Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 120, Sunday 7 September 2025, Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) … Christ takes up his Cross, Station 2 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 7 September 2025).

We are spending the weekend visiting family and friends in York, and later this morning I hope to attend the Parish Eucharist in Saint Olave’s Church on Marygate in the city centre. I am disappointed to miss the parish fete at All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this afternoon (2 pm to 4 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.

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) …the reredos by Sir Ninian Comper above the altar in the south aisle in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 14: 25-33 (NRSVA):

25 Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace, and reminds us of the ‘Cost of Discipleship’

Today’s reflection:

In the various editions of the NRSV translations of the Bible, the heading or sub-heading for the passage that is today’s Gospel reading (Luke 14: 25-33) is ‘The Cost of Discipleship’.

The Cost of Discipleship is the title of one of the best-known books by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed on 9 April 1945 in a German concentration camp before even reaching the age of 40, and just weeks before the end of World War II 80 years ago.

This youthful pastor was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, and he is widely regarded as a modern saint and martyr. His statue by the sculptor Tim Crawley above the West Door of Westminster Abbey places him among the 10 martyrs of the 20th century.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on 4 February 1906 in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau), now in Poland, and grew up in a comfortable professional German home, where his family was nominally Lutheran. When he was 13, he decided to study for ordination.

He studied at the University of Berlin, at the age of 18 visited Rome, and studied at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1930-1931).

Following the rise of the Nazis in 1933, Bonhoeffer saw Nazism as a counter-religion and a danger to Christianity. In October 1933, he became the pastor of two German-speaking parishes in the London area, and began his friendship with Bishop George Bell of Chichester.

On his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer ran the seminary of the Confessing Church at Finkenwalde, which was shut down by the police in 1937. He went to New York in 1939 but chose to return to Germany, aware of the cost of discipleship that lay before him and fearing a Nazi victory would destroy Christian civilisation. For Bonhoeffer, true discipleship now demanded political resistance against the criminal state.

He was arrested in March 1943 and survived as a prisoner until he was executed on 9 April 1945, only a few days before the end of World War II.

For my generation, Bonhoeffer was one of the most influential theologians on our reading lists. We drew endlessly on such books as The Cost of Discipleship, as well as No Rusty Swords and Ethics. We bandied around phrases such as ‘religionless Christianity’ and the ‘man for others,’ perhaps without fully grasping their meaning and implications.

We were quick to dismiss any church activity we deemed unfashionable as purveying ‘cheap grace.’ And we saw Bonhoeffer as a role model for our resistance to racism and apartheid, nuclear weapons and modern warfare, and even the very political and economic foundations of society.

Like all great theologians, like all great thinkers, philosophers and writers who are now dead, it was easy to quote him and to use him for our own ends: he could hardly answer back and say ‘I have been misunderstood’, ‘you have misquoted me’ or ‘you have quoted me out of context.’

Bonhoeffer has been claimed in recent years, on the one hand, by so-called ‘conservative evangelicals,’ who are happy with his theological method but unwilling to take his radical discipleship to the point of challenging social and corporate sin in our society; and, on the other hand, by radical reformers who would tear down all our received wisdom and traditions in their vain attempts to construct their own brand of ‘religionless Christianity.’

Unhappily, in recent years, theological rigour has gone out of fashion in many centres of learning. Where once students were happy to explore how faith could find understanding, many have slipped into the cold comfort of position-taking, relying on their own protestations of faith instead of warming to the challenge of new thinking and exploration. Theologians are no longer great names; even among the general public today, people are less likely to take their questions about faith and belief from the theological giants of the last century, such as Bultmann, Barth and Bonhoeffer, and more likely to be detracted by the silly, peripheral questions about truth and religion raised by Dan Browne in his Da Vinci Code, on the one hand, or Richard Dawkins in his The God Delusion on the other.

So, almost 80 years after his death, we might ask reflect today on who Bonhoeffer was, and why his writings and thoughts continue to have relevance for us in our society today.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had the potential to become a great musician or poet and playwright. Instead, he studied theology in Tubingen, Rome and Berlin, travelled through Rome and North Africa, and later spent time in Barcelona, New York, Cuba, Mexico and London, giving him an experience of the world church that would make a leading contributor to the foundation of the modern ecumenical movement.

He was still in his 20s when Hitler came to power. In a radio address two days after Hitler assumed office in 1933, Bonhoeffer warned against the idolatry of the ‘Fuhrer’ principle. He went on to become involved in the Pastors’ Emergency League, was closely associated with those who signed the Barmen Declaration, helped to form the Confessing Church, and, outside Germany, became a close friend of the saintly Anglican bishop, George Bell.

The Barmen Declaration declared that the Church must not be allowed to become an instrument of political ideology, and rejected ‘the false doctrine that the Church should acknowledge, as the source of its message over and above God’s word, any other events, powers, figures and truths as divine revelation.’

Bonhoeffer paid the price for speaking out. His licence to teach was withdrawn, he was dismissed from his university, and eventually the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde was closed. However, at Finkenwalde, he produced his two best-known books, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) and Life Together (1939).

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer argues that cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the Church. The sacraments and forgiveness are thrown away at cut price. We offer grace without price and grace without cost, instead of offering costly grace, which calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

When synagogues throughout Germany were set on fire in 1938, Bonhoeffer told the Church: ‘Only those who cry out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chant.’ In his Bible, he underlined two passages in the Psalms that read: ‘They are burning the houses of God in the land,’ and, ‘No prophet speaks any longer.’ He marked the date in his Bible and wrote later: ‘The church was silent when she should have cried out.’

When World War II broke out, he became involved in the resistance, making contacts in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. And yet he found time to write his book Ethics. His contacts with George Bell failed to stop Britain’s policy of obliteration bombing and demanding ‘unconditional surrender.’ The German opposition was left without hope, and a disappointed Bell wrote his hymn ‘Christ is the King’:

Let Love’s unconquerable might
God’s people everywhere unite
In service to the Lord of Light. Alleluia.

In prison, Bonhoeffer worked on his Letters and Papers from Prison and wrote: ‘What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed, who Christ really is, for us today … We are moving to a completely religionless time … if therefore man becomes radically religionless – and I think that is already more or less the case … what does that mean for Christianity? How can Christ become Lord of the religionless as well?’

The final chapter of his last, unfinished book begins: ‘The Church is only her true self when she exists for humanity … She must take her part in the social life of the world, not lording it over men, but helping and serving them. She must tell men, whatever their calling, what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.’

He was hanged at Flossenburg at dawn on 9 April 1945. An oft-quoted line from The Cost of Discipleship foreshadowed his death: ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’ His last recorded words as he was led to the scaffold were a message for George Bell: ‘Tell him that for me this is the end, but also the beginning.’

It was not the end, it was only the beginning. By the 1950s and the 1960s, he was the theologians’ theologian, and his influence was immeasurable. More recently he was ‘canonised’ by having his statue placed on the west front of Westminster Abbey. In recent years, he has been the subject of a new made-for-television movie in America. But what is his relevance today?

‘Bonhoeffer is one of the great examples of moral courage in the face of conflict,’ says Martin Doblmeier, director of Bonhoeffer, a recent 90-minute film. ‘Many of the issues Bonhoeffer faced – the role of the church in the modern world, national loyalty and personal conscience, what the call to being a ‘peacemaker’ really means – are issues we continue to struggle with today.’

1 Firstly, Bonhoeffer reminds us that faith assumptions and presumptions are no substitute in the seminary and the theological college for intellectual rigour and questioning. Indeed, he shows us that this is a more effective way of building faith than by trying to impose our individual views on others, and impose them judgmentally.

2 Secondly, in this post-modern world, Bonhoeffer continues to challenge us when we find new ways to make our Christian faith subject to, and relevant to, the overarching fashionable political and social ideologies of our day. Is the ‘Fuhrer principle’ reflected in the calls and slogans at Trump’s rallies or in the campaigns of far-right leaders rising across Central Europe today? How often have the different brands of Christianity been called on in recent decades to justify the nation-state as it embarked on disastrous wars of pride, one after another, whether it was the Falklands War, or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or indeed whether it was Catholic Croats or Orthodox Serbs indulging in ethnic cleansing to create nation states with a single religious identity.

3 Thirdly, Bonhoeffer’s story of the Church remaining silent when it should have spoken out as the synagogues were burned down in 1938 is a challenge to us today. Once again synagogues and mosques too are being attacked and burned down, this time in the US, and being daubed and attacked across Europe. The stranger is not being welcomed, the refugee is being turned back, many of our new immigrants are the victims of pernicious racism, migrants are left isolated and in cramped, dehumanising conditions. The Cross, in this case the Cross of Saint George, has become a weapon in the hands of bigots and hate-mongers. Civilians – including children, the elderly, hospital patients and staff, journalists – are being slaughtered in Gaza. Hostages are still being held by Hamas almost two years after they were abducted. Are we speaking out, speaking out now, before our silence becomes complicity in something even worse?

4 Fourthly, in his concern with growing secularisation, a concern so well articulated in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer tells us we need to face up to the growing secularisation of society and of humanity. If he could see in the 1940s our need to speak about God in a secular way, how much more pressing is that need today? We are so obsessed with maintaining not so much our Church structures but our Church pomp and sense of self-importance, leaving us unable to reach out to a secular world with a ‘religionless Christianity.’ We often use Christianity as a garment to cloak and protect us and to ringfence our prejudices about others and their sexuality, class, ethnicity and background, rather than asking, like Christ, what they need and accepting Christ’s charge to go out into the world. How can we find the language that enables us to speak in a secular way about God, and how can we live up to our missionary charge in the world today by being able to present to postmodern humanity Jesus who is ‘the man for others’?

5 Fifth and finally, how as a Church can we resist the temptation to continue dispensing cheap grace? So often, success in the Church is measured by how well we fill the pews, and whether we send people out happy and clapping. But sometimes prophetic voices can be isolated and left speaking to empty pews. A congregation that goes out into the world feeling uncomfortable but challenged may be better prepared to take the light of Christ into the world of darkness. Dispensing cheap grace should never be the task of the truly prophetic priest.

It is not easy to rejoice in these challenges. But we can accept them as blessings, and must give thanks for prophetic life and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyr priest and prophet, who challenged us to consider ‘the Cost of Discipleship’.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer questioned the proper role of a Christian in the midst of political turmoil … ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die’

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 7 September 2025, Trinity XII):

The theme this week (7 to 13 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Cementing a Legacy’ (pp 36-37). This theme is introduced today with reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG:

How can one person’s legacy spark lasting change?

A remarkable act of generosity and hard work is bearing fruit in the Diocese of South West Tanganyika, part of the Anglican Church of Tanzania. This ambitious project has culminated in a brand new housing and retail complex which has roots that stretch back decades – to the life and legacy of Ms Eira Lloyd.

Ms Lloyd served as a missionary and teacher in Tanzania for 35 years, between the 1940s and 1980s. She dedicated her life to the Anglican Church of Tanzania, working closely with Mothers’ Union. Tanzania became her home and her love for her community endured beyond her lifetime. When she passed away, she left a legacy gift to the diocese, enabling this project to take shape in her memory.

The diocese, recognising the potential of her gift, fundraised to acquire land and developed a detailed plan with support from USPG. Thanks to funding from Trinity Church Wall Street and local efforts, the vision became a reality. The rental income from the 12 hostel rooms and retail space will support the diocese’s educational work and care for orphans, women, and young people in the region.

‘It takes a lot of planning and hard work to get to this point. It proves what tremendous fruit can come from the small seed of faithful service,’ reflected The Revd Canon Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary USPG, drawing on the wonderful legacy of Ms Eira Lloyd.

Inspired? Visit uspg.org.uk to find out more about leaving a legacy.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 7 September 2025, Trinity XII) invites us to read and meditate on Luke 14: 25-33.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of all mercy,
in this eucharist you have set aside our sins
and given us your healing:
grant that we who are made whole in Christ
may bring that healing to this broken world,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of constant mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (seventh from left) among the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (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

Patrick Comerford’s sermon in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on 5 February 2006, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was published in ‘A Year of Sermons at Saint Patrick’s, Dublin’ (pp 19-22)

The future of sculptures by Epstein and Meadows seems unclear as the TUC sells off Congress House

Congress House on Great Russell Street, London, built in 1958, is being dold by the TUC (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The future of two famous and favourite sculptures in Bloomsbury seems uncertain as the TUC (Trades Union Congress) moved to the final stages of selling off Congress House on Great Russell Street, close to the British Museum.

The TUC agreed last year to sell off Congress House after reports showed major work was needed if the building it was to keep up with environmental standards. The TUC is looking for a new modern home for the trade union movement.

The TUC appointed Newmark (formerly Gerard Eve) to manage the sale and a competitive tender process. Congress House was viewed 100 times and 10 bids from prospective buyers were narrowed down to three bids before he TUC has agreed on 28 June to prepare heads of agreement for a sale.

Already the basement and other storage spaces have been cleared, significant documents have been transferred to the TUC archives at Warwick, and a project is in hand to preserve the history of Congress House.

The sale of Congress House, a Grade II listed building with ca 138,000 sq ft across six floors, has also meant the closure of Congress Centre, a well-known London venue, on 4 July and redundancy negotiations with many staff members.

‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Congress House has been the TUC headquarters since 1958, and Congress Centre appeared in popular television shows such as Killing Eve and Netflix’s The Crown.

David du Roi Aberdeen won an architectural competition to design the new TUC headquarters in Great Russell Street in 1948. Staff began to move into the offices in 1956. Congress House was officially opened on 27 March 1958 along with the unveiling of a giant pietà-style statue of a woman cradling her dead son. Carved in situ in the internal courtyard by Sir Jacob Epstein, it was commissioned as a memorial to trade unionists who had died in the two world wars.

Epstein had previously cast a bronze portrait of the TUC General Secretary Ernest Bevin, commissioned in 1943. Although he was invited by the TUC General Secretary to enter the competition he refused. But he agreed to take on a paid commission, and argued that he should be paid for his labour.

The Pietà sculpture by Jacob Epstein at Congress House (Photograph: Matt Brown / Wikipedia / CCL 2.0)

The scale of the installation means the final piece looks very different from the original model. It was described in a contemporary TUC internal document as ‘a memorial for the dead and an act of faith for the living’.

The front of the building is dominated by ‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’, a bronze sculpture by Bernard Meadows representing the spirit of trade unionism with the strong helping the weak. It was cast section by section by skilled craftsmen. It shows two semi-clad male figures, one standing over the other; one figure is sitting helpless on the ground while the other is stretching out to help him.

Bernard Meadows (1915-2005) was associated at an different stages in his career with Henry Moore, and was also part of the Geometry of Fear school, a loose-knit group of sculptors whose prominence was established at the 1952 Venice Biennale.

Meadows was born in Norwich in 1915, and educated at the City of Norwich School. After training as an accountant, he attended Norwich School of Art and in 1936 became Henry Moore's first assistant at his studio in Kent, and took part in the first Surrealist exhibition in London that year. He moved to Chalk Farm on 1937, assisting Moore in his studio at Hampstead, and he studied at the Royal College of Art and at the Courtauld Institute.

At the outbreak of World War II, Meadows registered as a conscientious objector. But when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he withdrew his objection and was called up to the Royal Air Force.

After World War II, he returned to Moore’s studio and helped him with his marble sculpture ‘Three Standing Figures’ (1947) and his bronze ‘Family Group’ (1949). He found acclaims with an elm figure exhibited in the open air sculpture exhibition at Battersea Park in 1951, alongside the Festival of Britain, which went to the Tate Gallery.

Meadows exhibited in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale a year later, with Anthony Caro, Lynn Chadwick and Eduardo Paolozzi. Their angular styles, contrasted with the rounded work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth gave them the name of the ‘Geometry of Fear.’ His edgy pieces often based on animals and seemingly carved from shrapnel could imply Cold War menace.

His first solo exhibition was at Gimpel Fils in 1957, with four more in the decade to 1967, and he also exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1964.

Meadows was a Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art for 20 years, from 1960 to 1980. He returned to assist Henry Moore again at Perry Green, Hertfordshire, from 1977, after Moore’s health started to fail. After Moore died in 1986, he became an acting director of the Henry Moore Foundation. He died in London in 2005.

‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House represents the spirit of trade unionism with the strong helping the weak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Congress House was one of the earliest post-war buildings in Britain to be listed at Grade II*, in 1988. The design by the London-born architect David Du Roi Aberdeen was chosen because it was explicitly modern. He employed real craftsmen who had a great passion for their work and used eclectic materials. All the labourers and craftsmen on site had to be a member of a trade union to work there.

Congress House is a significant post-war building in Bloomsbury and one of the great physical testaments of the British labour movement. It was designed to be light and airy and very different from the pre-war 1930s architecture found in many public buildings.

The building was 14 years in the making, its existence mandated by a resolution passed in 1944 calling for a new centre of the organised workforce, a proud space that could not only honour the ‘supreme sacrifice’ trade unionists had made ‘in the successful prosecution of the war to overthrow the yoke of Nazi domination and the annihilation of the Nazi creed’, but also to encourage cultural development, training and participation among working people.

Its curved glass, lightness and open space resembles many of Le Corbusier’s unrealised design sketches. The wood was donated by fraternal unions from across the globe, while the street facings were shaped from Cornwall granite slabs as a gesture of solidarity with Cornish communities confronting souring economic prospects.

Much of the wood for the panelling was donated from trade unions and labour movements around the world, while the Cornish granite was sourced from a variety of quarries in order to help relieve unemployment in those areas.

All the construction work was completed and overseen by union members: even the Royal Horse Guards who were invited to perform a fanfare at the formal opening were made members of the Musicians’ Union for the occasion.

The end of Congress House is seen by many as a symbolic moment of selling off the family silver at a time where many unions are struggling to maintain relevance and the leading structures of the trade union movement seem to be losing their sense of direction.

The existence of the building was purely determined by union workers democratically mandating it, physically constructing it, aesthetically shaping it, and appealing to union workers from across the world for assistance in its realisation. Now it may soon fall into the hands of private developers, and no-one seems to be expressing concern for the future of the works by Epstein and Meadows.

What is the future for ‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Seven members of the extended Comerford family remembered on VJ Day, 80 years after war

Gerald Francis Commerford of the Australian Army Medical Corps was a Japanese prisoner of war and is named on Panel 26 on the Labuan Memorial in Borneo

Patrick Comerford

Commemorations are taking across the land marking VJ Day and the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japan and the end of World War II in Asia and Pacific on 15 August 1945.

It is only a week or since I was involved in commemorations marking the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945.

Being a pacifist has not stopped me from wanting to remember both VE Day (7 May) and VJ Day and to honour the sacrifices so many people made so that we would have democracy, freedom and justice 80 years later.

The wars in Ukraine and Russia, in Gaza, Israel and Palestine, and the meeting at an air force base in Alaska later today of two bellicose presidents, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, should remind us all that there are no victors in war, that there is no glory in war, and when politicians get it wrong the principal victims of war are ordinary, every day civilians, men, women and children.

Ironically, today’s talks between Trump and Putin, which are unlikely to bring any hope of peace in the world, take in Pacific region as we remember the end of World War II in the Pacific.

This afternoon, to mark VJ Day, I am recalling members of the Comerford, Commerford and Cumberford families who died in the Pacific region during World War II and whose names are recorded on memorials and graves by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The 19 members of this extended family I have found to date on Commonwealth War Graves include prisoners of war of the Japanese in Borneo, Burma (Myanmar), Hong Kong and Japan.

Seven Comerfords fought in the Asia and Pacific regions and five were Prisoners of War of the Japanese. They are remembered in the Sat Wan Memorial in Hong Kong, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery and the Rangoon Memorial in Burma (Myanmar), Yokohama War Cemetery in Japan, and the Labuan Memorial on Labuan Island off the coast of Sabah in Borneo, Malaysia.

They were the members of the ‘Forgotten Army’, but they should not be forgotten, nor should the threat and dangers of war be forgotten. These seven people I am remembering today on VJ Day are:

Ernest Edward Comerford: Australian; Lieutenant, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 3 Rec. Trg. Bn. Age: 28. Date of death: 18 July 1945. Service number: QX.35506. Family information: Son of John Edward and Rosina Comerford, of Townsville, Queensland. Grave/memorial reference: 2W. D. 8, Sydney War Cemetery.

Gerald Francis Commerford was born on 8 July 1919 in Maclean, Clarence Valley Council, New South Wales. He was a son of Denis and Margaret Sarah Commerford of Lower Lawrence, New South Wales. His family was originally from Ireland, and they were related to Denis Comerford, who gives his name to Comerford Way in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, near Milton Keynes.

Gerald was a private in a field ambulance unit in the Australian Army Medical Corps during World War II. He was one of over 2,000 Allied POWs held in the Sandakan camp in North Borneo. He was transferred there from Singapore as a part of B Force. The 1,494 POWs that made up B Force, were transported from Changi on 7 July 1942 on board the tramp ship Ubi Maru, arriving in Sandakan Harbour on 18 July 1942.

Gerald Commerford was 25 when he died of starvation while he was a prisoner of the Japanese in Borneo on 9 February 1945. He has no known grave, and is commemorated on Panel 26 on the Labuan Memorial on Labuan Island off the coast of Sabah in North Borneo, Malaysia.

James Matthew Comerford, Australian; Corporal, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/26 Bn. Age: 26. Date of death: 25 May 1943. Service number: QX17117. Family information: son of Edward Tobias and Ellen Cecelia Comerford, of Paddington, Queensland, Australia. Grave/memorial reference: A1. B. 19, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Burma (Myanmar).

John Commerford, United Kingdom; Lance Corporal, Middlesex Regiment, 1st Bn. Age: 27. Date of death: between 1 and 2 October 1942. Service number: 6010413. Family information: son of Serjeant TJ Commerford, The Royal Fusiliers, and of Mary Commerford, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, England. Grave/memorial reference: Column 14, Sat Wan Memorial, Hong Kong.

Noel Patrick Commerford, South African; Able Seaman, South African Naval Forces, HMS Cornwall. Age: ?. Date of death: 5 April 1942 (off the coast of Ceylon/Sri Lanka). Service number: 66493. Family information: son of Mrs P Commerford, of Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa; brother of Terence Commerford (see below), who died five months later. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 74, Column 1, Plymouth Naval Memorial.

Thomas Michael Comerford, Australian; Private, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/20 Bn. Age: 39. Date of death: 26 October 1943. Service number: NX55519. Family information: son of John and Bridget Ann Comerford. Grave/memorial reference: Aust. Sec. A.B.1, Yokohama War Cemetery, Japan.

William Comerford, United Kingdom; Fusilier, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 1st Bn. Age: 22. Date of death: 18 January 1943 (POW). Service number: 6981836. Family information: son of Edward William Comerford and Harriet Comerford, of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Grave/memorial reference: Face 11, Rangoon Memorial, Burma (Myanmar).

Behind each of these names and numbers are real-life stories … but more of these stories tomorrow evening.

Gerald Francis Commerford was a Japanese prisoner of war in Changi in Singapore and Sandakan camp in North Borneo

Friends House on Euston Road has been the London centre of Quaker life and action since 1927

Friends House on Euston Road, London, is the home of Quakers in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

For many commuters and rail travellers arriving at Euston Station in London, the first buildings they see emerging on the opposite, south side of Euson Road are two prominent church or religious buildings: Saint Pancras Church on the corner of Tavistock Place, with its two striking sets of caryatids inspired by the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens, and Friends House, the imposing but elegant centre of Quaker life in Britain.

I have known Friends House since the early 1970s, and I attended various meetings there in that decade. I also used the library to research the lives of Francis Comberford (ca 1620-1679) of Bradley Hall, a magistrate who became a Quaker in 1653 while he was living at Comberford Hall; his wife Margaret (Skrimshire) Comberford; and their daughter Mary Comberford (ca 1641/1642-1700), a Quaker mystic and visionary.

Mary Comberford wrote to the founding Quaker, George Fox, from Stafford on 19 April 1690, addressing him affectionately as ‘My dear friend,’ ‘Dear Friend’ and ‘My dear love in the everlasting truth …’ and sending ‘dear love to thy wife & children.’ George Fox died nine months later on 13 January 1691.

Friends House at 173-177 Euston Road is an imposing and elegant building in Bloomsbury, facing Euston Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Friends House at 173-177 Euston Road is an imposing and elegant building in Bloomsbury and it is a hub for many events, meetings, conferences, and gatherings. It is easy to find, and I often use the café there as a venue when I am arranging to meet friends in London.

Friends House is a large and dignified building dating from the mid-1920s, designed by the Quaker architect Hubert Lidbetter (1885-1966) in a neo-Georgian style. It succeeded Devonshire House in Bishopsgate as the administrative centre of the Society of Friends or Quakers and as the home of Britain Yearly Meeting. It is a multi-use building, housing the central offices of British Quakers, with large worship spaces. But it is also a conference centre and it has a bookshop, a popular café, a courtyard and a garden that is familiar to many people.

Before 1926, the central offices of British Quakers were at Devonshire House on Bishopsgate. The Society of Friends had been renting rooms there since 1666, and before that it had been the London home of the Dukes of Devonshire. Over time, Quakers obtained the lease of the building and the adjoining ground and built purpose-built meeting houses and offices.

By 1911, the site was no longer of sufficient size for the number of people who worked there and a committee was set up to consider rebuilding or moving.

Friends House stands on the site of Endsleigh Gardens, bought in 1923 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

After a lengthy debate among Quakers, it was agreed to sell the site and Devonshire House site and look for new premises. Meanwhile, the freehold of Endsleigh Gardens came on the market. These private gardens on the south side of Euston Road, opposite Euston Station, were originally part of the Duke of Bedford’s Estate, and by 1923 they were owned by Sir Alfred Butt (1878-1962), a financier, theatre owner and the Conservative MP for Balham and Tooting. Butt sold the freehold of the gardens to the Society of Friends for £45,000 in 1923.

The choice of Endsleigh Gardens was controversial at the time because it was a greenfield site, and the London Society criticised the building of Friends House.

The east third of the site was later sold to raise money for the construction of the new building. The purchaser agreed to maintain a small garden between the projected buildings jointly with Friends but the planned temperance hotel failed to materialise. In return for permission to bring the building line forward by 20 ft, a 30-ft wide strip of land was surrendered for widening Euston Road by the London County Council.

After the site was bought, five Quaker architects were invited to submit outline plans for a new building: Hubert Lidbetter, Peter R Allison, C Ernest Ellcock, Ralph Thorp and Frederick Rowntree. The architect William Curtis Green, who had designed the Quaker adult school in Croydon in 1908, was the assessor.

The specifications included a large meeting house that could seat 1,500 people for Yearly Meeting, a smaller meeting house, office space and a library with strong rooms. Part of the new building was to be rented commercially to provide a regular income to cover maintenance.

The winning design was created by Hubert Lidbetter, and Friends House was built by Grace and Marsh of Croydon, whose founding partners were Quakers.

A courtyard close to the bookshop and café at Friends House in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Lidbetter’s neo-Georgian design of Friends House is simple but elegant, in Portland stone and brick, with three distinct blocks, each with its own entrance: the east section, with the garden entrance, was designed for administration; the central block with the colonnaded entrance on Euston Road contained the large and small meeting spaces; and the west block, with its entrance onto Gordon Street, was created for letting out. This west block, now known as Drayton House, was named after Fenny Drayton, eight miles east of Tamworth, where George Fox was born in 1624.

The completed building won the RIBA Bronze medal in 1927 for the best building erected in London that year. The Architectural Review said it was ‘eminently Quakerly … [it] unites common sense with just so much relief from absolute plainness as gives pleasure to the eye.’

Friends House has numerous meeting rooms and conference halls of varying sizes. The meeting rooms are named after prominent Quakers and peace campaigners, including Bayard Rustin, Lucretia Mott, John Woolman, Ada Salter, Waldo Williams, George Bradshaw, Kathleen Lonsdale, Abraham Darby, Hilda Clark, Marjorie Sykes, Margaret Fell, Sarah Fell, Benjamin Lay, Elizabeth Fry and George Fox.

The collection in the library at Friends House dates from the 1650s, and includes the records and archives of Britain Yearly Meeting and one of the largest collections of Quaker books and material.

A poster at Friends House in London promoting Quaker values (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When Mahatma Gandhi visited Britain in 1931 for the Round Table Conferences on constitutional reforms in India, he made his first public speech in London in the large meeting house in Friends House.

Hundreds of women gathered at Friends House in 1938 to protest about the cost of living. One young housewife who spoke said: ‘We do not ask for strawberries and cream, we only ask for bread and butter.’

The Prime Minister of Jamaica, Norman Manley, spoke at a gathering at Friends House after the Notting Hill riots in 1958.

The first international conference on sanctions against South Africa was organised by the Anti-Apartheid Movement and took place in Friends House in 1964. The speakers included Oliver Tambo, then deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC).

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at a reception in Friends House arranged by the Quaker Peace and Race Relations Committees shortly before he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The offices of what was then London Yearly Meeting were broken into in 1971, probably by the South African Intelligence Services, and files of the Friends Peace and International Relations Committee on work in South Africa were stolen.

Some of the paving slabs creating a timeline of more than 20 key dates in Quaker history at Friends House (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Friends House was Grade II-listed in May 1996. Then, in 2014, the large meeting house was refurbished by John McAslan and Partners and transformed into ‘The Light’, a 1,000-delegate capacity auditorium. A 200 sq m floor space and a skylight were created. At the same time, the small meeting house has been subdivided. The library and the public spaces still retain something of their original character.

In an echo of Lidbetter’s 1927 RIBA bronze medal, ‘The Light’ won an RIBA regional award in 2015.

The garden at Friends House links Euston Road and Endsleigh Gardens and is open from early morning to late afternoon. The garden was relandscaped in 2016, following a design by the Quaker horticulturist Wendy Price and John Mc Aslan and Partners inspired by the Waldo Williams poem ‘In Two Fields.’

A pathway was added, carved with a timeline of more than 20 key dates in Quaker history, highlighting significant points through three centuries, from persecution to permission to worship and marry; campaigning against slavery and landmines, and for mental health, justice, sexuality and sustainability.

Prominent Quakers named on the paving slabs include George Fox, Margaret Fell, William Penn and Elizabeth Fry, and the families who founded the Cadbury and Rowntree chocolate businesses and the Barclay and Lloyds banks.

Drayton House, the west part third of the building, has always been used separately. It currently accommodates the Department of Economics of University College London and the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution.

Drayton House is the home of the Department of Economics at University College London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Hubert Lidbetter was the most prolific architect of Quaker meeting houses in the 20th century, his career spanning the 1920s to the 1960s. He was a Quaker and trained in the office of the established Quaker architect Frederick Rowntree (1860-1927). His career took off when he won the competition for Friends House in 1923. He became Surveyor to the Six Weeks Meeting, which administers Quaker property in the Greater London area, in 1935, and held that post until 1957.

Lidbetter was experienced in the sympathetic restoration of old buildings, and as Surveyor he worked on historic meeting houses, as well as building new ones. He published a significant article on Quaker architecture, ‘Quaker Meeting Houses 1670-1850’, in Architectural Review (April 1946) and he was the author of the first book on the subject, The Friends Meeting House (1961).

Lidbetter designed at least 16 new meeting houses. His large urban meeting houses include Friends House, London (1924-27), Bull Street, Birmingham (1931-1933), Liverpool (1941, demolished) and Sheffield (1964, no longer in Quaker use). However, more typical of his work was the domestic neo-Georgian character of his many smaller meeting houses, mainly in and around London. His Grade II listed meeting house in Croydon (1956) is Arts and Crafts in inspiration

Martin Lidbetter (1914-1992) succeeded to his father’s post, continuing the practice into the 1970s. Besides designing meeting houses, the practice also undertook work for Quaker schools, and commissions for the Methodist and Congregational churches, the Baptists, and the Salvation Army. Their office buildings include the former headquarters of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, a short distance to the east of Friends House. It was built in 1953-1957, and is now a Grade II building known as Bentham House.

In a corridor at Friends House in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

• Friends House continues to be the primary venue for Britain Yearly Meeting. Friends House Meeting also meets in the building, and its Meeting for Worship takes place each Sunday for an hour from 11 am to 12 noon in the George Fox room on the second floor.

Friends House continues to be the primary venue for Britain Yearly Meeting and is also used on Sunday mornings by Friends House Meeting (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Nagasaki cathedral blesses a new bell replacing the bell destroyed 80 years ago by the second atomic bomb

Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki … the new bell was hung in the north bell tower (left) today, 80 years after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki (Photograph: Yomiuri Shimbun

Patrick Comerford

Eighty years ago this week, the world passed into a terrifying new age. The mushroom clouds that rose above Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 announced not only that we have the capacity to slaughter each other in staggering numbers, but also that humanity now possesses the means to raze all civilisation as we know it. Yet, despite the defining nature of these bombings, these dreadful events at the end of World War II may feel distant for many eight decades later.

Today, every one of the crew members who carried out the bombings is dead. But many of the survivors, now in their 80s, still live with the physical, psychological and social scars of that dreadful week.

I was involved earlier this week in a number of events marking the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Two of us attended the annual Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Japanese Peace Pagoda by Willen Lake in Milton Keynes on Wednesday evening. I also recorded reflections and memories of my own activism for events organised by the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and Christian CND and in Dublin by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance. But I am conscious too that today marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki three days later on 9 August 1945.

One of the bell towers at Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki was left empty all those years until a replacement bell was finally installed earlier today. The replacement bell was installed after a successful international effort to fund it raised $125,000 in just over a year from more than 600 donors.

The atomic bomb at Nagasaki killed 70,000 people instantly, while many thousands more continued to die for months and years afterwards from the effects of burns, radiation sickness and other injuries compounded by illness and malnutrition. The bomb fell near the cathedral, where killed g two priests and 24 people inside among the more than 70,000 dead in the city. Nagasaki Peace Park, which marks the centre of the explosion, includes a section of wall from the destroyed cathedral.

Following the bombing of Nagasaki, the parishioners at Urakami Cathedral managed to dig up one of the original bells at the site of the destroyed cathedral, and that bell was installed in the right-hand bell tower of the new cathedral when it was rebuilt in 1959. The other bell was destroyed and the second bell tower of the rebuilt cathedral has remained empty for decades.

The funding initiative for the replacement bell was launched by James Nolan, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His recent books include Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (Harvard University Press, 2020). The book examines the moral dilemma of medical doctors who took part in the Manhattan Project, is based on materials his grandfather left behind.

Dr Nolan’s involvement in the project has a personal aspect: his grandfather served as the chief medical officer at the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was developed, and he later visited Nagasaki and Hiroshima with a survey team following the atomic bombing of the two cities.

Professor Nolan visited Nagasaki frequently while he was researching and writing a book about the local Catholic population and their response to the bombing. He told the Catholic News Agency (CNA) how Kojiro Moriuchi, a parishioner at the cathedral, told him two years ago (2023) that it would be ‘wonderful if American Catholics gave us the bell for the left tower’. He responded by helping to spearhead the efforts to make it happen.

Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura Nagasaki blessed the new bell last month (17 July 2025) and named it the ‘Saint Kateri Bell of Hope’.

Speaking at the blessing ceremony, Professor Nolan said that US Catholics ‘expressed sorrow, regret, sadness and a wish for forgiveness and reconciliation’ on learning about the destruction wrought at Nagasaki.

One person wrote to him: ‘May the ringing of these bells continue to remind the people of Nagasaki of our sorrow for what their people have endured and reassure them of ours and God’s love for them.’ Another told him that the gift of the new bell would help ‘heal the wounds’ of the war and bolster ‘progress to world peace’.

The bell was officially installed earlier today, 80 years to the day after the cathedral and the surrounding parish were levelled by the atomic bomb. The bell was rung at 11:02 am, the exact moment when the bomb detonated about 1,600 ft from the cathedral.

Dr Nolan says he hopes the new bell at the cathedral ‘will bear the fruit of fostering hope and peace and solidarity between American and Japanese Catholics’.

A prayer for Nagasaki today

All the crew members who flew on the missions to Hiroshima and to Nagasaki have died. Meanwhile, the numbers of hibakusha, the people who survived the attacks, are rapidly dwindling in numbers too. We are passing into a twilight of history, yet the world has become a more dangerous place. More nations are developing nuclear weapons with few, if any, effective international controls. Trump has redeployed nuclear missiles closer to Russian territory, Putin and Kim Jong-un have explicitly threatened tactical nuclear strikes, we have come close to war in the Middle East over responses to allegations that Iran is close to having a bomb, and India and Pakistan, two covert nuclear powers, have come close to war in recent months.

The bomb was tested in New Mexico on 16 July. Its blast was equivalent to the destructive payload of 2,000 B-29s. The New Mexico test explosion was described as the hottest and brightest thing since the creation. Little Boy, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima used enriched uranium. But Fat Man, the Nagasaki bomb, was more sophisticated, using plutonium.

Nagasaki was never the first choice as a target. Three cities were selected, in a descending order: Hiroshima, Kokura (now called Kitakyushu) or Nagasaki; and the deciding factor would be the weather.

Originally the second bomb was intended to be dropped on 11 August – five days after Hiroshima. Kokura was 100 miles north of Nagasaki and home to one of Japan’s largest military arsenals. With Hiroshima devastated, this No 2 city had now moved up to the top of the list and Nagasaki was a backup in case bombing Kokura was ruled out.

The weather forecast predicted clear conditions over Kokura. But on the morning of 9 August the US plane ran headlong into the first of the thunderstorms. Kokura was saved by an accident of weather. When the crew diverted to Nagasaki, the city was covered in cloud.

In a bizarre coincidence, the Nagasaki bomb was detonated almost directly over the factory that once made the torpedoes used in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Six days later, on 15 August, battered by both nuclear attacks and suffering a crushing Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Japan finally surrendered.

The number of people who were killed in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on those two fatal mornings will never be known, but they may number 200,000 to 300,000 people or more. They were men, women, and children. The overwhelming majority were in their own homes on those mornings. Few were in the military, the overwhelming majority were civilians. Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate: they do not distingush between cvilians and the miliary, between adults and children, betweem hospitals and factories. They are weapons of mass destruction, they are agents of genocide, they are crimes against humanity.

80 years after Hiroshima, we are 89 seconds to midnight.What are we to do?

Patrick Comerford

It is now 89 seconds to midnight.

Well, actually, it’s earlier in the day. I’m at the Japanese Peace Pagoda at Willen Lake in Milton Keynes. Later this evening, this place is going to mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, 80 years ago, on 6 August 1945.

This year’s ceremony also recalls the bombing of Nagasaki, the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, and remembers all the victims of war everywhere.

It is 80 years since the first day nuclear weapons were ever used. And it has only got worse ever since.

We are now 89 seconds to midnight.

It is a stark warning that came from the Bulletin of the Scientific Scientists as they reset the Doomsday Clock earlier this year [28 January 2025]

They set the Clock one second closer to midnight, they say, because the world is so perilously close to the precipice. A move of even a single second is an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.

By moving the Doomsday Clock from 90 to 89 seconds to midnight, the scientists warn that we are now the closest to catastrophe we have ever been.

They list a number of alarming signals as they warn about the risk of nuclear war, including:

The war in Ukraine, which could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation.

The conflict in the Middle East is threatening at every moment to spiral out of control into a wider war.

The countries that have nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilisation.

The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand.

Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own – actions that would undermine longstanding non-proliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.

It is now 89 seconds to midnight.

As we have seen this year, nuclear weapons are not – and have never been – a deterrent, a way of preventing an outbreak of war.

We have seen the US and Israel use stoked-up fears of nuclear capability to bomb supposed nuclear facilities in Iran. But in all this, they never acknowledge the hypocrisy of continuing to grow their own nuclear stockpiles.

We have seen India and Pakistan – two of the covert nuclear powers – move close to the brink with a border clash, and being reprimanded by Trump and other world leaders who continue to keep their fingers on their own nuclear triggers.

In addition, the scientists warn that the impacts of climate change increased in recent months as sea-level rise, global temperatures surpass previous records, other indicators surpass all records, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

The dangers they list are greatly exacerbated by a potent threat multiplier: the spread of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories degrade the communication ecosystem and increasingly blur the line between truth and falsehood.

The United States, Russia and China have the collective power to destroy civilisation. They have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink. They can do so, but only if their leaders seriously begin good-faith discussions about these global.

They have to take that first step without delay. The world depends on immediate action.

It is 89 seconds to midnight.

The Cold War came to an end over 30 years ago, in 1991. During those tense years, for almost half a century after Hiroshima, we were told by the United States and the Soviet Union that nuclear weapons were only there as mutual deterrents – what was called MAD or ‘mutual assured destruction.’

But instead of things getting better since then, things get worse, and they look like getting worse.

Trump is committed to a horrendous increase in his nuclear armoury, he has sent troops onto the streets against the people of his nation, and he is silencing the voices not only of protest but of critical journalists who ask basic yet simple questions.

Putin has waged war against his nearest neighbour, even critics within the system are dealt with capriciously.

Britain has agreed to take even more US nuclear missiles on British soil, unravelling all the achievements of the women at Greenham Common in the 1980s and 1990s.

All the nuclear powers, instead of using their power for good, are complicit in the use of starvation, hunger and famine as weapons of mass destruction in the Gaza Strip and the sectarian slaughters in Syria.

We are frozen in fear, a fear that is more immobilising than the most freezing days of the Cold War.

And we are 89 seconds to midnight.

What are we to do?

What are people of faith to do?

It is easy to despair when we see so-called evangelicals in America, dazzled and enthralled by the Trump regime, unquestioning in their blind allegiance, uncritical in their response, falling down before the idolatrous altar of a god-less and fear-less regime.

It is easy to despair when we see the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, concocting theological positions that justify their unquestioning and blind allegiance to the Putin state, uncritical in their response, falling down before the idolatrous altar of a god-less and fear-less regime.

It is sad when a retired Bishop of the Church of England sees fit to take up almost a full page in the Church Times close to this anniversary to twist the ‘just war’ theory to justify the continuing stockpiling of nuclear weapons (see the Church Times, 25 July 2025, p 17).

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. The bright light of the Transfiguration is a very different light to the atomic flash that consumed Hiroshima 80 years ago.

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 9: 28-36), Peter, James and John, instead of being transfigured, are transfixed. They are terrified.

They want to remain frozen in the present or even in the past, building memorials instead of engaging in action.

But Jesus leads them back down the mountain, and leads them into action. Immediately after, he heals, he rebukes evil (verse 43-47, 49-50), he shows how valuable the children and the voiceless are (46-48), he calls us to Costly Discipleship (verses 43-45, 57-62), and he actually rebukes and condemns indiscriminate violence against civilian populations and people we are in danger of seeing as our ideological opponents, as enemies (verses 51-56).

We are 89 seconds to midnight.

But we have hope. We are called to action. We are called to speak up for the voiceless and those seen as having no value; we must rebuke violence and chastise the powerful.

80 years after Hiroshima, we are 89 seconds to midnight.

But let us not be transfixed or be immobilised. Christ calls us to go back down that mountain to act, and to be living signs of the Kingdom.

We are 89 seconds to midnight.

But we are children of light.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is a former President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a former chair of Christian CND, and an Anglican priest. This reflection was prepared for an online vigil on Hiroshima Day 6 August 2025, organised by Christian CND and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship.

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 89, Wednesday 6 August 2025, The Transfiguration

The Transfiguration depicted in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó, in the hills above Hersonissos in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on image for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VII). The Church Calendar today celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration (6 August 2025).

Today also marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. To mark this auspicious anniversary, I have recorded contributions to two seminars or gatherings today, one organised by Christian CND and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, the other in Dublin organised by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance.

Later this evening, Charlotte and I plan to take part in the annual Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Japanese Peace Pagoda beside Willen Lake in Milton Keynes, a ceremony we have been attending for the past four years.

The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and Christian CND are marking Hiroshima Day with an online vigil at 8 pm this evening.

I visited Hiroshima when I was a student in Japan in 1979, and for over 40 years I took part in Irish CND’s Hiroshima Day commemorations in Merrion Park, Dublin. During the day, I shall be remembering the many victims of the Hiroshima and the survivors. 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 Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in the mountains above Hersonissos in Crete was established in 2002, completed in 2008 and dedicated in 2014 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 9: 28-36 (NRSVA):

28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’ – not knowing what he said. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

The icon of the Transfiguration in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

This morning’s reflection:

Earlier this year, I was back in Crete, staying in Rethymnon for the Greek celebrations of Easter. During the previous year, I managed also to return to the village of Piskopianó in the hillside above Hersonissos, which I have known for more than 30 years, since the mid-1990s.

The new village church in Piskopianó has been renamed the Church of the Transfiguration was built in 2002-2008 and was dedicated in 2014. A fresco of the Transfiguration in the church shows, on the left, Christ leading the three disciples, Peter, James and John, up the mountain; in the centre, these three disciples are stumbling and falling as they witness and experience the Transfiguration; and then, to the right, Christ is leading these three back down the side of the mountain.

In other words, we are invited to see the Transfiguration not as a static moment but as a dynamic event. It is a living event in which we are invited to move from all in the past that weighs us down, to experience the full life that Christ offers us today, and to bring this into how we live our lives as Disciples in the future, a future that begins here and now.

The Transfiguration is both an event and a process. The original Greek word for Transfiguration in the Gospels is μεταμόρφωσις (metamorphosis), which means ‘to progress from one state of being to another.’ Consider the metamorphosis of the chrysalis into the butterfly. Saint Paul uses the same word (μεταμόρφωσις) when he describes how the Christian is to be transfigured, transformed, into the image of Christ (II Corinthians 3: 18).

This metamorphosis invites us into the event of becoming what we have been created to be. This is what Orthodox writers call deification. Transfiguration is a profound change, by God, in Christ, through the Spirit. And so, the Transfiguration reveals to us our ultimate destiny as Christians, the ultimate destiny of all people and all creation – to be transformed and glorified by the majestic splendour of God himself.

The Transfiguration points to Christ’s great and glorious Second Coming and the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God, when all of creation shall be transfigured and filled with light.

According to Saint Gregory Palamas, the light of the Transfiguration ‘is not something that comes to be and then vanishes.’ It not only prefigures the eternal blessedness that all Christians look forward to, but also the Kingdom of God already revealed, realised and come.

The Transfiguration is described in the three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 17: 1-9; Mark 9: 2-8; Luke 9: 28-36), and all three accounts are very similar in wording.

The Transfiguration is an encounter with God as the Trinity; it is a reminder with the presence of Moses and Elijah that Christ is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets; it is a meeting of past, present and future; and it is a reminder of how frail is our humanity in the responses of the three Disciples present, Peter, James and John.

The Transfiguration is a reminder that God has created us in God’s image and likeness, that in Christ’s Incarnation, God took on our image and likeness, and that now we are called once again to take on the image and likeness of God.

In a lecture in Cambridge many years ago [2011], I heard the late Metropolitan Kallistos [Ware], who was the pre-eminent Orthodox theologian in England, speak of the Transfiguration as a disclosure not only of what God is but of what we are. It reminds us of our beginning, but also reminds us of the possibilities and the potentials of what it is to become like God once again.

But is the response of the disciples to the Transfiguration one that we should imitate or emulate?

As they hear the voice of God, they fall down in terror, they are overcome by fear, they are made speechless.

They are immobilised and when they think of acting, look at what they want to do: they want to put up three booths, or tents, or dwelling places, in which they can keep Jesus and Moses and Elijah. It is as if, frightened of the new, they want to fall back on the old certainties.

It is as if they want to contain God, to capture God, to keep God in a place where they can be assured of the old certainties, to turn God into a god that they can contain, capture and control. They want to put God in a box, to keep God in a box.

And, so often, instead of wanting to be in the image and likeness of God, people want God to be in our image and likeness, doing our bidding rather than listening to what God wants of us.

Seeking to capture God, to make God a captive and to control God, are strong religious instincts throughout history. In the 20th century, Hitler used the German Churches to control the people of Germany. In more recent years, the simple faith of many American people has been hijacked to support extreme politics in a land that once prided itself on the separation of state and religion.

This is what Professor Rachel S Mikva of Chicago Theological Seminary describes as ‘dangerous religious ideas’ (Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Penguin, 2020).

In an ‘Opinion’ column for USA Today in the wake of Donald Trump’s attempt to storm the Capitol in Washington on 6 January 2021, she argued that ‘Religion is a dangerous business.’ In the response to the insurrection and violence in Washington, she tried to go beyond the revulsion all of us must feel when white Christian nationalism turns violent, and she drew attention to the ‘substantial number of Christians who plan to take the country for Jesus another way.’

The Christian right is ‘distorting the very meaning of religious freedom,’ she wrote. There is the obvious danger we have seen recently, with extremists who call themselves Christians ‘ready to bring on the apocalypse.’

But she warns of ‘a more resilient threat’ posed by people who claim the mantle of being Christians and who are ‘embedded throughout the governing institutions in the US – courts, military, legislatures, agencies and the police.’ In her words, they pose a real threat ‘to religious pluralism in the United States.’

She argued cogently for the need for ‘consciousness of the vital self-critical dimensions of faith,’ and said: ‘Whatever one’s spiritual life stance, we are choosing in every moment whether its power will be wielded for harm or for blessing.’

Power for harm; or power for blessing.

Do we want to keep God in a box as a power for harm; or do we really want to see God being God, and empowering us to be a power for blessing in the world?

I see this as the first great challenge posed by the Transfiguration.

And the second is like it: to see humanity as Christ in the Transfiguration would see us and would have us see each other.

Do I, so often, put people in a box in a way that denies they are made in the image and likeness of God? That they are called to become, once again, like God in Christ … what the Orthodox call ‘deification’ …?

Every time I dismiss someone because of their social background, where they were born, their gender, sexuality, ethnicity or parentage, I am making these differences more important than the way God sees them: made in God’s image and likeness, and holding, embodying the light of God in Christ.

Because those characteristics, those traits, are not self-chosen; they come at birth, we do not ask for them, you might say they are God-given. For, indeed, God sees us in God’s own image and likeness, God sees in each one of us the potential to reflect the light of Christ in the Transfiguration.

Let’s not box God in, hidden away under a booth or in a tent. Let God be God, and let’s stop trying to control him by using him to our political and social advantage.

Let’s stop categorising people so we marginalise them instead of seeing them in God’s image and likeness.

For, when we love God and love others, we see the light of God in them and, hopefully, they see the light of God in us.

When she was the guest chaplain in the House of Representatives in 1995, Rabbi Rachel Mikva included these thoughts in her prayers:

However passionately we may cling to our vision of truth,
we must never fail to recognise your image, God,
reflected in the face of the other …

Ultimately, we stand before you,
naked of power or possessions,
seeking only to understand your will
and do it with a whole heart …

God, we pray that our words and our deeds
may be for Your sake,
bringing healing to our world
and wholeness to all those whose lives we touch.

Amen. אָמֵן׃

Peter, John and James … a detail in the icon of the Transfiguration in the iconostasis in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 6 August 2025, The Transfiguration):

The theme this week (3 to 9 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Indigenous Wisdom’ (pp 24-25). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for the Americas and the Caribbean, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 6 August 2025, The Transfiguration) invites us to pray:

Lord God, on the mountain you revealed your glory and the Father’s voice declared you, his Son. Shine your light into our hearts, transform us by your presence, and lead us to reflect your love in the world.

An icon of the Transfiguration in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Father in heaven,
whose Son Jesus Christ was wonderfully transfigured
before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain,
and spoke of the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem:
give us strength so to hear his voice and bear our cross
that in the world to come we may see him as he is;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Holy God,
we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ:
may we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The chapel on the highest peak on Mount Athos, at 2,033 metres, is dedicated to the Transfiguration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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

The Monastery of Great Meteoro, the largest of the monasteries at Meteora, is dedicated to the Transfiguration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)