Monday 25 March 2019

Readings, hymns and
sermon ideas for
Sunday 31 March 2019,
the Fourth Sunday in Lent
and Mothering Sunday

The Prodigal Son … one of the Chancel windows by Mayer & Co illustrating the parables in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Next Sunday, 31 March 2019, is the Fourth Sunday in Lent, and is also Mothering Sunday.

The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland, for the Fourth Sunday in Lent in Year C are:

The Readings: Joshua 5: 9-12; Psalm 32; II Corinthians 5: 16-21; Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32.

There is a link to the readings HERE.

There is an optional, second set of readings for next Sunday [31 March 2019] as Mothering Sunday are:

The Readings: Exodus 2: 1-10 or I Samuel 1: 20-28; Psalm 34: 11-20 or Psalm 127: 1-4; II Corinthians 1: 3-7 or Colossians 3: 12-17; Luke 2: 33-35 or John 19: 25-27.

There is a link to these readings HERE.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent, Mothering Sunday:

The Fourth Sunday in Lent is also known as Laetare Sunday because of the incipit of the traditional Introit: Laetare Jerusalem, ‘O be joyful, Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 66: 10, Masoretic text).

The full Introit reads:

Laetare Jerusalem: et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam: gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis: ut exsultetis, et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae.

Psalm: Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus.

Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.

Psalm: I rejoiced when they said to me: ‘we shall go into God’s House!’

This Sunday is also known as Refreshment Sunday, Mid-Lent Sunday (in French mi-carême), and Rose Sunday. On this Sunday, mediaeval Popes blessed a golden rose to send to sovereigns. In many parts of the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church, rose-coloured vestments are worn on this Sunday instead of the violet or purple colour of Lent.

The first part of these notes looks at the Lectionary readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent.

The second part of the these notes looks at the two alternative Gospel readings provided for Mothering Sunday.

PART 1, The Fourth Sunday in Lent:

Introducing the Readings:

‘Why is this night different from all others?’ … a painting depicting the Passover in the Jewish Museum in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Joshua 5: 9-12:

The people who left Egypt as slaves many years ago have now entered the Promised Land as free people, no longer seen as a disgraced people. They were slaves, but now their rescue is complete.

In thanksgiving, they celebrate their redemption and freedom with the feast of the Passover (verses 10-11). In the wilderness they only ate manna (verse 12), and so this is the first celebration of the Passover since leaving Egypt. From now on, instead of being fed manna as slaves on the run, they can live off the produce of the land and the crops of the land (verse 12).

The Passover marks the end of slavery and the guarantee of freedom, the move from dependence to independence. One way of life ends and another begins.

‘I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go’ (Psalm 32: 9) … confusing signs on the beach at Bettystown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 32:

The psalmist tells us what he has learned in life: happiness is having one’s sin forgiven and taken away by God, and enjoying a clear conscience.

The writer was seriously ill and felt alienated from God. He acknowledged his sin and did not seek to hide from God. He confessed and God forgave him. He urges others to follow what he has done. He now feels guided and protected by God, and is happy to rejoice in the Lord.

One way of life ends and another begins.

II Corinthians 5: 16-21:

Saint Paul writes that he no longer sees anyone according to the normal, human, judgmental standards of the world. Instead, there is a new beginning, a new creation in the Risen Christ. Everything has changed, everything has become new. We are now reconciled with God, and we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, we have been appointed ambassadors of Christ.

Through Christ we have been reconciled with God. Now our task is to be reconciled with others. One way of life ends and another begins.

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32:

The outsiders of the day, the tax collectors and sinners, are coming to hear Jesus. This upsets the religious people of the day, the Pharisees and the scribes, who grumble, like the people grumbled for manna in the wilderness, and complain that Jesus is welcoming sinners and eating with them.

Instead of upbraiding the critics he has overheard, Jesus tells three parables: the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15: 4-7), the Parable of the Lost Coin (Luke 15: 8-10); and, in this reading, the Parable of the Lost Son, which we know popularly as the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32). In all three parables, the recovery of what was lost is a cause for rejoicing, and we learn that there are no limits to God’s mercy.

There are many parts of this parable that challenge the conventions of the day. For a son to ask his father for his share of the inheritance would be like wishing for his father’s death. The Lost Son when he is hungry begins living in Gentile ways, feeding pigs. His initial decision is not to repent of his ways, but to say he has repented in the home that he will be welcomed home (see verse 18).

No older self-respecting man of the day would run to his son (verse 20). But when the son is welcomed home, and realises his father’s love for him is unconditional, he truly confesses, and his father celebrates his return.

The listeners who heard a story that begins with a man who had two sons would have thought immediately of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob. But they would also have thought of Joseph and his brothers.

This Parable has many parallels with the story of the people going down into Egypt, finding themselves in slavery, living an unclean lifestyle, and then, on finding their freedom, setting off on the journey home, to the Promised Land, where the new-found freedom will be marked with a special meal and celebrations.

The task of reconciliation now begins. One way of life ends and another begins.

The distress of refugee Syrian mothers and fathers seen by the artist Kaiti Hsu

A reflection on Mothering Sunday:

I grew up on a solid diet of English boys’ comics, graduating from the Beano and the Dandy in the 1950s to the Victor, the Valiant and the Hotspur in the early 1960s, and books and films set in places like Stalag Luft III, such as The Wooden Horse and The Great Escape.

There were limited storylines, and the characters never had any great depth to them.

In those decades immediately after World War II, Germans were caricatures rather characters, portrayed as Huns who had a limited vocabulary.

And I remember how they always referred to the Vaterland. Somehow, seeing your country as the Father-land made you harsh, unforgiving, demanding and violent. While those who saw their country as a mother, whether it was Britannia or Marianne, or perhaps even Hibernia, were supposed to be more caring, empathetic and ethical, endowed with justice and mercy.

These images somehow played on, pandered to, the images a previous generation had of the different roles of a father and a mother.

So, culturally it may come as a surprise, perhaps even a cultural challenge, to many this morning, that the Gospel reading on Mothering Sunday is a Parable that tells us what it is to be a good father.

Culturally we are predisposed to thinking of this parable as the story of the Prodigal Son. But this is not a story telling us to be wayward children. The emphasis is three-way: the wayward son, the unforgiving or begrudging son, and the loving Father.

Who is missing from this story? … the Mother of these two sons.

The people who first heard this parable – eager tax collectors and sinners, grumbling Pharisees and Scribes – may well have been mindful of the Old Testament saying: ‘A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a mother’s grief’ (Proverbs 10:1).

Or inwardly they may have been critical of the father, recalling another saying in the Book of Proverbs: ‘Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray’ (Proverbs 22: 6).

We all know what bad parenting is like. I know myself. I know what it is to have two sets of parents, and four sets of grandparents, who came with different gifts and different deficiencies. But I am also aware of my own many failings as a parent too, and hope on this Mothering Sunday that where I have failed as a father, a loving mother has been more than compensation.

But in this Gospel reading, Christ rejects all the dysfunctional models of parenting we have inherited and received.

Those first listeners to this parable may well have had wayward sons and jealous sons, and the story, initially, would have been no surprise, would have been one they knew only too well.

But they no longer need to be challenged as adult children. The challenge they need is about their own parenting skills. And they may well have been distressed as they hear a story about a man who behaves not like a father would be expected to behave but like a mother.

Where was the mother of the prodigal son? Did she have a role in this family drama?

Had she been praying ever since her wayward son left home, asking God to keep him safe, to bring him home? Perhaps it was her prayers that reached him in some way and reminded her son of home?

I think, for example, of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, who was anything but a saint in his youth. Although he gave Monica much grief, she persisted with her prayers and prayed her son into sainthood. She was looking out for him in oh so many ways.

But the Father in this parable is both Father and Mother to the Son.

He behaves just like a mother would in these circumstances.

He is constantly looking and waiting and watching for him until the day he sees him.

And when he sees him, instead of being the perfectly behaved gentleman he is filled up with emotions, he runs, he hugs, he kisses. He finds him clean clothes, he finds clean shoes, he feeds him. And like a good mother, he probably also tells him his room is made up, it has always been there for him.

The father in this parable bucks all the images of parenting we have inherited, he is both mother and father to his children.

The sufferings and compassion of three images in recent times illustrate for me how loving parents can be reflections of divine majesty and grace.

I think of the pregnant mother, a qualified solicitor who had been homeless, told Valerie Cox on RTÉ radio some years ago how she is forced to walk the streets of Dublin because the hostel where she stays does not allow her in until 7.30 in the evening.

Like the Prodigal Son, no one gives her anything and she has no proper bed at night. She is 6½ months pregnant, has an eight-year-old daughter, and Mother Ireland has betrayed her.

Or I think of Syrian mothers who are refugees crossing the Aegean Sea between Turkey and the Greek islands. Our media have largely forgotten this story today.

We see it as our problem rather than seeing it as a problem for the people fleeing war and savage violence. But there are harrowing stories in Greek newspapers each and every day of Syrian mothers who are separated from their children: mothers who make the journey only to find their children have been turned back, or mothers who see their children drown just as they reach the shores of Greece.

Or I think of Nuala Creane who spoke movingly ten years ago at the funeral of her son Sebastian who was murdered in Bray in August 2009. At his funeral, she told her story, telling all present that ‘my story, my God is the God of Small Things. I see God’s presence in the little details.’

It was a beautiful and well-sculpted eulogy, carved with all the beauty, precision, delicacy and impact of a Pieta being sculpted by a Michelangelo. She spoke of how the God of Small Things had blessed her with a sunny child, ‘was saying, is saying, let the child inside each of us come to the surface and play.’

She understood generously and graciously, and with majesty, the grief of those who loved the young man who had killed her son and then killed himself, believing these young men ‘both played their parts in the unfolding of God’s divine plan.’

She spoke of the heartbreak and the choice that faces everyone confronted with the deepest personal tragedies, asking herself: ‘Do we continue to live in darkness, seeing only fear, anger, bitterness, resentment; blaming, bemoaning our loss, always looking backwards, blaming, blaming, blaming, or are we ready to transmute this negativity? We can rise to the challenge with unconditional love, knowing that we were born on to this earth to grow … Our hearts are broken but maybe our hearts needed to be broken so that they could expand.’

Broken hearts, expanding hearts, rising to the challenge with unconditional love … this is how I hope I understand the majesty and the glory of Christ, at the best of times and at the worst of times.

How as a society – whether it is our local community, this island, or in Europe – are we mothers to mothers in need?

How, as a Church, so often spoken of lovingly as ‘Mother Church,’ do we speak up for God’s children in their time of need and despair?

I suppose, on Mothering Sunday each year, that Christ had good experiences of mothering as he was growing up. Just a few verses before this parable, he uses a most maternal image as he laments over Jerusalem and declares: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings …’

The Christ Child, when he was born, was cradled in the lap of a loving mother who at the time could never know that when he died and was taken down from the cross she would cradle him once again in her lap.

But the experience of a mother’s loss and grief that come to mind in Lent is given new hope at Easter.

On Mothering Sunday, we move through Lent towards Good Friday and Easter Day, How do we, like Christ, and like so many suffering mothers, grow to understand those who suffer, those who grieve, those who forgive?

‘A well-sculpted eulogy, carved with all the beauty, precision, delicacy and impact of a Pieta being sculpted by a Michelangelo’ … a copy of Michelangelo’s Pieta in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32 (NRSVA):

1 Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

3 So he told them this parable:

11 … ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands’.” 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” 22 But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

25 ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 31 Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found”.’

Liturgical Resources:

Liturgical Colour: Violet

The canticle Gloria is usually omitted in Lent. Traditionally in Anglicanism, the doxology or Gloria at the end of Canticles and Psalms is also omitted during Lent.

Penitential Kyries:

In the wilderness we find your grace:
you love us with an everlasting love.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

There is none but you to uphold our cause;
our sin cries out and our guilt is great.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed;
Restore us and we shall know your joy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect:

Lord God
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
Give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lenten Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lenten Collect should be said after the Collect of the day until Easter Eve.

Introduction to the Peace:

Being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5: 1, 2)

Preface:

Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who was in every way tempted as we are yet did not sin;
by whose grace we are able to overcome all our temptations:

The Post Communion Prayer:

Father,
through your goodness
we are refreshed through your Son
in word and sacrament.
May our faith be so strengthened and guarded
that we may witness to your eternal love
by our words and in our lives.
Grant this for Jesus’ sake, our Lord.

Blessing:

Christ give you grace to grow in holiness,
to deny yourselves,
and to take up your cross and follow him:

Suggested Hymns:

The hymns suggested for the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year C) in Sing to the Word (2000) edited by Bishop Edward Darling include:

Joshua 5: 9-12:

No suggested hymns

Psalm 32:

562, Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine
92, How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

II Corinthians 5: 16-21:

550, ‘Forgive our sins as we forgive’
268, Hail, thou once–despisèd Jesus
417, He gave his life in selfless love
299, Holy Spirit, come, confirm us
522, In Christ there is no east or west
634, Love divine, all loves excelling
231, My song is love unknown
59, New every morning is the love
306, O Spirit of the living God
528, The Church’s one foundation

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32:

642, Amazing grace (how sweet the sound!)
328, Come on and celebrate
329, Father, again in Jesus’ name we meet
319, Father, of heaven, whose love profound
570, Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning (omit verse 1)
(Give me joy in my heart, keep me praising)
268, Hail, thou once–despisèd Jesus
419, I am not worthy, holy Lord
130, Jesus came, the heavens adoring
587, Just as I am, without one plea
594, O Lord of creation, to you be all praise!
622, O the love of my Lord is the essence
366, Praise, my soul, the King of heaven
448, The trumpets sound, the angels sing

The Presentation in the Temple, carved on a panel on a triptych in the Lady Chapel, Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/ Lichfield Gazette)

PART 2, Mothering Sunday:

The optional, second set of readings for next Sunday [31 March 2019] as Mothering Sunday are:

The Readings: Exodus 2: 1-10 or I Samuel 1: 20-28; Psalm 34: 11-20 or Psalm 127: 1-4; II Corinthians 1: 3-7 or Colossians 3: 12-17; Luke 2: 33-35 or John 19: 25-27.

There is a link to these readings HERE.

Luke 2: 33-35:

This short Gospel reading is part of a longer reading normally linked with the Feast of the Presentation or Candlemas [2 February].

Nevertheless, the prophetic words of Simeon, which speak of the falling and rising of many and the sword that will piece Mary’s heart, are appropriate in Lent too, leading us on to the Passion and Easter.

TS Eliot’s poem A Song for Simeon is put in the mouth of an old man, the prophet Simeon in the Temple in Jerusalem. Here Eliot draws on a Christmas sermon by the great 17th century theologian and bishop, Launcelot Andrewes (1555-1626), one of the early Caroline divines and one of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible.

In this poem, Eliot uses significant images to explore the Christian faith, images that are also prophetic, telling of things to happen to the Christ Child in the future. He focuses on an event that brings about the end of an old order and the beginning of a new one.

The Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple … a window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A Song for Simeon (TS Eliot)

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn season had made stand.
My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have given and taken honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.
Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children
When the time of sorrow is come?
They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

According to thy word.
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.

Luke 2: 33-35:

33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

‘Woman, here is your son … Here is your mother’ … Mary and the Beloved Disciple in Station XII of the Stations of the Cross in the Chapel in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

John 19: 25-27:

‘Woman, here is your son … here is your mother.’ These words from the dying Christ on the cross are the third set of words in the traditional way we count the Seven Last Words, often used to shape Good Friday commemorations.

This phrase is traditionally called ‘The Word of Relationship.’

In these tender words, the dying Christ entrusts his weeping mother Mary to the care of the Beloved Disciple. But Christ is not creating a one-way relationship. He immediately follows this by creating a new relationship for the Beloved Disciple: ‘Here is your mother.’

He entrusts her to him – and him to her. Relationships always have at least two dimensions. But the best of relationships are three dimensional – one to another, and each other to God.

And that central truth about relationships is at the heart of the events of the Cross. As Saint Paul says, on the cross Christ was reconciling us to God and to one another (see Ephesians 2: 15-22).

There are some relationships we cannot create, there are others we cannot control, and others still that we have no choice about.

We cannot create our family. Our families are already given, even before we are born or adopted.

And those relationships survive though all adversities. They are fixed. They are given.

Even though my father and mother are dead, they remain my parents.

Even though a couple may divorce, each one in the old relationship remains a sister-in-law or a daughter-in-law, a brother-in-law or a son-in-law – albeit qualified by the word ‘former.’ In time, they may find they have new relationships: when their children have children, they share grandchildren they never expected. They may want to forget their past relationship, but it remains on the family tree for some future genealogist to tell everyone about.

I like to imagine that one of the untold stories in the aftermath of the Wedding at Cana is the new network or web of family relationships that have been created. After the wedding feast, the first of the Seven Signs in Saint John’s Gospel, Christ ‘went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days’ (John 2: 12).

On the way, or back in Capernaum, one finds he is now a brother-in-law, another that she is a sister-in-law, some, perhaps, realise they have a new aunt or uncle, or perhaps a new niece or nephew by marriage.

We cannot create family, yet family often creates us, shapes us, gives us identity and allows others to decide where we fit socially.

There are relationships we cannot control.

Most of us cannot control who we work with. That is the choice of our employers, and even for employers that is legislation to make sure they are not discriminating. Clergy cannot, and should not try to, control who are their parishioners.

If we try to control who is and who is not a member of the Church, depending on the relationships we like to have and the relationships we do not like to have, we will find we have a church that has an ever-decreasing number of members, so that eventually we become a dwindling sect, wanting to make God in our own image and likeness, rather than accepting that we are all made in God’s image and likeness. And that eventually becomes a sect of one, where there is no place for the One who matters.

There are relationships we have no choice about. I cannot choose my friends and I cannot choose my neighbours.

Have you ever noticed that when a house is on the market, both the vendors and the estate agents tell you the neighbours are wonderful? It is only after you move in that you are likely to find out if you have, as the recent ITV television documentary series describes them, ‘the neighbours from hell.’

I cannot choose my friends. No matter how much I want to be friends with someone, if they do not want to be my friend, that’s it. I cannot force friendship. When I have a friendship, I can work on it, nurture it, help it to grow and blossom. But I cannot force a friendship. If you don’t want to be my friend, that is your choice, and if you do, and I don’t nurture that friendship, then you are going to change your mind.

Christ knows all about relationships, and he shows that on the Cross.

Relationships define us as human. Without relating to others, how can I possibly know what it is to be human? From the very beginning, God, who creates us in God’s own image and likeness, knows that it is not good for us to be alone. And in the Trinity, we find that God is relationship.

Relationship is at the heart of the cross. And there, on the cross, even as he is hanging in agony, the dying Jesus is compassionately thinking of others and of relationships.

His mother Mary is the only person throughout the Gospel narratives who has been with Christ from the beginning to the end, from his birth to his death. She has been with Christ throughout his whole life.

Saint John, the Beloved Disciple, is the disciple whom Jesus loved. We are blessed if we have a very best friend, a person to whom I am closer than any other. John is such a best friend for Jesus throughout the Gospel narrative. In the Fourth Gospel, we hear that John was ‘the beloved.’ John was the person to whom Christ was the closest. John was the best friend of Jesus.

In the midst of his dying, pain-filled moments before his death, Christ is heard thinking of the needs of the two people who love him most during his life: his mother and his best friend.

As the soldiers are gambling over his clothes and casting lots to divide them among themselves, Jesus sees three women – his mother Mary, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene, standing near the cross, and his mother is standing with the Beloved Disciple.

He turns to his mother and he says to her: ‘Woman, here is your son.’

He then turns to the Beloved Disciple and says: ‘Here is your mother.’

It is not a command, it is not a directive, it is not an instruction. It is a giving in love, just as his own death on the cross is self-giving. And in giving there is love and there is life.

And from that hour, we are told, the disciple took her into his own home.

Later, we find Mary and John together in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit is given to the Church (see Acts 1: 14).

Tradition says the Virgin Mary and Saint John later travelled to Ephesus, and that she lived in his house to her dying days.

Jerome, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (Jerome, Comm. in ep. ad. Gal., 6, 10), tells the well-loved story that John the Evangelist continued preaching in Ephesus even when he was in his 90s. He was so enfeebled with old age that the people had to carry him into the Church in Ephesus on a stretcher.

And when he was no longer able to preach or deliver a long discourse, his custom was to lean up on one elbow on and say simply: ‘Little children, love one another.’

This continued on, even when the ageing John was on his death-bed. Then he would lie back down and his friends would carry him back out.

Every week, the same thing happened, again and again. And every week it was the same short sermon, exactly the same message: ‘Little children, love one another.’

One day, the story goes, someone asked him about it: ‘John, why is it that every week you say exactly the same thing, ‘little children, love one another’?’ And John replied: ‘Because it is enough.’ If you want to know the basics of living as a Christian, there it is in a nutshell. All you need to know is. ‘Little children, love one another.’

If you want to know the rules, there they are. And there’s only one. ‘Little children, love one another.’

As far as John is concerned, if you have put your trust in Jesus, then there is only one other thing you need to know. So, week after week, he would remind them, over and over again: ‘Little children, love one another.’ That is all he preached in Ephesus, week after week, and that is precisely the message he keeps on repeating in his first letter (I John), over and over again: ‘Little children, love one another.’

Christ teaches us to love, even when he is dying, even when we are dying. That is what relationships are about, and that is what the Cross is all about.

The cross broadens the concept of family - the family of God. Jesus changes the basis of relationships. No longer are relationships to be formed on the basis of natural descent, on shared ethic identity, on agreeing that others are “like us.”

Our shared place beneath the cross is the only foundational space for relationships from now on.

Mary gained another son. And the Beloved Disciple gained a new mother.

Beneath the cross of Christ, Christian fellowship is born not just for Mary and John, but also for you and me, and for everyone else who believes, for all who believe.

Beneath the cross of Christ, we become a new family.

Beneath the cross of Christ, we become brothers and sisters in Christ.

Beneath the cross of Christ, we realise that we are now part of the family of God.

On the cross, Christ entrusts us as his children to one another, to love one another.

‘Little children, love another.’

‘The Women’ … Station 8 in the Chapel at Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, Jesus meets the weeping mothers of Jerusalem (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 19: 25-27:

25 Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ 27 Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

‘Mother and Child’ by Anna Raynoch … a sculpture in Auschwitz (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical resources, Mothering Sunday:

Additional liturgical resources and service ideas for Mothering Sunday are available HERE and HERE.

Liturgical Colour: Violet.

Apart from the Collect and Post-Communion Prayer, there are no other propers or liturgical provisions for Mothering Sunday. However, there may be circumstances when the provisions for the Annunciation, the Presentation, the Visitation and the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary might be adapted:

Penitential Kyries:

Lord God, mighty God,
you are the creator of the world.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary,
you are the Prince of Peace.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Holy Spirit,
by your power the Word was made flesh
and came to dwell among us.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect:

God of compassion,
whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary,
shared the life of a home in Nazareth,
and on the cross drew the whole human family to himself:
Strengthen us in our daily living
that in joy and in sorrow
we may know the power of your presence
to bind together and to heal;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lenten Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lenten Collect should be said after the Collect of the day until Easter Eve.

Introduction to the Peace:

Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and his name is called the Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9: 7).

Preface:

You chose the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son
and so exalted the humble and meek;
your angel hailed her as most highly favoured,
and with all generations we call her blessed:

The Post Communion Prayer:

Loving God,
as a mother feeds her children at the breast,
you feed us in this sacrament with spiritual food and drink.
Help us who have tasted your goodness
to grow in grace within the household of faith;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

Christ the Son of God, born of Mary,
fill you with his grace
to trust his promises and obey his will:

Suggested hymns:

The hymns suggested for Mothering Sunday in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling, include:

Exodus 2: 1-10:

541, God of Eve and God of Mary
569, Hark, my soul, it is the Lord

I Samuel 1: 20-28:

391, Father, now behold us
651, Jesus, friend of little children

Psalm 34: 11-20:

657, O God of Bethel, by whose hand
507, Put peace into each other’s hands
372, Through all the changing scenes of life

Psalm 127: 1-4:

63, All praise to thee, my God, this night
481, God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year
543, Lord of the home, your only Son
288, Thine be the glory, risen, conquering, Son

II Corinthians 1: 3-7:

361, Now thank we all our God
508, Peace to you

Colossians 3: 12-17:

346, Angel voices, ever singing
294, Come, down, O Love divine
550, ‘Forgive our sins as we forgive’
454, Forth in the name of Christ we go
300, Holy Spirit, truth divine
360, Let all the world in every corner sing
525, Let there be love shared among us
503, Make me a channel of your peace
361, Now thank we all our God
369, Songs of praise the angels sang
601, Teach me, my God and King
374, When all thy mercies, O my God
458, When, in our music, God is glorified

Luke 2: 33-35:

691, Faithful vigil ended
125, Hail to the Lord’s anointed

John 19: 25-27:

523, Help us to help each other, Lord
226, It is a thing most wonderful
495, Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love
472, Sing we of the blessed mother (verses 1-2)

The grave of Samuel Johnson’s mother and father in Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A concluding reflection:

Dr Samuel Johnson’s ‘Last Letter to his Aged Mother,’ written 250 years ago on 20 January 1769, reads:

Dear Honoured Mother:

Neither your condition nor your character make it fit for me to say much. You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman, in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well. God grant you his Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen. Lord Jesus receive your spirit. Amen.


The Presentation in the Temple … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

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.

Monday 18 March 2019

Readings, hymns and
sermon ideas for
Sunday 24 March 2019,
the Third Sunday in Lent

‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard’ … vineyards on the slopes near San Gimignano in Tuscany (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Next Sunday [24 March 2019] is the Third Sunday in Lent. The readings provided in the Revised Common Lectionary as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland are:

Readings: Isaiah 55: 1-9; Psalm 63: 1-9; I Corinthians 10: 1-13; Luke 13: 1-9.

There is a link to readings HERE.

Introducing the Readings:

Sunday’s readings relate to freedom of worship, deal with questions such as, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ and bring us to the mid-point of the season of Lent … all topics that may provide themes for Sunday sermons. Here is an opportunity, if you did not find it opportune the previous Sunday, Saint Patrick’s Day [17 March 2019], to speak out about the slaughter of people at worship in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, at the end of last week.

The story is told of a well-known priest in another diocese who was once asked what he had given up for Lent. He replied: ‘I have given up the slice of lemon in my gin and tonic. But do not fear, I remain as bitter and tested as ever.’

Next Sunday, we are half-way through Lent as we reach the Third Sunday in Lent. But by then, I am sure, many of us may find that our Lenten resolutions have faded and that we are probably as resolute about them as we were about our New Year’s resolutions three weeks into January.

We hunger or thirst so much for the little food or the little drink that we give up for Lent that we soon succumb. But instead of being made feel guilty, instead of being chided, what most of us need half-way through Lent is encouragement and affirmation. Both are found in our readings on Sunday morning, but those readings also urge us to hunger and thirst for the real food and drink that God offers us.

Isaiah 55: 1-9:

The Old Testament reading (Isaiah 55: 1-9) concludes the section known as Second Isaiah, which begins in Chapter 40. It was written during the Exile, after Babylon had fallen to the Persians. The key themes are: the way of the Lord, calling the people to enjoy God’s gifts, a new deliverance, the word of the Lord, the king, heaven and earth, God’s relationship with Israel, forgiveness, and the participation of other nations.

All who thirst for God, especially those who are impoverished and have no money, are invited to eat freely at the heavenly banquet, the meal that symbolises God’s loving generosity and abundance (verse 1).

We are told that God’s ‘everlasting covenant,’ first with one person, David, has been extended to his successors, then to his people, and is now offered to all nations, to all people (verses 4-5), even those who have done evil in the past but who now forsake those ways (verse 7). God is not only to be found in the Temple, but among all who seek him:

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near …
(verse 6).

Psalm 63: 1-8:

In the Psalm too, we hear what it is to thirst for the Lord (verse 1). But the same mouths that thirst for God in the wilderness, also praise him with joyful lips (verse 5).

‘To be or to do?’ … a T-shirt on sale in the Plaka in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I Corinthians 10: 1-13:

That thirsting in the wilderness helps the Apostle Paul to illustrate the Epistle reading, in which he urges the Christians in Corinth to thirst for the true ‘spiritual food’ (verse 3), for the true ‘spiritual drink’ (verse 4).

I recently bought a T-shirt that I had long seen on sale in the Plaka in Athens with the slogan: ‘To do is to be, Socrates. To be is to do, Plato. Do-be-do-be-do, Sinatra.’

Of course, there are different types of people: there are the ‘do-ers’ and there are the ‘be-ers.’

But whichever you are, we need the balance of the other. Emphasising the spiritual without understanding the world we live in leads to us being irrelevant. On the other hand, actively doing good, without any deep and truly spiritual foundations, leads to burn-out and disillusion.

In a tribute to Justin Kilcullen, the former director of Trocaire, at the honorary conferrings at the Pontifical University in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, last week [12 March 2019], Bishop John Kirby said many people ask why we are relatively prosperous in Ireland, while so many people live in poverty. But, he said, we need to realise instead that we are relatively prosperous in rich countries in the northern hemisphere precisely because so many people live in poverty and hunger and thirst in the two-thirds world.

We are called to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5: 6), but wishing is not enough. Christ reminds us in our Gospel reading this morning that we are called to bear fruit too … and he is patient in waiting for faith to produce fruit.

In the middle of the economic crisis in Greece, the Greek Prime Minister accused other European leaders of failing to put compassion into action, and warned of the danger of Greece becoming ‘a warehouse of souls.’

Saint Paul reminds the Corinthians – and so reminds us too in this reading – that we are called to be both ‘do-ers’ and ‘be-ers.’ In that way, all may know that they are invited to the heavenly banquet, where there will be eating and drinking for the hungry and the thirsty, and for all.

Looking across the countryside in Crete from an old Venetian tower in Maroulas … why were the workers killed accidentally in the Tower of Siloam? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 13: 1-9:

These thoughts are interesting preludes to our Gospel reading (Luke 13: 1-9), where we hear of the chilling and horrific deaths of two groups of people that made headline news at the time.

We all know that people often ask why God allows bad things to happen to good people.

In this reading there are two examples. In the first case, it was Galileans at prayer in the Temple who were slaughtered in their innocence, and who then, sacrilegiously, had their blood mixed with the Temple sacrifices.

In the second case, innocent building workers, working on the Tower of Siloam near the Temple, died when the work collapsed on top of them.

Part 1: verses 1-5

In those days, it was commonly believed that pain and premature death were signs of God’s adverse judgment. We think like that today: how often do people think those who are sick, suffer infirmities, have injuries, die because they cannot afford health care? They do not die because they cannot afford healthcare – they die because governments prefer to spend money on weapons and wars or in giving tax breaks to the rich, rather than spending money on health care for those who need it.

The first group in this Gospel reading, a group of Galileans, from Christ’s own home province, believed they were doing God’s will as they worshipped in the Temple. But they were killed intentionally as they sacrificed to God in the Temple. Even in death, they were degraded further when, on Pilate’s orders, their blood was mixed with the blood of the Temple sacrifices.

In a single act of capricious violence, Pilate humiliated the nation, its religion and its culture, and violated the very presence of God. In a single act, he desecrated: the altar in the Temple; the ritual practices held there; the sacred place reserved for priests; the animals made holy by prayers; and the murdered Galileans who had been standing at that altar.

Think of the horror we feel when people are murdered at worship: the 50 people murdered in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last Friday (15 March 2019), the 11 people murdered five months ago at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh (27 October 2018), the nine people murdered in the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina (17 June 2015), the three people murdered in the Gospel Hall in Darkley (20 November 1983), or Oscar Romero saying Mass on this day 39 years ago in San Salvador (24 March 1980) – or think of the children murdered in Dunblane (1996) or in recent school shootings and drive-by shootings in the United States.

The second group in the Gospel reading, numbering 18 in all, were building workers who were killed accidentally as they were building the Tower of Siloam.

Think of our horror today at people who die accidentally, not because of their own mistakes or sinfulness; people who die daily of hunger and poverty; children born to die because they are HIV +, because their parents live in poverty, or other circumstances not of their choosing; children who die in dangerous and treacherous sea crossings in the Mediterranean …

How easy it is for us, for example, to talk about ‘innocent victims’ – of wars, of AIDS, of gangland killings – as though some people are ‘guilty victims’ who deserve to die like that anyway.

But in both cases in our Gospel reading – in all these cases – Christ says no, there is no link between an early and an unjust death and the sins of the past or the sins of past generations.

In those days, it was commonly believed that pain and premature death were signs of God’s adverse judgment. At the time, it was commonly believed that severe physical disabilities or an early death were natural and just consequences for the sins of the past, even the sins of past generations.

We think like that today: how often do people think those who are sick, suffer infirmities, have injuries die because they cannot afford health care? How often do we shift our focus so that we blame people traffickers rather than asking why people are fleeing war? How often do we forget or deny their humanity and instead listen to politicians talking of ‘hordes’ and ‘swarms’ of people threatening ‘Fortress Europe’?

In both stories, we could explain away what we might otherwise see as the inexplicable way God allows other people to suffer and die by saying they brought it on themselves by their sins, or the sins of their ancestors … or, in today’s language, by saying they cannot afford to pay for health care, or they bring it on themselves by their lifestyle, or they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or they ought to stay in their own countries.

My compassion is the victim of my hidden values, and so others become the victims.

Siloam provides an interesting place for Christ to challenge this ‘received wisdom’ when he meets the man born blind and heals him at the Pool of Siloam, one of the seven ‘signs’ in Saint John’s Gospel (see John 9: 1-7).

Now, we have another story about Siloam, as Christ links the execution of Galilean rebels with the tragedy surrounding the collapse of the Tower of Siloam.

Many may have expected him to say that their deaths were in punishment for their rebellious behaviour, in the case of the Galilean rebels, or collaborative behaviour, in the case of the workers who were building a water supply system for the Roman occupiers.

Is Christ indifferent to political and environmental disasters?

Instead of meeting those expectations, Christ teaches that death comes to everyone, regardless of how sinful I am, regardless of my birth, politics or social background, or – even more certainly – my smug sense of religious pride and righteousness. And he goes on to teach how we each need to repent – even when, in the eyes of others, we do not appear to need repentance.

Death comes to everyone. But that death need not be physical at all – spiritual death is the most deadening, for it brings with it not only loss of Communion with God, but it brings with it the loss of hope, the loss of trust, the loss of love for others and for ourselves, the loss of true compassion. And sometimes that sort of death comes suddenly and without warning.

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near …


Figs on sale in a supermarket near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Part 2: verses 6-9

It is so tempting to excuse or dismiss the sufferings of others. To say they brought it on themselves offers us an opt-out: we can claim to have compassion, but need not respond to it, nor need to do anything to challenge the injustice that is the underlying cause of this suffering.

Yet, in the parable of the fig tree, we are called on to wait, we are urged not to be too hasty in our judgment on those who seem in our eyes to do nothing to improve their lot.

It makes logical, economic and financial sense for the owner to want to chop down the fig tree – after all, not only is it taking up space, but it also costs in terms of time, tending, feeding, caring and nurturing. The owner knows what it is to make a quick profit, and if the quick profit is not coming soon enough he wants to cut his losses.

It takes much tender care and many years – at least three years – for a fig tree to bear fruit. And even then, in a vineyard, the figs are not a profit – they are a bonus.

Even if a fig tree bears early fruit, the Mosaic Law said it could not be harvested for three years, and the fruit gathered in the fourth year was going to offered as the first fruits. Only in the fifth year, then, could the fruit be eaten.

So, if this tree was chopped down, and another put its place, it would take longer still to get fruit that could be eaten or sold. In his quest for the quick buck, the owner of the vineyard shows little knowledge about the reality of economics.

The gardener, who has nothing at stake, turns out to be the one not only has compassion, but has deep-seated wisdom too. The gardener, who is never going to benefit from the owner’s profits, can see the tree’s potential, is willing to let be and wait, knowing what the fig tree is today and what it can do in the future.

But we can decide where we place our trust – in the values that I think serve me but serve the rich, the powerful and the oppressor, or in the God who sees our plight, who hears our cry, and who comes in Christ to deliver us.

A small vineyard in Platanes near Rethymnon in Crete … fig trees at either end help to protect the vines against winds from the sea and mountain and to hold the soil and water (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 13: 1-9 (NRSVA):

1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

6 Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” 8 He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down”.’

A fig tree growing in shallow soil by the beach on the island of Gramvousa off the north-west coast of Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Resources:

Liturgical Colour: Violet

The canticle Gloria is usually omitted in Lent. Traditionally in Anglicanism, the doxology or Gloria at the end of Canticles and Psalms is also omitted during Lent.

Penitential Kyries:

In the wilderness we find your grace:
you love us with an everlasting love.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

There is none but you to uphold our cause;
our sin cries out and our guilt is great.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed;
Restore us and we shall know your joy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect:

Merciful Lord,
Grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lenten Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lenten Collect should be said after the Collect of the day until Easter Eve.

Introduction to the Peace:

Being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5: 1, 2)

Preface:

Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who was in every way tempted as we are yet did not sin;
by whose grace we are able to overcome all our temptations:

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord our God,
you feed us in this life with bread from heaven,
the pledge and foreshadowing of future glory.
Grant that the working of this sacrament within us
may bear fruit in our daily lives;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

Christ give you grace to grow in holiness,
to deny yourselves,
and to take up your cross and follow him:

Figs on sale on a stall in Monastiraki in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Suggested Hymns:

The hymns suggested for the Third Sunday in Lent (Year C) in Sing to the Word (2000) edited by Bishop Edward Darling include:

Isaiah 55: 1-9:

646, Glorious things of thee are spoken
576, I heard the voice of Jesus say
557, Rock of ages, cleft for me
448, The trumpets sound, the angels sing

Psalm 63: 1-9:

63, All praise to thee, my God, this night
607, As pants the hart for cooling streams
606, As the deer pants for the water
357, I’ll praise my maker while I’ve breath
553, Jesu, lover of my soul
95, Jesu, priceless treasure
425, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts

I Corinthians 10: 1-13:

2, Faithful one, so unchanging
459, For all the saints who from their labours rest
646, Glorious things of thee are spoken
668, God is our fortress and our rock
647, Guide me, O thou great Jehovah
92, How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
431, Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour
557, Rock of ages, cleft for me
595, Safe in the arms of Jesus

Luke 13: 1-9:

311, Fruitful trees, the Spirit’s sowing

Fresh figs prepared for breakfast (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.

Monday 11 March 2019

Readings, hymns and
sermon ideas for
Sunday 17 March 2019,
Saint Patrick’s Day,
Second Sunday in Lent

Saint Patrick … an icon received as a present in Crete last year and now in the Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Next Sunday [17 March 2019] is the Second Sunday in Lent and Saint Patrick’s Day. The celebrations may mark a welcome break in Lent.

It is highly unlikely that any parish in these dioceses is going to mark next Sunday as the Second Sunday in Lent and not as Saint Patrick’s Day. This week’s posting is divided into two parts.

Part 1 seeks to provide appropriate preaching and liturgical resources for Saint Patrick’s Day; Part 2 seeks to provide appropriate preaching and liturgical resources for those using the options for the Second Sunday in Lent.

PART 1:

The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) are:

Readings: Tobit 13: 1b-7; Psalm 145: 1-13; II Corinthians 4: 1-12; John 4: 31-38.

There is a direct link to readings HERE.

Sermons:

1, A sermon preached in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick on Saint Patrick’s Day 2018 is HERE.

2, A sermon preached in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick, on Saint Patrick’s Day 2017 is HERE.

3, A sermon preached in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Saint Patrick’s Day 2013 is HERE.

Saint Patrick depicted in a window by Catherine O’Brien in the south of porch Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Thinking about Saint Patrick:

Four papers on Saint Patrick delivered at a Readers’ Retreat Day in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin, in March 2016 are available through these links:

1, Who is Saint Patrick?

2, Saint Patrick’s writings and his message

3, Celtic Spirituality, is there something there?

4, The Eucharist, with a short sermon.

The reliquary made for relics of Saint Patrick, now in the Hunt Museum, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 4: 31-38 (NRSVA):

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him [Jesus], ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 32 But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ 33 So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ 34 Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Saint Patrick with mitre, crozier, Bible and shamrock on the side of the chapel in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Resources:

Liturgical Colour:

White (please note that Green is not the Liturgical Colour for Saint Patrick’s Day).

Penitential Kyries:

O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who trust in him.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Lord ransoms the live of his servants
and none who trust in him will be destroyed.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Come my children, listen to me:
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Collect:

Almighty God,
in your providence you chose your servant Patrick
to be the apostle of the Irish people,
to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error
to the true light and knowledge of your Word:
Grant that walking in that light
we may come at last to the light of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Introduction to the Peace:

Peace be to you, and peace to your house, and peace to all who are yours (I Samuel 25: 6).

Preface:

To this land you sent the glorious gospel
through the preaching of Patrick.
You caused it to grow and flourish in the life of your servant Patrick and in
the lives of men and women, filled with your Holy Spirit,
building up your Church to send forth the good news to other places:

Post Communion Prayer:

Hear us, most merciful God,
for that part of the Church
which through your servant Patrick you planted in our land;
that it may hold fast the faith entrusted to the saints
and in the end bear much fruit to eternal life:
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

God, who in days of old gave to this land the benediction of his holy Church,
fill you with his grace to walk faithfully in the steps of the saints
and to bring forth fruit to his glory:

Saint Patrick alongside Saint Cuthbert, Saint Finbar and Saint Laurence O’Toole in the stained glass windows in the baptistery in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Suggested Hymns:

The hymns suggested for Saint Patrick’s Day, 17 March, in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling, include:

Tobit 13: 1b-7:

No suggested hymns.

Alternative, Deuteronomy 32: 1-9:

668, God is our fortress and our rock
539, Rejoice, O land, in God thy might
540, To thee, our God, we fly (verses 1-3, 7)

Psalm 145: 1-13

24, All creatures of our God and King
125, Hail to the Lord’s anointed
321, Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty
358, King of glory, King of peace
360, Let all the world in every corner sing
104, O for a thousand tongues to sing
365, Praise to the Lord, the almighty, the King of creation
368, Sing of the Lord’s goodness
73, The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended 374, When all thy mercies, O my God
492, Ye servants of God, your master proclaim

II Corinthians 4: 1-12:

52, Christ, whose glory fills the skies
613, Eternal light, shine in my heart
481, God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year
324, God, whose almighty word
569, Hark, my soul, it is the Lord
96, Jesus is Lord! Creation’s voice proclaims it
195, Lord, the light of your love is shining
228, Meekness and majesty
341, Spirit divine, attend our prayers

John 4: 31-38:

305, O Breath of life, come sweeping through us
46, Tá an fómhar seo go haerach, céad buíochas le hÍosa
(The harvest is bright, all thanks be to Jesus)
141, These are the days of Elijah

Also suitable:

611, Christ be beside me
459, For all the saints who from their labours rest
461, For all thy saints, O Lord
460, For all your saints in glory, for all your saints at rest (verses 1, 2c and 3)
464, God, whose city’s sure foundation
322, I bind unto myself today
322, I bind unto myself today (vv. 1, 2, 8 & 9)
536, Lord, while for all the world we pray
471, Rejoice in God’s saints, today and all days
473, Síormholadh is glóir duit, a Athair shíorai
(All glory and praise to you, Father above)

Saint Patrick in a stained-glass window in Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic parish church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

PART 2:

Night falls on the harbour in Skerries, Co Dublin … how many stars can you see on a clear night? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Second Sunday in Lent:

Next Sunday is also the Second Sunday in Lent. The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for that Sunday are:

The Readings: Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3: 17 to 4: 1; Luke 13: 31-35.

There is a direct link to the readings HERE.

Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18:

Did you ever look up on a clear, moonless night and ask how many stars you can see above?

When you look up into the night sky it stretches a pitch-black canvas washed with streaks and studs of brightness. We are surrounded by light that has travelled the expanse of the universe to reach our eyes. And it makes me feel tiny and enormous at one and the same time.

But how many stars do I actually see?

There is really no definitive answer to this question. No one has counted all the stars in the night sky, and astronomers use different numbers as theoretical estimates.

Considering all the stars visible in all directions around Earth, some estimates say there are between 5,000 and 10,000 visible stars. But that’s just the stars visible to the naked eye tonight.

But why limit it to my own failing short-sighted pair of eyes? Why should I simply marvel at the majesty and mystery of it all when I can do some calculations and think of how many stars are visible to God?

If we start with the galaxies, astronomers estimate there are around 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe, stretching out over a radius of some 45.7 billion light years.

Those galaxies vary in terms of the number of stars they contain. Some galaxies have more than a trillion stars. Some giant elliptical galaxies have 100 trillion stars. There are also tiny dwarf galaxies – tiny, of course, is a relative term here – some tiny dwarf galaxies that have significantly fewer stars.

On the other hand, the Milky Way, our little corner of the observable universe, has 400 billion stars alone.

So, if we multiply the estimated average number of stars in each galaxy by the number of galaxies in the observable universe – and carry the billion, &c – I get a rough estimate of all the stars I am capable of observing. And what I find is there is roughly a septillion stars in the observable universe. That brings us to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars (1024, or 1 followed by 24 zeros). Which is, well, put simply, an awesome lot of stars.

In this Old Testament reading, Abraham is worried about his survival, his future, and what is going to happen after he dies.

He has no children and he tries the old trusted ways of augury and divination … it seems strange or weird to us today, but this sort of thing was practised throughout the ancient civilisations in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, even in classical Greece and Rome.

Of course, Abraham’s fears are the fears of many in the Middle East today: who is going to inherit this land? Are those I see as out-siders threats, real or imagined, not only to my survival but threats to everything I hope for in the future?

My dreams are so precious to me that they are important.

I understand Abraham’s fears, at two levels:

1, I was a little older than some members of my peer group – family, friends and work colleagues – when I became a parent. I was in my late 30s. There are so many thoughts that those years of waiting can bring to mind that we could have a full counselling session here afterwards. They go as far as the meaning and purpose of life. But how do we treat childless couples, single parents, separated children, and others in Church? And are those fears and their insecurities reinforced when we organise ‘family services’ or talk about ‘family values.’

2, I have travelled throughout the Middle East at different times, as a journalist, on inter-faith projects, and so on. I know what doom Abraham imagines when he contemplates Eliezer of Damascus coming into everything he has worked for, and all he has made sacrifices for. But I also grasp the fear that strikes the descendants of Eliezer of Damascus when they hear that Abraham’s children are going to stake a claim to all the land ‘from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,’ from Egypt across to the borders of Iraq and Iran, from Cairo to Baghdad.

But Abram, who is later to become Abraham, is told not to fear. God says to him, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’

Today, the three great faiths that claim descent from Abraham, either genealogically or spiritually, are the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims, as well as many other smaller monotheistic faiths, such as the Samaritans, the Mandaeans, the Yezidis and the Druze.

You may not count some of those in. But once we start counting people out because of our limited vision, we forget the vast scope of God’s vision. God’s response to Abraham includes a hint that he cannot possibly count the stars by looking at them. A septillion stars may be there for me to see, but they are beyond my ability to count, beyond my imagination, beyond my comprehension.

Yet, God’s love knows no limits, knows no boundaries.

Thinking about the stars at night, the great tragedies in the world and the unbounded love of God, Dr Samuel Johnson once wrote:

‘The pensive man at one time walks ‘unseen’ to muse at midnight, and at another hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home he sits in a room lighted only by ‘glowing embers’; or by a lonely lamp outwatches the North Star to discover the habitation of separate souls, and varies the shades of meditation by contemplating the magnificent or pathetick scenes of tragick and epick poetry.’

Psalm 27:

Sometimes, I find as I stand presiding at or celebrating the Holy Communion or the Eucharist that I am taken aback by intense feelings of the love of God.

This sometimes happens when I use the ‘Prayer of Humble Access’ at the fraction, when we are breaking the Bread of Communion at the invitation.

It is a prayer that has gone out of fashion in many parishes, but it is a reminder that we come to the Table or the Altar not because of our own goodness, not in spite of our own sinfulness, but because of the overflowing mercy and grace that God gives us freely and with unlimited bounty:

We do not presume to come to this your table,
merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness
but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
But you art the same Lord,
whose nature is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.


I can be taken aback and find myself conscious of the love of God as I came to those words: ‘We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.’

On one occasions some years ago, what flashed across my mind was a video clip that has gone viral on YouTube and social media, of two small, frail abandoned children caught up in Syria’s bloody civil war, fending for themselves by picking up crumbs of bread from the street to eat.

These two homeless mites, who are braver than any groups fighting or waging war in Syria, tell the camera crew: ‘We go to sleep hungry, we wake up hungry.’

They have been separated from their parents. I have close links with the Anglican mission agency, USPG, which is working with the plight of Syrian refugees in Lesvos and Athens and other parts of Greece. The work of USPG in the midst of this tragedy and catastrophe is a living witness to words like those of the Psalmist: ‘Though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up’ (Psalm 27: 13).

The 10-year-old girl said she was collecting bread crumbs off the street with her brother because their area of Damascus, al-Hajar, had been under siege for more than 15 months.

‘If we had food, you wouldn’t have seen us here.’

But their final message to the world that has abandoned them is: ‘May you be happy and blessed with what God has given you!’

Europe takes pity on children like this when we see them on YouTube or on the 9 o’clock news. But when they land on our shores in the Aegean Islands in Greece, or make their way up through central Europe, we deem them not worthy to gather up the crumbs under our table.

They arrive here, perhaps hoping like the Psalmist in Sunday’s readings believing that they ‘shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living’ (Psalm 27: 16). But God is the ‘same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.’



Luke 13: 31-35:

I have looked at this video clip again and again since then. And I think of the image of Christ in our Gospel reading on Sunday morning:

‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Luke 13: 34)

The children of the world are the future of the world. It does not matter whose children they are. It does not matter how many of them there are: whether they are two children searching for crumbs that I am not worthy to gather up, or small enough to be gathered in by a loving parent, or are countless in numbers like the stars, they are all embraced in the love of the loving and living God. They are all heirs to God’s promises.

And how we respond to them, how I respond to them, shows them what I think, what we think, of God and how much we believe in his promise.

Luke 13: 31-35 (NRSVA):

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ 32 He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”.’

Liturgical Resources:

Liturgical Colour: Violet

The canticle Gloria may be omitted in Lent.

Traditionally in Anglicanism, the doxology or Gloria at the end of Canticles and Psalms is also omitted during Lent.

Penitential Kyries:

In the wilderness we find your grace:
you love us with an everlasting love.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

There is none but you to uphold our cause;
our sin cries out and our guilt is great.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed;
Restore us and we shall know your joy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
Grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things
as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lenten Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lenten Collect should be said after the Collect of the day until Easter Eve.

Introduction to the Peace:

Being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5: 1, 2)

Preface:

Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who was in every way tempted as we are yet did not sin;
by whose grace we are able to overcome all our temptations:

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Creator of heaven and earth,
we thank you for these holy mysteries
given us by our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which we receive your grace
and are assured of your love,
which is through him now and for ever.

Blessing:

Christ give you grace to grow in holiness,
to deny yourselves,
and to take up your cross and follow him:

Suggested Hymns:

The hymns suggested for the Second Sunday in Lent (Year C) in Sing to the Word (2000) edited by Bishop Edward Darling include:

Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18:

10, All my hope on God is founded
501, Christ is the world’s true light
383, Lord, be thy word my rule
595, Safe in the shadow of the Lord
545, Sing of Eve and sing of Adam
323, The God of Abraham praise

Psalm 27:

87, Christ is the world’s light, he and none other
501, Christ is the world’s true light
566, Fight the good fight with all thy might
431, Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour
362, O God, beyond all praising
620, O Lord, hear my prayer
557, Rock of ages, cleft for me
20, The King of love my shepherd is
627, What a friend we have in Jesus

Philippians 3: 17 to 4: 1:

566, Fight the good fight with all thy might
468, How shall I sing that majesty
672, Light’s abode, celestial Salem
370, Stand up and bless the Lord

Luke 13: 31–35:

369, Songs of praise the angels sang
143, Waken, O sleeper, wake and rise
145, You servants of the Lord

Saint Patrick depicted on the façade of Saint Patrick’s Hall in Listowel, Co Kerry (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.