Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 131, Wednesday 16 September 2026

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Luke 7: 31-32) … traditional Greek folk music celebrated at a restaurant in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 13 September 2026).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (16 September) remembers Saint Ninian (ca 432), Bishop of Galloway and Apostle of the Picts, and Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), Priest and Tractarian.

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.

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Luke 7: 32) … ‘Τα κάλαντα’ (‘Carols’), Νικηφόρος Λύτρας (Nikiphoros Lytras)

Luke 7: 31-35 (NRSVA)

[Jesus said:] 31 ‘To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the market-place and calling to one another,

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not weep.”

33 ‘For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, “He has a demon”; 34 the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” 35 Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.’

Imagine going to a wedding but not getting onto the floor and dancing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

When we were looking at the Gospel reading yesterday, which told the story of the widow of Nain grieving her son at his funeral, I said how funeral stories and the stories of children being raised to life are not always the most cheerful Bible readings, and I recalled how that reading was particularly difficult when I was preaching one Sunday morning when I was baptising a little baby boy.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus compares ‘the people of this generation’ with children sitting in the market-place calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep’ (Luke 7: 31-32).

I have often stayed up late at weddings, at the receptions after funerals, and enjoying late night sporting events, especially rugby and football. Each time, in ways that were appropriate to each occasion, I have entered into the spirit of the event, and where possible, moved from being a mere spectator to being a full participant.

When we go to weddings and funerals … and as a priest I got my fair share of both … when we go to weddings and funerals, the attitude we go with makes a world of difference: do I go as a spectator or do I go as a participant?

Imagine going to a funeral and failing to offer sympathy to those who are grieving and mourning.

Shortly after my ordination, I was asked to officiate at my first wedding. Initially, I declined the invitation to go to the reception afterwards, until someone chided me gently and asked me: are you at this wedding as a spectator or as a participant?

Perhaps, as a new curate, I was too worried about sending out the wrong signals. If I stood back, would I be reproached for not eating and drinking with the people I was there to serve (see Luke 7: 33)? If I went, would I be seen as being there only for eating and drinking (verse 34)?

But it was never about me, surely; it was only ever about the couple getting married.

A student in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute was telling me once about her parish placement as an ordinand. Initially, she was uncomfortable with the style of worship and the theological emphasis of the parish she was placed in. But the parish reacted to her warmly and gently. And as the weeks rolled by she realised she had moved from being an observer on Sunday mornings, to being an engaged visitor, to being a participant.

When we join in waves and chants at a football match, join in the dance at weddings, sing the hymns and enter into the prayers at another church, cry and hug those who are grieving and mourning at a funeral, we move from being observers and spectators to being participants. And the great opportunity for this transformation is provided Sunday after Sunday, not at the Liturgy but in the Liturgy.

If you have been to the Middle East, or have just seen Fiddler on the Roof, you know that dancing at Jewish weddings was traditionally a male celebration. I have seen at funerals in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean that the open mourning and weeping is usually expressed on behalf of the community by women in particular.

Indeed, we know since classical times how a man’s worth in life was once counted by the number of women crying at his funeral.

These traditions were passed on through the generations by children watching learning from adults and by children in turn teaching one other.

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 7: 31-35), we see how Christ has noticed this in the streets and the back alleys as he moves through the towns and cities, probably in Galilee and along the Mediterranean shore.

He sees the children playing, the boys playing wedding dances, and the girls playing funeral wailing and mourning.

He notices the ways in which children can reproach each other for not joining in their playfulness:

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn. (verse 32)

Even as he speaks there is playfulness in the way Jesus phrases his observation poetically. There is humour in the way he uses Greek words that rhyme for dance and mourn at the end of each line of the children’s taunts:

Ηὐλήσαμεν ὑμῖν
καὶ οὐκ ὠρχήσασθε·
ἐθρηνήσαμεν
καὶ οὐκ ἐκλαύσατε.

Perhaps he was repeating an everyday rebuke in Greek at the time for people who stand back from what others are doing. We might put poetic rhyme on his lips here:

A wedding song we played for you,
The dance you did but scorn.
A woeful dirge we chanted too,
But then you would not mourn.

The boys playing tin whistles and beating tin drums are learning to become adult men. The girls wailing and beating their breasts in mock weeping are learning to become adult women. Each group is growing into the roles and rituals that will be expected of them when they mature.

Like all good children’s games, the point is the game, not who wins.

The games we played as children may now seem silly and pointless. But when we were children they mattered as a communal and community experience. The fun was not because there was anything to win. The fun was in taking part. And in taking part we were helped in the process of growing and maturing and making the transition from childhood to adolescence, and from adolescence to adulthood.

To and fro, back and forth, these boys and girls in the market place play the games of weddings and funerals.

The music they play shifts and changes its tones and tunes. This endless, pointless, repetition is their inherited way of learning and socialising. Their playfulness ensures their tradition and culture is reinforced and is handed on to the next generation.

But if the boys make music and the girls do not dance, if the girls wail, and the boys do not weep, how can they have a shared story, a shared adulthood, a shared culture, a shared future, a shared humanity?

When we refuse to take part in the game, in the ritual, we refuse to take part in the shaping of society, we are denying our shared culture. When I try exclude others from the taking part in the game, in the ritual, I am refusing them their role rightful in shaping society.

When reciprocity collapses, we are denying our shared humanity.

We can become paralysed by our inability to enter into the game of others. And then the game turns from song and dance to what we might call ‘the blame game.’

It is so easy when I withdraw from the social activities of others to blame them.

Yes, there is a time for dancing and a time for mourning: each has its proper place, and they flow into each other, like the children’s game when it is working. But when vanity gets in the way, there is a breakdown in our understanding of time and of humanity.

If I stand back detached, and remain a mere observer of the joys and sorrows in the lives of others, I am not sharing in their humanity.

And in not sharing in your humanity, I am failing to acknowledge that you too are made in the image and likeness of God.

But when we rejoice with people in their joys, and when we mourn with people in their sorrows, we are putting into practice what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us about us being not only made in the image and likeness of God individually but communally and collectively too as humanity.


The ‘Bottle Dance’ at the wedding in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 16 September 2026):

The theme this week (13 -19 September 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Witness as With-ness’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Canon Dr Peniel Rajkumar, Director of Global Mission and Theologian, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 16 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Merciful God, when I am tempted to complain, remind me of the suffering you bore. Form in me a heart that listens before it speaks.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who called your servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up in this and every land
heralds and evangelists of your kingdom,
that your Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who called your servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up in this and every land
heralds and evangelists of your kingdom,
that your Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow


‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Luke 7: 31-32) … music at the Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Peace Pagoda in Milton Keynes (Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 105, Thursday 20 August 2026

Waiting for guests at the Tai Tai restaurant in Kuching … we are all invited to the heavenly banquet, but are we ready to accept the invitation? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 16 August 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Bernard (1112-1153), Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher of the Faith; and William Booth (1829-1912) and Catherine Booth (1829-1890), founders of the Salvation Army.

I hope to be involved in a drama group meeting in the library in Stony Stratford this evening, when we are reading the appropriately topical Peace by Aristophanes. This play was first staged just a few days before the validation of Peace of Nicias, which promised to end the ten-year-old Peloponnesian War, in 421 BCE. Earlier in the day, I have a number of tests, including blood tests, heart monitoring and an ECG, as my Vitamin B12 deficiency and sarcoidosis continue to be monitored. 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.

‘Go therefore into the … streets, and invite everyone you find to the … banquet’ (Matthew 22: 9) … empty tables at restaurants in the side streets in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Matthew 22: 1-14 (NRSVA):

1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.’

‘A Peasant Wedding’ (1620), Peter Brueghel the Younger, the National Gallery of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

‘For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Sometimes, the ways I can behave as a snob can catch me off-guard and unexpectedly, and I shame myself.

When I was growing up, the snobberies and class distinctions of previous generations were challenged over 60 years ago in an old-fashioned way in the film My Fair Lady (1964), based on George Bernard Shaw’s earlier play, Pygmalion (1913).

But Pygmalion also inspired what I think is a much funnier film, Hoi Polloi (1935), with the Three Stooges, Larry, Curly and Moe.

Two professors are arguing about whether our social behaviour is caused by environment or heredity. It is a very funny take on the old Nature v Nurture argument.

To settle a bet, the two professors take three binmen – Larry, Curly and Moe – train and coach them for three months, dress them up, and send them off to a posh society dinner.

Their behaviour descends into farce, and it looks as if one professor has won his bet: our social behaviour is dictated by inherited class.

But then the tables are turned – literally. Everyone else at the party descends to the same riotous behaviour. At a base level, we are all the same, even if some refuse to accept it.

Nature or nurture? It was an important statement that we all share the same humanity, coming as racism and the Nazis were on the rise in the 1930s.

The title of the film, Hoi Polloi, is a way of expressing class-based social prejudice. It is a Greek phrase, meaning ‘the many’ and it was used in Victorian England by people who had the benefit of a classical education in English public schools and the universities, to describe the masses, who they presumed did not understand the phrase.

Gilbert and Sullivan use the phrase to mock those who used it in their comic opera Iolanthe. Later, it was used by English public schoolboys in the 1950s and the 1960s, when they referred to ‘oips’ and ‘oiks’.

The term hoi polloi also appears in a scene in the film Dead Poets Society (1989). Professor John Keating, played by Robin Williams, speaks negatively about the use of the definite article ‘the’ in front of the phrase.

Steven Meeks (Allelon Ruggiero) raises his hands and speaks: ‘The hoi polloi. Doesn’t it mean the herd?’

Keating replies: ‘Precisely, Meeks. Greek for the herd. However, be warned that, when you say “the hoi polloi” you are actually saying “the the herd.” Indicating that you too are “hoi polloi”.’

This morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 22: 1-14) begins with a very joyful occasion – a posh nosh, a planned wedding, and generous invitations to a lavish banquet. But, instead of the farce in that film with the Three Stooges, it quickly descends into very difficult images: slaves who are kidnapped, mistreated and killed; cities that are burned down; a man who is bound hand and feet and thrown into outer darkness.

The images of the wedding banquet and the wedding covenant are important ways of describing our relationship with God.

But the parable in this morning’s Gospel reading is particularly difficult.

The king has invited a long list of guests, but even after being repeatedly sought out, none of these guests comes to the banquet.

To refuse to come, to refuse a king’s command, is treason; to kill his slaves amounts to insurrection. So the king sends out troops to put down the rebellion.

The king then sends his slaves into the streets to find enough people to sit at the tables at the wedding banquet. The phrase translated as ‘the main streets’ (διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν, verse 9), means not the main fashionable, shopping streets in a chic part of a city centre. It refers to dirty, gritty, street corners and junctions, perhaps the main junctions outside the city gates.

This is the place where those who want to be hired as labour gather, where those who are refused entry wait without hope, this is where those who are on margins are found. Other translations catch these images when they talk about the highways and the byways.

And the king’s invitation, in verse 10, goes out to all people, ‘both good and bad.’

Yet, when the king sees that a man is not dressed appropriately for the event, the king throws him into the outer darkness. In this case, the robe probably symbolises the white robe worn for baptism.

Do we wear that robe all the time? In other words, do we live up to our promises of discipleship made at Baptism – summarised in the call to love God and to love others?

If you were to imagine yourself as one of the characters in this parable, who would you be?

And would you behave that way?

Are you the king, throwing a lavish wedding banquet?

Are you a wedding guest who has denied the generosity of the king?

Are you the bride or groom, sidelined and marginalised at our own wedding, incidental to all the power playing and role playing?

Are you one of the people brought in from the streets, but not prepared for the celebration about to take place?

Where do you find Good News in this parable?

What is meant by the many and the few here?

In our western way of thinking, the word many is a quantity much more than the majority, while few is many less than the majority. But in eastern thought, one less than 100% would be considered few.

We could put the Greek use of ‘few’ and ‘many’ by Christ in this parable in its cultural context. Pericles, in his ‘Funeral Oration’ in Athens, according to Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, uses ‘the many,’ οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), in a positive way when he extols democracy in Athens.

He contrasts ‘the many’ with ‘the few’ (οἱ ὀλίγοι, hoi oligoi), the few who abuse power and create an oligarchy, rule by the few. Pericles demands equal justice for ‘the many’, ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.

When we celebrate the Eucharist, we remember that Christ is the victim, and that he said his blood is shed ‘for you and for many.’ The word ‘you’ here means us, the Church, the few in this parable. But the phrase ‘the many’ here, οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), refers to the masses, the multitude, the great unwashed, who are called to the banquet too.

Christ’s invitation is not just to you and me, who know we are invited to the banquet. It is also for the many, the lumpen masses, all people, the ones who are not usually invited to the posh nosh, the Larry, Curly and Moe in our midst.

The invitation to come in, to celebrate at the banquet, symbolised in the Eucharist this morning, is not just for the few, the oligarchs. The many are invited to this banquet this morning.

Who are we to behave like a tyrannical despot and exclude them? For if we exclude them, we are in danger of excluding Christ himself.

‘Look, I have prepared my dinner … and everything is ready’ (Matthew 22: 3) … waiting for diners at the Black Horse in Great Linford, Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 20 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 16 to 22 August 2026 (pp 30-31), is ‘Hope in the Making’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Grace Murray, a USPG volunteer. The prayers this week come courtesy of passersby at Greenbelt Festival 2025.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 20 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Dear God, please forgive us for we have been selfish and misused your creation. We are sorry that nature has been hurt by humans. Help us to do better, Lord!

The Collect of the Day:

Merciful redeemer,
who, by the life and preaching of your servant Bernard,
rekindled the radiant light of your Church:
grant us, in our generation,
to be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love
and ever to walk before you as children of light;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Bernard to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Those who had been invited to the wedding banquet … would not come’ (Matthew 22: 3) … empty tables at the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

A grave in Kerameikós, Athens, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 59, Sunday 5 July 2026, Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity V)

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11: 17) … ‘Τα κάλαντα’ (‘Carols’), Νικηφόρος Λύτρας (Nikiphoros Lytras)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity V, 5 July 2026).

I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning. Then, later in the day, I hope to enjoy the annual Greek Festival, Paniyiri, taking place this afternoon, from 12:30 to 5 in the grounds of the Greek Orthodox Church, with live music, dance, barbeque food, traditional Greek cakes, and stalls with Greek products.

Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11: 19) … traditional Greek folk music celebrated at a restaurant in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 16 ‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,

17 “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.”

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

25 At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Imagine going to a wedding but not getting onto the floor and dancing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Have you ever stayed up late, far too late, too late into the night, watching your favourite sport late at night on the television?

I have taken a personal decision not to watch any of this year’s World Cup fixtures in the US, as my own personal protest at the way FIFA has allowed Trump to hijack or abuse the World Cup for his own personal aggrandisement and for personal political opportunism. But I have been watching fixtures in Canada and Mexico, the co-host nations, and I am probably going to stay up late tonight and into the early hours of tomorrow morning to watch the match between England and Mexico in Mexico.

The World Cup matches that I have seen so far this summer, and those I have not watched but followed carefully, all offer gripping entertainment. And even when the team we support or the player we identify with does not get through, we keep on watching, waiting and hoping.

If this is you, if you sit on the edge of your chair rather than resting back on a comfortable cushion, then you know the difference between being a spectator and being a participant.

You don’t have to fly any flags from your window, or have your face painted to still enter into the spirit of great sporting events.

And if England gets through late tonight, early tomorrow morning, then the drama and excitement continue.

Entering into the spirit of a game moves us from being mere spectators to feeling we truly are participants … that every shout and every roar is a passionate response, is true encouragement, is wish fulfilment … the more passion the more we not only hope but believe that our team is going to win.

When we go to baptisms, weddings and funerals, the attitude we go with makes a world of difference: do I go as a spectator or as a participant?

Imagine going to a funeral and failing to offer sympathy to those who are grieving and mourning.

Imagine going to a wedding reception, but not taking your place at the table, not cheering the bride and groom, not getting onto the floor and dancing.

Sometimes we can get a little too precious, a little too worried about sending out the wrong signals. If we stand back, then like John the Baptist in this morning’s Gospel reading are we in danger of being reproached for being aloof from others (see Matthew 11: 18)?

If we enjoy ourselves, then, like Jesus in this morning’s Gospel reading, are we going to be seen as too interested in eating and drinking (verse 19; cf Romans 7: 15-16)?

When we go to church on Sundays, we have to ask ourselves whether we are here as spectators or as participants.

When we join in waves and chants at a football match, when we join in the dance at weddings, when we sing the hymns and enter into the prayers in church on a Sunday, we are moving from being observers and spectators to being participants.

The great opportunity for this transformation is provided Sunday after Sunday, in the invitation to move from being at the Liturgy to being in the Liturgy.

There is very little detail about the actual wedding of Rebekah in the first reading this morning (Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67). But if you have been to the Middle East, or you have seen Fiddler on the Roof, you know that dancing at Jewish weddings is traditionally a male celebration.

At funerals in many Mediterranean countries, open mourning and weeping is a sign not just of individual grief, but of public grief, and of the esteem the community holds for the person who has died.

These traditions were passed on through the generations – by children learning from adults, and by children teaching each other.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we see how Christ has noticed this in the streets and the back alleys as he moves through the towns and cities.

He sees the children playing, the boys playing wedding dances, and the girls playing funeral wailing and mourning.

He notices the ways in which children can reproach each other for not joining in their playfulness:

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn. (verse 17)

Even as he speaks, there is playfulness in the way Jesus phrases his observation, there is humour in the way he uses words that rhyme for dance and mourn at the end of each line of the children’s taunts.

Perhaps he is repeating an everyday rebuke at the time for people who stand back from what others are doing.

The boys playing tin whistles and tin drums are learning to become adult men. The girls wailing and beating their breasts in mock weeping are learning to become adult women. Each group is growing into the roles and rituals that will be expected of them when they mature.

Like all good children’s games, the point is the game, not who wins.

When we refuse to take part in the game, in the ritual, we refuse to take part in the shaping of society, we are in danger of denying our shared culture, denying our shared humanity.

If I stand back, detached, and remain a mere observer of the joys and sorrow in the lives of others, I am not sharing in their humanity.

And in not sharing in your humanity, I am failing to acknowledge that you too are made in the image and likeness of God.

But when we rejoice with people in their joys, and when we mourn with people in their sorrows, we are putting into practice what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us about us being not only made in the image and likeness of God individually but communally and collectively too as humanity.

‘It is like children sitting in the market-places’ (Matthew 11: 16) … Samuel Johnson amid the Christmas lights in Market Square in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 5 July 2026, Trinity V):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 5 to 11 July 2026 (pp 16-17), is ‘Faith in the Midst of Fractures’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by the Revd Godfrey Owino Adera, Anglican priest, theologian, and lecturer at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya:

Kenya, like many parts of the world, faces a tangle of urgent challenges that call for a bold and compassionate response from the Church. Gender-based violence, rising teenage pregnancies, and the ongoing burden of HIV remain pressing concerns, intensified by economic inequality, youth unemployment, political division, and corruption. Climate change adds further strain, with droughts, floods, and environmental damage hitting the most vulnerable hardest. Questions of dignity and belonging also persist, particularly for women, young people, and minorities often pushed to the margins of both church and society.

Against this backdrop, the FeAST Conference in Limuru, close to my home, proved to be a deeply formative experience. FeAST brings Anglican theologians together to reflect on faith rooted in both tradition and lived experience. In Limuru, we explored the Nicene Creed from fresh perspectives, drawing on insights from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, showing how theology is richest when shaped by lived experience and global solidarity.

Alongside the formal sessions, I had the privilege of leading Anglican worship using Kenyan liturgy. The service included singing, dancing, and a joyful rendition of ‘Nimetembea kote na hakuna kama Mungu,’ capturing the beauty and energy of African worship. These shared moments of joy and cultural expression made the conference not only intellectually engaging but also deeply human and spiritually uplifting.

Overall, FeAST strengthened my work on social justice in Kenya, offering fresh insights from new friends and practical tools to engage in difficult conversations with honesty, hope, and care.

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 5 July 2026, Trinity V) invites us to pray by reading and meditating on today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30).

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Grant, O Lord, we beseech you,
that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered
by your governance,
that your Church may joyfully serve you in all godly quietness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
send down upon your Church
the riches of your Spirit,
and kindle in all who minister the gospel
your countless gifts of grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11: 19) … music at the Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Peace Pagoda in Milton Keynes (Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 36, Friday 12 June 2026

A summer wedding in a monastery in Crete … but today’s Gospel reading may bring us to ask whether a marriage should last longer than love (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I, 7 June 2026). Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Enjoying a summer wedding (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 5: 27-32 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 27 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

31 ‘It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.’

Wedding flowers strewn on the lawn at Lisnavagh House, Co Carlow, in the late evening … what happens when love fades in a marriage? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 5: 27-32), we return to our readings from the Sermon on the Mount. At first, the statements on adultery, divorce and remarriage in this reading may sound harsh and judgmental. So, this morning, I am going to look carefully at this passage in some detail before any further reflection or coming to any conclusions.

Verses 27-28:

‘You have heard’ … the Mosaic code states that you shall not commit adultery. Legally, adultery is sex with another person’s partner, more specifically, with another man’s wife. Under the Mosaic Law, consensual sex between two people who were not married was settled in marriage and so legally it was not adultery. However, adultery carried the death penalty (see Leviticus 20: 10; Deuteronomy 22: 22). But when it comes to God’s perfect law, lust is as good as the deed, thus ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’

In this passage, ‘a woman’ (γυνή, gynē) implies specifically a married woman. When a man looks at her lustfully, he already conjures up the thoughts and the images of intercourse with her. But here the construction may also express the result.

Verses 29-30:

We now move to two parabolic sayings in which Christ speaks of the crucial importance of taking any necessary measures to control any excessive passions that flare out of control (see also Matthew 18: 8-9; cf Mark 9: 43-48). These sayings are more like crisis parables than ethical illustrations.

Of course, Christ is not advocating radical surgery or self-mutilation, nor is he suggesting that this kind of surgery can rid us of sinful desires will be exorcised. Nor is he saying we must blind ourselves to what is wrong, in the sense of closing our eyes to it, like the three monkeys who ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ But we must deal radically with sin, and the language of hyperbole expresses radical action.

Verses 31-32:

Is divorce always against the will of God? Is the ‘one-flesh relationship’ between a man and a woman to be permanent and for all time? What does the Apostle Paul have to say? Where may the law end and grace begin?

Think of the consequences in those days for a woman if her husband divorced her. And whatever about a man divorcing his wife, what about a woman divorcing her husband?

The Mosaic law, recognising the human condition, regularises marital separation by the requirement of a ‘document of dismissal’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1). By the time of Jesus, this had become little more than publicly-sanctioned adultery. But where the Church has taken the ideal and enshrined it in legalism, have we become more like the Scribes and the Pharisees? Christ exposes our state of sin, but does he seek to burden us with a weight too hard to bear? Is this an ideal to strive after or a law to be obeyed?

There is an exception, but Matthew alone notes this, while Mark and Luke give no grounds at all for ending a marriage. Matthew is describing cases where one partner has destroyed marriage through πορνεία (porneía), which can refer to illicit sexual intercourse, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, intercourse with animals, sexual intercourse with close relatives, sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman. It is the word that gives us ‘pornography’, but it is also used throughout the Bible to talk about the worship of idols and the defilement of idolatry, incurred by eating the sacrifices offered to idols.

The word was originally used of sex with a prostitute, but took on a wider sense to include all sexual acts outside of marriage. In Deuteronomy 24: 1-4, the ground for a divorce was ‘something indecent’, but Christ now severely limits the understanding of what constitutes an ‘indecent’ act.

Should a man divorce his wife for other reasons, he is effectively trying to condemn her as an adulteress. In Jewish society it would be extremely difficult for a woman to survive without a husband. A divorced woman would be forced to take another husband and be seen as an adulterer. The responsibility for this situation properly rests on the man who divorced her.

Reflecting on the reading:

I wince and even imagine physical pain when it comes to the discussion of physical mutilation in the first part of this reading.

As a priest who is divorced and remarried, I find the topics in this reading a challenge every time I read it, even though I have dealt with these topics on many occasions when I have preached in a parish and pastoral context, in preparing couples for marriage, and in my own life. I wish some of my priest colleagues had been as generous to me in the recent past as I hope they are to their own parishioners when it comes to providing true pastoral care, understanding and support.

Later in this Gospel (Matthew 19: 11-12), the discussion about divorce and remarriage causes me even greater confusion and all my attempts to understand its context still leave me in search of meaning and understanding. But then even the text itself warns that some readers will not be able to receive what is being said.

Jesus’ words seem to find echoes in Saint Paul’s writings when, for example, he seems to advocate remaining single if someone is called to do so (see I Corinthians 7: 24-28), yet says it is wrong to forbid marriage to anyone (I Timothy 4: 1-3). However, both Jesus and Paul stress that relatively few people were called to a life of celibacy, a lifestyle that was generally unacceptable socially in their time.

People who go through a marriage breakdown and divorce, and still cling on to going to church, perhaps just by their fingernails, may well ask, ‘Where is the Good News this morning?’

The Pharisees were divided on the legality of divorce and the grounds for divorce. The Law of Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife, if he finds ‘something objectionable about her’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1). It never said a woman could divorce her husband.

A man could simply ‘write a certificate of dismissal’, without going through any formal legal proceedings. ‘Something objectionable’ could cover a multitude, from adultery to an eccentric hair-do on a bad hair day. Indeed, by the time of Christ, divorce was allowed for the most trivial of reasons, and was so common that many women suffered.

There are other places in the New Testament where Christ, and Saint Paul and Saint Peter, accept that a man may divorce an unfaithful wife. Saint Mark alone mentions the possibility of women also divorcing. This may have been normal in non-Jewish contexts, but cases of Jewish women initiating divorce are rare.

Christ devotes much of his teaching time interpreting scripture in a way that gives priority to human wellbeing. For example, the Sabbath is made for us rather than we being made for the Sabbath. Similarly, we could say he is saying here that the order of marriage is made for us, not that we are made for the ordering of marriage, or worrying about the minutiae in the details religious people construct around marriage.

The way Christ interprets scriptural law ought to provide a clue to how we interpret his teaching.

Today, many of us may appear to be on the side of the Pharisees on the question of divorce. Divorce is common today and most of us accept it as a reality. Our laws and our customs, like those of the Pharisees in the Gospel accounts, assume divorce happens.

Christ appears to be harsh and uncompromising on a first reading this morning. But many marriages get stale or toxic, relationships can dry up or lose focus, self-destruct, or break down. Things go wrong for far too many reasons.

A divorce may be a burial for a dead marriage. Divorces do not kill marriages any more than funerals kill people … although one of the great tragedies today is that far too many couples are burying their relationship when it is only sick or injured.

Is it not possible that the promise to be together until death can refer to the death of the relationship as well as the death of the person?

Is it not possible to recall that the original intent of our loving and caring God who gave us the gift of marriage was to make our lives better?

Does that desire of God evaporate when we are no longer in a marriage?

In other Gospel passages, when Jesus is asked about divorce and remarriage, people are trying to set a trap for him. But marriage is not a trap and not a matter of expediency in which the wife is the property of the husband.

Of course, the covenant of marriage is still just as valid today. Ideally, when two people marry, they commit themselves to an exclusive relationship of love and devotion in a new entity. But it is easier to say thar than it is to face up to reality, which includes the complexities of child-rearing, careers and competing religious, social and economic claims and responsibilities.

Ideally, we are not to live alone, but in loving and committed relationships. Indeed, in an ideal world, there would be no such thing as divorce. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a fallen and broken world in which human nature always falls short of the glory of God. Whether we like it or not, divorce is a reality and we have to live with that.

Sadly, when people go through a divorce, the church is often the last place they can turn to for help and understanding.

But divorce is like a death. It is the death of a relationship, and so people grieve, and they need sympathy and to be consoled. Would we dare chastise someone who was grieving after the death of a family member?

I was reminded once by a divorced priest in the Church of Ireland that when God says: ‘I hate divorce ... I hate divorce’ (Malachi 2: 16), that of course God hates divorce because God has gone through the sufferings and grieving of divorce through our faithlessness and wandering.

God hates divorce because God has suffered divorce.

It was a profound insight.

Too often, in debates, passages of Scripture taken out of context, or one-sided interpretations of the tradition of the Church can be used to set a trap so that people are forced to accept only one standard or practice for marriage in the world today. Let us not use this reading to trap Jesus through hardness of heart. And let us not use this reading to trap vulnerable, suffering and grieving people who remain open to loving and being loved.

We must face questions about marriage and divorce, about who can be married and who can be divorced, as challenges that ask us to think outside the box, without trying to trap Jesus or to trap those who are faced with honest questions about marriage and about divorce.

‘If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away’ (Matthew 5: 29) … posters for an exhibition seen in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 12 June 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 7 to 13 June 2026 (pp 8-9), is ‘Safe Churches in Zambia’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Senior Regional Manager for Africa, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Friday 12 June 2026, World Day Against Child Labour) invites us to pray:

God of justice, we pray especially for children who are exploited, harmed or made vulnerable. Guide your Church worldwide to be courageous in protecting children and creating truly safe spaces for all.

The Collect:

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
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:

Eternal Father,
we thank you for nourishing us
with these heavenly gifts:
may our communion strengthen us in faith,
build us up in hope,
and make us grow in love;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of truth,
help us to keep your law of love
and to walk in ways of wisdom,
that we may find true life
in Jesus Christ your Son.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Eternal Father … may our communion strengthen us in faith, build us up in hope, and make us grow in love; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord’ (the Post Communion Prayer) … Communion vessels in the Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral (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

When Sir William Wolseley married the widowed Ann Whitby in 1752, who was the real bigamist?

Wolseley Hall was destroyed in a serious fire in the early 1950s and was demolished in 1966

Patrick Comerford

Accusations of bigamy, adultery, infidelity and seduction in rural Staffordshire in the mid-18th century were at the heart of a complex legal battle over 270 years ago. The case and the appeal were drawn out between 1752 and 1754, and the stories that unfolded involved accusations of greed, manipulation, cheating, forgery, desertion, perjury, bigamy, adultery, bribery, drugged drinks and corrupt and dishonest clergy.

I came across these stories once again during a number of visits to Staffordshire in recent weeks, including visits to Wolseley, Rugeley, Stafford, Lichfield and Tamworth. These stories centre on the widowed Ann Whitbey (1724-1782), who went through some sort of a marriage ceremony with the widowed Sir William Wolseley (1692-1779) of Wolseley Hall, in 1752. Ann was then 28, a widowed mother with two young children; Sir William was 60, more than twice her age, and the recently widowed father of three sons and a daughter, then aged from one up to 12.

But were they ever truly married? And if there was bigamy, who was the guilty partner?

Sir William Wolseley was the fifth baronet of Wolseley, and the son of Captain Richard Wolseley, who established the Irish branch of the family at Mount Wolseley. When his uncles, the third and fourth baronets, Sir William Wolseley and Sir Henry Wolseley, died in quick succession in 1728 and 1730, he unexpectedly succeeded to the family title as the fifth baronet of Wolseley and inherited Wolseley Hall in 1730. A younger brother, Sir Richard Wolseley (1696-1769), inherited the family’s Irish estates at Mount Wolseley, Co Carlow, and became a baronet in his own right in 1744.

The High House, Stafford … John Robbins was MP for Stafford in 1747-1754 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Sir William Wolseley married his first wife, Ann Fieldhouse (1706-1752) from Rugeley, in 1738, when she was 31 and he was 46, and they were the parents of four children, three sons and a daughter:

1, Sir William Wolseley (1740-1817), who became the sixth baronet.
2, Admiral Charles Wolseley (1741-1808).
3, Sophia Wolseley (1749-1801), who married William Piggott (1743-1802).
4, James Wolseley (1751-1773).

Ann (Fieldhouse) Wolseley died of smallpox in January in 1752, and nine months later the widowed Sir William married the widowed Anne Whitby, daughter of William Northey, on 23 September 1752.

But soon a complex case of separation from bed and board was being played out in the ‘Bawdy Court’ of the Diocese of Lichfield, and then in the Court of Arches appeal court. The case and the reputations of all involved became major points of gossip in the coffee houses of London and in the parlours of country houses in Staffordshire.

Sir William Wolseley’s case against Ann Whitby or Ann Robins was heard in 1753 before Richard Smalbroke (1716-1805), who was Chancellor of the Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry for 64 years. Sir William stated that his wife, Dame Ann Wolseley, had committed adultery with John Robins, MP for Stafford, and he alleged fraud involving the falsification of the parish register in the Castle Church, Stafford.

Wolseley alleged that John Robins and Ann Whitby were married bigamously on 9 October 1752, but claimed that marriage was falsely recorded by the Revd William Corne, the curate of Castle Church, and that had been changed in the register variously to 9 June 1752 and then to 16 June.

These dates are pivotal to grasping the intricacies of the case. The records indicate that William and Ann were married on 23 September 1752; if she married Robins in October, her marriage to Robins was null and void and bigamous; however, if she married Robins in June her marriage to Wolseley was bigamous and null and void.

If William wanted to access Ann’s inherited wealth, an annulment would not suit him. In their marriage contract, Ann agreed to pay him £300 a year and undertook to make no claims on the Wolseley estate should she survive him. A separation based on adultery could lead to further claims on her fortune, while an annulment would not, because in the eyes of the law the marriage would never have taken place.

Ann Whitby’s father, William Northey (1690-1738), was MP for Calne in 1713 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ann Whitby was the daughter of William Northey (1690-1738) and his wife Abigail (Webster). He was MP for Calne in 1713 and for Wootton Bassett in 1714. He had inherited large property near Chippenham in Wiltshire and bought the Compton Basset estate near Calne. He accused his wife Abigail of adultery and claimed her son Thomas was not his but was in fact the son of Edward Thomas. Indeed, when William Northey died, Abigail married the same Edward Thomas. William Northey left only £1,000 in his will for Thomas, and so his daughter Ann inherited most of his wealth as a result of her mother’s alleged adultery.

Some writers suggest this acrimonious atmosphere of infidelity and adultery influenced Ann in her formative years. Ann was considered to be beautiful and when she married John Whitby of Whitby Wood (1716-1750) in 1743 she was 19. They were the parents of two sons: the Revd Thomas Whitby (1746-1828) of Creswell Hall, High Sherrif of Staffordshire, who is buried at Saint Mary’s Church, Stafford; and William Whitby (1748-1792).

John Whitby died in 1751 and within a month of his death the widowed Ann had started an affair with John Robins (1714-1754), MP for Stafford (1747-1754). She soon became pregnant again, but soon suspected the 38-year-old MP had ‘abandoned’ her. Ann then looked to the 60-year-old widower Sir William Wolseley to save her name and reputation. However, after her marriage to Wolseley, Robins returned and Ann left Wolseley to live with the much younger Robins.

George Winfield, a Lichfield publican, tried to serve a decree from William on Ann at Robins’s house in Stafford on 11 October 1753. He ‘searched diligently’ for her, but having waited an hour he pinned the decree to the door and left.

The case for Sir William and for Ann were handled by their lawyers: John Howard and Edward Burslem Sudell respectively.

William sought separation or divorce from bed and board and mutual cohabitation on the grounds of adultery. He graphically described her alleged adulterous behaviour, claiming Ann, ‘unmindful of their conjugate vows did in violation thereof behave herself in a very lascivious, incontinent and adulterous manner and did contract a criminal correspondence and intimacy with John Robins Esq and without any lawful cause quitted the conversation with her said husband Sir William Wolseley and in or about the month of October, went to live with said John Robins at his house in Stafford in an adulterous manner and went by the name of Robins and as the pretended wife of John Robins.’

He went on to say that in Robins’s house they had ‘frequently lain naked in one and the same bed together and have at such times had carnal use and knowledge of each other’s bodies and have committed the foul crime of adultery’. The court heard that two body impressions were found on the bed and that Ann had been frequently ‘lighted’ up to Robins’s bedchamber by servants and that Robins had later ‘followed on’.

William maintained that from June to September 1752, he had proposed marriage to Ann and that they had agreed to marry each other. Meanwhile, Robins asserted that he had proposed marriage to her between April 1751 and May 1752.

William presented a copy of the parish register with their marriage on 23 September 1752 at Colwich Church. The wedding was conducted by the Revd John Clements, Vicar of Colwich, and the witnesses included his nephew, Lieutenant Richard Wolseley, later Sir Richard Wolseley (1729-1781), the second baronet, of Mount Wolseley, Co Carlow.

Sudell, Ann’s lawyer, told the court that on 16 June 1752 John Robins and Ann Whitby were married in the Castle Church, Stafford, by the Revd William Corne. He presented an extract of the register, but this was a copy and not the original, and was not evidence that the date 9 June had been scratched out and replaced with 16 June.

Mount Wolseley, Co Carlow … Sir William Wolseley’s nephew, Sir Richard Wolseley, was a key witness in the case (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Throughout the case, Wolseley’s lawyer John Howard referred to Ann as ‘Ann Robins, falsely called Dame Ann Wolseley’, and he called Lieutenant Richard Wolseley as a witness. He said he was present at the marriage in Colwich Church on 22 September 1752, although the parish register indicates they were married on 23 September.

He described the domesticity of the Wolseley household, how he dined with William and Ann on 26 September, when she took her place ‘at the head end of the table’, and how he saw William and Ann walking together in the garden.

The judgment in Lichfield favoured Sir William. But Ann appealed and her case was heard by Sir George Lee in the Arches Court of Canterbury and began on 5 April 1754. The new evidence before the court involved the importance of the dates of the alleged marriages of Ann and John Robins, the alleged drugging of Ann and the pressure on her to sign a marriage agreement with Sir William.

Ann pleaded that she and Robins were married by the Revd William Corne on 16 June 1752. Corne, however, appears to have a crisis of conscience, and he later admitted to several witnesses and in a signed affidavit, that he acted illegally but with the best intentions.

The evidence suggested that Ann was pregnant by Robins and the date of the actual marriage was 9 October 1752, seven days after she married William. Robins begged Corne to enter the date of 9 June to save her ‘dignity’ – a reference to her pregnancy before marriage.

Corne was told that it was well known that Robins was with Lord Uxbridge on 9 June and could not have married Ann that day. Robins then told Corne to change the date from the 9 June to 16 June, and in what appears to have been bribery or inducement gave Corne £1,000.

In court, Sir Brooke Boothby (1710-1789), a Derbyshire landholder, alleged Corne asked him to see if Sir William would forgive him if he told him the whole truth. Boothby’s family once owned the Moat House, the former Comberford family home in Tamworth, and his son, also Sir Brooke Boothby (1744-1824), was a member of the intellectual and literary circle in Lichfield.

John Dunn claimed to have seen a change in the register to 16 June when he knew the marriage was on 9 October. Phoebe Booth, who also knew Corne, said that she had heard him say he had ‘grievously injured’ William. Richard Derry, Ann’s servant, claimed Ann and John Robins were married on 9 October and that he gave Ann away.

Corne confessed to fraudulently altering the parish records and inserting an incorrect date for the marriage. Although he said he falsified dates for the sake of Ann’s dignity, he admitted receiving £1,000. This would make him a party to a bigamous marriage, as he must have known that Ann had married William 17 days earlier.

There were allegations that Ann had been drugged or forced to drink too much at a dinner on 26 August 1752 in the vicarage of the Revd John Clements who had married Ann and William. The next day they signed a contract to marry, and the implication was that Clements and his wife were involved in some subterfuge along with William.

The Wolseley Arms, by the River Trent, near Rugeley in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The judge, Sir George Lee, initially rejected suggestions from Ann’s legal team that Corne’s affidavit should be ignored because of his fraudulent actions, that he was guilty of a clandestine marriage, that he had excommunicated himself and that he was not a reliable witness. In fact, Corne had died 19 months before the appeal, on 22 November 1753, and could not be questioned on his affidavit. In Lee’s opinion, no credible witness supported Sir William’s cause. He dismissed as unreliable allegations that Corne had married Ann and Robins on 9 October, as Corne had previously perjured himself.

To complicate all these matters, the parish register where the alleged altered marriage dates for Ann Whitby and John Robins were entered, shows no sign of any significant and meaningful alteration.

The final judgment was that William’s marriage to Ann was invalid because she was already married to Robins at the time. Lee also ruled that Ann should pay no costs, and so these probably fell on Sir William.

Robins absconded to France for fear of being charged with perjury, and died shortly after on 17 December 1754. Ann also absconded, but never faced charges of perjury or bigamy and held on to her fortune. When Robins died she married her third – or fourth – husband, Christopher Hargrave, a chancery solicitor. Sir William Woseley was never charged with bigamy, never married again and died on 12 March 1779.

A scandalous book, The Widow of the Woods (1755), published after the appeal, was written by a one-time associate of Sir William, Benjamin Victor. The Wolseley family tried to buy up as many copies of the book they could and burned them, but is still available online.

Further reading:

Alan Wiggins, The Bawdy Courts of Lichfield, ‘Sir William Wolseley 5th Baronet v Whitby or Robins or Wolseley – Trying to divorce somebody you might not actually be married to!’ (19 June 2019)

Sir Brooke Boothby (1710-1789) gave evidence in the case … his family lived in the Moat House, the former Comberford family home in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 41, Friday 15 May 2026, Saint Matthias the Apostle

Saint Matthias the Apostle depicted in a window in Saint Peter’s Church in Padungan, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (24 May 2026), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 10 May 2026), and yesterday was Ascension Day. The Church Calendar usually celebrates the Feast of Saint Matthias the Apostle on 14 May, but because of Ascension Day yesterday, his celebration has been transferred to today.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Saint Matthias the Apostle depicted in a side panel in a window in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 9-17 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.’

Saint Matthias is usually missing from icons of the 12 Apostles, in which Saint Paul replaces Judas … an icon in Panormos, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

‘I chose you. And … I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another’ (John 15: 16-17).

The Acts of the Apostles recall how Saint Matthias was chosen as one of the Twelve to replace Judas (Acts 1: 15-26).

I sometimes wonder whether Saint Matthias saw the humour in being second choice. After all, he was the second choice – not the first choice, but the second choice – to succeed Judas among the Twelve.

Imagine how Saint Matthias might have felt. The first time round, he was not good enough to be among the Twelve. But Judas was, and he would betray Christ. So too were Peter, James, John and Thomas. They were called to be among the Twelve, but Peter would betray Christ three times before his crucifixion, James and John had ambitions beyond their station, while Thomas would refuse to believe until he met the Risen Christ on his own terms.

After the Ascension, 120 believers met to pick a successor to replace Judas Iscariot. But even then, even on the second time round, Matthias is not the first name mentioned, he is not the first choice. Instead, the first name to come forward is that of Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus.

Nobody ever since remembers Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus. His saintly life, such as it was, has passed into oblivion. It may only be as an afterthought that someone suggests the name of Matthias. And then, they cannot make up their minds. Instead, they cast lots, and the lot falls to Matthias.

I doubt any of us would be happy to hear we have been selected or nominated for any role in the Church, for example, at PCC, select vestry or synod meetings, by tossing a coin, drawing names from a hat or rolling a dice as others pray about whether we are suitable or qualified.

Saint Matthias is unnamed before this account. He is not named in the Gospels and after one reference in Acts there is no further mention of him. He is the forgotten apostle, like the ‘Fifth Beatle’, the sub who is called from the bench when the game is in the 89th minute. Having made an unexpected entrance onto the stage, Saint Matthias walks off once again. And we hear nothing more about him.

In icons and stained glass windows depicting the Twelve, Judas is generally replaced by Saint Paul, and Saint Matthias is seldom depicted. His name, identity and life story have been forgotten, apart from making him the patron saint of alcoholism and smallpox, and of a few small towns. We are not sure when he died or where he is buried.

When we were back in Kuching 18 months ago, Charlotte and I presented a church bell to the people of Saint Matthias Chapel in Sinar Baru, about 21 km south of Kuching in Sarawak. They had told us how the chapel had a bell tower, but no bell, and how they were praying and hoping for one that would be heard throughout the surrounding countryside, calling people to church on Sundays.

It was our wedding anniversary that weekend, and we thought about the possibility of a thank-offering and how it might be another way of ringing our wedding bells a year later.

We bought an old, second-hand bell at Ho Nyen Foh’s tinsmith shop in Bishopsgate Street, one of the streets running between Carpenter Street and the Main Bazaar in Kuching’s old Chinatown. It may have been a ship’s bell, or a school bell, he could not remember which. It may have been a second-hand bell, but it certainly was not second-best – it was what the people of Saint Matthias had been praying for, and it was true symbol of love in so many ways.

The Early Church writer Clement of Alexandria says the apostles are not chosen for some outstanding character, and certainly not on their own merits. The apostles are chosen by Christ for his own reasons, but not for their merits.

If Saint Matthias had not been worthy of being called first time round, how is he worthy now to join the Twelve?

Like Saint Matthias, we are often in the place where we are in life only because the person who was there before us failed: Joshua led Israel because Moses failed in the wilderness; David became King because Saul failed; Matthias became an apostle because Judas failed.

Discipleship, being a follower of Christ, is never about my worthiness, my merits. It is Christ alone who calls us.

Saint Matthias was elected not because he was worthy but because he would become worthy. Christ chooses each one of us in the same way. We have been grafted into the company of the Children of God, not through our own merits, but by God’s grace.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Saint Matthias depicted in a window in Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 15 May 2026, Saint Matthias the Apostle, transferred):

The theme this week (10-16 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Parenting with Purpose’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Ella Sibley, former Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 15 May 2026, Saint Matthias the Apostle, International Day of Families) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, we lament that many families in the Solomon Islands and across the world struggle to live in peace and safety. Bring your healing and guidance to restore trust and nurture love within every home.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who in the place of the traitor Judas
chose your faithful servant Matthias
to be of the number of the Twelve:
preserve your Church from false apostles
and, by the ministry of faithful pastors and teachers,
keep us steadfast in your truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Presenting a church bell to Saint Matthias Chapel, Father Jeffry Renos Nawie (right) and the people of Sinar Baru, south of Kuching

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