Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 4 March 2018

The Ten Commandments on two central panels of the reredos in Saint Margaret Lothbury Church, London, with the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed on each side (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday next [4 March 2018] is the Third Sunday in Lent, and the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary are: Exodus 20: 1-17; Psalm 19; I Corinthians 1: 18-25; John 2: 13-22.

There is a link to the readings HERE.

Moses (left) holding the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and the Prophet Elias (right) in a stained glass window in Saint John’s Church, Wall, near Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Exodus 20: 1-17:

There was a time when the Ten Commandments, as we find them in this reading, were displayed publicly in Anglican churches, often on painted boards beside the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed, so that people could learn them off by heart and understand their foundational significance for our faith.

The Ten Commandments are the foundational moment for Israel as a community. Today, the curtain or screen (parochet, פרוכת) that covers the Torah Ark containing theTorah scrolls in a synagogue is usually embroidered with a representation of the two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, and the scrolls themselves are covered with a mantle with similar decoration.

The parochet symbolises the curtain that covered the Ark of the Covenant, and the word also describes the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the main hall in the Temple in Jerusalem. The use of the parochet in synagogues today recalls the centrality of the Temple in Jewish worship, and the foundational role of the Ten Commandments for Jewish identity.

The Ten Commandments mark the Covenant between God and Israel but, unlike the covenants with Noah and Abraham, which we have looked at in the previous Sundays (Genesis 9: 8-17, the First Sunday in Lent; and Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16, the Second Sunday in Lent), both parties have a stake in this covenant.

In the earlier covenants, God acts and promises, but the other parties are passive recipients. With this covenant, either party can break it. Why does God now enter into this covenant with the freed slaves at Mount Sinai?

In the previous chapter, Moses is reminded on the mountain top of what God did to the Egyptians and how he has lovingly protected Israel, so that ‘you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation’ that had ‘no other gods before me’ (Exodus 19: 3-6). God demands loyalty, punishes those who intentionally reject him, and rewards with compassion those who love him and follow his ways.

The first part of the Ten Commandments set out why, how and when God alone is to be worshipped (verses 2-11). The second part of the Ten Commandments sets out how this is to be put into practice: honouring older people, respecting the sacred qualities of life, marriage, truth and the rights, security and personal possessions of others (verses 12-17).

The Ten Commandments are the summary of our relationships with God and with one another. They symbolise this covenant, they summarise the purpose and direction of worship, and they summarise and express the core values of community relations.

The actions of Jesus in our Gospel reading are a reaction to how those values have been abused and set aside for personal gain in a place that is supposed to be at the heart of these relationships.

The Ten Commandments on a Torah Mantle on Torah Scrolls from Adelaide Road Synagogue now in the Dublin Jewish Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 19:

This Psalm is known to many people because its closing verse was traditionally used as an opening prayer by Anglican clergy before preaching a sermon: ‘Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer’ (Psalm 19: 14).

For the Israelites, the firmament is a giant covering for the earth, and beyond is a hierarchy of heavens. God’s glory is told out, by day and by night, by day and night, to the end of the earth (verses 1-4). God has created the sun, which rises early in the morning like a bridegroom and lights up God’s creation, making God’s presence known (verses 4-6).

In this Psalm, the law of the Lord is said to be perfect, it revives the soul, it makes the wise simple, it gladdens the heart and enlightens our eyes, it is sweeter than honey and is to be desired more than fine gold (verses 7-10).

If one accidentally breaks this law or the covenant, God is ready to forgive and to protect (verses 11-13). But true worship must by reflected in our words and deeds (verse 14).

I Corinthians 1: 18-25:

This Epistle opens with the Apostle Paul reporting he has heard from Chloe about the quarrels that are dividing the Christians in Corinth, and he urges them to put aside their divisions and to be ‘united in the same mind and the same purpose’ (I Corinthians 10-17).

Now he urges them to unite around Christ, telling them that while the Cross appears to be foolish, meaningless and nonsense to those who think they are wise, its message makes sense to us as Christians.

Saint Paul recalls a time when Assyria was threatening Judah. The king’s counsellor, who was regarded as a wise philosopher, advised an alliance with Egypt. But the Prophet Isaiah told the king instead to trust in the Lord rather than those who claim to be wise and intelligent (verse 19; see Isaiah 33: 18).

Greek philosophers and Jewish scribes rely on wisdom and signs (verses 20-24). But Saint Paul reminds the Church in Corinth that we offer something very different to both Jews and Gentiles, to prophecy and philosophy: ‘For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (verse 25).

‘Christ driving the Traders from the Temple,’ by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, 1541-1614), The National Gallery, London El Greco (ca 1600)

John 2: 13-22:

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 18 The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19 Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20 The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

The Cleansing of the Temple, Giotto, the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

The move from Cana to Jerusalem

The scene in this Gospel reading moves from the small town of Cana in Galilee to the capital city of Jerusalem, for the first of three Passover feasts that are part of Saint John’s narrative.

The Synoptic Gospels telescope the public life of Christ into one year, and have only one Passover celebration, and they place the Cleansing of the Temple in the last week of Christ’s life: Saint Matthew places it on Palm Sunday (see Matthew 21: 10-17), while Saint Mark sets this incident on the Monday (see Mark 11: 15-19); see also Luke 19: 45-48.

However, in Saint John’s Gospel there are three Passovers:

● John 2: 13 to 3: 21;

● John 6: 4 ff, and

● John 13: 1 ff.

The Cleansing of the Temple takes place during the first of these three Johannine Passovers.

In the outer court of the Temple, Christ finds a thriving market, where visitors can purchase the animals needed for sacrifice and change their money with the money changers for half-shekels from Tyre, which were acceptable religiously.

The animals and the coins were absolutely necessary for the Temple worship. So, in attacking the commerce in the outer court of the Temple, Jesus is doing more than purging the Temple of an abuse – he is attacking the Temple itself.

In Cana, Christ replaced the rites of purification. Now in Jerusalem, he shows that the very centre of traditional religious worship is losing its meaning in his presence. Later, he replaces the great feasts, one-by-one.

The glorious presence of God, which was once confined to the Temple in Jerusalem, has now become incarnate in the person of Christ Jesus.

Jeremiah had said that impurity would destroy the value of the Temple in God’s eyes: ‘Has this house, which is called by name, become a den of robbers in your sight’ (Jeremiah 7: 11).

Other passages in the Old Testament tell how the coming of the Messiah will see an ideal Temple appearing on earth. No commerce will be tolerated there, and all the nations of the earth will be welcome in this new Temple: ‘And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day’ (Zechariah 14: 21; see also Isaiah 56: 7; Tobit 14: 5-7).

Verse 13:

Christ goes up to Jerusalem.

Verse 14:

The animals sold for sacrifice and Roman coins were changed into Jewish or coins from Tyre in order to pay the Temple tax.

Verses 15-16:

This is not an outburst of temper, but the energy of righteousness being used to confront the religious leaders who have made a good business out of the religious practices of others.

Verse 15:

In the third stanza of his poem A Song for Simeon, TS Eliot brings together the Christ who will tie cords to drive the traders from the Temple and the Christ who will be whipped and scourged,

Verse 16:

‘My Father’s house’ is a claim to lordship.

Verse 17:

‘Zeal for your house will consume me’: The reference here is to Psalm 69: 9: ‘It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’

Verse 19:

He says: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Instead of interpreting this as meaning ‘I shall destroy this temple,’ the Temple authorities ought to have heard him saying: ‘If you destroy this Temple, in three days I will raise it up.’

Verse 20:

The rebuke by Jesus is heard and interpreted only in material ways. How could he possibly rebuild in three days had taken 46 years to build?

Of course, even in the time of Christ, building work on the Temple had not been completed. The Temple was begun by Herod the Great in the year 20 BC and it was not finished by Herod Agrippa until AD 64.

In two of the Synoptic accounts, the false witnesses at the trial of Jesus will misrepresent what Jesus said, claiming he said he was able to or would destroy the Temple: ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days’ (Matthew 26: 61); ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands’ (Mark 14: 58).

But as Saint Mark points out, the Temple of which he is speaking is not made by hands.

Verse 21:

This is not simply a prediction of his coming death. For the Apostle Paul, this temple is the Church of believers (I Corinthians 3: 16). But John has a different emphasis: the Temple is the body of Christ which, as the disciples would see after the Resurrection, would be raised up in three days.

Notice how John deliberately uses the term ‘raise up’ and not the ‘build’ or ‘construct’ we find in the Synoptic Gospels.

Verse 22:

In this Gospel, there is a continuing thread in which seeing is related to believing. But, as we know, seeing is not always believing; and believing in what has been seen and what has been said on this occasion is postponed until the disciples see the Resurrection.

Topics for discussion:

Have you ever excused your anger by finding a moral justification for your actions?

Is it ever right to lose my temper?

Have we a moral responsibility for the way the Church orders its financial affairs?

How zealous are you for God’s house?

Do you see your body as the Temple of the Holy Spirit?

Can you extend that image to other members of the Church, your parish, your community?

The Ten Commandments on two panels in Saint Carthage’s Cathedral, Lismore, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical resources:

Liturgical colour: Violet.

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 of the Day:

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.

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:

Suggested Hymns:

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

Exodus 20: 1-17:

383, Lord, be thy word my rule
76, Sweet is the work, my God and King

Psalm 19:

606, As the deer pants for the water
153, Come, thou Redeemer of the earth
351, From all that dwell below the skies
631, God be in my head
696, God, we praise you! God, we bless you!
616, In my life, Lord, be glorified
97, Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
384, Lord, thy word abideth
432, Love is his word, love is his way
638, O for a heart to praise my God
34, O worship the King all–glorious above
35, The spacious firmament on high

I Corinthians 1: 18-25:

10, All my hope on God is founded
643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
232, Nature with open volume stands
248,We sing the praise of him who died

John 2: 13-22:

453, Come to us, creative Spirit
336, Jesus, where’er thy people meet
343, We love the place, O God

The Ten Commandments on the ‘parochet’ or curtain on the Ark containing the Torah Scrolls in a synagogue in Krakow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 25 February 2018

Simon of Cyrene takes up the Cross and follows Christ … Station 5 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday next [25 February 2018] is the Second Sunday in Lent, and the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary are: Genesis 17: 1-7 and 15-16; Psalm 22: 23-31; Romans 4: 13-25; Mark 8: 31-38.

There is a link to the readings HERE.

Introduction:

Lent in Ireland has traditionally been a time for making resolutions – resolutions that are often like New Year’s resolutions. We start out well, giving up drinks, or sweets, or smoking or chocolate – at least for the first week or two.

But now that we are into the second week of Lent, I imagine Lenten resolutions are much forgotten already, just like New Year’s resolutions.

How many of us can remember what your New Year’s resolution was this year?

And if we can remember it, have we stuck to it?

How many of us are continuing on the Lenten journey?

How many of us are continuing on the Lenten journey? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Yet, we often start doing things like this, not as spiritual disciplines, but to reshape, remould ourselves in an image and likeness that I or my friends will find more acceptable.

And when we fail, when we go back to our old habits, how often we feel precisely that – that I’m a failure, that I am worth a little less in the eyes of others, that I’m not quite as close to perfection as I thought I might be

And we are constantly reminded in advertising and through the media of the need to be perfect. If only I drove this car, had that new DVD player for home viewings, cooked in that well-stocked kitchen, or drank that tempting new wine or beer, then I would be closer to others seeing me like a perfect Greek god.

Yet the lectionary readings next Sunday are a call to put aside the struggle to conform to outside demands and pressures, and instead to journey in faith with God.

‘Ibrahim/Abraham/Avraham’ by Stephen Raw in the ‘Holy Writ’ exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral in 2014, bringing together the traditions of the Abrahamic faiths (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Genesis 17:1-7,15-16

On the First Sunday in Lent [18 February 2018], we heard a story of journey and covenant when we read about Noah, his family, and the journey in the ark that ends with a new covenant not only with Noah, not just with his family, but with all humanity and all creation.

This story the following Sunday is a story about the next major journey in Genesis that ends with a new covenant, not just with Abraham, not just with his family, but with all humanity and all creation.

Abraham’s journey in Genesis is a struggle to better understand God and to discern his place in God’s plan. Along the way, Abraham learns that no one individual has a monopoly on God’s covenant.

A covenant is between two parties, each of whom have benefits and obligations; it is made by both and can be terminated by either.

However, God’s covenant with Abram is different. It is God who makes the covenant (verses 2, 6) and God who and establishes it (verse 7). Most of the obligations rest with God, and most of the benefits are designed for Abram. God promises to make Abram ‘the ancestor of a multitude of nations’ (verse 4), giving him ‘numerous’ descendants (verse 2) and giving him for ever the land of Canaan where he is now an alien (verse 8).

It is not clear how God is to benefit. But Abram has one obligation, to ‘walk before [God] and be blameless’ (verse 1). In return, God will never break the pact (verse 7), and it applies to Abraham and his descendants.

As a sign of this covenant, all males will be circumcised soon after birth, so that they will carry the sign or mark of this covenant as part of their life-long journey, their life-long identity. A man who is born a Jew can never forget that he is born a Jew. As the poet-singer Leonard Cohen sings in his poem/song, ‘First we take Manhattan:’

I’m guided by a signal in the heavens (guided, guided)
I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin

Abram becomes Abraham; his change in name is significant (verse 5): the gift of a new name signifies a new relationship, a new status, a new stage in life.

Sarai shares in God’s blessing; she too has a change of name and becomes Sarah (verse 15). She will be blessed with fertility; she too will ‘give rise to nations’ (v. 16) and kings (verse 16).

But Sarai is childless and elderly and has not given Abram an heir. Abraham laughs in disbelief at the idea that Sarah is going to have a son (verse 17). He will be named Isaac, meaning ‘May God laugh in delight.’

Not only will Sarah have a child, but Abraham and Sarah will be the ancestors of a people that shall share in this covenant, and shall be the ancestors of the Messiah.

The story of Joseph, Mary and Jesus is deeply woven into the story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac. We too can laugh with God, for we have been incorporated into a covenantal relationship with God through Christ.

We are to be a people who are peaceful and a blessing to all. We are to be a people who go and a people who find God out in the world. We are a people who have a covenant with God, who see God at work in the world, and who show this to the world.

This story is also a counter-balance to tendencies to overemphasise personal salvation. The story of salvation is not about a personal covenant but about a covenant with a whole family, that expands to a whole people, and that then widens out to the whole of humanity. There are no individual, solo Christians, we are always in partnership with God and with others who are invited into that covenant.

God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah in their old age change the course of history not just for one person, one couple, one family, but for the whole of humanity ... a painting in the Jewish Museum in Krakow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 22: 23-31

This psalm is a prayer for deliverance from illness. The psalmist, who is gravely ill, feels that God has forsaken him. But he offers thanksgiving in the Temple and in this portion of the psalm he comes to the conclusion that God hears the voice of the poor and the hungry (verse 26). God is the God of all people and nations, to the ends of the earth, and the God of the generations to come, a people yet unborn (verse 31).

The Colosseum in Rome … Saint Paul describes Abraham to the Church in Rome as an archetype of faithfulness (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Romans 4: 13-25

Earlier in this Epistle (Chapter 2-3), Saint Paul has argued that through the Gospel, it is faith that brings humanity into harmony with God. Now he considers Abraham as an example. At the time, it was believed that God’s blessings came to Abraham because he kept the Law of the Covenant.

Here, however, Saint Paul argues that Abraham was blessed because he believed, because he had faith that he would be the father of a nation and a source of blessing for ‘all ... families’ (Genesis 12: 3). Those who are part of God’s covenant and family are not those who keep the law, but those who have faith in God.

Our relationship with God is founded on faith (verse 16), and on God’s free gift of love or grace. If it was based on law, we would all break the law continually, and find ourselves outside God’s covenant. But it is based on faith, and so Abraham is the spiritual ancestor of us all (verse 17; see Genesis 17: 5).

Sarah becomes the mother of Isaac because of God’s promise and because of this faith. Contrary to expectations, Abraham, who had every reason to doubt that he would become a father, believed because of the hope given by God’s promise, his faith grew stronger as he thanked God for this gift (verse 20), and he found a right relationship with God (verse 22).

For Saint Paul, Abraham is an archetype of faithfulness, but not because of what he did. For Saint Paul, faith is much more than keeping the law – it is about accepting God’s gift, about keeping faith in God’s promise. God loves us because God has created us worthy of God’s love.

We may choose to live life differently, but we can never be perfect. But we can freely receive God’s promise, God’s love, and God’s mercy, and our faith is our response to that promise.

Simon of Cyrene takes up the Cross and follows Christ … Station 5 in the Stations of the Cross in Friars’ graveyard in Gormanston, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 31-38

We have been reading about the journey of Abraham, and the promise that goes with being faithful on that journey. Now Jesus and the disciples are on the journey from Bethsaida to the villages of Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8: 27) in today’s Golan Heights and then a centre of the cult of Pan, from an area inhabited by Jews, by people of the Covenant, to an area that is Greek-speaking and inhabited by many Gentiles.

On the way, some of the disciples reveal that they are not quite sure who Jesus is. Some may think he is another John the Baptist or Elijah, or another prophet. But Peter recognises that Jesus is the promised Messiah (Mark 8: 29), even though he cannot yet know the meaning of this declaration of faith, or the cost of discipleship that it implies.

Jesus then speaks openly about his forthcoming death and resurrection. But Peter, who has just confessed his faith in Christ, now takes him aside to rebuke him, only to be rebuked himself. When Peter impetuously rejects Christ’s teaching, he is told that he is under the influence of the devil: he is relying on human values, not divine ones (verse 33).

Yet, Peter’s reaction is a normal reaction. Who would want to continue on a journey like this, to face a short-term future like this, without knowing the long-term promises, the full promises of God?

Christ then describes true discipleship: first, a disciple must renounce self-centeredness (verse 34) and follow him. Those who are prepared to give even their lives for his sake and for the sake of spreading the good news (verse 35) will find true life. But those who opt for material well-being deny their true selves and lose out (verses 35-37).

There is a cost to discipleship, but the challenge to take up the Cross and follow Christ is open to the crowd, not just to the disciples, is open to Gentiles and not just Jews, is open to all (see verses 34-38).

God in Christ has come to enfold humanity. The cross will not stop the proclamation of the Good News, nor will it keep salvation history from breaking into the cosmos.

So often, in the face of criticism, the Christian response is either to shut down or to retreat to a different understanding of God and Jesus. But Christ tells the people that if they want to follow him on the journey, there is a cost to discipleship.

We are challenged on this Second Sunday in Lent to take up our cross and follow Christ on that journey.

Christianity cannot be reduced to an individual mental or philosophical decision. It is a journey with Christ and with not only the disciples but with the crowd, the many, who are also invited to join that journey.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace, and reminds us of the ‘Cost of Discipleship’

Some reflections: the Cost of Discipleship

Saint Mark’s Gospel next Sunday reminds us of our failings in discipleship, in taking up the cross. How often we want God to be a god made in our image and likeness, rather than us being shaped in God’s image and likeness.

And that is how the disciples behave in this Gospel reading. They want Jesus to be a messiah who will meet their expectations. When Jesus starts telling his disciples what sort of demands are being laid on them if they want to be his followers, they react with shock and horror at what he has to say.

They were not expecting a counter-cultural Messiah, a Messiah who would be rejected by the social and religious leaders of the day. They were expecting a lot more than that. And they were hoping that the coming of the Messiah would make things easier and more comfortable rather than more making things more difficult and more demanding.

Peter takes Jesus aside and gives him a good ticking off. After all, who did this Jesus think he was? If he was going to be the Messiah, he had better start behaving like one, like one that had been expected to act … to act with power and command.

When we find we fall short of other people’s expectations, it is often not because of who we are, but because of other people’s expectations – false expectations – of us.

How often have you heard someone say, ‘I’m surprised to hear you say that,’ or ‘That’s not the way I expected you to behave’?

And how often do we do that to God?

How often do we pray to God expecting God to do something? And if we do not get the answer to our prayers, we blame God for not answering me, for not being God in my image and likeness – instead of praying to God and asking to be more in God’s image and likeness?

The beginning of the creation story is that we are made in God’s image and likeness. The beginning of the Gospel stories is that God in Christ took on our image and likeness. Now Lent, in part, is about preparing to accept that in taking on our true image and likeness.

God in Christ totally identifies with us – with all that is difficult in life, with all that is messy and dirty in our lives, with all that is painful and gross in my life – to the point of actually dying in the most messy, dirty, painful and gross way possible.

If Peter knew what was ahead of him, he might have been even stronger in rebuking Christ in this Gospel reading. But the triumph comes not in getting what we want, not in engineering things so that God gives us what we desire and wish for, so that we get a Jesus who does the things we want him to do. The triumph comes in a few weeks’ time, at Easter, in the Resurrection.

True discipleship and true prayer means making God’s priorities my priorities: the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the isolated, the marginalised, the victims, the unloved. It that is difficult, nobody said that being a Christian was going to be easy, that being a Christian would not cost anything.

As the German martyr and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer might have put it, being a disciple means having to pay the cost of discipleship. There is no cheap Christianity and there is no cheap grace.

‘Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’ (Mark 8: 34) … the Byzantine-style crucifix by Laurence King (1907-1981) in the crypt of Saint Mary le Bow on Cheapside in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical resources:

Liturgical colour: Violet.

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.

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.

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:

God’s covenant with Abraham makes him ‘the ancestor of a multitude of nations’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Suggested hymns:

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

Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16:

545, Sing of Eve and sing of Adam
323, The God of Abraham praise

Psalm 22: 23-31

581, I, the Lord of sea and sky
8, The Lord is King! lift up your voice
493, Ye servants of God, your master proclaim

Romans 4: 13-25

418, Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face
545, Sing of Eve and sing of Adam
244, There is a green hill far away

Mark 8: 31-38

608, Be still and know that I am God
93, I danced in the morning when the world was begun
94, In the name of Jesus
588, Light of the minds that known him
59, New every morning is the love
108, Praise to the Holiest in the height
599, ‘Take up thy cross’, the Saviour said
605, Will you come and follow me

An Inter-Faith walking tour of Limerick

A group from the Diocese of Limerick, Ardfert and Killaloe visits the Jewish Cemetery in Castletroy (Photograph: Joc Sanders, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

The mosque in Dooradoyle, the site of former synagogues on Wolfe Tone Street, and the old Jewish cemetery in Castletroy were all visiting points during an Interfaith Walking Tour in Limerick organised as part of the Ministry Training and Education programme in the Diocese of Limerick, Killaloe and Ardfert.

A variety of clergy and readers took part in the training day on Monday [12 February 2018].

The group met at the Limerick Islamic Cultural Centre and Mosque at Old Dooradoyle Road, established by local Muslims in Limerick. Jumu’ah (congregational) prayers are performed at this mosque each Friday and members also receive Quran lessons.

The centre is a converted detached, single-storey bungalow on the Dooradoyle Road, across from the Crescent College Comprehensive.

The group then visited places associated with Limerick’s Jewish Community in Limerick, which was once centred on the Wolfe Tone Street area. Although there is no formal Jewish community centre in the Mid-West region today, a number of Jewish families and individuals are living in the area.

Jews began to settle in Limerick in about 1881, and for a period in the 1890s there were two congregations at Nos. 63 and 72 Wolfe Tone Street, then known as Collooney Street.

The working group is introduced to sites associated with the Jewish community in Wolf Tone Street, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The sites visited included No 18 Wolfe Tone Street, where Limerick’s rabbi lived from 1889, and former Model School where the Jaffe and Stein families were beaten up in 1892, the former synagogue at Hillview on Wolfe Tone Street, and the site of the former Ashkenazi Orthodox synagogue at 63 Wolfe Tone Street.

The former synagogue at Hillview on Wolfe Tone Street, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

From the former Model School on O’Connell Avenue, the group visited the Redemptorist Church at Mount Saint Alphonsus, where Father James Creagh of the Redemptorists preached his violent anti-Semitic sermons in 1904. The boycott that followed caused serious suffering and hardship among the Jews of Limerick.

After lunch in Annacotty, the group visited the Jewish Cemetery in Castletroy which is maintained voluntarily by Limerick Civic Trust. The graves visited include the grave of Limerick’s last rabbi, Simon Gewurtz from Bratislava and the grave of Stuart Clein, who died on 5 March 2012 and who was the last person buried in the cemetery.
At the end of the day, the group also visited Kilmurry, a closed Church of Ireland parish church in the Castletroy area.

The next training day is on Monday 12 March 2018, in the Rectory, Askeaton, Co Limerick, on the topic ‘Maintaining a sustaining a life of prayer.’ Two sessions are offered: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The Limerick Islamic Cultural Centre and Mosque is at Old Dooradoyle Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 18 February 2018

The Triptych of the Baptism of Christ in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday next [18 February 2018] is the First Sunday in Lent and the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary are: Genesis 9: 8-17; Psalm 25: 1-9; I Peter 3: 18-22; Mark 1: 9-15.

Mark 1: 9-15

9 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις ἦλθεν Ἰησοῦς ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲτ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ ἐβαπτίσθη εἰς τὸν Ἰορδάνην ὑπὸ Ἰωάννου. 10 καὶ εὐθὺς ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος εἶδεν σχιζομένους τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα ὡς περιστερὰν καταβαῖνον εἰς αὐτόν: 11 καὶ φωνὴ ἐγένετο ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν, Σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα.

12 Καὶ εὐθὺς τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτὸν ἐκβάλλει εἰς τὴν ἔρημον. 13 καὶ ἦν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ τεσσεράκοντα ἡμέρας πειραζόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ Σατανᾶ, καὶ ἦν μετὰ τῶν θηρίων, καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι διηκόνουν αὐτῷ.

14 Μετὰ δὲ τὸ παραδοθῆναι τὸν Ἰωάννην ἦλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ 15 καὶ λέγων ὅτι Πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ: μετανοεῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ.

Translation (NRSV):

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.11 And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

An icon of the Baptism of Christ, worked on a cut of olive wood by Eleftheria Syrianoglou, in an exhibition in the Fortezza in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Putting the readings in context:

The Gospel reading, in a style so typical of Saint Mark’s Gospel, tells four stories, one immediately after the other, in short, pithy, summarised ways, punctuated with the word καὶ (‘and’): the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan; the 40 days Christ spends in the wilderness; the arrest of Saint John the Baptist, and the beginning of Christ’s ministry in Galilee.

The theme of 40 days in the wilderness makes an obvious connection with the start of the Season of Lent. But first we should ask how the readings connect with the Gospel theme and with Lent too?

How do we put them in context?

Noah and Abraham … a window in Saint John’s Church, Wall, shows Noah (left) holding the ark in his arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Genesis 9: 8-17

The Old Testament reading comes immediately after the Flood. The waters have receded, and Noah, his family and the remaining animals have set foot on dry land. Immediately before this reading (Genesis 9: 1-3), God renews the promise made at creation (Genesis 1), and again gives the commands: ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’

With this is a warning about the need to show respect for all human life: because humanity is made in the image of God, wilful bloodshed must be accounted for to God (verses 5-6).

God makes a ‘covenant’ (verse 9) with Noah, his sons and ‘every living creature’ (verse 10). Because it is from his sons that ‘the whole earth’ (verse 19) shall be ‘peopled,’ the agreement is between God and all humanity. He will never again destroy humankind (verses 11, 15, 16). This covenant is with all creatures and with ‘the earth’ (verse 13) itself, and it is an ‘everlasting covenant’ (verse 16).

Ancient people imagined a rainbow as a divine warrior’s weapon, his ‘bow’ (verse 13), and that the flashes of lighting were his arrows. But God turns this around and instead makes the bow as a visible sign of the covenant. God’s ‘bow’ is in the clouds, not on earth, showing us that God is no longer angry with humanity.

When the rains come, they will not continue ceaselessly any more but shall end with a rainbow, which is now a sign of hope. The story of the Flood teaches us that God judges the world according to human behaviour, punishes evil, and rescues the worthy.

‘Noah and the Dove’ by Simon Manby in 2006 … a sculpture in the gardens of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Psalm 25: 1-10

The psalmist prays that God will show him his way (verses 4, 8 and 9) and his ‘paths’ (verses 4 and 10). He trusts in God (verse 2), and he hopes that God will deliver him from his personal enemies. May none who trust in God be shamed or be subject to treachery. Instead, those who follow God’s ways will be saved (verse 6).

The psalmist trusts that God will forgive his sins through his mercy and love.He prays that God may remember his present fidelity rather than his youthful deviances (verse 7). God instructs sinners (verse 8), and he leads and teaches the humble and those who respect him (verse 9).

Abel and Enoch in a window in Saint John’s Church, Wall … the story of Enoch is recalled in I Peter 3: 19 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

I Peter 3: 18-22

Before this reading, the author writes: ‘Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you … Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame’ (verses 15-16). We are called to do more than defend ourselves: we are to respond to any request for an explanation of our ‘hope,’ engage the outsider in conversation, even though this may lead to suffering, for which Christ is the example.

Christ suffered for the sins of us all (verse 18). He is ‘the righteous,’ and he brings us to God. He really died (‘in the flesh’), but he overcame death and rose to new life.

In verses 19-20, the reader is reminded of the story that angelic beings had intercourse with women, and so broke the boundary between heaven and earth (see Genesis 6: 1-4). In late Judaism, people believed that this action provoked the Flood. In I Enoch, an apocryphal book known when this epistle was written, Enoch goes on God’s behalf to tell these beings that they are confined to prison. The story of Enoch is applied to the risen Christ in verse 19, and the ‘spirits in prison’ are these bad angels.

During the building of the ark, God waited patiently for humanity to turn to him, but no-one did (verse 20). The eight people are Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their wives.

Then in verse 21, we are told how baptism also involves water, but in a different way. Its role is not ritual cleansing (‘removal of dirt’); baptism saves us, putting us in a condition to be found worthy by God at the Last Day (‘appeal’), sharing as we do in Christ’s death and resurrection. Christ has gone to heaven and is in God’s place of honour (on his ‘right hand’, verse 22), and he has angelic beings (‘angels, authorities, and power’) subject to him. God saved people in the past; now he saves us through Baptism.

‘And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness’ (Mark 1: 12) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 1: 9-15

Saint John the Baptist has come, ‘proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (verse 4). Many have taken the opportunity to start new lives in God. Jesus, too, is baptised by Saint John – Saint Mark does not tell us why. The opening of the heavens symbolises the start of a new mode of communication between God and humanity.

The description of the Holy Spirit ‘descending like a dove’ (verse 10) recalls the Spirit hovering over the waters of creation in Genesis 1: 2. For Saint Mark, the ‘voice ... from heaven’ (verse 11) confirms the already existing relationship between God and Christ.

Saint Matthew (Matthew 4: 1-11) and Saint Luke (Luke 4: 1-13) describe Christ’s temptation in the wilderness in detail, but Saint Mark mentions it only briefly.

All three synoptic Gospels say that Christ overcame tempting and enticement by the devil. Satan (verse 13) is the supreme demon whose kingdom is now ending. The forty days (verse 13) recalls Israel’s 40 years in the ‘wilderness.’ But it also echoes the 40 days of testing Moses endured when the covenant was renewed after the golden calf incident (Exodus 34: 28). Elijah also spent 40 days on Mount Sinai (see I Kings 19: 8).

The wilderness was probably the Judaean desert, which was regarded as the home of demons. There too, he was in danger of being attacked by wild beasts, but angels wait on him and protect him.

The word Saint Mark uses in verse 14 for arrest also occurs in the story of Christ’s passion and death. So Saint John’s fate foreshadows the arrest and death of Christ.

Christ then returns to Galilee. His message begins with: ‘The time is fulfilled’ (verse 15). This is the time appointed by God. The decisive time for God’s action has arrived. ‘The kingdom of God has come near’ (verse 15). The final era of history is imminent, and Christ calls people to start a new life in God’s way, to ‘repent, and believe in the good news’ (verse 15). We could say the whole of Saint Mark’s Gospel builds on this verse, and is an explication of it.

Is your Lent going to be an opportunity to be part of the new creation in Christ?

Is your Lent going to be a time to take account of your own hidden temptations?

Is your Lent going to be a time to explore your own wilderness places and to be aware of them?

Is your Lent going to be a time of preparation for the acceptance of the Kingdom of God?

‘Driven by the Spirit into the Wilderness’ (1942), by Stanley Spencer (1891-1959)

An appropriate painting to illustrate our reflections on this Gospel reading as we prepare a sermon for the First Sunday in Lent is the painting Driven by the Spirit into the Wilderness (1942), by the English painter Stanley Spencer (1891-1959).

This painting is inspired by a verse in this Gospel reading: ‘And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness’ (Mark 1: 12). It is one a series of beautiful and compelling paintings, Christ in the Wilderness, produced by Spencer between 1939 and 1945, portraying the 40 days Christ spent in the wilderness.

Stanley Spencer was one of 11 children, born in in 1891 in Cookham, a small Thames-side village in Berkshire where his grandfather was the village builder. His father William was a professional musician and organist at a nearby church, with a passion for reading and discussing the Bible out loud with his family each evening.

Spencer was in the Royal Army Medical Corps in World War I with the field ambulances in Macedonia. It was an experience that had a profound effect on him as an artist, and the memories of war infiltrated his spirit.

Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the village where he was born and lived much of his life. The best-known of these works must be The Resurrection, Cookham (1923-1927), which is clearly set in the village and with actual villagers portrayed taking part in Resurrection on Easter morning in the parish churchyard.

In 1938, Spencer moved to London and started working on the Christ in the Wilderness series in his bedsit in Swiss Cottage. In the 1950s, many of the paintings in the series were exhibited in Spencer’s parish church in Cookham. He died of cancer on 14 December 1959.

In this painting, Spencer shows the massive figure of Christ striding through a bleak and desolate land. Yet we can see the promise of resurrection in the figure of Christ.

He was in the wilderness for forty days (Mark 1: 13) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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.

Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
Give us grace to discipline ourselves
in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
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. Amen.

This collect may 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:

Blessing:

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

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God,
you renew us with the living bread from heaven.
Nourish our faith,
increase our hope,
strengthen our love,
and enable us to live by every word
that proceeds from out of your mouth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The fifth century mosaic of the Baptism of Christ in the Neonian Baptistry in Ravenna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Suggested hymns:

These are among the hymns suggested for the First Sunday in Lent (Year B) in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling:

Genesis 9: 8-17:

592, O Love that wilt not let me go

Psalm 25: 1-9:

17, Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness
(Treoragh mé, treoragh mé a Thiarna)
652, Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
712, Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord

I Peter 3: 18-22:

218, And can it be that I should gain
260, Christ is alive! Let Christians sing
257, Christ is the world’s Redeemer
417, He gave his life in selfless love
553, Jesu, lover of my soul
431, Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour
229, My God, I love thee; not because
102, Name of all majesty
234, O Love divine, what hast thou done?
214, O Love, how deep, how broad, how high (verses 1-3, 7)
235, O sacred head, sore wounded
177, Once in royal David’s city (verses 1, 2, 5, 6)
439, Once, only once, and once for all
200, The sinless one to Jordan came
244, There is a green hill far away

Mark 1: 9-15:

66, Before the ending of the day (verses 1, 2, 3d)
207, Forty days and forty nights
668, God is our fortress and our rock
324, God, whose almighty word
322, I bind unto myself today (verses 1, 2, 8 and 9)
652, Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
635, Lord, be my guardian and my guide
637, O for a closer walk with God
363, O Lord of heaven and earth and sea
136, On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
595, Safe in the shadow of the Lord
197, Songs of thankfulness and praise
341, Spirit divine, attend our prayers
200,The sinless one to Jordan came
204, When Jesus came to Jordan

Preparing for an inter-faith working day in Limerick

The richly decorated interior of a mosque (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

On Monday next [12 February 2018], the CME group in the Diocese of Limerick, Killaloe and Ardfert, is organising an interfaith walking tour of Limerick.

We have been invited to begin this tour at the Limerick Islamic Cultural Centre and Mosque at Old Dooradoyle Road, and other visits include the former heart of Limerick’s Jewish community on Wolfe Tone Street, and the Jewish Cemetery at Castletroy.

These notes should help people who are joining this interfaith walking tour:

Islam:

The Limerick Islamic Cultural Centre and Mosque is at Old Dooradoyle Road. It was established by local Muslims in Limerick. Jumu’ah (congregational) prayers are performed at this mosque each Friday and members can also receive Quran (or Koran) lessons.

The centre is a converted detached, single-storey bungalow on the Dooradoyle Road, across from the Crescent College Comprehensive. The building is fronted by gates and pleasant railings and there is plenty of room for car parking. The centre is open to non-members to visit.

The other mosques and Islamic centres in Limerick include: Limerick City Centre Masjid, 76 O’Connell Street, Limerick; Al Noor Mosque, 18A John’s Street, Limerick; and Al Furqan Muslim Community Centre, 1-43 Windmill Street, Limerick.

My earlier notes on Islamic beliefs, prayer and spirituality are available HERE.

Hillview on Wolfe Tone Street … once a synagogue in Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Jewish Community:

The Jewish Community in Limerick was once centred on the Wolfe Tone Street area. There has been an established Jewish presence in Ireland for centuries. Ireland had Jewish residents as far back as 1079, according to the Annals of Inisfallen.

Although there is no formal Jewish community centre in the Mid-West region today, a number of Jewish families and individuals are living in the area.

Jews began to settle in Limerick in about 1881, and for a period in the 1890s there were two congregations. Members of the Jewish Community would meet in Nos. 63 and 72 Wolfe Tone Street, once known as Collooney Street. Before that, Limerick’s Jews met in an ale house in the city.

On 11 January 1904, Father James Creagh of the Redemptorists preached a violent sermon against the Jews, accusing them of ritual murder, of blaspheming Jesus, and of robbing the people of Limerick. The next day there was a riot in which the Jews were attacked by mobs, and this was followed by a general boycott. It would appear that the principal ground for complaint against the Jews related to allegations about money lending and a ‘weekly-instalment plan’ for buying goods.

The boycott caused serious suffering and hardship among the Jews of Limerick. The Jewish Cemetery in Castletroy which is maintained voluntarily by Limerick Civic Trust.

The story of Limerick’s Jewish Community and the Jewish cemetery is available HERE.

Bahá‘í

The Bahá‘í faith has had a strong presence in Limerick since the late 1960s or early 1970s. This is one of the youngest of the world’s monotheistic religions, and the number of members of the Bahá‘í faith is estimated at between 5.5 and 8 million people.

The Bahá‘í faith has no clergy but the spiritual and administrative affairs of the entire Bahá‘í community are directed by a nine-member body, elected at five-year intervals, called the Universal House of Justice, located on Mount Carmel in Haifa.

The activities of the Bahá‘í community generally take place in the homes of the Bahá‘ís or in hired venues. The Bahá‘í faith was established in Limerick in the late 1960s. Limerick has its own spiritual assembly which is elected annually. The Limerick Bahá‘í community became the largest in Ireland and many Bahá‘ís from Limerick helped to establish the religion in other parts of Ireland.

Buddhism:

There is a Rigpa Ireland Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Centre at 28 Henry Street, Limerick.

Tibetan Buddhism is one of the three principal divisions of Buddhism, the other two being Theraveda and Mahayana, and its most famous leader is the Dalai Lama.

Rigpa is an international Tibetan Buddhist organisation established in 1979 and has more than 130 centres in 41 countries, including four centres in Ireland: Limerick, Athlone, Dublin and Cork. The Limerick centre promotes Buddhist teaching but also meditation.

The Mormons

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or Mormons has a centre and temple on Dooradoyle Road, where weekly services are held. It is also one of the three Family History Centres for the Mormon community in Ireland which holds census records and registers of births, deaths and marriages.

The Limerick branch was founded in 1964 and the Munster, later Cork, District was formed in 1980. The congregation recently completed a second extension to its chapel.

Mid-West Interfaith Network

It is also worth knowing about the work of the Mid-West Interfaith Network, a community of diversity and mutual understanding that endeavours to mirror the change we want to see in the world.

The vision of the network is to promote social justice, equality, diversity and understanding through respectful and informed dialogue, sharing ritual, education and social action.

The Jewish Cemetery tells the sad story of a minority community in Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 11 February 2018

A modern icon of the Transfiguration by Alexander Ainetdinov ... in Orthodox icons of the Transfiguration, we have drama and a moment full of movement

Patrick Comerford

Sunday next, 11 February 2018, is the Sunday before Lent. The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for that Sunday are: II Kings 2: 1-12; Psalm 50: 1-6; II Corinthians 4: 3-6; and Mark 9: 2-9.

Normally, there is an alternative set of readings for this Sunday in Year B (I Samuel 3: 1-10 [11-20]; Psalm 139: 1-5, 12-18; II Corinthians 4: 5-12; and Mark 2: 23 to 3: 6). However, this alternative is not provided in 2018, as it is required this year for the first Sunday after Trinity, 3 June 2018.

Mark 9: 2-9

2 Καὶ μετὰ ἡμέρας ἓξ παραλαμβάνει ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὸν Πέτρον καὶ τὸν Ἰάκωβον καὶ τὸν Ἰωάννην, καὶ ἀναφέρει αὐτοὺς εἰς ὄρος ὑψηλὸν κατ' ἰδίαν μόνους. καὶ μετεμορφώθη ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν, 3 καὶ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο στίλβοντα λευκὰ λίαν οἷα γναφεὺς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς οὐ δύναται οὕτως λευκᾶναι. 4 καὶ ὤφθη αὐτοῖς Ἠλίας σὺν Μωϋσεῖ, καὶ ἦσαν συλλαλοῦντες τῷ Ἰησοῦ. 5 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Πέτρος λέγει τῷ Ἰησοῦ, Ῥαββί, καλόν ἐστιν ἡμᾶς ὧδε εἶναι, καὶ ποιήσωμεν τρεῖς σκηνάς, σοὶ μίαν καὶ Μωϋσεῖ μίαν καὶ Ἠλίᾳ μίαν. 6 οὐ γὰρ ᾔδει τί ἀποκριθῇ, ἔκφοβοι γὰρ ἐγένοντο. 7 καὶ ἐγένετο νεφέλη ἐπισκιάζουσα αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἐγένετο φωνὴ ἐκ τῆς νεφέλης, Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἀκούετε αὐτοῦ. 8 καὶ ἐξάπινα περιβλεψάμενοι οὐκέτι οὐδένα εἶδον ἀλλὰ τὸν Ἰησοῦν μόνον μεθ' ἑαυτῶν.

9 Καὶ καταβαινόντων αὐτῶν ἐκ τοῦ ὄρους διεστείλατο αὐτοῖς ἵνα μηδενὶ ἃ εἶδον διηγήσωνται, εἰ μὴ ὅταν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῇ.

Translation (NRSV):

2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

The Transfiguration by Aidan Hart ... in the Transfiguration, both the humanity and divinity of Christ are manifested to us

Making connections

How does this Gospel reading relate to the other lectionary readings for that Sunday?

The Old Testament reading (II Kings 2: 1-12) is the story of Elijah ascending in the chariot of fire in a whirlwind into heaven.

The Psalm talks about God being revealed in glory (Psalm 50: 2).

In the New Testament reading (II Corinthians 4: 5-12), the Apostle Paul talks about the minds of unbelievers being blinded, while our eyes should be focussed on the light of the Gospel, which is the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (verse 4), and of light shining out of darkness (verse 6).

So, there are visible threads that link the three readings and the Psalm, and these are going to be obvious to the attentive listener in Church on Sunday week.

The Transfiguration

The Transfiguration is described in the three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 17: 1-9; Mark 9: 2-8; Luke 9: 28-36). In addition, there may be allusions to the Transfiguration in John 1: 14 and in II Peter 1: 1-18, where Peter describes himself as an eyewitness ‘of his sovereign majesty.’

The Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration are very similar in wording.

So, what is different between Saint Mark’s account of the Transfiguration and the accounts in the other two Synoptic Gospels?

Saint Mark, like Saint Matthew, tells us these events take place ‘six days later,’ although Saint Luke says they take place ‘eight days later.’

All three accounts tell us that Christ’s robes become dazzling white, but Saint Mark alone tells us they are a white ‘such as no one on earth could bleach them’ (verse 3).

Saint Mark also tells us the three disciples were ‘terrified.’

Telling the story

The Transfiguration also points to Christ’s great and glorious Second Coming and the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God

Should we describe the Transfiguration as a miracle? If we do, then it is the only Gospel miracle that happens to Christ himself. On the other hand, Saint Thomas Aquinas spoke of the Transfiguration as ‘the greatest miracle,’ because it complemented Baptism and showed the perfection of life in Heaven.

None of the Gospel accounts identifies the ‘high mountain’ by name. The earliest identification of the mountain as Mount Tabor was by Jerome in the late fourth century. But does it matter where the location is?

Consider the place of Mountains in the salvation story and in revelation:

● Moses meets God in the cloud and the burning bush on Mount Sinai, and there receives the tablets of the Covenant (Exodus 25 to 31);
● Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (I Kings 18);
● Elijah climbs Mount Sinai and finds God not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but in the still small voice in the cleft of the Mountain (I Kings 19: 12);
● The Sermon, which is the ‘manifesto’ of the new covenant, is the Sermon on the Mount;
● The Mount of Olives is a key location in the Passion narrative;
● Christ is crucified on Mount Calvary;
● Saint John receives his Revelation in the cave at the top of the mountain on Patmos.

As for the cloud, all three Synoptic Gospels describe the cloud’s descent in terms of overshadowing (επισκιαζειν, episkiazein), which in Greek is a pun on the word tent (σκηνάς, skenas). But this is also the same word used to describe the Holy Spirit overshadowing the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation: καὶ δύναμις ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι (Luke 1: 35).

In the Old Testament, the pillar of cloud leads the people through the wilderness by day, just as the pillar of fire leads them by night. Moses entered the cloud on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24: 18), the Shekinah cloud is the localised manifestation of the presence of God (Exodus 19: 9; 33: 9; 34: 5; 40: 34; II Maccabees 2: 8).

The cloud takes Christ up into heaven at the Ascension (Acts 1: 9-10).

Saint Paul talks about the living and the dead being caught up in the cloud to meet the Lord (I Thessalonians 4: 17).

The principle characters:

The Transfiguration ... a fresco in an Orthodox church in the US

Christ is the focus of the Transfiguration, but who are the other principle characters in this story?

1, The Trinity: In Orthodox theology, the Transfiguration is not only a feast in honour of Christ, but a feast of the Holy Trinity, for all three Persons of the Trinity are present at that moment:

● God the Father speaks from heaven: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him’ (Matthew 17: 5).
● God the Son is transfigured.
● God the Holy Spirit is present in the form of a cloud.

In this sense, the Transfiguration is also considered the ‘Small Epiphany’ – the ‘Great Epiphany’ being the Baptism of Christ, when the Holy Trinity appears in a similar pattern).

2, Moses and Elijah: At the Transfiguration, Christ appears with Moses and Elijah, the two pre-eminent figures of Judaism, standing alongside him. Saint John Chrysostom explains their presence in three ways:

● They represent the Law and the Prophets – Moses receives the Law from God, and Elijah is a great prophet.
● They both experience visions of God – Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel.
● They represent the living and the dead – Elijah, the living, because he is taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire (see our Old Testament reading for this day), and Moses, the dead, because he does experience death.

Moses and Elijah show that the Law and the Prophets point to the coming of Christ, and their recognition of and conversation with Christ symbolise how he fulfils ‘the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 5: 17-19). Moses and Elijah also stand for the living and dead, for Moses dies and his burial place is known, while Elijah is taken alive into heaven in order to appear again to announce the time of God’s salvation.

It was commonly believed that Elijah would reappear before the coming of the Messiah (see Malachi 4), and the three interpret Christ’s response as a reference to Saint John the Baptist (Matthew 17: 13).

3, The Disciples: Saint Peter, Saint James and Saint John are with Christ on the mountain top. But, we may ask, why these three disciples?

Do you remember how this might relate to Moses and Elijah? Moses ascends the mountain with three trusted companions, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, to confirm the covenant (Exodus 24: 1), and God’s glory covers the mountain in a cloud for six days (Exodus 25 to 31).

In some ways, Saint Peter, Saint James and Saint John serve as an inner circle or a ‘kitchen cabinet’ in the Gospels. Perhaps this intimacy is reflected in the fact that they are the only disciples who are given nickname by Christ: Simon becomes the Rock, and James and John are the sons of thunder (Luke 5: 10).

They are at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17: 1, Mark 9: 2; Luke 9: 28), but they are also at the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5: 35-43; Luke 6: 51), they are at the top of the Mount of Olives when Christ is about to enter Jerusalem (Mark 13: 3), they help to prepare for the Passover (Luke 22: 8), and they are in Gethsemane (Matthew 26: 37).

Jerome speaks of Saint Peter as the rock on which the Church is built, Saint James as the first of the apostles to die a martyr’s death, Saint John as the beloved disciple.

They are a trusted group who also serve to represent us at each moment in the story of salvation.

The Transfiguration ... a Romanian copy of an icon in Stavronikita Monastery in Mount Athos

The meaning of the Transfiguration:

The Transfiguration of Christ in itself is the fulfilment of all of the Theophanies and manifestations of God, a fulfilment made perfect and complete in the person of Christ. We could say the Transfiguration is the culmination of Christ’s public life, just as his Baptism is its starting point, and his Ascension its end. As Archbishop Michael Ramsey writes in his book, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ: ‘The Transfiguration stands as a gateway to the saving events of the Gospel.’

The Transfiguration reveals Christ’s identity as the Son of God. In the Gospel, after the voice speaks, Elijah and Moses have disappeared, and Christ and the three head down the mountain. The three ask themselves what he means by ‘risen from the dead’ (Mark 9: 9-10). When they ask Christ about Elijah, he responds: ‘Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come …’ (Mark 9: 12-13). He tells them to keep these things a secret until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. Yet, in keeping with the Messianic secret, he tells the three not to tell others what they have seen until he has risen on the third day after his death.

Celebrating the Transfiguration:

Saint Peter’s reference to the booths could imply that the Transfiguration took place during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, when Biblical Jews were camping out in the fields for the grape harvest. This Feast also recalled the wanderings in the wilderness recorded in the Book Exodus.

In early Church tradition, the Transfiguration is connected with the approaching death and resurrection of Christ, and so was said to have taken place 40 days before the Crucifixion.

At first, the feast of the Transfiguration belonged to the pre-Easter season of the Church and was celebrated on one of the Sundays of Lent. A sermon on the Transfiguration was preached in Lent by Saint John Chrysostom while he was a priest in Antioch in 390.

The Feast of the Transfiguration was celebrated on Mount Sinai from the mid-fifth century, and in Constantinople from the late seventh century. Saint Gregory Palamas, the great teacher of the Transfiguration, is commemorated during Lent.

From 1474 until at least 1969, it was observed in the Roman Catholic Church on the Second Sunday in Lent. In some modern calendars, including Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican calendars, the Transfiguration is now commemorated on the Sunday immediately before Ash Wednesday, although traditionally, the Feast of the Transfiguration is observed in the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox calendars on 6 August. It may have been moved there because 6 August is 40 days before 14 September, the Feast of the Holy Cross, so keeping the tradition that the Transfiguration took place 40 days before the Crucifixion.

Among Anglicans, the Feast of the Transfiguration disappeared from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. When it reappeared in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, it returned to the calendar but without any other provisions.

In The Book of Common Prayer (2004), the Church of Ireland has Collects and Post-Communion prayers for the Feast of the Transfiguration on 6 August, along with this alternative provision to mark the Transfiguration on the Sunday before Lent.

In the Orthodox Church, the Feast of the Transfiguration is a major feast, and is counted among the Twelve Great Feasts of the Church. This is also the second of the ‘Three Feasts of the Saviour in August.’ These are:

● The Procession of the Cross (1 August).
● The Transfiguration (6 August).
● The ‘Icon of Christ Not Made by Hands’ (16 August).

But the Transfiguration also has associations with ordinations: from the time of Pope Leo the Great (died 460), the Transfiguration was the Gospel reading set for Ember Saturday, the day before ordinations.

Event and process

The Transfiguration is both an event and a process. The original Greek word for Transfiguration in the Gospel accounts is μεταμόρφωσις (metamorphosis), which gives us access to a deeper and more theological meaning, a deeper truth, than the word derived from the Latin transfiguratio, which can be translated by ‘to be changed into another from.’ But the Greek μεταμόρφωσις means ‘to progress from one state of being to another.’ Consider the metamorphosis of the chrysalis into the butterfly.

Saint Paul also uses the word μεταμόρφωσις when he describes how the Christian is to be transfigured, transformed, into the image of Christ (II Corinthians 3: 18).

The metamorphosis invites us into the event of becoming what we have been created to be. This is what Orthodox writers call deification. Transfiguration is a profound change, by God, in Christ, through the Spirit. And so, the Transfiguration reveals to us our ultimate destiny as Christians, the ultimate destiny of all people and all creation to be transformed and glorified by the majestic splendour of God himself.

The Transfiguration points to Christ’s great and glorious Second Coming and the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God, when all of creation will be transfigured and filled with light. The vision of Christ in his glory and the experience of the divine light are at the very heart of both Orthodox mysticism and Orthodox eschatology. The ‘uncreated light’ is a hallmark theme in Orthodox spirituality, especially in the writings of Saint Gregory Palamas and the school of the thought that is hesychasm, which draws constantly on the themes of the Transfiguration.

Saint Gregory Palamas distinguishes between the essence of God, which is beyond human apprehension, and the energies of God, which are the ways in which we can experience and know God. According to him, the light of the Transfiguration ‘is not something that comes to be and then vanishes.’ Rather, Christ’s disciples experienced a transformation of their senses so that ‘they beheld the Ineffable Light where and to the extent that the Spirit granted it to them.’

This was, therefore, not only a prefiguration of the eternal blessedness to which all Christians look forward, but also of the Kingdom of God already revealed, realised and come.

In Orthodox theology, since Patristic times, the three booths or tents that the three disciples want to erect represent three stages of salvation:

● Virtue, which is the active life of ascetic struggle, and which is represented by Elijah.
● Spiritual knowledge, which requires right discernment in natural contemplation or contemplation of the natural order, which was disclosed by Moses.
● Theology, which means contemplation of God, which requires the consummate perfection of wisdom, and which was revealed by Christ.

Concluding images:

In a lecture in Cambridge some years ago [2011], Metropolitan Kallistos [Ware], the pre-eminent Orthodox theologian in England, spoke of the Transfiguration as a disclosure not only of what God is but of what we are. The New Adam shows us human nature as it was before the fall. The Transfiguration looks back to the beginning, but also looks forward to the end, to the final glory of Christ’s second coming, because through the incarnation Christ raised human nature to a new level, opening new possibilities.

The incarnation is a new beginning for the human race, and in the Transfiguration we see not only our human nature at the beginning, but as it can be in and through Christ at the end, he told the Summer School organised in Sidney Sussex College that year by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Secular Christianity rests satisfied with our human nature as it is now. But he wants us to look to our potentialities, as seen in the Transfiguration of Christ. The light of the Transfiguration embraces all created things, nothing is irredeemably secular, all created things can be bathed in the light of the Transfiguration.

He also referred to Revelation 21: 5, where Christ tells the Seer of Patmos: ‘Behold, I make all things new’ – not: ‘Behold, I make all new things.’ The Transfiguration is a pre-figuration of the transfiguration of the cosmos, he said.

But with the Transfiguration comes the invitation to bear the cross with Christ. Peter, James and John were with Christ on Mount Tabor and with him in Gethsemane. We must understand the Passion of Christ and the Transfiguration in the light of each other, not as two separate mysteries, but aspects of the one single mystery. Mount Tabor and Mount Calvary go together; and glory and suffering go together.

If we are to undertake the task of Transfiguration, we cannot leave our cross behind. If we are to bring the secular, fallen world into the glory of Christ, that has to be through self-emptying κένωσις (kenosis), cross-bearing and suffering. There is no answer to secularism that does not take account of the Cross, as well taking account of the Transfiguration and the Resurrection.

The Transfiguration provides a guideline for confronting the secular world, he said. And he retold a story from Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions. The central figure is set a task of answering three questions:

What is the most important moment? The most important moment is now, the past is gone, and the future does not exist yet.

Who is the most important person? This person who is before you in this very instant.

What is the most important task? This task which you are engaged in here and now.

The light which shone from Christ on the mountaintop is not a physical and created light, but an eternal and uncreated light, a divine light, the light of the Godhead, the light of the Holy Trinity.

The experience on Mount Tabor confirms Saint Peter’s confession of faith which reveals Christ as the Son of the Living God. Yet Christ remains fully human as ever he was, as fully human as you or I, and his humanity is not abolished. But the Godhead shines through his body and from it.

In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead. But at other points in his life, the glory is hidden beneath the veil of his flesh. What we see in Christ on Mount Tabor is human nature, our human nature, taken up into God and filled with the light of God. ‘So this should be our attitude to the secular world,’ Metropolitan Kallistos said.

Or, as the Revd Dr Kenneth Leech once said: ‘Transfiguration can and does occur “just around the corner,” occurs in the midst of perplexity, imperfection, and disastrous misunderstanding.’

Some questions to consider

Is this a more appropriate time for celebrating the Transfiguration?

Can you identify with Saint Peter’s hasty response?

Or do you sometimes feel terrified in the presence of God, and know not what to do?

Saint Matthew alone has Christ telling the three disciples: ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ (Matthew 17: 7). What are people’s fears today? What role have we in calming those fears and in reassuring people of the presence of Christ?

Where do you think people can be brought to see Christ today? In the Church? In the poor? In themselves?

Look at verse 9. Is there an appropriate time for mission and an inappropriate time?

Liturgical Resources:

Liturgical Colour: White (Transfiguration).

Note the liturgical colour returns to Green for Monday and Tuesday, and then turns to Violent on Wednesday 14 February (Ash Wednesday).

Collect

Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
Give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Holy God
we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
May we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know
his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Penitential Kyries:

Your unfailing kindness, O Lord, is in the heavens,
and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Your righteousness is like the strong mountains,
and your justice as the great deep.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

For with you is the well of life:
and in your light shall we see light.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Introduction to the Peace:

Christ will transfigure our human body
and give it a form like that of his own glorious body.
We are the Body of Christ. We share his peace.
(cf Philippians 3: 21, 1 Corinthians 11: 27, Romans 5: 1)

Preface:

Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
whose divine glory shone forth upon the holy mountain
before chosen witnesses of his majesty;
when your own voice from heaven
proclaimed him your beloved Son:

Post Communion Prayer:

Holy God
we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
May we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know
his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

The God of all grace,
who called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus,
establish, strengthen and settle you in the faith:

Suggested Hymns:

These are among the hymns suggested for the Sunday before Lent (Year B) in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling:

II Kings 2: 1-12 :

643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
297, Come, thou Holy Spirit, come
298, Filled with the Spirit’s power, with one accord
647, Guide me, O thou great Jehovah
386, Spirit of God, unseen as the wind
310, Spirit of the living God

Psalm 50: 1-6:

501, Christ is the world’s true light
381, God has spoken – by his prophets
97, Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
362, O God, beyond all praising

II Corinthians 4: 3-6

684, All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine
11, Can we by searching find our God
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
6, Immortal, invisible, God only wise
482, Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light
484, Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim
195, Lord, the light of your love is shining
228, Meekness and majesty
486, People of God, arise
341, Spirit divine, attend our prayers
490, The Spirit lives to set us free
491, We have a gospel to proclaim
493, Ye that know the Lord is gracious

Mark 9: 2–9

325, Be still, for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here
643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
501, Christ is the world’s true light
205, Christ upon the mountain peak
52, Christ, whose glory fills the skies
331, God reveals his presence
209, Here in this holy time and place
101, Jesus, the very thought of thee
195, Lord, the light of your love is shining
102, Name of all majesty
60, O Jesus, Lord of heavenly race
449, Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee
112, There is a Redeemer
374, When all thy mercies, O my God

Updated with additional liturgical resources, 10 February 2018.