Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 81, Monday 27 July 2026

‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened’ (Matthew 13: 33) … a variety of bread on a market stall in Buckinghamo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). Today (27 July), the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship gives thanks for the life and work of Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), Bishop of Durham and Teacher of the Faith. He was one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ and was the founder Westcott House, the theological college in Cambridge that I visited last week and that I described in blog posting on Saturday evening.

Later this evening, I have a meeting of the trustees of a local charity in Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened’ (Matthew 13: 33) … bread in a shop window in Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 13: 31-35 (NRSVA):

31 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

33 He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

34 Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. 35 This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet:

‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.’

‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field’ (Matthew 13: 31) … the Mustard Seed is a restaurant in a country house setting in Ballingarry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflections:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Matthew 13: 31-35) repeats part of yesterday’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52). I suppose it helps to be reminded this morning to be reminded how why Jesus keeps on trying to grasp at images that might help the Disciples and help us to understand what the Kingdom of God is like.

Christ tries to offer us a taste of the kingdom in this reading, as he continues to speak in parables. The two parables in today’s reading – the Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Parable of the Yeast – are really similes that must have seemed incredible in their day because of Christ’s use of exaggeration and hyperbole.

A mustard seed is very small, but it grows into a large shrub, rather than a tree. Birds do not nest in it.

Bread made with three measures of flour would feed 100 people, so once again we have hyperbole. The Kingdom of God will grow from small beginnings to something beyond our measure or imagination.

We have a romantic imagination that confuses gardens with Paradise, and Paradise with the Kingdom of Heaven. But perhaps that is a good starting point.

I was reflecting yesterday how the Kingdom of Heaven may be so like so many of those places that I see as snatches of heaven, places where I find myself constantly praising God and thanking God for creation.

But … but it’s not just that. And I start thinking that Christ does more than just paint a scene when he describes the kingdom of heaven.

I also need thanks for the small seeds or fistfuls of yeast, and share them with those I love and cherish.

You may wonder why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in this morning’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.

But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.

We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about this morning.

Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or a mighty oak tree?

Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.

But he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree (verse 6) into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.

As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’. Another version is ‘Here we go gathering nuts in May’. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, ‘I saw three ships’. TS Eliot used the nursery rhyme in his poem ‘The Hollow Men’, replacing the mulberry bush with a prickly pear and ‘on a cold and frosty morning’ with ‘at five o’clock in the morning.’

Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person. It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.

The Greek word used in verse 31 for a tree, δένδρον (dendron), appears 25 times in the New Testament as the ordinary word for a tree, not a shrub or a bush. Although generic, it carries rich theological weight. A tree stands rooted between heaven and earth, silently declaring the Creator’s power (Genesis 1-2) and inviting reflection on life, growth, fruitfulness, and judgment.

When the New Testament writers select dendron, they tap into this panoramic biblical backdrop to illuminate the message of repentance, authentic discipleship, kingdom expansion, and final judgment. In first-century Judea and Galilee, hillsides were dotted with olive, fig, date-palm, sycamore, oak, and cedar. Trees furnished timber, fuel, medicine, oil, fruit, shade, and landmarks for travellers. Their steady annual cycles made them ideal teaching aids.

However, the tree Christ names in a smiliar reference in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 17: 1-6) is the sycamine tree (συκάμινος, sikámeenos), which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus). Others think the tree being referred to here is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), a tree the same as the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).

The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.

Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, or a small amount of yeast used in baking bread, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.

Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters.

‘It … becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches’ (Matthew 13: 32) … old trees in Saint Mary Magdalene churchyard, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2066)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 27 July 2026):

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

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 27 July 2026) invites us to pray:

God of all peoples, we pray for migrant workers who begin each week in uncertainty and hard labour. Surround them with protection and your love.

The Collect of the Day:

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

The Post Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Westcott House, Cambridge … the calendar in Common Worship today remembers Bishop Brooke Westcott (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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

Visiting Westcott House, Cambridge, is like standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of Anglicanism

Westcott House on Jesus Lane is one of the two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During this week’s walking tour of Cambridge, when I showed a visiting friend from Ireland around the Cambridge I have felt a part of for almost 20 years and that has been a part of me too, we visited a number of colleges, chapels and churches, including King’s College and Jesus College and their chapels, and Sidney Sussex College and Christ’s College.

One of the theological colleges we visited was Westcott House, the Anglican theological college on Jesus Lane in the heart of Cambridge, squeezed between Sidney Sussex College to the west and All Saints’ Church to the east, and across the street on Jesus Lane from Jesus College, as well as the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Wesley House.

When I stayed at Sidney Sussex College on courses organised by the IOCS, I became well acquainted with Westcott House, and I have often mused that it Westcott was the one theological college in England – or, perhaps, Ripon College Cuddesdon – I would like to have trained at had I not trained in Ireland.

I stayed in Westcott House once many years ago during a residential meeting of USPG trustees, and I have been there for chapel services and for seminars organised by the IOCS, when the lecturers have included Archbishop Rowan Williams, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Metropolitan John Zizioulas.

Westcott House on Jesus Lane, Cambridge, is squeezed between Sidney Sussex College and All Saints’ Church and across the street from Jesus College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is one of two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge, the other being Ridley Hall. Westcott stands in the Liberal Catholic tradition in Anglicanism, but the college accepts ordinands from a range of traditions in the Church of England and other Anglican churches. Its main activity is training men and women for ordained ministry in the Church of England, and it is part of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

The chapel at Westcott is at the heart of the community life. Its uncluttered simplicity provides ideal sacred space for a range of services from sung high mass to said Morning Prayer, from adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to ‘prayer and praise’ services.

As we strolled around the grounds of Westcott House, my friend and I compared notes about theological training in England and Ireland, the accommodation and facilities provided for ordinands and their families, the links theological colleges and students ought to be encouraged to have with the university, and the links the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein developed with Ireland thanks to his friendship with a former ordinand at Westcott, Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury.

Westcott House was founded in 1881 by Brooke Foss Westcott, one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House was founded in 1881 as the Cambridge Clergy Training School. Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), the then Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, was its first president, and he later became the Bishop of Durham.

Westcott was a distinguished New Testament scholar and one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians, alongside Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1899) and Dublin-born Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892). Together, they produced The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881), shaping modern Bible translations, and leading to the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version and eventually the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

Westcott House was the result of Westcott’s passionate concern to raise the standard of clergy education and to equip clergy to meet the challenges of parish ministry. He was also exercised by the way in which the Church of England was increasingly dominated by parties and factions, and he refused to be labelled with any factional affiliations or labels.

In its history, Westcott House has said: ‘As a scholar, educator, priest and prophet, Westcott’s legacy to the Church of England challenges sectarianism, ignorance, complacency and empty faith. This is the spirit which Westcott House seeks to honour today, drawing students from all backgrounds to prepare them for ministry in this historic centre of Christian learning.’

Visiting Westcott House is an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of theological giants (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I once described staying in Westcott House as an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of the Church of England, and even of wider Anglicanism. Today, Westcott House describes itself as ‘the home of a diverse, inclusive and international community of people who share a vision of ministry to all society’.

The Revd Dr Helen Dawes has been the principal of Westcott House since 2021. Previous principals have included Peter Walker (1962-1972), later Bishop of Ely, Mark Santer (1972-1981), later Bishop of Birmingham, and Canon Chris Chivers, who chaired the Trustees of USPG. The first Irish-born principal was William Derrick Lindsay Greer (1902-1972), later Bishop of Manchester.

The boot scarpers at the entrance, depicting a rabbit and a pig, are a heraldic pun on the surname of Bertram Cunningham (1871-1944), who was the principal in 1919-1943.

Notable staff members have included Earl (Gregory) Collins, formerly of Glenstal Abbey and Abbot of the Dormition Abbey, Jerusalem, author of the Glenstal Book of Icons, and now Canon Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral; Canon John Collins and Dean Alan Webster, later of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London; Don Cupitt, later Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; John Habgood, later Archbishop of York; Hugh Montefiore, later Bishop of Birmingham; Mary Tanner, later European President of the World Council of Churches; Canon Angela Tilby; and two former Archbishops of Canterbury, Robert Runcie and Rowan Williams.

Notable alumni include: the Revd Professor John Polkinghorne (1930-2021), theoretical physicist and theologian, who wrote extensively on quantum physics and theology; John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich and author of Honest to God; Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark; and Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford until 2024.

The chapel is at the heart of daily life in Westcott House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dr Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury (1907-1976), who left Westcott House after a year as an ordinand, was an Irish psychiatrist, is known for his accounts of his conversations and close friendship with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He studied philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutors included Wittgenstein. Drury and Wittgenstein remained close friend and Drury was among a group of friends present at Wittgenstein’s deathbed in 1951.

After leaving Westcott House, Con Drury studied medicine in Trinity College Dublin, thanks to financial assistance from Wittgenstein and friends, including the economist John Maynard Keynes. He took part in the Normandy landings, and later was the resident psychiatrist at Saint Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, and a lecturer in TCD and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

His son, Dr Luke Drury, an astrophysicist, was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in 2011. Another son, Paul Drury, who died in 2015, edited The Star, Evening Herald, Irish Daily Mail and Ireland on Sunday, and was also deputy editor of the Irish Independent.
Con Drury’s papers are held in the library of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

The architects of Westcott House included Temple Lushington Moore, who was born in Tullamore, Co Offaly (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is now Grade II listed, and visually it can look like the cloisters of All Saints’ Church, which is adjacent and was designed by George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907).

The main buildings were built in 1899-1929 around an attractive Tudor-style courtyard. The north range was designed in 1899 by the architectural practice of GE Grayson (1834-1912) and Edward Ould (1852-1909), the west range in 1912 by Hartwell Simpson, the east range and south part in 1914 by the Tullamore-born architect Temple Lushington Moore (1856-1920). Temple Moore was also the architect of Pusey House, Oxford; his only son, Richard Temple Moore (1891-1918), was killed when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed and sunk off Dublin a mere month before the end of World War I.

Temple Moore has been described as ‘England’s leading ecclesiastical architect from the mid-Edwardian years’. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner said that he was ‘always sensitive in his designs and often interesting.’ His designs reflect his Anglo-Catholic practice and values. His work can be seen across England; he is known for a series of fine Gothic Revival churches built about 1890 and 1917 and he also restored many churches and designed church fittings.

The chapel and other buildings at Westcott House were designed in 1923-1929 by the architect Percy Richard Morley Horder (1870-1944), who also worked on Chapel Court in Jesus College and designed the Jesus College boathouse (1932).

Westcott House is in an idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Since the 1985 report Faith in the City, Westcott House has retained a commitment to develop expertise and capacity in the fields of urban ministry and mission.

Through a partnership with the Diocese of Manchester, the college has pioneered patterns of context-based learning and innovative approaches to contextual theology for over twenty years. These approaches have been widely imitated and developed by other theological education institutions. The college has also developed a programme for continuing ministerial development through the Westcott Foundation.

The college provides training pathways in conjunction with the University of Cambridge and the Common Awards, validated by Durham University, as well as opportunities for independent study for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees through the wider Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University.

Today, Westcott House is a collection of beautiful buildings overlooking the gardens of Old Court, and it offers a peaceful and idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge.

The boot scrapers at the main entrance to Westcott House, in the shape of a rabbit and a pig, are heraldic puns on the name of Bertram Cunningham (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 55, Wednesday 1 July 2026

‘Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them’ (Matthew 8: 30) … sculptures of pigs throughout Tamworth celebrate the political achievements of Sir Robert Peel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV, 28 June 2026) and the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (29 June 2026). We are still in the time known as Peter-tide, a time when many ordinations take place, and in the calendar in Common Worship the Church of England today remembers Henry Venn (1797), John Venn (1813), and Henry Venn the younger (1873), priests and evangelical divines.

Today we also the second half of this year – half the year 2026 is now behind us. Later this evening, I hope to take part in the choir rehearsals in Stony Stratford. But, before this day 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.

‘Two demoniacs coming out of the tombs met him’ (Matthew 8: 28) … in the graveyard between Koutouloufari and Piskopiano in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 8: 28-34 (NRSVA):

28 When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs coming out of the tombs met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way. 29 Suddenly they shouted, ‘What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’ 30 Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them. 31 The demons begged him, ‘If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.’ 32 And he said to them, ‘Go!’ So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and perished in the water. 33 The swineherds ran off, and on going into the town, they told the whole story about what had happened to the demoniacs. 34 Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighbourhood.

A cartoonist’s take on the pigs in the Gospel accounts of the herd of swine the swine who rush down the steep bank into the lake

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 8: 28-34) comes after yesterday’s account of Christ calming the storm as he and the disciples are in a boat crossing the lake or sea. In today’s reading, they arrive at the other side, where Jesus heals the Gadarene demoniacs.

This story appears in all three synoptic Gospels: Matthew 8: 28-34; Mark 5: 1-20; and Luke 8: 26-39.

After Jesus calms the storm on the Sea of Galilee, he and his disciples arrive on the other side of the lake in the countryside surrounding Gerasa, present-day Jerash. This city, also known as Antioch on the Chrysorrhoas or the Golden River, was founded by Alexander the Great. It is 50 km south-east of the Sea of Galilee and 30 km north of Philadelphia, modern-day Amman. However, Saint Matthew sets this story in Gadara (present-day Umm Qais), about 10 km from the coast of the Sea of Galilee.

Either location poses questions, for neither Gadara nor Gerasa is near to the coast of the Sea of Galilee: Gadara was about a three-hour walking distance, while Gerasa was well over twice that distance.

The differing geographical references to Gadara and Gerasa can be understood in light of the social, economic, and political influence each city exerted over the region. In this light, Saint Matthew identifies the exorcism with Gadara as the local centre of power, while the city of Gerasa was a major urban centre and one of the 10 cities of the Decapolis.

Whatever the location and setting of this story, it takes place deep inside Gentile territory. From the very moment they get off the boat, this story involves a place and people regarded as unclean by the standards among the disciples: this is Gentile territory, the people are ritually ‘unclean,’ the two men have unclean spirits, they men of visible and public shame living among the tombs, which are ritually unclean, and the pigs are unclean too.

Prisoners or people who had been deprived of their liberty lost the right to wear clothes. Tombs were ritually unclean places. Swine were a symbol of pagan religion and of Roman rule, but even they are subject to Christ’s authority.

This episode plays a key role in the theory of the ‘Scapegoat’ put forward by the French literary critic René Girard (1923-2015). In his analysis, the opposition of the entire city to the two men possessed by demons is the typical template for a scapegoat.

Which is more self-destructive:

the tormented lives of two demoniacs living among the tombs?

the herd of pigs rushing headlong over the precipice to certain drowning in the lake?

the swineherds who abandon their herd and rush back into the town?

the townspeople who placed all their collective guilt on these two men and forced them to live on the edges of the town or the margins of society?

Or, the people of the town when they demand that Jesus should leave immediately?

And we might ask ourselves this morning:

Who do you think we see as scapegoats today, as outsiders to be pushed to the margins, so that we can maintain the purity of our family, church or society?

Who do we expose and shame so that we can maintain the appearance of our own purity?

Are these the very people who might bring the good news to people on the margins, inviting them into the household of God?

‘Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them’ (Matthew 8: 30) … free-range pigs grazing in fields at Packington Farm, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 1 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 28 June to 4 July 2026 (pp 14-15), is ‘Living Stones’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Very Revd Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, President and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 1 July 2026) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, bless Episcopal Divinity School and all who are placing justice at the centre of theological education. May all who learn there be living stones.

The Collect of the Day:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
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 God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope:
teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
by the obedience of Jesus
you brought salvation to our wayward world:
draw us into harmony with your will,
that we may find all things restored in him,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

A boot scrapers at the main entrance to Westcott House, Cambridge, in the shape of a pig is an heraldic pun on the surname of the former principal, Bertram Cunningham (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Remembering Wittgenstein’s links with Cambridge, Dublin and Co Wicklow 75 years after his death

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) … died 75 years ago on 29 April 1951

Patrick Comerford

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the death of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, who died in Cambridge 75 years ago, on 29 April 1951.

Wittgenstein was a Viennese-born Cambridge philosopher who had been influenced at an early stage by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. He taught at the University of Cambridge from 1929 to 1947 and worked primarily in the fields of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

During his lifetime, he published just one small, 75-page book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), one article, one book review and a children’s dictionary. His major work, Philosophical Investigations, was not published until two years after his death, yet it has become an important modern classic.

Bertrand Russell said he was ‘the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.’

A plaque at the Ashling Hotel in Parkgate Street, Dublin, recalls Wittgenstein’s time as a guest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna in 1889. A family tree shows his paternal great-great-grandfather was Moses Meier, a Jewish land agent who lived with his wife Brendel Simon in Bad Laasphe in the Principality of Wittgenstein, Westphalia. Napoleon decreed in 1808 that everyone, including Jews, must adopt an inheritable family surname. Moses Meier’s son, also Moses, became Moses Meier Wittgenstein.

His son, Hermann Christian Wittgenstein (1802-1878), took the middle name Christian to distance himself from his Jewish background. He married Franziska (Fanny) Figdor (1814-1890), who was also Jewish and a first cousin of the violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who worked closely with Brahms. They both became Protestants before they married, and the couple began a successful wool trading business trading in Leipzig.

Their 11 children included the philosopher’s father, Karl Otto Clemens Wittgenstein (1847-1913), who became an industrial tycoon. By the late 1880s, he had an effective monopoly on Austria’s steel cartel and was one of the richest men in Europe. The Wittgensteins became one of the wealthiest families in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, second only to the Rothschilds.

Karl Wittgenstein married Leopoldine ‘Poldie’ Maria Josefa Kalmus in 1873. Her father, Jakob Maximilian Kalmus (1814-1870) was a Bohemian Jew from Prague; her mother, Marie Stallner (1825-1921) was a German-speaking Catholic born in Sevnica in present-day Slovenia, and was Ludwig Wittgenstein’s only non-Jewish grandparent.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born on 26 April 1889 in the ‘Wittgenstein Palace’ at Alleegasse 16, now the Argentinierstrasse, near the Karlskirche in Vienna. He was one of nine children who were all baptised as Catholics and received formal Catholic teaching. Gustav Klimt painted Ludwig’s sister for her wedding portrait, and Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler gave regular concerts in the family’s many music rooms.

In an interview, his sister Gretl Stonborough-Wittgenstein said their grandfather's ‘strong, severe, partly ascetic Christianity’ was a strong influence on all the Wittgenstein children.

While Ludwig Wittgenstein was at school at the Realschule, he decided he had lost his faith in God and became an atheist. But his religious faith and his relationship with Christianity and religion in general would change over time. He resisted formal religion, saying it was hard for him to ‘bend the knee,’ although he once said, ‘I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.

With age, his personal spirituality deepened, and he wrestled with language problems in religion. At a time when he was finding it difficult to work, he wrote in 1947, ‘I have had a letter from an old friend in Austria, a priest. In it he says that he hopes my work will go well, if it should be God’s will. Now that is all I want: if it should be God’s will.’

In Culture and Value, Wittgenstein asks, ‘Is what I am doing really worth the effort? Yes, but only if a light shines on it from above.’ His close friend Norman Malcolm later wrote, ‘Wittgenstein’s mature life was strongly marked by religious thought and feeling. I am inclined to think that he was more deeply religious than are many people who correctly regard themselves as religious believers.’

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Wittgenstein visited his Irish friend, the psychiatrist Dr Maurice O’Connor (‘Con’) Drury (1907-1976) in Dublin in August 1947. They first met in the chapel Westcott House, Cambridge, when Drury had been an Anglican ordinand.

When Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge he resigned his professorship, planning to move to Dublin. From December 1947 to April 1948, Wittgenstein lived at Kilpatrick House, the home of the Kingston family near Redcross, Co Wicklow, where he worked on one of his major treatises, Philosophical Investigations, now accepted as a classic of 20th century philosophy.

By April 1948, he had moved from Kilpatrick House to Dr Con Drury’s holiday home in the west of Ireland, Rosro Cottage in Renvyle, Co Galway, and stayed there until the following October. This is now the Killary Harbour Youth Hostel.

From Co Galway, Wittgenstein moved to Dublin and to Ross’s Hotel, now the Ashling Hotel in Parkgate Street. A plaque by steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin recalls how Wittgenstein liked to sit and write there in the late 1940s.

He remained in Dublin until June 1949. In all he spent 18 months in Ireland before returning to Cambridge.

Kilpatrick House near Redcross, Co Wicklow … Wittgenstein lived and wrote there from December 1947 to April 1948 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Back in Cambridge, Wittgenstein became very ill on the evening of 27 April 1951. When his doctor told him he might live only a few days, he reportedly replied, ‘Good!’

Four of his former students arrived at his bedside – Ben Richards, the Limerick-born philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, Yorick Smythies, and Con Drury, once an Anglican ordinand at Westcott House, Cambridge, and later a regular communicant at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

Anscombe and Smythies were both Roman Catholics. At their request, the Dominican friar and philosopher, Father Conrad Pepler (1908-1993), also attended; he was the founding warden of the Dominican retreat centre at Spode House near Rugeley, Stafforshire, which I revisited in a posing last week (22 April 2026). Wittgenstein had asked for a ‘priest who was not a philosopher’ and had met Father Conrad several times before his death.

His friends were unsure at first what Wittgenstein would have wanted. But they remembered he had said he hoped his Catholic friends would pray for him, and so they did. He was pronounced dead shortly afterwards, 75 years ago, on 29 April 1951, and was given a Catholic burial in Cambridge.

A plaque in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge recalls Wittgenstein’s time as a fellow and professor (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Wittgenstein’s influence reaches almost every discipline in the humanities and social sciences, and he has influenced many current Anglican theologians, including Andrew Davison and Alison Milbank.

On his religious views, Wittgenstein was said to be greatly interested in Catholicism and was sympathetic to it. However, he did not consider himself a Catholic. According to Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein saw Catholicism as a way of life rather than as a set of beliefs he personally held.

So, did Wittgenstein see himself as Jewish?

Wittgenstein wrote repeatedly about Jews and Judaism in the 1930s, and many biographical studies present that his writings about Jewishness as a way in which he thought about the kind of person he was and the nature of his philosophical work.

On the other hand, as David Stern points out, many philosophers regard Wittgenstein’s thoughts about Jews as relatively unimportant, and many studies of his philosophy do not even mention the topic.

Yet, some writers have referred to Wittgenstein as a ‘rabbinical thinker’ and a far-sighted critic of anti-Semitism.

There is much debate about the extent to which Wittgenstein and his siblings, who were of three-quarters Jewish descent, saw themselves as Jews. The 1935 Nuremberg laws in 1935 defined as Jewish someone with three or four Jewish grandparents.

In a diary entry shortly after the German-Austrian Anschluss, he described the prospect of holding a German Judenpass or Jewish identity papers as an ‘extraordinarily difficult situation’ and compared it to hot iron that would burn his pocket.

In his writings, Wittgenstein frequently referred to himself as Jewish, at times as part of an apparent self-flagellation. For example, while berating himself for being a ‘reproductive’ as opposed to ‘productive’ thinker, he attributed this to his own Jewish sense of identity.

He wrote, ‘The saint is the only Jewish genius. Even the greatest Jewish thinker is no more than talented. (Myself for instance).’

While Wittgenstein would later claim that ‘my thoughts are 100% Hebraic,’ as Professor Hans Sluga has argued, if so, ‘His was a self-doubting Judaism, which had always the possibility of collapsing into a destructive self-hatred (as it did in [Otto] Weinberger’s case) but which also held an immense promise of innovation and genius.’

Wittgenstein once wrote, ‘Bach wrote on the title page of his Orgelbüchlein, “To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby.” That is what I would have liked to say about my work.’

In a letter to Bertrand Russell in 1912, he said Mozart and Beethoven were the actual sons of God – both composers died in Vienna.

The plaque at the entrance to Kilpatrick House marking the 50th anniversary of Wittgenstein’s death (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The resistance in Crete, ‘Water into Wine’, the Dance of Love, and Bishop Stephen Verney’s reluctant pacifism

‘Water into Wine’ (1985), Bishop Stephen Verney’s commentary on Saint John’s Gospel, drawing on his scholarly knowledge of Greek and insights from his experiences with the resistance in Crete

Patrick Comerford

When I was writing about the sundial at Dial House on Bristle Hill in Buckingham on Thursday (29 January 2026), I noted that the Latin inscription had been provided by Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009), who died only a year after the dial was installed by the late Anthony Randall (1933-2021).

Bishop Stephen has been described as ‘brave, open-thinking and creative’ with a ‘strong romantic side’. He had been a conscientious objector during World War II, but later became an undercover agent in occupied Crete, working with the Greek resistance. He was as an Oxford classicist and at one time his book Water into Wine (1985) had a profound influence on my understandings of Saint John’s Gospel.

Because of a combination of so many of his interests – classical Greek, early pacifism, the resistance in Crete, the Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral and Saint John’s Gospel – as well as his family links with Buckinghamshire, I said at the time I should return to his story in the days or weeks to come

The Gospel reading tomorrow, in those places where it is marked as the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, is John 2: 1-11, the story of the Wedding at Cana and changing water into wine, which inspired that book by Stephen Verney, Water into Wine (1985), and I found myself this week trying to find one of my copies of this book.

Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009) has been described as ‘brave, open-thinking and creative’ with a ‘strong romantic side’

Stephen Edmund Verney was the second Bishop of Repton (1977-1985) and when he retired he was an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford. He was born on 17 April 1919 in Anglesey at his paternal grandmother’s home. His father, Sir Harry Verney (1881-1974), 4th Baronet, of Claydon House, had been the Liberal MP for Buckingham until 1918, held a number of junior ministerial posts and won a DSO in World War I. His maternal grandfather, Victor Alexander Bruce (1849-1917), 9th Earl of Elgin, was Viceroy of India in 1894-1899, and the family was also related to Florence Nightingale.

Stephen Verney spent his childhood at Claydon House, outside Winslow in Buckinghamshire. He went to school at Harrow and then to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1937 to take a classics degree. When World War II broke out, his brothers joined the armed forces. However, Stephen was a conscientious objector and chose to interrupt his university studies to work with the Quaker-run Friends’ Ambulance Unit in in Norway, Finland, Libya and Syria.

But as the war intensified, the Nazi campaign became demonstrably more evil. An incident in Aleppo that led Verney to the agonising decision to leave the Quakers and join the army, and he became a private in the Royal Army Service Corps. This took him to Egypt, and a chance encounter at a party in Cairo with his former headmaster at Harrow, Paul Vellacott (1891-1954), then the director of political warfare in the Middle East with the Political Warfare Executive (PWE).

Aware that Verney was a classicist who could easily master modern Greek, and whose shortness of stature and often scruffy appearance might enable him to pass for a Greek peasant, Vellacott persuaded Verney to join the PWE.

The shore at Preveli on the south coast of Crete … Stephen Verney was landed in Crete on a small boat in 1944

After initial involvement in black propaganda from Cairo, he was commissioned, and in August 1944 – disguised and accompanied by a German Jewish interpreter – he was sent to Crete by night in a small boat. On landing he was met by a Cretan ‘guardian angel’, who recruited a few others to form a cell under Verney’s leadership. With his expertise in classical Greek, it was an easy step to learn modern Greek, and because he was short and naturally dishevelled, it was said he could pass for a Greek peasant.

Verney and his team operated from a base outside Chania – home to the headquarters of the German commander in Crete. With the assistance of a German sergeant major who was in love with a Cretan woman and a Cretan journalist, he printed and distributed Kreta Post, a subtle propaganda paper, in German and Greek, from a cave outside Chania.

His newssheet created a false impression of the size of the resistance movement and that the occupation forces were cracking under the strain. He wrote frequently to the German commander, General Hans-Georg Benthack (1894-1973), telling him Kapitulation was the only real option. A graffiti campaign with the letter ‘K’ was launched, local boys daubed it in on walls, bridges and sentry boxes, and acid was used to etch it on military vehicles.

Verney and his partisans targeted dissatisfied German soldiers who rejected the Nazi regime, others who had fallen in love with Cretan girls, as well as Austrians, Poles and other nationals who had been forced unwillingly into the German army. He negotiated the release of several partisan prisoners by threatening to castrate ‘his’ German prisoners.

On one occasion, Verney was responsible for the mass desertion of Italians who had been fighting with the German army. After indirect contacts with their colonel, a disguised Verney crept into the camp hospital. The meeting was conducted with Verney stretched out on an operating table, the colonel hunched by him as if hearing his confession, while another officer played the part of a surgeon. Verney negotiated the defection of the whole battalion the next morning, and he arranged their evacuation after confiscating all their weapons.

Benthag formally, but secretly, surrendered to one of Verney’s fellow-officers on 8 May, and that evening the small group of British officers in the area invited the German officers who had been hunting them to a party in a café. A jazz band from the German garrison was pressed into service, and during the festivities Verney and the others disclosed their code names and true identities to their astonished guests, including some of the most detested men in the occupying army. All were immediately taken prisoner.

Following the German surrender of Crete, Verney he set up an exhibition of photographs received from recently liberated concentration camps. These were not believed by the still armed German soldiers and a grenade was left under his car.

Verney’s exploits in Crete were recognised after the war with a military MBE. I sometimes wonder whether anyone at the time knew that the man who played such a crucial role in the liberation of Greece was a direct descendant through his mother of Thomas Bruce (1766-1841), 7th Earl of Elgin, who plundered the Parthenon Marbles or Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis of Athens almost a century and a half earlier.

The Suda Bay Commonwealth War Cemetery in Crete, near Chania … Stephen Verney’s exploits in Crete were recognised after the war with a military MBE (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Verney returned to Baliol College in 1946 to complete his degree in Oxford and married his first wife, Priscilla (‘Scilla’) Schwerdt, in 1947. He had been drawn by his wartime experience to ordained ministry, and so trained for the priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge.

He was ordained deacon by Bishop Russell Barry of Southwell at Southwell Minster in 1950, and priest in 1951. He was a curate at Gedling, then the priest in charge of Saint Francis Clifton, Nottingham and Vicar of Leamington Hastings, often working in tough housing estates.

He moved to the Diocese of Coventry as the diocesan missioner in 1958, as Basil Spence’s new cathedral was rising from the ashes of the old cathedral. Cuthbert Bardsley was an enthusiastic new bishop, putting together a team of gifted clergy to develop a vibrant Christian life for the new cathedral. The slogan, ‘A consecrated building requires a consecrated people’, was adopted for a three-year period of preparation, and Verney was entrusted with the project.

Verney enthused people, combining an organising vision with deep spirituality. The Cross of Nails, formed of nails from timber in the ruined cathedral, was passed from parish to parish and made the focus of prayer vigils. By the time Coventry Cathedral was ready for consecration on 26 May 1962, the diocese was in a state of high expectancy and Verney’s leadership was a vital factor.

He was appointed a residentiary canon at Coventry Cathedral in 1964, and by then had become known as an energetic and informal priest within the radical tradition in the Church of England. The gifted team he was a central part of made the Coventry Cathedral a centre of creativity and theological thinking.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the diocese in 1968, he organised an international conference on ‘People and Cities’, celebrating the benefits of urban life and confronting the problems of depersonalisation caused by the scale of modern cities. The participants included planners, philosophers and theologians, and some of the conference’s proposals eventually led to new approaches to urban planning.

In the conference book People and Cities (1969), Verney argued that the future of the Church’s work in cities lay in the formation of small groups, what he called ‘companies of forgiveness’. The book gave rise to the term ‘megalopolis’; it was an early warning about urban conglomeration and exploitation of the natural environment, had a discernable influence on the planners of the new city of Milton Keynes, and was a precursor of the Church of England report Faith in the City (1985).

At the conference, Verney met Fred Blum (1914-1990) who had founded the New Era Centre in 1967. Blum, who had been a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, had become a Quaker and was later ordained an Anglican priest. They became close friends and Verney became a trustee of the New Era Centre.

The Cross of Nails is at the heart of the ministry and outreach of Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Verney became a residentiary canon at Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1970, and was responsible for Saint George’s House, the centre for discussions and conferences in Windsor Castle, organising conferences along ‘Chatham House’ rules. But he was challenged by the traditions and protocols at Saint George’s and when he tried to introduce contemporary worship and modern music he faced opposition and a sharp clash of personalities.

He was also a confessor and friend for ordination candidates at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, near Oxford, and became a spiritual adviser to the L’Arche community, working with people with learning difficulties. Its founder, Jean Varnier, shared Verney's passion for Saint John’s Gospel.

Scilla’s death in 1974 affected him profoundly. Three years later, he became the Suffragan Bishop of Repton in the Diocese of Derby and he was consecrated bishop by Archbishop Donald Coggan of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey in 1977.

In 1981, Stephen Verney married Sandra Bailey, a divorcee whose husband was still living. He was the first bishop to marry a divorced woman. The controversy that followed became a catalyst for permanent changes in the Church of England’s policies on divorce.

As a bishop, he cared warmly for his clergy, believing the church was too restrictive and cautious in matters of morality. He accepted relationships of all sorts so long as they were not exploitative, and was vocal on issues such as nuclear disarmament, just war, trade unions and capitalism, opposed capital punishment and advocated moving away from prison as punishment towards restorative justice.

He developed a ministry to articulate ecumenical groups disillusioned by their churches because of their priorities for maintain buildings or doctrinal differences, or for ostracising gay people or people seeking divorce or remarriage. He encouraged the distinction between church and faith, arguing that God is liberating, and established the retreat centre at Sutton Courtenay near Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

After eight years as Bishop of Repton, he retired to Blewbury in Oxfordshire in1985. In retirement, he was saddened by the pressures for narrowness and judgmentalism within the Anglican Communion, and used his linguistic skills for a sharp critique of fundamentalism in all forms.

He died on 9 November 2009 and was survived by Sandra and the children of his first marriage; a son from his second marriage predeceased him.

His book Fire in Coventry (1964) tells how the people of Coventry prepared for a new cathedral after World War II. In his posthumously published Snakes And Ladders (2016), he reflects on his whole life, from his childhood, his army service, his ordination, and his time in Coventry to his time as a bishop. His ideas found expression in three other small books – Into the New Age (1976), Water into Wine (1985) and The Dance of Love (1989) – each a combination of romanticism, vision and insight.

‘Fill the jars with water … and they filled them up to the brim’ (John 2: 7) … two large jars or pithoi at the Minoan palace in Knossos, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Gospel reading tomorrow is Saint John’s account of the wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), long one of my favourite passages in the Gospels and the reading Charlotte and I chose for the blessing of our weddng in Southwark Cathedral in 2023. This story gave the title to Sttephen Verney’s commentary on Saint John’s Gospel, Water into Wine (1985). His intimate knowledge of Classical Greek served him well as a biblical commentator and the depth of his scholarship made him thoroughly familiar with New Testament Greek, so that he brought out nuances lost so often in English translations.

Water Into Wine is a beautiful book on Saint John’s Gospel, and I have lost many copies over the years, lending them to friends and students, then rummaging again in second-hand bookshops for fresh copies. It was first published in 1985, a year before Steven Verney retired as Bishop of Repton, the year of the miners’ strike and the riots in Handsworth, Brixton and Tottenham, and soon after the Falklands War in 1982 and the intense personal loss of a baby son.

In Water Into Wine, he ties his themes together well, using the Wedding at Cana as the first sign that gives context to the other signs Jesus performed. He draws on the Greek words ἄνω (ano) and κάτω (kato) as ways to understand Saint John’s Gospel. He points out how these two words are different orders, where order is the pattern and the governing principle behind the pattern.

In the order of kato, the ruling principle is me and the pattern is people competing, manipulating and trying to control each other. The order of ano, on the other hand has love as its governing principle and the pattern is one of compassion. The most urgent question confronting each of us, and humanity as a whole, he argues, is how these two orders can be reconciled.

He talks of how ‘the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love’ and of ‘people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.’

The insight into how Saint John’s Gospel that emerges is one of a carefully constructed narrative in which seemingly trivial details, such as the ‘third day’ in tomorrow’s Gospel reading (see John 2: 1), assume a new significance in the events of Holy Week. Verney includes vignettes from his long and varied life, including his time with the resistance in Crete, to illustrate aspects of the gospel.

He writes that ‘we can see in our world order the terrible consequences of our ego-centricity. We have projected it into our institutions, where it has swollen up into a positive force of evil. We are all imprisoned together, in a system of competing nation states, on the edge of a catastrophe which could destroy all life on our planet.’ He was writing in the 1980s but could have been describing today’s populism and nationalism.

The theme of the wedding feast at Cana at the beginning of Saint John’s Gospel points to another third day and to another marriage in eternity. This new age of eternal life begins on the third day after the death of Jesus at the Resurrection ‘and it continues in our experience.’

A new age begins with the crucifixion and resurrection, and Verney locates the new age in the ‘I AM’ sayings of Jesus and what they reveal of his relationship with God. In Jesus, there is a marriage of heaven and earth – a bringing together of ano and kato, up and down, water and wine – and we are called, by Jesus, to become part of that marriage. The marriage of heaven and earth reflects an even more astonishing union that Verney calls ‘The Dance of Love’.

Jesus does only what he sees the Father doing and the Father reveals to Jesus everything that he is doing. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, ‘I and the Father are one.’ The Son cries, ‘Abba! Father!’ and the Father cries ‘my beloved Son’, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.’

There is a relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead where love is constantly shared and exchanged and we are invited into that relationship of love. Becoming part of the Dance of Love through the marriage of heaven and earth is the new age into which we are born again through the death and resurrection of Jesus. To be born again in this way is to be raised from a consciousness that is really death into a quality of life that is eternal.

Stephen Verney's life is recalled in his posthumous ‘Snakes and Ladders’ (2016)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 1, Monday 3 February 2025

‘Immediately a man out of the tombs … He lived among the tombs’ (Mark 5: 2-3) … the Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the rock face in the cliffs above Fethiye in south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas concluded yesterday with the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Sunday 2 February 2025) or Candlemas. Today we return to Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, the liturgical colour returns from white to green, and it is little more than a month before Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025) and the beginning of Lent.

Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Anskar (865), Archbishop of Hamburg and missionary in Denmark and Sweden. Later this morning, I have a GP appointment in Stony Stratford and some blood tests. The meeting of trustees of a local charity that mistakenly turned up last week actually takes place this evening. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, 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.

‘Immediately a man out of the tombs … He lived among the tombs’ (Mark 5: 2-3) … the ‘King’s Tomb’ is a symbol of Kaş in southern Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 5: 1-20 (NRSVA):

1 They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ 8 For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ 9 Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.

14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. 17 Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

‘They came to the other side of the lake … [and he] stepped out of the boat (Mark 5: 1) … a boat at the shore at Cape Clear (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

We are returning to Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar today, but in the Lectionary provisions for the Gospel readings at the daily celebrations of the Eucharist we are continuing our readings from Saint Mark’s Gospel.

In today’s reading (Mark 5: 1-20), after calming the waters during a difficult boat journey, Jesus stills the mind and heart of a ‘possessed’ man who cannot be restrained. There are shorter versions of this story in the two other synoptic gospels (Matthew 8: 28-32; Luke 8: 36-33), but Mark’s is the most dramatic.

This man is regarded as ‘unclean’ for many reasons: the disturbing and embarrassing state of his psychiatric health; living among tombs and graves; and his foul and blasphemous language; his undressed and bloody wounds; and his violent behaviour. The totality of his unacceptable presence is expressed in saying he was as unclean as 2,000 pigs, although the name Legion hints at 3,000 to 6,000 demons.

The image of a dishevelled man, half-fed and verbally embarrassing living among the tombs at first seems over dramatic. But priests and churchgoers in parishes up and down this land are familiar with the homeless and marginalised men who often seek shelter in the lychgates at the entrances to our churchyards.

I cannot provide them with the professional help they need, but I can sit and talk with them, occasionally share a sandwich with them, and listen to their distressing stories. And sometimes, when I get to know them by name, they begin to accept me too, to the point of asking me to pray not only for them but for their families too, and occasionally one or two of them asks for a blessing or absolution.

One of the greatest intellectual minds of the 20th century, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, regularly called on his friend Dr Maurice O’Connor (‘Con’) Drury (1907-1976) for psychiatric help, and might have been homeless but for the care and help of this Irish psychiatrist.

Con Drury was an Anglican ordinand at Westcott House in Cambridge for just a year, but became a friend of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, while he was at Cambridge. One day in 1931, Wittgenstein visited Drury at Westcott House, and they sat in silence in the chapel. When suddenly someone in the gallery started playing the piano, Wittgenstein jumped up and exclaimed: ‘Blasphemy! A piano and the cross. Only an organ should be allowed in a church.’

Drury left Westcott to work in Tyneside with a club for the unemployed run by Archdeacon Leslie Hunter, who was later involved in the Jarrow March. He then worked with an unemployment scheme in Merthyr Tydfil until Wittgenstein, the economist John Maynard Keynes and their friend Gilbert Pattison arranged to finance Drury’s medical education in Ireland.

Drury became the Resident Psychiatrist in Saint Patrick’s Hospital (‘Swift’s Hospital’) in Dublin under Professor Norman Moore. He was instrumental in arranging Wittgenstein’s many visits to Ireland, and was a pioneer in psychiatric medicine in Ireland as the Resident Psychiatrist in Saint Patrick’s Hospital and its nursing home at Saint Edmundsbury’s in Lucan.

The Cambridge philosopher and Dublin psychiatrist met almost daily, strolling in the Phoenix Park and the Zoo, or visiting the Botanic Gardens in the 1940s. When Drury visited the dying Wittgenstein in Cambridge in April 1951 Wittgenstein accompanied him to railway station, and his last words to Drury were: ‘Whatever becomes of you, don’t stop thinking.’

Two of the great minds of the 20th century, the philosopher and the psychiatrist, had helped each other throughout their lives. I never know who I am sitting beside in the lychgate. They may not be among the greatest of philosophers; I am certainly not among the exemplary priests or counsellors. But sitting there with them, I look forward to the day when each one known to me by name may be ‘clothed and in his right mind’.

Hopefully, some of them get more than the prayers they need and that they get to the point where someone is able to say: ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’

‘The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country’ (Mark 5: 14) … a boot scraper in the shape of a pig at Westcott House, Cambridge, a pun on the surname of the former principal, Bertram Cunningham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 3 February 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Common Humanity and Love for Religious “Other”.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a Reflection by the Revd Dr Salli Effungani, a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC), Programme Officer for the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA), and Adjunct Lecturer on Interfaith Relations at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 3 February 2025) invites us to pray:

We thank you for creating us in your image, each unique and precious in your sight. Help us to celebrate our shared humanity and extend love to those of diverse faiths and backgrounds.

The Collect:

God of grace and might,
who sent your servant Anskar
to spread the gospel to the Nordic peoples:
raise up, we pray, in our generation
messengers of your good news
and heralds of your kingdom
that the world may come to know
the immeasurable riches of 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:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Anskar and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you’ (Mark 5: 19) … an icon in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

‘Immediately a man out of the tombs … He lived among the tombs’ (Mark 5: 2-3) … the lychgate at the entrance to the churchyard beside Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)