41 million Dutch tulips, 41 million in Switzerland, 41 million digits in total, and 41 million blog readers

Tulips from Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport … the Netherlands extends to over 41 million square metres or 41,000 sq km (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I continue to be overwhelmed by the viewing and reading figures for this blog. These figures passed the 41 million point about 3:30 this afternoon (9 June 2026), having passed the 40 million mark at the end of last month (28 May 2026) and 39 million a week earlier (22 May 2026). These figures passed the million mark six times last month, and passed that mark four times in April.

These viewing and reading figures are overwhelming and this blog continues to reach a volume of readers that I never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (20.5 million) have been within less than five months, since 13 January 2026. The total hits last month were the highest ever, with over 5.8 million hits in May 2026, compared with previous one-month highs in March 2026 (over 4.5 million) and April (almost 4.4 million). The figure of over 5.8 million in May was astonishing, considering it took almost 11 years, from July 2010 until 27 March 2021, to reach what I then thought was the staggering figure of 5 million hits.

At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 20 million hits or visitors in 2026.

I first began blogging back in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. Throughout this year and last, the daily figures continue to be overwhelming on many occasions. Of the ten days of busiest traffic on this blog, three were last month (1, 6 and 14 May 2026), three were the previous month (26, 29 and 30 April 2026), three were in March, and one was in February:

• 1,124,925 (1 May 2026)
• 525,719 (14 May 2026)
• 509,644 (29 April 2026)
• 344,003 (30 April 2026)
• 323,156 (27 March 2026)

• 322,038 (26 April 2026)
• 318,835 (6 May 2026)
• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 301,449 (2 March 2026)

The daily average was over 187,000 throughout May, although that figure was distorted by the exceptionally high number of hits on three days that month. There were about 145,000 or more hits a day last month; ten years ago, in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000.

Passing through Zurich Airport … Switzerland is about 41 million square metres or 41,000 sq km (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

To put this latest figure of 41 million into perspective:

The largest known prime number, discovered in late 2024, has over 41 million digits. It has 41,024,320 digits, and if you tried to print it out, the result would fill more than 10,000 pages.

The discovery that this number – known as M136279841 for short – is a prime was made on 12 October 2024 by Luke Durant, a from San Jose, California, who is one of thousands of people working as part of a long-running volunteer prime-hunting effort called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.

Nearly 1 in five children, an estimated 41 million, are engaged in child labour in Eastern and Southern Africa, according to a new UNICEF Data Brief, with the region accounting for almost one-third of the global total and the highest number of children in hazardous work, including mining and construction.

Canada has a population of about 41 million people.

41 million square metres is 41,000 sq km, the size of Switzerland (41,291 sq km), the Netherlands (41,865 sq km) or Southampton Island (41,214 sq km) in Hudson Bay, one of the larger islands in the Arctic Archipelago in Canada, the 34th largest island in the world.

The National Diet Library in Japan and the National Library of China each has about 41 million items in its collection.

41 million minutes add up to 78 years and 2 days – with 40 minutes left over. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take 78 years, from 7 June 1948, to reach today’s figure of 41 million.

I retired from active parish ministry over four years ago, on 30 March 2022. These days, though, about 120-140 people on average continue to read my daily prayer diary on this blog each morning. A similar number have been reading my recent series of postings on churches and local history in Staffordshire, and were reading my recent series of postings on the churches and chapels of Walsingham. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 850 to 1,000 or more people each week.

This evening, I am truly grateful to the real readers among those 41 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I am thankful for the faithful core group of 120-140 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each morning.

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 15, Tuesday 17 February 2026

The staff of life … 12 loaves of bread depicted in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This period of Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar has been very short this year, lasting for little more than two weeks, today is Shrove Tuesday, or in most of our childhood memories, Pancake Tueday, with pncake races in Lichield, Olney and many other places. Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026).

The calendar of the Church of England today remembers the life and witness of Janani Luwum (1977), Archbishop of Uganda and Martyr. 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, 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.

‘When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve’ (Mark 8: 19) … 12 loaves of bread in the Bretzel Bakery in Portobello, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 14-21 (NRSVA):

14 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out – beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.’ 16 They said to one another, ‘It is because we have no bread.’ 17 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ 20 ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ 21 Then he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’

‘Bread is still the staff of life’ … the façade of Frank O’Connor’s former bakery on North Main Street, Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

I can truly identify with the forgetfulness of the disciples in this morning’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 14-21). I have forgotten to pack enough clothes for a weekend away and for holidays. I have left clothes behind in hotels, keys on a shop counter, lost a phone on a train between Tamworth and Lichfield and another in a taxi from Luton. I got a train in the wrong direction when I was to speak at a book launch in London. I have even left my passport behind in Stony Stratford, so that I missed a flight and the launch in Dublin of a book to which I had contributed two chapters.

I know it happens to others too. I hope this forgetfulness does not mark the way we set out on a long journey tomorrow. But with those memories and that in the background, I understandably feel sympathetic with any of the disciples in today’s reading who might be dismissed by readers as being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic.’

I have memories from my more youthful days in Wexford, when I worked with the Wexford People and Frank O’Connor’s bakery was on North Main Street. The bakery dated back to 1860, and closed in 1979. But I remember the initials FOC on the façade, and the slogan: ‘Bread is still the staff of life.’

The constant and witty response from one friend as he passed that shop in North Main Street was: ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’

One is a popular proverb that many assume is a Biblical quotation; the other is a Biblical quotation, that appears once in Deuteronomy and twice in the Gospels.

The Gospel reading for the Eucharist today reflects the importance of breads in daily life in the time of Jesus and the Disciples – it was truly the staff of life.

The Kupa Synagogue in the Old Jewish in Kraków has a wall painting or fresco of 12 loaves of bread that are described as ‘sacramental.’

To what degree is this morning’s Gospel reading for the Eucharist a sacramental reading?

When the disciples are rebuked for forgetting to bring any bread with them, it is not just a matter of everyone in the group going hungry for a little while. The Greek verb used here for ‘to forget’ (ἐπιλανθάνομαι, epilanthanomai) conveys the sense of negligence or disregarding rather than memory loss. I am inclined to read it as describing a wilful decision not to remember to bring bread rather than some forgetful lapse of memory.

And the Greek word used here to describe to bring or to take (λαμβάνω, lambanō) describes not the process of buying bread, or putting it in your shopping basket or a picnic hamper. It describes laying hands on it.

Taking, blessing, breaking and giving … essential acts of giving and receiving, Eucharistic acts.

Bread is still the staff of life, and encountering Christ in the breaking of the bread, in sacramental living, still brings and gives life.

The church is the boat, and not merely forgetting but neglecting the opportunity to share the staff of life in the Church, for me, is one of the weaknesses I find in a church that professes to be a church of word and sacrament.

A sandwich bar in Zurich Airport … were some of the disciples close to being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 17 February 2026):

The theme this week (15-21 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Look to the Amazon!’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Bishop of Amazonia and Archbishop of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 17 February 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, bless the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil as it stands alongside Indigenous communities in the Amazon to protect forests and defend the rights of land and culture.

The Collect:

God of truth,
whose servant Janani Luwum walked in the light,
and in his death defied the powers of darkness:
free us from fear of those who kill the body,
that we too may walk as children of light,
through him who overcame darkness by the power of the cross,
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 God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Janani Luwum:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A town sign in Olney depicts the town’s traditional pancake race on Shrove Tuesday (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 16, Tuesday 18 February 2025

The staff of life … 12 loaves of bread depicted in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are little more than two weeks away (5 March 2025).

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, 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.

‘When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve’ (Mark 8: 19) … 12 loaves of bread in the Bretzel Bakery in Portobello, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Mark 8: 14-21 (NRSVA):

14 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out – beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.’ 16 They said to one another, ‘It is because we have no bread.’ 17 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ 20 ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ 21 Then he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’

‘Bread is still the staff of life’ … the façade of Frank O’Connor’s former bakery on North Main Street, Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

I can truly identify with the forgetfulness of the disciples in this morning’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 14-21). I have forgotten to pack enough clothes for a weekend away and for holidays. I have left clothes behind in hotels, keys on a shop counter, lost a phone on a train between Tamworth and Lichfield and another in taxi from Luton. I have got a train in the wrong direction when I was to speak at a book launch in London. I have even left my passport behind in Stony Stratford, and so missed a flight and the launch in Dublin of a book to which I had contributed two chapters.

I know it happens to others too. But this morning I might feel very sympathetic with any of the disciples who might be dismissed by readers as being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic.’

I have memories from my more youthful days in Wexford, when I worked with the Wexford People and Frank O’Connor’s bakery was on North Main Street. The bakery dated back to 1860, and closed in 1979. But I remember the initials FOC on the façade, and the slogan: ‘Bread is still the staff of life.’

The constant and witty response from one friend as he passed that shop in North Main Street was: ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’

One is a popular proverb that many assume is a Biblical quotation; the other is a Biblical quotation, that appears once in Deuteronomy and twice in the Gospels.

The Gospel reading for the Eucharist today reflects the importance of breads in daily life in the time of Jesus and the Disciples – it was truly the staff of life.

The Kupa Synagogue in the Old Jewish in Kraków has a wall painting or fresco of 12 loaves of bread that are described as ‘sacramental.’

To what degree is this morning’s Gospel reading for the Eucharist a sacramental reading?

When the disciples are rebuked for forgetting to bring any bread with them, it is not just a matter of everyone in the group going hungry for a little while. The Greek verb used here for ‘to forget’ (ἐπιλανθάνομαι, epilanthanomai) conveys the sense of negligence or disregarding rather than memory loss. I am inclined to read it as describing a wilful decision not to remember to bring bread rather than some forgetful lapse of memory.

And the Greek word used here to describe to bring or to take (λαμβάνω, lambanō) describes not the process of buying bread, or putting it in your shopping basket or a picnic hamper. It describes laying hands on it.

Taking, blessing, breaking and giving … essential acts of giving and receiving, Eucharistic acts.

Bread is still the staff of life, and encountering Christ in the breaking of the bread, in sacramental living, still brings and gives life.

The church is the boat, and not merely forgetting but neglecting the opportunity to share the staff of life in the Church, for me, is one of the weaknesses I find in a church that professes to be a church of word and sacrament.

A sandwich bar in Zurich Airport … were some of the disciples close to being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 18 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 ‘The Struggle for Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Dr Rodrigo Espiúca dos Anjos Siqueira, Coordinator of the Department of Advocacy, Human, Environmental and Territorial Rights of the Anglican Diocese of Brasília. Pastor of Espírito Santo Parish, Novo Gama, Goiás.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 18 February 2025) invites us to pray:

We pray for transparency and honesty, that the political authorities may realise the serious injustice suffered by Indigenous peoples and traditional communities.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who alone can bring order
to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity:
give your people grace
so to love what you command
and to desire what you promise,
that, among the many changes of this world,
our hearts may surely there be fixed
where true joys are to be found;
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:

Merciful Father,
who gave Jesus Christ to be for us the bread of life,
that those who come to him should never hunger:
draw us to the Lord in faith and love,
that we may eat and drink with him
at his table in the kingdom,
where he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
into the image of Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

A summer evening on the lawns at Saint John's College, Cambridge … have I sometimes been close to being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’? (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

Back in Rethymnon, with a week of sun, swimming and exhibitions

The Hotel Brascos in the centre of Rethymnon is beside the Municipal Gardens and a few steps from the Porto Guora

Patrick Comerford

As summer draws to a very noticeable close in Ireland, I am back again in Rethymnon on the Greek island of Crete.

Today’s journey has been a long one, leaving Dublin in the morning for Zurich, catching a second flight an hour later to Iraklion, and then taking a bus from Iraklion to Rethymnon, arriving here late in the evening.

But the long journey to Rethymnon is always rewarding. This is my third successive year to stay in Rethymnon, but I have been a constant visitor to this old charming town since the mid-1980s, and have lost count of the number of times I have been back here.

This year I am staying for a week in the Hotel Brascos in the centre of Rethymnon, next to the Municipal Gardens and a few steps from the Porto Guora or old gate leading into the old Venetian town, with its labyrinthine network of narrow cobbled streets and squares.

The Hotel Brascos stands on the corner of Moatsou and Daskalaki Streets (Μοάτσου και Δασκαλάκη). This is a friendly hotel with 88 guest rooms, all with balconies, and the roof garden offers panoramic views over the old town with its Turkish minarets, Byzantine towers and Venetian fortezza, and out across to the harbour.

The roof garden in the Hotel Brascos offers panoramic views across the old town and out to the Venetian harbour

The old Venetian port is only 350 metres from the hotel, and the beach – the longest sandy beach on the island – is a mere five-minute walk away. So I am looking forward to walks through the old town, swimming in the sea and in the pool, and watching the sunsets from the hotel roof garden or garden or at a nice tavern I know beneath the walls of the fortezza.

Sadly, the annual Renaissance Festival in Rethymnon has been cancelled this year. But there are a number of interesting exhibitions worth visiting this week. Until Thursday next [28 August 2014], the Old Artillery Hall in the Fortezza is hosting “Homage to the Greek,” an art exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of the death of El Greco. The exhibition is open daily from 11.00 to 14.00 and from 18.00 to 22.00.

Until the end of the month [31 August 2014], the Kara Mousa Pasa Mosque on Agnostou Square in the Old Town is the venue for “Ghosts of the Mediterranean, or The Reflections of the Past,” a video installation by Marianna Strapatsaki. This exhibition is open daily from 12.00 to 14.00 and 19.00 to 21.00, but is closed on Mondays.

There may even be time for trips to some of the monasteries in the hills above Rethymnon, or further afield to Chania or Iraklion.