Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 10, Monday 10 November 2025

You could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you (Luke 17: 6) … a mulberry tree in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. This week began with the Third Sunday before Advent yesterday, which was also Remembrance Sunday. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Leo the Great (461), Bishop of Rome, Teacher of the Faith.

Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading 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.

‘World’s Smallest Seed,’ 40”x30” oil/canvas, by James B Janknegt

Luke 17: 1-6 (NRSVA):

1 Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! 2 It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 4 And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent”, you must forgive.’

5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6 The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you.’

Mulberry Street in Whitechapel … welcomed 400 refugees who had been trafficked by boat in 1764 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflections:

I can honestly admit that I do not have green fingers.

For most of my life, I have no interest in gardening. I like sitting in a garden, reading in the sunshine, listening to the sound of the birds or a small fountain, enjoying the shade of the trees, and in summertime, eating out in the open.

So, it is not that I do not enjoy the garden. It is just that I have always felt I am no good at it.

It is an attitude that may have been nurtured and cultured from heavy hay-fever in my early childhood, hay-fever that comes back to haunt me perennially at the beginning of each summer.

I once bought a willow tree, in the early 1980s, sat with it in the back of a small car all the way back across Dublin, holding on to the tree as it stuck out the side window. By the time I got home, I was covered in rashes, and my eyes, ears and nose were in a deep state of irritation. It must have been related to the willow trees in the Psalms, because afterwards I sat down and wept.

For that reason alone, you could not call me a ‘tree hugger.’ But do not get me wrong … I really do like trees.

I relish spending time in the vast, expansive olive groves that stretch for miles and miles along the mountainsides in Crete, or in vineyards where the olive groves protect the vines.

But I cannot be trusted with trees. I was once given a present of a miniature orange tree … and it died within weeks. I have been given presents of not one, but two olive trees. One, sadly, died, the other grew but remained a tiny little thing.

Perhaps if I had just a little faith in my ability to help trees to grow, they would survive and mature.

Mulberries were introduced to England by the Romans and were commonly used for making mediaeval ‘murrey’ (sweet pottage) as well as for medicinal purposes. They were reintroduced in the early 17th century when James tried to establish native silk production in 1607-1609 when around 10,000 saplings were imported and distributed by William Stallenge and François Verton through local officials at six shillings for a hundred plants, less for packets of seeds.

The commercial project failed, black mulberries (morus nigra) being acquired rather than the white (morus alba) that silkworms tend to favour. But one of these mulberry plantations gave its name to Mulberry Street, a short quiet back street in Whitechapel, with the tall bell-tower of Saint Boniface, the German Roman Catholic Church, at one end.

There was a second mulberry garden close by, across Whitechapel Road in Mile End New Town, north of what is now Old Montague Street and east of Greatorex (formerly Great Garden) Street. Land to the east of that south of Old Montague Street appears also to have been similarly planted. Spitalfields was already at the beginning of the 17th century a centre of silk throwing and weaving.

The mulberry garden in Whitechapel became a market garden and then a pleasure ground, and was used of for a few weeks in 1764 as a temporary asylum for refugees. A tented camp was set up for around 400 deceived and destitute refugees from the Palatinate and Bohemia who had been abandoned on what they had thought was a journey to Nova Scotia. With local fundraising and charitable efforts, iniiated primarily by local churches and clergy, the refugees eventually left and found homes in South Carolina.

Housing development in the area began in the 1780s and 1790s. The Mulberry Tree public house once stood on the north side of Little Holloway Street, while Union Row later became Mulberry Street.

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 an 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.

However, the tree Christ names (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, 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 we come across later in this Gospel 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, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, 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.

Here are six little vignettes about faith that I came across recently:

1, Once all the villagers decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer, all the people gathered, but only one little boy came with an umbrella. That is faith.

2, When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them. That is trust.

3, Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarm to wake up. That is hope.

4, We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future. That is confidence.

5, We see the world suffering, but still people get married and have children. That is love.

6, There is an old man who wears a T-shirt with the slogan: ‘I am not 80 years old; I am sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.’ That is attitude.

This morning’s Gospel reading challenges us to pay attention to our attitude to, to the quality of, our faith, trust, hope, confidence, love and positivity. And if we do so, we will be surprised by the results.

Meanwhile, the refugees in the Mulberry Gardens in Whitechapel over 260 years are a reminder that people have always been the victims of traffickers and people smugglers and that refugees have been arriving from cotinental Europe on these islands without documentation for centuries. But the compassionate and practical response of the local churches and clergy shows that small actions by people of faith, no matter what size that faith may be, can bring about positive results and create justice.

Mulberry Hall at 17-19 Stonegate, York, dates from 1434 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 10 November 2025):

The theme this week (9 to 15 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Hope for the Future’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections from Laura D’Henin-Ivers, Chief Executive Officer at Hope for the Future, to mark the opening of COP30 in Brazil today.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 10 November 2025) invites us to pray:

Creator God, you have entrusted us with this beautiful world. Forgive us for the ways we have misused its gifts and failed to protect its wonders. Inspire us to be faithful stewards, cherishing the land, waters, and all creatures who share this home with us.

During my prayers this morning I am also giving thanks for the 14 years Michael D Higgins has been President of Ireland, and the ways he has used that office to be a voice for social justice and peace around the world. I shall reflect on that again later this evening as term of office draws to a close.

Olive groves on the slopes beneath Piskopianó in Crete … why did Jesus talk about mustard plants and mulberry trees and not about olive trees? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

God our Father,
who made your servant Leo strong in the defence of the faith:
fill your Church with the spirit of truth
that, guided by humility and governed by love,
she may prevail against the powers of evil;
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 Leo to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Figs ripening on a fig tree near the beach at Platanias, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

The London Jewish Mural recalls the vibrancy of Jewish history through 150 faces and 100 stories

The London Jewish Mural on Finchley Road … a kaleidoscope of Jewish history by Leon Fenster (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Earlier this year, during the summer months, I visited the London Jewish Mural in Finchley. Leon Fenster has captured the colourful and vibrant essence of London's Jewish community in a 26.5 x 14.2 metre artwork rising nine storeys high.

The mural, featuring over 150 faces from historical figures to local legends, celebrates the diverse and dynamic contributions of Jewish individuals to London’s history and culture in a colourful kaleidoscope that draws together memories, legends, history, celebrations and stories of the Jews who live, lived and passed through London.

The towering London Jewish Mural was unveiled at the JW3 cultural centre on Finchley Road in early July on a previously blank wall. The work takes the form of a Yiddish theatre straight from the 19th century East End. It takes a while to see the boxes, stage and seating, however, as every inch is packed with characters and objects.

The artwork was installed on 12 July 2024 by a team of abseilers who had to battle with the wind to pin it down. Fully unfurled, the banner transformed a once blank wall into that rich tapestry of London Jewish culture and history.

Leon Fenster’s collage features hundreds of people, places and items connected to the history of Jewish London, with over 150 faces and 100 stories from Jewish fiction, legend, history and the business world.

William Gallinsky, director of programming at JW3, which commissioned the mural, said: ‘London has a diverse Jewish community, with history and stories to match. Now, more than ever, we need to ensure that rich tapestry is shared with the whole of London. What better way to be loud, and proud of our heritage, than by putting it up on the side of our home for the world to see? Leon has captured the depth and breadth of Jewish London in a beautiful artwork that we hope will create countless conversations about multicultural London.’

Dame Vivien Duffield, founder of JW3, and CEO Raymond Simonson are there among all the faces on the wall, and, as we might expect, there are seven prominent rabbis, including Julia Neuberger and the late Jonathan Sacks.

Can you spot the boxers, bus stops and Oliver Cromwell? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Political figures range from Benjamin Disraeli, the only Jewish prime minister, celebrating the bar mitzvah he never had, to Karl Marx, who is buried in Highgate. But here too are Queen Elizabeth I at the trial of Rodrigo Lopez, her Jewish personal physician, and Oliver Cromwell, who allowed Jews to return to England in the 1650s.

There are Jewish boxers across the generations, including Daniel Mendoza, who appears on my own family tree, and the 1930s Olympic boxer Harry Mizler.

But what would Sigmund Freud think of being there alongside three agony aunts, Margorie Proops, Claire Rayner and Irma Kurtz? Maureen Lipman is grappling with a couple of phones, recreating Beatie who featured in BT television ads for many years.

There are copies of paintings by Marc Chagall, the comedian and author David Baddiel is up a ladder marking a tally on a wall – a reference to his book Jews Don’t Count – and the tiger and rabbit are from the children’s books by Judith Kerr.

The Beatles come back from the 1960s, thanks to their Jewish manager Brian Epstein, who steered their early look and style. Epstein gave them their first suits, inspired by Mod fashion, which was a Jewish phenomenon – the children of Jewish tailors wearing their parents’ creations. Indeed, the whole work has been compared on one site to Peter Blake’s famous Sergeant Pepper album cover.

There are the Beigel shops on Brick Lame, while a bus stop refers to Palwin wines, a Kosher brand that produces varieties 4, 4A, 10 and 11 – named after the bus routes that once ran past the firms offices in Whitechapel. A minibus weighed down by black hats and suitcases represents the Charedi community’s gradual migration from Stamford Hill to Canvey Island in Essex.

A young Nicholas Winton is seen overseeing the Kindertransport trains, there is a depiction of the Battle of Cable Street, and there are images of the Women’s Soviet Jewry Campaign.

Even the Golem of Prague appears, warding off Nazi planes during the Blitz by hanging off Saint Paul’s Cathedral like King Kong.

The Golem of Prague hangs off Saint Paul’s Cathedral like King Kong during the Blitz (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Leon Fenster’s art is a bold new form of visual storytelling. He began his career in architecture and his kaleidoscopic approach was inspired by his architectural background, giving a very distinctive character to his work.

Some weeks later, as I looked at Yip Yew Chong’s street art in Singapore, I was not surprised that during his time in Singapore, Taiwan and China Leon Fenster had been inspired by the density of Asian cities to develop the style he is now known for.

In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Leon Fenster said the mural was ‘a collision of historical memories in a single space, an artwork that lets us inhabit our memories and dreams in the same way that we actually remember our memories within dreams. It's a kaleidoscope of the world of one community.’

I spent some time that afternoon viewing the mural in Finchley and yet did not spot everyone or everything. I had every good intention of returning to see the mural before the display came to an end. I hope it’s still there the next time I visit London.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

David Baddiel up a ladder marking a tally on a wall – a reference to his book ‘Jews Don’t Count’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Whitechapel fountain is a reminder of East End’s diversity and Jewish history

The Jewish Memorial Drinking Fountain on Whitechapel Road was erected ‘from subscriptions raised from Jewish inhabitants of East London’ in memory of Edward VII (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

One of the most unusual Jewish monuments in the East End is the King Edward VII Jewish Memorial Drinking Fountain on Whitechapel Road. A plaque on the fountain records that it was erected ‘from subscriptions raised from Jewish inhabitants of East London’ in memory of Edward VII.

Today, the fountain surrounded by a market that fills the street and looks forlorn and forgotten, without water and often with piles of rubbish from the market collecting around it. It appears less like a reminder of its regal legacy and more an image of the cultural variety that has always been a distinctive mark of the East End.

The idea for the memorial was conceived by the writer Annie Gertrude Landa, better known to young readers as ‘Aunt Naomi.’ Gertrude Landa was an author, journalist and playwright. Her book Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends was published in 1908, republished in 1919, and expanded on several times.

She was born Hannah (Annie) Gertrude Gordon in 1892, a sister of the writer Samuel Gordon. She married the Jewish writer Myer Jack Landa, and together they published a number of novels and plays. She also wrote a children’s column in the Jewish Chronicle.

The fountain on Whitechapel Road was unveiled on 15 March 1912 by Charles Rothschild (1877-1923), a banker and entomologist who is best remembered for ‘The Rothschild List,’ a list in 1915 of 284 sites across Britain that he considered suitable for nature reserves.

Nathaniel ‘Charles’ Rothschild was a partner in the family bank NM Rothschild and Sons. He went to Rothschild’s Bank every morning and never missed a day, despite his varied interests in science and in natural history. He identified the Bubonic plague vector flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, and his enormous collection of 260,000 fleas is in the Rothschild Collection in the Natural History Museum.

Charles Rothschild was married to Rózsika Edle von Wertheimstein (1870-1940), a descendant of an old Austrian-Jewish family who was born in Nagyvárad, Hungary – now the Romanian city of Oradea. She was a champion lawn tennis player in Hungary, and they met on a butterfly-collecting trip in the Carpathian Mountains.

The fountain was designed by Henry Poole and William Silver Frith (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The fountain cost £800, is made from Hopton Wood Stone, and was made by Henry Poole, who made a number of public fountains around Britain.

The figures on the fountain are the work of William Silver Frith (1850-1924), an architectural sculptor who often with architect Sir Aston Webb. Frith studied at the Lambeth School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. He succeeded Jules Dalou as master of the South London Technical Art School – now the City and Guilds of London Art School – where he was a guiding force to several figures in the New Sculpture school, including FW Pomeroy, CJ Allen and George Frampton. His other work includes statues of the sculptors Grinling Gibbons and John Bacon for the Victoria and Albert Museum (1899-1909).

The fountain is designed in a classic pillar style, and is made from white stone with a tapered central square pillar. The pillar displays bronze figures of the Angels of Peace, of Liberty and of Justice, and four cherubs holding objects that were significant to the Jewish community at the time the memorial was unveiled:

• a ship is a reminder that many members of the local Jewish community were recent immigrants;
• a needle and thread signifies the clothing industry that employed the majority of the East End Jewish community until the 1970s;
• a book signifies the importance of education to the community both from the local secular Jewish schools and the schools of Talmudic study;
• a car held by a cherub shows the increasing pace of modernity and the shift away from the horse and cart.

The side facing the street has a relief portrait of Edward VII with emblems of the Order of the Garter (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

A crowned roundel on the north side carries the inscription: ‘In grateful and loyal memory of Edward VII, Rex et Imperator, Erected by subscriptions raised by Jewish inhabitants of East London, 1911’. The side facing the street has a relief portrait of Edward VII with emblems of the Order of the Garter.

The fountain was listed at Grade II on the National Heritage List for England in 1973.

Michael McNay, in the Hidden Treasures of London, describes the memorial fountain as sitting ‘in the ethnic Asian community today as naturally as the exotic and overweening architecture of Mumbai, built on the high tide of the British Raj, suits the gateway of India.’

The memorial was covered with pieces of raw meat and chicken in August 2015 in what newspaper reports described as an ‘apparent anti-Semitic attack.’ The incident was reported to police and the memorial was cleaned by Tower Hamlets Council workers.

Despite its anachronistic pledges of royal loyalty and its forlorn and forgotten appearance today, this fountain remains a reminder of the need to appreciate the diversity that is part of the East End and a reminder of the need to be vigilant when it comes to antisemitism and racism.

Shabbat Shalom

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)