).
The conference was due to take place from in the High Leigh Conference Centre outside Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. However, this year’s USPG conference is now a virtual conference, and all conference sessions are taking place online. Appropriately, the conference theme is ‘Such a Time as This.’ We have not witnessed ‘such a time as this’ on a global scale of pandemic, ecological crisis and racial divisions in living memory. This year’s conference is addressing questions such as:
Four live-streamed sessions are taking place throughout these three days, and today’s themes have included ‘Prayer, Presence and Provision in the Pandemic’ and ‘Racial Justice: Recovering Spiritualities, Restoring Justice.’
This morning we looked at ‘Prayer, Presence and Provision in the Pandemic.’
This morning’s speakers constantly returned to the question: ‘Who is my neighbour?’ The question was first asked this morning in our Bible Study, led by Canon Delene Mark from the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, as she invited us to look at Luke 10: 25-29, and to ask what does it mean to love our neighbour living in this pandemic era.
She suggested that the natural instinct is protect ourselves, our families, and our immediate neighbours. But looking at two other passages (I Corinthians 13: 4-7; I John 3: 16-21), she reminded us of love that must be expressed in truth and action, that compels us to show compassion and mercy and to seek justice for all.
She also shared this prayer:
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you will work for justice, equality and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done.
Dr Yap Wei Aun of the Diocese of West Malaysia in the Church of the Province of South-East Asia, also took the example of the Good Samaritan, and asked who is our neighbour in this pandemic crisis. He reinforced the idea that no-one is safe until all are safe, and many speakers repeated the need for global vaccine equity.
Two archdeacons from the Diocese of Southwark in the Church of England, Archdeacon Rosemarie Mallett of Croydon and Archdeacon Alastair Cutting of Lewisham and Greenwich, shared a conversation about their experiences of living in this Covid-19 era.
They discussed how churches are facing real needs for reconstruction, resilience and repair, and how people need to express lament for their losses, including loss of income, loss of people, loss of jobs and loss of celebrations, as well as underlying anger and needs for forgiveness.
They shared their experiences of many parishes suffering economically but growing spiritually. Archdeacon Alastair said the Church needs to give more, to share more and to love more.
The windows in the USPG office in London … a background for some speakers at this week’s USPG Conference (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
About 120 people took part in the conference today, chaired by the Revd Paul Gurnham. Other speakers this morning included Bishop Jacques Boston of Guinea in the Church of the Province of West Africa, and Attorney Floyd Lalwet, the Provincial Secretary of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines.
Our worship this morning was led by the ‘Voice of Praise Choir’ from Saint Matthew’s Church in Central Zimbabwe and this afternoon was led by the Diocese of Belize Youth Group.
This afternoon, we also received greetings from Archbishop Hosam Naoum of Jerusalem and Archbishop Howard Gregory of the West Indies, Bishop of Jamaica.
This began with our Bible Study was led by the Revd Augustine Tanner Ihm, a curate in Manchester and winner of the Church Times ‘Theology Slam 2020.’ His study was based on the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19: 1-10).
He reminded us of the death of George Floyd in the US and the recent racist abuse of three black English footballers, including one from Manchester where he is a curate. He spoke of why Black Lives Matter and of compassion for the marginalised, and challenged us to think about those times when we have been complicit in systemic racism. Where have we seen overt or covert racism? What challenges might we be challenged to make?
The Revd Bertram Gayle, from the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands in the Church of the Province of the West Indies (CPWI), spoke of the Church in Jamaica, which has been disestablished for 150 years. But this is a very different experence to that of the Church of Ireland since then. He believes the Church in Jamaica has been slow to embrace indigenisation and needs to divest itself of power, prestige, pageantry, pomp and privilege, to embrace intentional cultural engament and to become more Jamaican.
Archdeacon Leslie Nathaniel, Archdeacon of the East, Germany and Northern Europe, spoke of how the Diocese in Europe is a multicultural diocese that is working in practical way to challenge racial injustice, seeking to move from exclusion to inclusion, from lament to action.
Bishop Fanuel Magangani of the Diocese of Northern Malawi in the Church of the Province of Central Africa reminded us through a visual presentation from Likoma Cathedral of the connection between Malawi and UMCA and USPG.
Today’s programme included a meeting of the trustees of USPG, when my six-year term as a trustee of USPG came to an end at that meeting along with two other trustees, Richard Barrett and Martin Canning. I may be stepping down as a trustee, but I am cretainly not stepping back from USPG, and hope to continue and develop what has been almost a lifelong commitment to USPG.
At previous conferences, in both High Leigh and Swanwick, I have spoken at or facilitated workshops, chaired some conference sessions, and presided at the closing Eucharist. I am missing the opportunity meet many old friends and colleagues in person. At every conference, much of the important personal contacts are made on the sidelines, at meals, in workshops, or even during the social occasions at the end of the day. The daily Eucharist at conferences have brought us together in communion and fellowship.
I am missing all these opportunities over these three days … including friendships formed in the evenings in pubs like King William IV, the White Swan, the Star and the Rye House, the opportunities for walks along the Lea Valley or in the Hertfordshire and Essex countryside around High Leigh, Hoddesdon and Broxbourne, visits to neighbouring Bishop’s Stortford, Newport and Cambridge, or a late lunch in the Fish and Eels after the last day of conference.
Perhaps, too, I had become a little too comfortable with flying in and out of Stansted Airport regularly for trustees’ meetings and conferences.
The conference continues tomorrow (10 am to 12 noon), when the topic is ‘The Cry of Creation: Creativity in the Church.’
An afternoon stroll on an afternoon in July along the Lea Valley that separates Hertfordshire and Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The chapel in the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire
Patrick Comerford
During the Season of Easter this year, I am continuing my theme from Lent, taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:
1, photographs of a church or place of worship that has been significant in my spiritual life;
2, the day’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).
This week, we are in an ‘in-between week’, between Ascension Day and the Day of Pentecost. My photographs this week are from places I associate with the life of USPG. Earlier in this series, I introduced the Chapel in the USPG offices in Southwark and its stained glass windows (20 March 2021).
This morning (18 May 2021), my photographs are from the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, which was the planned venue for last year’s USPG conference until the Covid-19 conference forced its cancellation. This year’s conference is planned for the High Leigh conference centre in Hertfordshire (20 to 22 July 2021), and I still have hopes that the roll-out of the vaccine and the easing of travel restrictions may mean I can take part in the conference this year, the last year in my six-year term as a trustee of USPG.
I have also taken part in many USPG conferences in Swanwick in the past (2008, 2010, 2016), sometimes leading workshops and taking part in council and trustee meetings. Archbishop Alan Harper of Armagh was the keynote speaker on the final day of the conference in 2008.
I first attended a peace conference in Swanwick in 1976, when I first met people like Bruce Kent of CND and Harry Mister of Housman’s Bookshop, and I have been back on many occasions since. These visits have often afforded opportunities to take a few extra days off in Lichfield.
Swanwick is near Alfreton, and less than two miles from Ripley, the Derbyshire town that was named by the Guardian in 2016 as the ‘most English town’ in England.
The old country house, Swanwick Hayes – now the Hayes Conference Centre – was built by the Derbyshire industrialist, Francis Wright, in 1860s as a wedding present for his son, FitzHerbert Wright (1841-1910), when he married Charlotte Rudolphine Louise von Beckman (1848-1932), the daughter of a German pastor, in 1865.
Fitzherbert Wright’s father was a leading Derbyshire industrialist, while his mother, Selina FitzHerbert, was a daughter of Sir Henry FitzHerbert (1783-1858) of Tissington Hall, an early 17th-century Jacobean mansion near Ashbourne. The FitzHerberts acquired Tissington by marriage in 1465. The old moated manor at Tissington was replaced with the new mansion in 1609 by Francis FitzHerbert, and it remains the home of the FitzHerbert family. Today, it is the home of Sir Richard Ranulph FitzHerbert. These connections are recalled in the name of the Tissington Room on the ground floor of Lakeside, where I stayed on my most recent visit.
FitzHerbert Wright had interests in local ironworks and coalmines, and was a county councillor and JP. When he was retiring from the Butterley Company as managing director in 1903, he paid for a new tower as a gift for the Parish Church of Saint Andrew, which was built at the crossroads in Swanwick in 1860.
FitzHerbert Wright died on 19 December 1910, and in 1911 the family sold the house for £11,500, about a fifth of its original building cost, to the First Conference Estate Ltd. It was converted into the Christian conference centre that operates to this day.
During World War II, the Hayes was used as a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian prisoners. Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe officer, escaped from here, but was recaptured at nearby RAF Hucknall as he tried to steal an aircraft. He later made the only verified German escape, from Canada.
Today, the Hayes is one of the largest conference centres of its type. But past stories are cherished with names on rooms such as Butterley, Tissington, Haddon, Chatsworth and Alan Booth. Perhaps I shall return to Swanwick soon.
The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick … the original house was built in 1865 by the FitzHerbert Wright family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 17: 1-11 (NRSVA)
1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’
Swanwick Hayes was built in 1860s as a wedding present for FitzHerbert Wright (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:
The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (18 May 2021) invites us to pray:
We pray for the work of theological colleges across the world church. May the work of these institutions help us to better understand God and the path He intends for us.
‘For Such a Time as This’ … the theme of this year’s USPG conference
Patrick Comerford
With the roll-out of the vaccine in both Ireland and Britain, I am still holding out hope that I may be able to get to the annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) later this summer in the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire.
The conference last year was due to take place in Swanwick, Derbyshire, from 20 to 22 July 2020, with the theme ‘Rejoice in the Lord always: God’s People in God’s Mission’, immediately before the Lambeth Conference. I had been hoping to spend some days in Lichfield too before or after the conference. But both conferences were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
I have not been back in England since March last year, and I have not been in High Leigh since July 2019.
I am in Dublin this evening to visit my GP tomorrow for a check-up on my sarcoidosis and an injection for my Vitamin B12 deficiency. But I am also hoping to get a date for my first Covid vaccine.
Should my first and second jabs come through on time, and should travel between these two islands become possible, then perhaps – just perhaps – I may be able to take part in the conference, with even the possibility of a visit to Cambridge.
The USPG conference this year has the working title, ‘For Such a Time as This,’ similar to the title of USPG’s Lenten course this year, ‘For Such a Time.’
We have not witnessed ‘such a time as this’ on a global scale of pandemic, ecological crisis and racial divisions in living memory. What do these major global factors say to the mission of the Anglican Church?
How can USPG and its partners speak prophetically into these important issues alongside supporting Churches in their community responses?
For the first time this year, the USPG Annual Conference will be both a physical and a virtual event. The full conference takes place from 4 pm on Monday 19 July to 2 pm on Wednesday 21 July at the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire.
Key sections of the conference will be livestreamed for a virtual audience in four two-hour sessions over those three days.
The annual meeting of USPG Council takes place on Tuesday 20 July, and my six-year term as a trustee of USPG comes to a conclusion at that meeting.
The all-inclusive fee for the full conference is £190. It is also possible to register for the day conference on Tuesday and for the online conference. In the event of the conference being cancelled due to further Corona virus restrictions, a full refund will be given to everyone who has registered for the physical conference.
Needless to say, all my travel plans are more in hope than in anticipation today, and subject to the roll-out of the vaccine and changes in government guidelines on trave.
Meanwhile, USPG supporters are being invited to join USPG later this month for a ‘Global Mission Webinar’ on USPG work in the Philippimnes.
The webinar, from 10 am on Thursday 29 April expects to hear three different speakers from the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) share their experience and knowledge of the mission of the Church among the Lumad communities of Philippines.
Speakers are introducing case studies from grass roots mission work, along with challenges and opportunities that are being encountered by the Church in their accompaniment programme.
Find out more about these events on the USPG website HERE.
The High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddeson in Hertfordshire … the venue for the USPG Conference this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Autumn turns to winter in the grounds of the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine … the planned venue for this week’s meeting of USPG trustees (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
Meetings of trustees or boards are the same everywhere.
They include budgets and spreadsheets, evaluations and re-evaluation, forward planning, business plans, organisation and structures, vision and strategy, position papers …
There are people who like this sort of meeting, but others find them a turn-off and speak of ‘bored meetings.’
But it is never so at meetings of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).
For these two days (18-19 November 2020), I have been shut away from the rest of the world at a meeting of USPG trustees in London – albeit a ‘virtual meeting’ hosted by Zoom while I have been locked away in a room in the Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick.
What makes USPG trustees’ meetings different, of course, is that, even in these pandemic lockdown days, our work is all about relationships within and across the Anglican Communion and about journeying with partner churches as critical but supportive friends.
We prayed together, we listened together to challenging Gospel passages, we laughed together, and we shared hopes together.
Without breaking any confidences on my part, we heard news about progress on the Communion Wide Advisory Group, bringing together work on all continents, about global relations, about work with Hope for the Future on climate change, about theological education, about next year’s Lent course, ‘For such a Time as This,’ and mission engagement. In particular, we heard from the Revd Davidson Solanki on the work of the Church in Bangladesh and the Church in the Middle East.
Davidson’s story, and his recent ordination, are among the many interesting features in the latest edition of Koinonia, the USPG magazine.
One member of the Senior Management Group shared these wise words from Rabindranath Tagore:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
We were reminded too that today in the calendar of the Church of England celebrates Saint Hilda of Whitby, who played a key role in the Synod of Whitby and in facilitating Church unity on these islands.
Looking forward to the future also means giving thanks for the past. And before our meeting closed this afternoon, we gave thanks in prayer for the lives of a number of people associated with the life of USPG and who died recently, including Janet Cousins, a former USPG missionary in Ethiopia, Ruth Capeling, a former USPG missionary in Zambia, Dr Sally Amos, who worked in a hospital in Zambia, and the Ven Frederick George, a former USPG missionary in Australia, Gambia and St Helena.
But I still miss the one-to-one, face-to-face contacts that are so important at meetings like this, although they never feature on the agenda.
It is over eight months since I was physically present at a meeting of USPG trustees in London last March. This week’s residential meeting ought to have taken place at the Royal Foundation Saint Katharine in Limehouse, but, like this year’s planned conference in Swanwick, Covid-19 put an end to those plans.
We are due to meet again as trustees on 10 March and 12 May 2021, Hopefully, the pandemic travel restrictions can be eased soon, and that I can attend meetings of trustees in London next year, and USPG’s annual conference, planned for 19 to 21 July 2021.
The Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick in Derbyshire … the planned venue for the USPG conference earlier this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Church of England, in the Calendar in Common Worship, marks 15 August as a Holy Day with the simple designation ‘Blessed Virgin Mary.’ The Orthodox Church celebrates the day as the Dormition of the Theotokos, and for the Roman Catholic it is the Feast of the Assumption.
Although the Birth of the Virgin Mary is marked in the calendar of the Church of Ireland this month (8 September), many are uncomfortable about commemorations on 15 August, although we usually commemorate saints on the days they are said to have died. Perhaps this discomfort has less to do with post-Reformation debates and more to do with residual memories of how 15 August was used to counter-balance Orange celebrations on 12 July.
The icon of the Dormition was completed by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) in Crete, probably before 1567
The Dormition and the Assumption are different names for the same event, the Virgin Mary’s death or departure from earth, although the two feasts do not necessarily have an identical understanding of the event or sequence of events.
But, while the Assumption is only a recent doctrinal innovation in the Roman Catholic tradition, decreed in 1950, the tradition of the Dormition is much older in the Orthodox Church, where the day is a Great Feast and recalls the ‘falling asleep’ or death of the Virgin Mary.
The tradition of the Dormition is associated with a number of places, including Jerusalem, Ephesus and Constantinople. In his guidebook, The Holy Land, the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor points out that two places in Jerusalem are traditionally associated with the end of the Virgin Mary’s earthly life: a monastery on Mount Zion is the traditional site of her death or falling asleep; and the basilica in the Garden of Gethsemane is said to be the site of her tomb.
However, the first four Christian centuries are silent about the death of the Virgin Mary, and there is no documentary evidence to support claims that the feast of the Dormition was observed in Jerusalem around the time of the Council of Ephesus in 431.
***
An icon of the Dormition by Alexandra Kaouki nears completion in her workshop in Rethymnon, Crete
Traditional Orthodox icons of the Dormition depicting the death of the Virgin Mary incorporate many apocryphal elements or details from writings known as pseudepigrapha. Many icons show the apostles and other saints, including four early Christian writers, gathered around her deathbed, with Christ and the angels waiting above.
The best-known version of this icon is the work of El Greco, or Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541-1614), painted in Crete probably before 1567.
Alexandra Kaouki at work on her icon in her workshop below the slopes of the Fortezza in Rethymnon
It was my privilege some years ago to watch a new icon on this theme in Orthodoxy being shaped and created by Alexandra Kaouki, perhaps the most talented and innovative iconographer in Crete today, as she worked in her studio below the Venetian fortezza in the in the old town of Rethymnon.
She was creating this new icon for the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, or the Little Church of Our Lady, on a small square in the old town.
It was a careful, slow, step-by-step work in progress, based on El Greco’s celebrated icon. But, as her work progressed, Alexandra made what she describes as ‘necessary corrections’ to allow her to ‘entirely follow the Byzantine rules.’
The icon of the Dormition completed by Alexandra Kaouki for a church in the old town of Rethymnon
In her studio, we discussed why El Greco places three candelabra in front of the bier. Perhaps he is using them as a Trinitarian symbol. However, Alexandra has returned to the traditional depiction of only one to remain true to Byzantine traditions.
How many of the Twelve should be depicted?
Should Saint Thomas be shown, or was he too late?
Why did she omit stories from later developments in the tradition, yet introduce women?
Alexandra completed her icon in time for the Feast of the Dormition in Rethymnon that year.
A missed date with Mrs Fitzherbert
The Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire … the planned venue for the USPG conference in July (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
One of the casualties of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in Britain has been this year’s annual conference of the Anglican mission agency, USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel. I have been a trustee of USPG for over five years, and was a council member for many years before that.
In recent years, the conference has tended to take place in the High Leigh Conference Centre in Hertfordshire. But USPG was due to return to the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, from 20 to 22 July.
The conference, with the theme ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’: God’s People in God’s Mission, was timed to run into the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, from 23 July to 2 August, but that too has been postponed.
Mrs Maria Fitzherbert … went through a secret marriage with the future King George IV
The Hayes has been a Christian conference centre since 1911, and I first attended a conference there in 1976. The main house at Swanwick was once the home of the Fitzherbert Wright family, a branch of the Fitzherbert family whose members, by marriage, included the famous – or infamous – Mrs Fitzherbert.
Maria Anne Fitzherbert (1756-1837) was a twice-widowed Roman Catholic who secretly contracted a marriage with King George IV that was invalid under English civil law. They were married in 1785 when he was Prince of Wales, but the marriage had not received the consent of his father, George III, although her nephew-in-law from her first marriage, Cardinal Thomas Weld, persuaded Pope Pius VII to declare the marriage sacramentally valid.
Maria Fitzherbert was the eldest child of Walter Smythe of Brambridge, Hampshire. Her first husband, Edward Weld, was 16 years her senior and died just three months after their marriage in 1775. She married her second husband, Thomas Fitzherbert (1746-1781) of Swynnerton, Staffordshire, in 1778, but was widowed once again in 1781.
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Ralph Fitzherbert of Norbury … ancestor of the Fitzherbert family and father-in-law of Thomas Comberford
A miniature portrait of Mrs Fitzherbert was among the 1,100 lots auctioned earlier this year at Matthews Auction Rooms in Kells, Co Meath. The catalogue described her as a ‘member, through previous marriage, of the Meath landowning Fitzherbert family.’ It went on to say, ‘she was a beauty of her age and the wife of King George IV, [to] whom she bore two children.’
However this portrait came into the Fitzherbert family in Co Meath, they were not descended from Mrs Fitzherbert. Indeed, any Fitzherbert living in Co Meath at the time of her secret marriage to the future king could only have been a fifth or fourth cousin of her second husband, Thomas Fitzherbert.
The lake at Swanwick … the estate was once owned by the Fitzherbert Wright family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
On the other hand, there are many interesting connections between the Comerford and Comberford families and the Fitzherbert family in Staffordshire. The supposed Comberford ancestor of my branch of the family was Judge Richard Comberford (1512-ca 1547), a brother of Canon Henry Comberford (1499-1586), Precentor of Lichfield Cathedral.
They were the sons of Thomas Comberford (1472-1532) of Comberford, who became a member of the Guild of Saint Mary and Saint John the Baptist in Lichfield in 1495, a year or two before he married his second wife, Dorothy Fitzherbert, daughter of Ralph Fitzherbert of Norbury, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire.
This makes Richard Comberford a nephew of Thomas Fitzherbert, Precentor of Lichfield, William Fitzherbert, Chancellor of Lichfield, and Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, ancestor of Maria Fitzherbert’s second husband and of the Irish Fitzherberts.
There are signs and symbols of the Fitzherbert and Wright families throughout the house at Swanwick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
There are no portraits of Mrs Fitzherbert in the house at Swanwick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Fitzherbert Wright family of Swanwick was also ancestors of the Maynell family, who inherited a large painting once in Swanwick that was donated some years ago to USPG. The painting raised £550,000 and helped support work among refugees in Greece by USPG and the Anglican chaplaincy in Athens.
However, I don’t know if there ever was any portrait of Mrs Fitzherbert in Swanwick.
See Naples and … but don’t die
The Bay of Naples … who swims north of Naples when there is an ‘R’ in the month? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
I heard once of a grand old lady who was asked late one year whether she had gone swimming that weekend.
‘No, my dear,’ she replied tersely. ‘I never swim north of Naples when there’s an R in the month.’
The saying ‘See Naples and Die’ is said to have been coined when the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – Naples and Sicily – was at the height of its golden age under the rule of the Bourbon dynasty.
Naples and Sicily experienced a ‘golden age’ during the rule of the Bourbon dynasty (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Pompeii and Vesuvius are among the tourist attractions at the Bay of Naples (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The phrase was popularised in Northern Europe 200 years ago when it was quoted by Goethe in Italian Journey (1816/1817), where he quotes it as: Vedi Napoli e poi muori.
Goethe visited Naples and Sicily for three months, from February to May 1787, when he climbed Vesuvius, visited Pompeii, and travelled on to Taormina and other places in Sicily.
During that tour, Goethe was fascinated by the lifestyle of people: ‘Naples is a paradise; everyone lives in a state of intoxicated self-forgetfulness, myself included. I seem to be a completely different person whom I hardly recognise. Yesterday, I thought to myself: Either you were mad before, or you are mad now.’
The phrase quoted by Goethe earned a new popularity in Italy with a 1950s B-rated movie with the same title.
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I have seen the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius and Pompeii and travelled through Sicily, visiting Taormina and Mount Etna. But my planned visit to Italy this year was to neither. Instead, I had hoped to visit Puglia in June, with a few days in Bari – also known for its links with Saint Nicholas of Santa Claus fame.
I was booked to spend a night in one of the trulli or traditional dry-stone huts with conical roofs, in the town of Alberobello. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 travel restrictions frustrated those travel plans too – among many others – along with my hopes of swimming south of Naples before there was an ‘R’ in the month.
Goethe visited Taormina in Sicily during his tour of the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples and Sicily (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
My GP tells me swimming is good for my sarcoidosis, a condition on my lungs first diagnosed about 12 years ago. The first symptoms included a persistent cough, minor infections on my legs and loss of breath and balance.
It was embarrassing to preside at the Eucharist in the chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, hoping not to break into an unexpected spasm of coughing, or to find myself bowed over in the chapel seats, unable to join in singing hymns. The symptoms were further complicated when I was diagnosed with a severe Vitamin B12 deficiency.
In the years since, I have been through what seems like every hospital south of the Liffey for tests and procedures. Thankfully, my GP and consultants have brought everything under control. Although I still take an inhaler twice a day, you might not notice any symptoms – though I still worries about a coughing spasm on flights or public transport that fellow passengers may fear is an indication of Covid-19.
Hopefully, my sarcoidosis symptoms remain under control. In the meantime, I hope the Coronavirus recedes and that a vaccine or an immunisation is found.
I suppose I shall have to wait until Christmas before I see Saint Nicholas of Bari. But it would be good to swim south of Naples again – whether or not there is an ‘R’ in the month from now on. And I still hope to see the Bay of Naples once again.
This feature was first published in the August 2020 edition of the 'Church Review', the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan magazine
‘When life gives you lemons’ … do not give up on returning to Naples (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
