Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 57, Saturday 5 July 2025

‘Neither is new wine put into old wineskins’ (Matthew 9: 17) … old wine in old barrels in a winery in Vryses in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Third Sunday after Trinity (Trinity III, 6 July 2025).

Later today, the Greek community in Stony Stratford is opening its pop-up café at Swinfen Harris Church Hall, London Road. Το Στεκι Μας, Our Place, takes place every first Saturday of the month from 10:30 to 5 pm.

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

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak’ (Matthew 9: 16) … an exhibit in the Patch Work Collective exhibition in Liberty, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Matthew 9: 14-17 (NRSVA):

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ 15 And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.’

‘Neither is new wine put into old wineskins’ (Matthew 9: 17) … an old wine at sunset at the Sunset Taverna in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Gospel reading in the Lectionary for the celebration of the Eucharist today (Matthew 9: 14-17) follows yesterday’s account of the calling of Saint Matthew, and is set at the banquet in Matthew’s house, to which Jesus goes, despite the criticism of local religious leaders (see Matthew 9: 9-13).

Quite often in the Gospels we find Jesus facing criticism from the Pharisees, the Scribes or both groups working together. But we seldom find Jesus facing criticism from the disciples of John the Baptist, still less from the disciples of John seemingly on the same side of the Pharisees.

The critics yesterday asked why Jesus was eating with sinners and outcasts. Today they go one step further and ask why he is eating at all. They point to the example of John the Baptist and his disciples who fasted regularly.

In Jewish practice, the only day of the year when fasting is expected is Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. However, John’s disciples and perhaps also some Pharisees, may have observed additional fasts that were not prescribed by the Law in the hope that their extra piety would help hasten an early coming of the Kingdom.

Jesus answers their question in two ways. First, he says that people do not fast when they are in the company of the bridegroom. That is a time for celebration. By implication, of course, Jesus is the groom. As long as he is around, it would be inappropriate for his disciples to fast. However, he says a time will come when the groom is no longer with them, and then there will be reason enough then to fast.

His second answer is more profound and it takes the form of two examples.

In the first example, Jesus says It does not make sense to repair an old piece of clothing with a patch of new cloth. The new cloth, being much tougher, will, under stress, only cause the older cloth to tear.

In the second example, Jesus says it is not wise to put new wine into old wineskins. Wine was kept in containers made of leather. Because new wine was still fermenting and expanding, it was put in new leather bags that could expand with the wine. The old bags would be stretched already, and new wine would only cause them to burst. Then both the wine would be lost and the bags ruined.

What does Jesus mean by these images?

What message is Jesus giving to his critics?

Are his ideas like new wine or new cloth to you?

People like the Pharisees tried to fit Jesus’ teaching and his ideas into their ways of thinking, but that did not seem to work.

The new cloth and the new wine, then, are the spirit of the Kingdom as proclaimed by Jesus, a radically new understanding of how God is to be loved, and how God loves us.

Jesus does not measure religion by external actions like fasting or other demands and expectation such as washing hands before eating. Instead, religion is a matter of the inner spirit and how we reflect that in the way we live our lives, as he teaches in the Sermon on the Mount.

How do I try to squeeze new wine into old wineskins?

What prejudices and hang-ups that were external and extraneous expressions of Church life in the past am I still clinging onto in my interior life, and that hinder my acceptance of other people today?

Who are today’s equivalent of Matthew, an outsider called to be part of the inner circle with Jesus yet I am uncomfortable to find beside me in Church and at the Eucharist?

‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak’ (Matthew 9: 16) … a patchwork hanging in Wade Street Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 5 July 2025):

I was sorry to miss the USPG Annual Conference which took place at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, this week. The theme of the conference this year was ‘We Believe, We Belong?’ and centred around the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed (AD 325).

‘We Believe, We Belong?’ was also the theme this week (29 June to 5 July) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections by Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 5 July 2025) invites us to pray:

We give thanks for the dedication and hard work of the USPG staff in planning, preparing, and running the conference. Grant them rest and strength, to support USPG’s mission throughout the year.

The Collect:

Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son 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:

Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son:
sustain us with your Spirit,
that we may serve you here on earth
until our joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Faithful Creator,
whose mercy never fails:
deepen our faithfulness to you
and to your living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity III:

Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
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.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Neither is new wine put into old wineskins’ (Matthew 9: 17) … new wine at lunchtime in the Captain’s House in Panormos, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Daily tremors and volcanic fears fail to take away from sweet memories and images of Santorini

Picture postcard images of Santorini at Souv-Lucky Day, selling Greek street food in Midsummer Place, Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The news from Santorini each day is distressing and heartbreaking, with tremors and high magnitude earthquakes almost daily in the Aegean waters surrounding the island. Santorini is one of major tourist destinations in Greece and the island’s economy depends on tourism.

Seismic activities in the area have brought more than 20,000 tremors since late over the past month, many of them over 4 or even 5 on the Richter scale.

This looks like being a bleak summer for the people of Santorini. All the early tourists on the island have been evacuated, along with many workers in the tourist sector. Schools have been closed for weeks now, and many shops, businesses, restaurants and hotels show no signs of opening in the weeks ahead, and plans for the summer season are on hold.

Nobody, so far, is actually saying that a volcanic eruption is possible. But, because of the increase in seismic activity, the Greek authorities declared a state of emergency for the island on 6 February, and it remains in effect until at least next Monday (3 March).

Santorini is a small volcanic island but it is one of Greece’s most popular tourist attractions, and is visited by about 3.5 million tourists each year. Tourism is the mainstay of the economy of Santorini and a major sector in the Greek economy. But the present seismic activities leave island businesses not knowing how or whether they can run this year.

The tremors have resulted in a significant drop in bookings ahead of this year’s summer session, according to the newspaper, To Vima. The Finance Ministry says a rescue package will be put in place for the island if the seismic activity persists for an extended period. But a prolonged seismic threat could lead to cancellations, reduced visitor numbers and revenue losses. This could also have a dire knock-on effect on other sectors, including agriculture and commerce.

Images of Santorini in Eating Greek on Church Street, Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Santorini is unrivalled as the most photographed island in Greece and is the face of Greece to the rest of the world. Images of Santorini probably outnumber even images of the Acropolis in Athens, Knossos or Mykonos on the walls of Greek restaurants and cafés throughout England and Ireland, making it a significant selling-point for Greek tourism.

With its cubist white houses and blue doors and domes, steep grey volcanic cliffs and deep blue sea waters, Santorini has become stereotypical picture-postcard Greece. For example, images of Santorini decorate the Greek restaurants and food outlets throughout Milton Keynes, including Souv-Lucky Day, which sells the best of Greek street food in Midsummer Place, Eating Greek on Church Street, Wolverton, Apollonia in Newport Pagnell, and, further afield, Deja Vu Restaurant in Northampton.

Those blue domes complement the blue skies and blue seas are often the first images that captivate potential visitors when they are dreaming about and planning a package holiday in Greece. And when they tourists return home, these posters, postcards, coasters, calendars and fridge magnets decorate their homes as a reminder to return again.

An image of Santorini by Georges Meis, bought in Rethymnon (click on image for full-screen resolution) …

… is based on one of his well-known original photographs

Anyone who has ever been on holiday in Greece is familiar with the work Georges Meis as a photographer, even if they do not remember his name. His exceptional photographs of stunning Greek Island scenery, especially Santorini, Mykonos and Crete, are easy to recognise and have been reproduced on thousands of those keepsakes sold throughout Greece.

Georges Meis also captures wild primary colours, fading doors, mesmerising sunsets and gnarled and dignified faces of old people who know every joy and every hardship that modern Greece has endured. Each year, without fail, I buy countless copies of his photographs in calendars or on postcards – not to send to family and friends but just as keepsakes and memories.

The 3,000 bare, rocky outcrops in the blue Aegean are his raw material as an artist. His eye, how he frames and catches old doors, narrow steps, inviting alleyways and the domes of churches, and the way he uses panoramic opportunities to provide vistas of harbours, bays and island shorelines have inspired my own efforts to take photographs in Crete.

A second image of Santorini by Georges Meis, bought in Rethymnon (click on image for full-screen resolution) …

… is based on another of his well-known original photographs

His panoramic photographs were considered avant garde when they were first published. It was the first time that photographs taken from an angle of 360 degrees were presented in compositions such as these. It is so easy to forget how revolutionary and influential he has been now that we all have apps that allow us to take panoramic photographs with our iPhones.

He became known for his series of postcards but also attracted international attention for his unique presentations of the Greek islands – particularly Crete, Rhodes, the Cycladic and Aegean islands such as Santorini and Mykonos, and Dodecanese islands including Rhodes and Symi – and mainland Greece too.

His book Land of Crete, Land of the First European Civilisation (2000) took six years to produce, from 1994 to 2000. This was followed by two other coffee table books – Thera or Santorini, Born from Tephra (2006) and The Diamonds of the Aegean (2007) – are then by his second album on the island, Crete – Mother of the European Civilisation (2014).

Some years ago, browsing through the shop at the Fortezza in Rethymnon during my few weeks in Crete, I added to my collection of photographs and postcards by Georges Meis when I bought two ‘canvas-effect’ images based on his photographs taken in Santorini.

They evoked sweet memories of a visit to Santorini about 40 years ago, and for five years those images were framed and hanging in Saint Mary’s Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick, alongside other posters, photographs and paintings.

Wines from Santorini on a supermarket shelf in Platanias in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I still recall with pleasure that late sunny Sunday afternoon on Santorini in the late 1980s. I had arrived from Crete the previous day, and had spent the two days visiting villages, churches, monasteries and beaches across the island.

Late that afternoon, I was sitting on a terrace in Fira on the steep volcanic cliffs, trying to write a little and sipping a glass of white wine. Behind me, on another terrace above, someone was playing Mozart in the background. Below me, the horseshoe-shaped volcanic cliffs fell down to the blue Aegean sea, and out to the west the sun was about to set beyond the neighbouring islands of Nea Kameni, Palea Kameni and Therasia.

It was one of those moments in time that provide a glimpse of eternity. Late that night, I flew on to Athens. When I got back to Crete later that week, I bought a poster with its painting of Oia on Santorini by a local artist, Manolis Sivridakis. I also bought a smaller copy of another of his paintings, ‘Daybreak Santorini.’

Those images hung on the walls of two houses in Dublin, and for many years they continued to bring back memories of the sounds, sights, tastes, smells and thoughts of that sunny afternoon in Santorini.

‘Oia’ by Manolis Sivridakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Manolis Sivridakis has run the Oia Gallery on the northern tip of the island as well as a studio in Athens.

Oia is a nest of narrow lanes and streets lined with characteristic white-washed houses of the Cycladic islands, and many of the white-washed churches have blue domes. Throughout the final days of Ottoman occupation, before Greek Independence, flying the Greek flag was prohibited, but the island was a riotous statement of defiance, with the blue-and-white of Greece sparkling everywhere in the sunshine.

When an earthquake hit Santorini in 1956, parts of Oia were destroyed as they fell into the sea. Many of the buildings that remain are built into the volcanic rock on the slopes of the crater wall. The narrow streets above are filled with souvenir shops and artists’ galleries.

‘Daybreak Santorini’ by Manolis Sivridakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My first booking for a one-day visit to Santorini in the mid-1980s was cancelled when the coach to the ferry never turned up in Rethymnon. I managed to get there the following year. Since the 1980s, I have been back in Greece countless times, returning virtually every year – and sometimes two or three times a year. I have visited 30 or 40 islands over almost 40 years, and I plan to be back in Crete once again for Easter this April.

Each time I amy flying to or from Crete, I find myself picking out the islands in Aegean below, including Saintorini, and each time I am back in Crete I think of returning to Santorini. I changed my mind at the last moment last April; now I doubt that I shall get there this year … I have only a few days, and the continuing tremors and fears of a volcanic eruption have dispelled any suggestions of a day trip. But, doubtless, I shall sip some wine from Santorini, buy some more black, volcanic soap, and return with photographs, prints or calendars by by Georges Meis.

And I shall smile as I recall those fond, lingering memories of the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Santorini … and the sunsets and daybreaks.

Blue skies and blue seas … flying over Santorini and the Aegean on a flight from Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 103, Wednesday 21 August 2024

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard’ (Matthew 20: 1) … at work in a vineyard in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right’ (Matthew 20: 4) … vines in the vineyard at Aghia Irini Monastery, south of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 20: 1-16 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 20 ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; 4 and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” 7 They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 13 But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’

‘I will pay you whatever is right … Call the labourers and give them their pay …’ (see Matthew 20: 4, 8) … the 1911 Lockout memorial in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Covid, a stroke and personal problems meant I was missing my regular visits to Greece … not just for the blue skies and blue seas, but also the vineyards and the olive groves, and especially my friends there. So it was good to get back to Crete a few months ago after an absence of more than two years.

Of course, I was saddened to see a small vineyard I have known for almost 10 years in Platanias, east of Rethymnon, has been uprooted and turned into a site for development close to the beach. On the other hand, it was good to meet old friends like Manoli, who I have known for almost 30 years. When my sons were small children, he was like an uncle to them.

Early one summer, he was excited when he rang me and realised I was returning to his village, Piskopianó. Gushing with enthusiasm and delight, he told me how I must come and see what he had done with the ‘graveyard’ in Piskopianó.

‘The graveyard?’

Now, I am interested in visiting churches and churchyards, and graveyards and gravestones provide rich material for social, local and family history. But a graveyard is not the first place you think your friends want you to visit on a holiday in the Mediterranean.

I asked again: ‘The graveyard?’

‘Yes, you’re going to be delighted to see how the vines are growing with new life. You remember how I trimmed back the vines and the branches and how I built new trellises. Now there is a rich crop in the grapeyard this year.’

The grapeyard! Of course. Now it makes sense.

I had shown an interest in his vineyard and his grapes … and a healthy interest in wine.

Now a new lesson awaited me on how to grow grapes, how to trim the vines, and how vines, like people, only make sense in clusters.

We are all workers in the vineyard, and Christ even refers to himself as the true vine. But unless we have worked in a vineyard, some of the illustrations in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20: 1-16) may not fully resonate with us. And this helps to understand how some of the people who are depicted in today’s parable, and many of the people who first heard it, may have missed some of the subtle points Jesus was making as he told it.

This Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, despite being well-known, is found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

As the story unfolds, the landowner (οἰκοδεσπότης, oikodespotés), the head of the household or the owner of the land, is revealed to be not merely the owner of the vineyard, but as the Lord (ὁ κύριος, ho kyrios).

The labourers (εργάτες, ergates) are called at five different times in the day: early in the morning, at 9 o’clock, at noon, at 3 and at 5.

There are different tasks in the grapeyard, in the vineyard. Those who come early in the morning, at sunrise, can suffer from literal burnout later in the day as the heat of the sun becomes intense.

A variety of skills is needed: those who look after the soil; those who look after other plants such as the olive trees or lemon trees that help to protect the vines; those who watch the roses for the first signs of any disease that might hit the vines; those who prune the vines; those who pick the grapes and sort them out; those who tidy up in the vineyard at the end of the day – each and everyone plays a role in producing that bottle of wine as it makes its way to the shelves of shops and to our tables.

To some of the workers – and to us, at our first reading – the landowner appears to be unfair in the way he rewards those who work on his behalf. But did you notice how this passage begins ‘… the kingdom of heaven is like …’ and that the wages stand for God’s grace?

God chooses to give the same to all: the landowner pays ‘whatever is right’ – there is no social discrimination or class distinction in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I was living in Askeaton, in Co Limerick, for five years. For those five years I was there, although I was a late arrival, I was called a ‘blow-in.’ People understood I had arrived there late in the day, and I understood the parishioners had been there far longer than I ever knew.

Good partnerships mean mutual understanding, and can produce good fruit, not just in the vineyard, but in every aspect of life.

As people are more mobile these days, moving from city to countryside, and from provincial towns to the city, the term ‘blow-in’ may be beginning to die a slow death in many smaller towns and communities in Ireland. But I wonder whether the attitude it encapsulates is still prevalent in other aspects of Irish life.

Are newcomers to the Church as equally welcome as long-standing members of the Church, whose parents were regular parishioners?

How difficult is it for new churchgoers to find an invitation onto church committees, to read lessons, to be counted in, and to be seen to be counted in?

Sorcha Pollak’s column in The Irish Times, ‘New to the Parish,’ has shown how new arrivals are regularly treated rudely, from the moment they show their passports at the airport, to taking up jobs, constantly being asked, ‘But where are you really from?’

In recent months, the far-right riots across England and in Belfast, the riots last year in Dublin, and the shocking attacks on proposed sites for housing and sheltering asylum seekers and refugees stories of racist abuse suffered by people throughout these islands.

How early do you have to have arrived in the vineyard before your labour is valued fully?

God is generous to all. This is God’s free choice. As the Lord of the vineyard asks in this morning’s Gospel reading, ‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

Jesus begins this morning’s parable saying, ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like …’

The kingdom of God is like a place where all are welcome, where no-one is treated rudely or abusively because they are new arrivals or treated favourably because they have been here since the early days.

In the Kingdom of God, there is no discrimination, no racism; in the kingdom of God, there are no late arrivals or blow-ins.

Grapes past their harvesting time at the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 21 August 2024):

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 ‘What price is the Gospel?’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 21 August 2024) invites us to pray:

Pray for lessons learnt, humility, wisdom and repairs around the Anglican Communion as victims and perpetrators encounter each other as the Body of Christ.

The Collect:

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

The Post Communion Prayer:

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

Additional Collect:

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

Grapes on a vine near the beach in Platanias in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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

Grapes ripe for harvesting in Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Bishop of Norwich who forgot to pass the Port and lost his right thumb

Francis Chantrey’s statue of Bishop Henry Bathurst in the north transept in Norwich Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Norwich Cathedral, like every English cathedral, has many monuments to former bishops of the diocese, including the grave of Herbert de Losinga, first Bishop of Norwich, who started building Norwich Cathedral in 1096 and an effigy of Bishop John Thomas Pelham, the Bishop of Norwich who censured the eccentric ‘Father Ignatius’ of Norwich.

Close to Bishop Pelham’s effigy is a marble statue by the sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey of Bishop Henry Bathurst (1744-1837), although Bathurst is buried not in the cathedral but in Great Malvern, beside his Irish-born wife, Grace (Coote), who was born in Kilmallock, Co Limerick.

Unusually, Chantrey supervised the installation of the statue himself, in November 1841, north of the high altar in the bay of the reliquary arch. By 1914, it had been moved to the south transept, and by 1972 it had been moved to its present place cramped corner in the north-west corner of north transept.

Chantrey’s statue shows a bewigged Bathurst sitting in an elegant chair, his hands clasped in his lap – his right thumb is broken – wearing episcopal robes and looking slightly down.

Before the sculpture was installed in Norwich Cathedral, it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in May 1841. Chantrey’s work seems to be based on an earlier portrait of Bathurst, probably by Sir Martin Archer Shee in 1818.

Chantrey shows the bishop seated rather than in his more usual pose for bishops and women showing them kneeling in prayer. This would not have done for Bathurst, however. He was ‘a shockingly bad administrator, greatly addicted to whist, and to long sojourns at Bath and Malvern.’ The result was that during his long tenure at Norwich some wit dubbed it ‘the Dead See.’

Henry Bathurst was born in Brackley, Northamptonshire, the seventh son of Sir Benjamin Bathurst, a slave trader, and a younger brother of Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford. He was the Rector of Witchingham, Norfolk, a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and a prebendary of Durham before becoming Bishop of Norwich in 1805, succeeding Charles Manners-Sutton who had become Archbishop of Canterbury.

For many years, Bathurst was considered to be the only ‘liberal; bishop in the House of Lords, and he supported Catholic Emancipation. He was privately critical of the loss of life incurred by the British in fighting Napoleon and in 1815 he and his son, Archdeacon Henry Bathurst of Norwich, attacked the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in France.

Bathurst admired Napoleon as an enlightened ruler and regretted his exile. When he was over 90 years of age, he went to the House of Lords in 1835 to vote in support of Lord Melbourne’s government.

Bathurst married Grace Coote, who was born in Kilmallock, Co Limerick. She was a daughter of the Very Revd Charles Coote, Dean of Kilfenora Cathedral, Co Clare, and a niece of the Irish politician and general, Sir Eyre Coote.

Bathurst died in London, on 5 April 1837, and was buried with his wife at Great Malvern.

Three types of Port to taste in Porto (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

Bathurst has also given his name to an old saying or question associated with English dining traditions.

Tradition calls for Port served at dinner to be passed to the left – as the saying goes, ‘pass the Port to port’ – pouring a glass for your neighbour on your right before you do so. The bottle or decanter should not touch the table on its way around. If a diner fails to pass the Port, others at the table may ask ‘Do you know the Bishop of Norwich?’

The origin of the question is attributed to Bishop Bathurst. He lived to the age of 93, but by then his eyesight was failing and he had a tendency to fall asleep at the table near the end of a meal. As result, he often failed to pass on the Port, so that several decanters would accumulate at his right elbow, to the distress of anyone further up the table.

All this hardly explains how in his sculpture in the north transept in Norwich Cathedral. But Bishop Bathurst was a bon vivant said to possess a prodigious capacity for wine consumption, and he was sometimes suspected of using his frailties to his advantage.

Other sources say the question originates with John Sheepshanks, Bishop of Norwich in 1893-1910, and Bishop Sheepshanks did his best to perpetuate this notion. His portrait, donated by his grand-daughter, hangs on the wall at Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas in Porto as an encouragement to guests to pass the Port.

English names dominate the Port trade in Porto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Walking down the hill from Porto Cathedral during a visit to the Portuguese city, I decided to stop in a small shop selling varieties of port by the glass and the bottle, and serving it with dark chocolate, to learn a little more about Port.

Port wine (vinho do Porto), or simply Port, is a fortified wine produced with distilled grape spirits exclusively in the Douro Valley in this part of Portugal.

Port is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, but it also comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties.

Port is produced from grapes grown and processed in the demarcated Douro region. The wine is then fortified by the addition of a neutral grape spirit known as aguardente to stop fermentation, leaving residual sugar in the wine and boosting its alcohol content. The wine is then stored and aged, often in barrels stored in a ‘Lodge’ or ‘cellar,’ before being bottled.

This wine became known as ‘port’ in the late 17th century because wine from the Douro Valley was brought to Porto for export to other parts of Europe. The Douro Valley stretches from the village of Barqueiros, about 70 km upstream from Porto, and east almost to the Spanish border.

Over 100 varieties of grapes may be used in producing port, although only five are widely cultivated and used. White ports are produced the same way as red ports, but use white grapes, and all Ports commercially available are from a blend of different grapes.

The grapes grown for port are usually small, dense fruit that produce concentrated, long-lasting flavours, suitable for long ageing.

Until 1986, Port could only be exported from Portugal from Vila Nova de Gaia on south bank of the Douro, facing Porto. Traditionally, the wine was taken downriver in flat-bottomed boats, barcos rabelos, to be processed and stored.

But this tradition was brought to an end when several hydroelectric power dams were built along the river in the 1950s and 1960s. Now the wine is brough from the vineyards by tanker trucks and today the barcos rabelos are only used for racing and other displays.

The main categories of port include standard rubies, three-year-old tawnies and white ports. In English-speaking countries, Port is often served after meals as a dessert wine, often with cheese, nuts or chocolate. White and tawny ports are often served as aperitifs.

But there are many traditional church connections with Port.

A Liverpool wine merchant sent two new representatives to Viana do Castelo, north of Porto, in 1678 to learn the wine trade. When they arrived in the Douro Valley, they visited the Abbot of Lamego, who treated them to a ‘very agreeable, sweetish and extremely smooth’ wine that had been fortified with a distilled spirit. They were so pleased with the product that they bought up the Abbot’s entire lot and shipped it home.

Port became popular in England after the Methuen Treaty in 1703, when merchants were permitted to import it at a low duty, while war with France deprived English wine drinkers of French wine.

The continued British involvement in the port trade can be seen in the names of many Port shippers and brands, including Broadbent, Cockburn, Croft, Dow, Gould Campbell, Graham, Osborne, Offley, Sandeman, Taylor and Warre.

Pass the Port to the left please … a choice of bottles in a shop window in Porto (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayers during Christmas and Epiphany: 28, 21 January 2024

The Wedding at Cana … an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today, the Third Sunday of Epiphany (21 January 2024), which is also the fourth day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).

Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some time for reflection, reading and prayer.

Today’s Gospel reading tells of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories, and Charlotte and I chose this as the Gospel reading at our wedding celebration in the Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral.

In keeping with the theme of today’s Gospel reading, my reflections each morning throughout the seven days of this week include:

1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Wedding at Cana, depicted by Giotto in a fresco panel in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

1, The Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2: 1-12):

The Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-12) is one of the traditional Gospel readings during Epiphany-tide, and is the first of the signs in the Fourth Gospel.

Along with the Visit of the Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12, 6 January 2024, The Epiphany), and the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist (John 1: 29-34, 7 January 2024), these three themes at Epiphany tell us who Christ truly is: truly God and truly human.

This morning’s Gospel story is so familiar that we forget what its first impact may have been.

The saying about serving the good wine first is so well known that we forget that this is not what happens at all.

Sometimes, we convince ourselves that at this wedding in Cana they plan to first serve the good wine, and then when people are drunk they can put up with cheap plonk.

Not so.

Think of how many festive meals finish with the good wine.

I was surprised rummaging around after Christmas some years ago to find two bottles of fine port I had forgotten about: one from Portugal and one from the cellars of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Beside them was a good bottle of desert wine that I had received as a present in Greece. They were such appropriate ways that year to finish off some good meals and celebrations at Christmas and the New Year.

No good wedding would finish without opening the champagne to toast the happy couple.

In Greece and in other parts of the Mediterranean, where wedding celebrations can last for a few days, perhaps even three days, the good wine comes out at the end, to toast the couple and to send the guests away knowing they have been welcome.

And this wedding story is about one other, long, weekend wedding, like so many that Jesus and the Disciples must have enjoyed.

Because he enjoyed a good wedding, Jesus uses the wedding banquet as an image of the Kingdom in two other Gospels (see Matthew 22: 1-14; Luke 14: 15-24), and it helps to understand why he is referred to as the bridegroom at least 14 times in the New Testament (e.g., see Matthew 9: 14-15; Matthew 25: 1-13; Mark 2: 18-20; Luke 5: 33-35; John 3: 29; Revelation 18: 23; Revelation 19: 9; Revelation 21: 2).

As with all good wedding stories, we might expect today’s Gospel story to be one about love, and one in which they all live happily ever after.

Imagine the happy couple who turn up for this wedding. This should be their great day. People have come from far and wide to celebrate with them. And, in good Mediterranean fashion, after two or three days, when everyone is about to go, there is a last dance, and a last toast: to the Bride and Groom. Or, so it was planned.

But before they get to that stage, the wine gives out (verse 3).

Is this because everyone has had too much to drink? Is it because the groom, despite expectations, did not buy enough wine? Or, is it because the groom has bought enough wine, but someone is siphoning it off, hoping everyone is going to be too drunk to notice?

It is an embarrassing occasion. But for whom?

Certainly for Mary, she takes action immediately. You can just picture her as the concerned aunt, like so many aunts at a wedding, not wanting her nephew or his new wife to be embarrassed.

But it is not embarrassing for Jesus. Nor is it embarrassing for the servants either. They seem to have done just what they were told to do.

Wine fraud is one of the oldest frauds in the world. Perhaps the finger of suspicion points at the chief steward, the master of the feast, the ἀρχιτρίκλινος (architríklinos) in verses 8-10. He has not been paying attention to what has been going on. At best, he has been negligent, at worst he was complicit, perhaps even the organiser.

Have the newly-wed couple and their guests, and their servants too, been the victims of a smart con trick by the chief steward? Is he inefficient? Does he not realise what is going on? Did he not buy all the wine that he charged for? Or, perhaps, has he been siphoning off the wine?

He is certainly not a model of probity as a wedding planner, avoiding some potentially tough questions when he claims dismissively: ‘Everyone serves the good wine first’ (verse 10).

That is patently not so. And he never even asks where the wine comes from. He just accepts that it is there. Perhaps he suspects he has been caught out.
I can see him throwing his arms up in the air, denying responsibility and trying to shift the blame onto someone, anyone, else. He seems to behave in a way like senior management in the Post Office shifted the blame for system failures onto sub-postmasters.

In his column in the Church Times this weekend (19 January 2024), Paul Vallely writes about ‘the Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power.’ He says ‘barely a month goes by’ without seeing examples ‘of the disregard of those in power for ordinary people.’

He continues: ‘This week it was the victims of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale. Last week, it was the sub-postmasters … Before that, it was teachers bullied by Ofsted inspectors, one so severely that she took her own life … Then there were the survivors of the Grenfell Tower inferno, the Windrush scandal, and the contaminated blood scandal.

‘The common factor in all these cases is an arrogant disdain for those whom they are supposed to serve. There is an all-too-familiar pattern of denial, cover-up, and deceit – and a default response, above all else, to protect the reputations of powerful individuals and institutions … It is only the prospect of a General Election later this year that has temporarily brought those in power to public account.’

So often in life, ordinary people are cheated out of what is theirs, deprived of what they are entitled to, left without hope.

The ‘Queen of Mean,’ the late Leona Helmsley (1920-2007), once said when she was on trial for tax evasion: ‘Only the little people pay taxes’ (1989). So often in life, it is ‘the little people’ who pay their taxes, and pay the price when it comes to cuts in public services, the collapse of banks, inadequate finding for the NHS, schools and public transport, or bear the brunt when it comes to floods, natural disasters and the consequences of war and climate change. There are no heads of state or CEOs from large multinationals among the refugees seeking asylum in Europe today or risking deportation to Rwanda under the latest legislation.

Imagine the embarrassment of the couple who are among ‘the little people’ and who are cheated out of the toast to the bride and the groom at the very end of their wedding celebrations.

But Christ is with us at the moments when we feel cheated of our hopes for the future.

As for that wedding at Cana, as with all good stories, we might well ask: Did they live happily ever after?

Well, the lectionary compilers end this story at verse 11. But the next verse, verse 12, says: ‘After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.’

They go to the wedding together, and they go back together, but things have changed. After the wedding, someone is a new brother-in-law, a new sister-in-law, is going to be a new aunt or a new uncle. In time to come, a new family is structured.

It was a long walk back: 27 km (18 miles), and in the conditions of the time it would have taken a good day’s walk or longer.

What did they talk about on that long walk? Was that your cousin? Is she your new sister-in-law? Who did he dance with? Will they fall in love? Are they really in love?

When we publicly show our love for one another, when we form new families, when we allow the ripples of love to spread out in ways that we cannot control, in ways in which we lose control, then we are truly partners with God in creating the Kingdom of God.

Even if the couple at Cana broke up afterwards, grandparents would continue to share the same grandchildren.

We make family at weddings, but we cannot control family. When we go to family weddings, we have no choice about who is going to be a new brother-in-law, or who nieces or nephews decide to marry; we certainly have no say about who our grandparents were, the decisions they made or the way they behaved. And that is so for the generations to come too.

I imagine the Kingdom of God is like that. Those who are invited to the heavenly banquet are going to include people I at first may be uncomfortable to sit with at the same table. But I am not the host, I am the guest, and the invitations are sent out into the side-streets and the alleyways (Matthew 22: 9-10). ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19: 9).

I cannot choose who is invited to the wedding, but I can accept the invitation to the meal, and the invitation to be part of the new family, the kingdom.

And if we accept the invitation, we have no right to pick and choose, to discriminate against my fellow guests, to cheat them out of their place at the table, to refuse to eat and drink with them.

It was a common in Jewish thinking and imagery at the time to speak of wedding banquets as a foretaste of God’s heavenly promises. The Mishnah says: ‘This world is like a lobby before the World-To-Come. Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall.’

But then, so often throughout the Gospels, we find that great meals and wedding banquets provide a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet.

We are invited; but are we ready, are we prepared, to be wedding guests? (see Matthew 22: 1-14; Luke 14: 15-24). Think of the Ten Bridesmaids, and how the foolish ones are not ready when the bridegroom arrives (Matthew 25: 1-13).

On the other hand, plush dining can also tell us a lot about what the Kingdom of God is not like. Consider the story of the rich man, who dined sumptuously and alone, and left the starving, sick and dying Lazarus to go hungry at his gate (Luke 16: 19-31). This is not what the Kingdom of God is like, as Dives finds out. But he finds out when it is too late for his own good.

The great Biblical meals celebrate not only what was, as with the Passover, but what is, in the present, and what is to come, as with the wedding banquets – new promises, new covenants, new families, new expectations, new hopes.

‘The Wedding at Cana’ (John 2: 1-11) … one of 20 white porcelain ceramic panels by Helena Brennan at the Oblate Church in Inchicore, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 2: 1-11 [12] (NRSVA):

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4 And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ 6 Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

[12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.]

‘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)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 21 January 2024):

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: ‘Provincial Programme on Capacity Building in Paraná.’ This theme is introduced today by Christina Takatsu Winnischofer, Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil:

The Province of Brazil programme this year is supporting the capacity building of clergy and lay people in the Anglican Missionary District (DMA) and the Anglican Diocese of Paraná (DAPAR), aiming to expand the church in both areas. DMA is an area made up of three states in the west of the country, and DAPAR covers the area of the state of Paraná in the south of Brazil.

Through different trainings and meetings, the church is deepening its reflection on personal and community commitments to the mission. By raising awareness of the role and responsibilities of Anglican Christians and providing the tools needed, the church intends to face the challenges of the Brazilian context on the many missionary fronts.

In each area, the communities have very diverse backgrounds; however, DMA and DAPAR are heavily involved in activities for social justice – supporting youth, women, landless and indigenous people. For the sustainability of these projects, more labour force is needed, not only technical professionals but leaders that understand the Gospel call.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (21 January 2024) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection (Saint Jude)

Continued tomorrow (The feeding of the multitude)

‘The Wedding Feast at Cana’ … a fresco in the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, 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

Bloomsday and recalling James Joyce’s forgotten months in a flat in London

Ulysses, a wine label in Malta seen in a restaurant in Valletta … today is Bloomsday and this year marks the centenary of ‘Ulysses’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.’

The opening line of Ulysses is known to many people, even if they have never read Ulysses. But of course, Buck Mulligan has no link at all with the Bucks of Buckinghamshire; nor could James Joyce have ever known about the plans for Milton Keynes.

Nor, for that matter, did Buck Mulligan, Leopold Bloom or James Joyce have any associations with Ulysses, a wine label I came across in Malta earlier this year.

Today is Bloomsday, and this year marks the centenary of the publication of Ulysses. I normally associate James Joyce with Dublin, whose streets he celebrates in Ulysses, Trieste and Zurich, where he lived in exile, and Paris, where Ulysses was first published 100 years ago in 1922.

But until two of us visited London last week, I had forgotten that Joyce also lived in London in 1931. Ulysses celebrated the day James Joyce and Nora Barnacle first met in 1904, but the couple did not marry until they were living in London almost three decades later.

No 28B Campden Grove, near Holland Park, was the home of James Joyce in 1931, and while living in this Kensington flat he married Nora Barnacle, and worked on his manuscript for Finnegans Wake.

Joyce was working on his first draft of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1904 when he met Nora Barnacle (1884-1951) from Galway. They eloped and spent much of their lives in Trieste, Zurich and Paris.

Many writers, including WB Yeats, Ezra Pound and TS Eliot, moved to London to pursue their literary careers. Joyce first visited London in 1900, where he met TP O’Connor (1848-1929), a journalist, Irish Parliamentary Party MP, and later Father of the House in the House of Commons. Joyce hoped O’Connor could help him find employment on Fleet Street.

During later visits to London in 1902 and 1903, WB Yeats introduced Joyce to a number of literary editors and writers.

Although Joyce eloped with Nora Barnacle to Europe in 1904, London was still vital in his career plans. While he was in Trieste, he was constantly approaching London publishers and writers in order to have his work published in London.

Most of Joyce’s work was published in London, including first collection of poetry, Chamber Music (1907), Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1914), and his play Exiles (1918).

Most orders for A Portrait during the period 1918-1920 came from London, with Hatchards of Piccadilly, London’s oldest bookshop, placing most of those orders, including an order for A Portrait for HMS Monarch. Copies of A Portrait were also ordered by highly successful commercial ventures: the book club run by The Times and Mudie’s circulating library, a private book lending scheme.

However, English printers and publishers were afraid of prosecution for typesetting a book considered by some to be obscene, and Ulysses was first published in Paris in 1922. Yet Ulysses (1922) became one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the 20th century, bringing Joyce both acclaim and infamy: it was banned in the US until 1934 and in Britain until 1936.

His work continued to feature in many edited collections, anthologies, and magazines published in London. Joyce was constantly moving between hotels and flats across Europe throughout his life. His decision to buy a flat in London with a long-term lease in May 1931 shows a shift in his life: he wanted to abandon Paris, where he was living, to pursue publishing success in London.

Joyce lived at the flat at 28B Campden Grove, Kensington from early May until early September 1931. Those five months in London were remarkably settled by Joyce’s own standards, and he intended to make London his permanent home.

He relaunched his career in London, thanks to the support of TS Eliot, who was a director at Faber and Faber. During that time he was occupied with Finnegans Wake (1939), and Nora Barnacle and James Joyce were married at a Kensington registry office on 4 July 1931.

When Joyce was in London, he often enjoyed evenings with Irish people there, including the musician Herbert Hughes, the writers Robert and Sylvia Lynd, and the Irish Free State High Commissioner or ambassador John Dulanty. The restaurants they dined at included the Monico by Piccadilly Circus, a favourite haunt of London’s Fin de siècle writers and Kettner’s in Soho, frequented by Oscar Wilde.

When Joyce was not in the city, he would write to friends about aspects of the city that he missed, from the pantomime theatre at Drury Lane to luxury menswear shops. Bond Street and Savile Row, famous for their men’s tailoring shops, are mentioned in Finnegans Wake, which also includes extensive references to London’s restaurants, shops, streets, squares, parks, the tube, and major tourist attractions, including the British Museum, which Joyce visited in 1927.

Joyce’s experience of London is imaginatively recorded in Finnegans Wake in distinctive wordplay and sentence structures. Barker’s department store, down the road from Joyce’s flat, is also referred to in Finnegans Wake, along with Harrod’s, Schoolbred’s and Whiteley’s: ‘if he outharrods against barkers, to the schoolbred he acts whitely.’

The phrase ‘his sole admirers … with Annie Oakley deadliness’ (p 52 line 01) alludes not only to the location of the editorial offices of the Egoist at Oakley House, but also to the editors’ admiration for Joyce’s work and the deadlines they used to set him.

TS Eliot also worked at the Egoist magazine, which serialised Joyce’s A Portrait and Ulysses, while the Egoist Press published and promoted Eliot’s Prufrock and Other Observations and Joyce’s A Portrait.

However, Joyce was constantly hounded by the press, and his view of London soured. He started to refer to Campden Grove as ‘Campden Grave’, to be inhabited by mummies. The flat was let, and Joyce never again set foot in England.

Yet, in Finnegans Wake Joyce pays tribute to the city that helped him launch his career and which he so often returned to, both physically and imaginatively. TS Eliot oversaw the arrangements for the contract for Finnegans Wake (1939), and the publication and dissemination of pamphlets and books, as well as a gramophone disc with Joyce reading of the final pages of Anna Livia Plurabelle.

Faber also used a crossword puzzle in The Times to promote Joyce’s work. This attention helped end the ban on Ulysses and its legal publication by John Lane in London in 1936.

Contrary to popular belief, James Joyce's Ulysses was technically never banned in Ireland, but this was because for many years it was never imported and offered for sale, for fear of such a ban and the costs that would ensue.

An English Heritage blue plaque was placed on the wall of 28B Campden Grove in 1994 to commemorate Joyce’s short time there in 1931. It reads: ‘James Joyce 1882-1941 Author lived here in 1931.’

A plaque at the Bailey remembers the first Bloomsday celebrations in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

There are no latecomers in God’s vineyard and no place for discrimination

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard’ (Matthew 20: 1) … at work in a vineyard in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 20 September 2020

The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV)

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick

The Cathedral Eucharist

The Readings: Jonah 3: 10 to 4: 11; Psalm 145: 1-8; Philippians 1: 21-30; Matthew 20: 1-16.

There is a link to the readings HERE.

‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right’ (Matthew 20: 4) … vines in the vineyard at Aghia Irini Monastery, south of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Like many people, we did the patriotic thing this year, and spent our holidays in Ireland on a ‘staycation’ … a ‘road trip’ that brought us through most of the counties of Munster and south Leinster.

But, of course, I am missing my regular visits to Greece … not just for the blue skies and blue seas, but also the vineyards and the olive groves, and especially our friends there.

Manoli is a good friend in Crete. When our children were small, he was like an uncle to them. And, early one summer, he was excited when he rang us and realised we were returning to his village in Crete.

Gushing with enthusiasm and delight, he told us how we must come and see what he had done with the ‘graveyard’ in his village, Piskopianó.

‘The graveyard?’

Now, I am interested in visiting churches and churchyards, and graveyards and gravestones provide rich material for social, local and family history.

But a graveyard is not the first place you think your friends want you to visit on a holiday in the Mediterranean.

I asked again: ‘The graveyard?’

‘Yes, you’re going to be delighted to see how the vines are growing with new life. You remember how I trimmed back the vines and the branches and how I built new trellises. Now there is a rich crop in the grapeyard this year.’

The grapeyard! Of course. Now it makes sense.

I had shown an interest in his vineyard and his grapes … and a healthy interest in wine.

Now a new lesson awaited me on how to grow grapes, how to trim the vines, and how vines, like people, only make sense in clusters.

We are all workers in the vineyard, and Christ even refers to himself as the true vine. But unless we have worked in a vineyard, some of the illustrations in this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20: 1-16) may not fully resonate with us. And this helps to understand how some of the people who are depicted in this morning’s parable, and many of the people who first heard it, may have missed some of the subtle points Jesus was making as he told it.

This morning’s Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, despite being well-known, is found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

As the story unfolds, the landowner (οἰκοδεσπότης, oikodespotés), the head of the household or the owner of the land, is revealed to be not merely the owner of the vineyard, but as the Lord (ὁ κύριος, ho kyrios).

The labourers (εργάτες, ergates) are called at five different times in the day: early in the morning, at nine o’clock, at noon, at three and at five.

There are different tasks in the grapeyard, in the vineyard. Those who come early in the morning, at sunrise, can suffer from literal burnout later in the day as the heat of the sun becomes intense.

A variety of skills is needed: those who look after the soil; those who look after other plants such as the olive trees or lemon trees that help to protect the vines; those who watch the roses for the first signs of any disease that might hit the vines; those who prune the vines; those who pick the grapes and sort them out; those who tidy up in the vineyard at the end of the day – each and everyone plays a role in producing that bottle of wine as it makes its way to shelves and to our tables.

To some of the workers – and to us, at our first reading – the landowner appears to be unfair in the way he rewards those who work on his behalf. But did you notice how this passage begins ‘… the kingdom of heaven is like …’ and that the wages stand for God’s grace?

God chooses to give the same to all: the landowner pays ‘whatever is right’ – there is no social discrimination or class distinction in the Kingdom of Heaven.

We have been living in Askeaton, in Co Limerick, for over three years. For almost four years, we have been here. Although we have never been called ‘blow-ins,’ we are late arrivals. But people understand we have arrived here late in the day, and we understand the parishioners have been there longer than we know.

Good partnerships mean mutual understanding, and can produce good fruit, not just in the vineyard, but in every aspect of life.

As people are more mobile these days, moving from city to countryside, and from provincial towns to the city, the term ‘blow-in’ may be beginning to die a slow death in many smaller towns and communities.

But I wonder whether the attitude it encapsulates is still prevalent in other areas of Irish life.

Are newcomers to the Church as equally welcome as long-standing members of the Church, whose parents were regular parishioners?

How difficult is it for new churchgoers to find an invitation onto church committees, to read lessons, to be counted in, and to be seen to be counted in?

Sorcha Pollak’s regular column in The Irish Times, ‘New to the Parish,’ shows how new arrivals are regularly treated rudely, from the moment they show their passports at the airport, to taking up jobs, constantly being asked, ‘But where are you really from?’

Over the past two weeks, Ryan Tubridy, on his morning show and on the Late Late Show has heard shocking stories of racist abuse suffered by women in Ireland: Emer O’Neill from Bray, Co Wicklow; Denise Chaila , the Zambian-born, Limerick rapper, singer, poet, and one of the stand-out stars of the Irish music scene in 2020; Hazel Chu, the daughter of Chinese immigrants and the first person from an ethnic background to become Lord Mayor of Dublin.

How early do you have to have arrived in the vineyard before your labour is valued fully?

God is generous to all. This is God’s free choice. As the Lord of the vineyard asks in this morning’s Gospel reading, ‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

Jesus begins this morning’s parable saying, ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like …’

The kingdom of God is like a place where all are welcome, where no-one is treated rudely because they are new arrivals or treated favourably because they have been here since the early days.

In the Kingdom of God, there is no discrimination, no racism, in the kingdom of God, there are no late arrivals or blow-ins.

And so may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went … to hire labourers for his vineyard’ (Matthew 20: 1) ... a small vineyard in Platanias, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 20: 1-16 (NRSVA):

1 [Jesus said,] ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; 4 and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” 7 They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 13 But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’

‘Each of them received the usual daily wage’ (Matthew 20: 10) … a monument to workers’ struggles and the 1913 lockout in Nenagh, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Time, Year A)

The Collect of the Day:

God,
who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
Grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel;
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
we have received these tokens of your promise.
May we who have been nourished with holy things
live as faithful heirs of your promised kingdom.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘He sent them into his vineyard’ (Matthew 20: 2) … grapes in a vineyard in Tsesmes near Rethymnon (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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard’ (Matthew 20: 1) … at work in a vineyard in Rivesealtes, near Perpignan in southern France (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)