Reflection for the Last Sunday after Trinity and Bible Sunday. 

‘Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.’ Archbishop Cranmer’s Collect in the original Book of Common Prayer for the Second Sunday of Advent.

“Wakefield Prison: I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that I gave up smoking today, 16.4.82.

I did stop smoking this time 31.5.84 in HMP Nottingham.”

“We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him.” Notes in the margin and an underlined passage of Romans 8:28 in a prison Bible.

Today is Bible Sunday, although it used to be held on the Second Sunday of Advent due to the collect for that day which was a prayer of thanksgiving for the Holy Scriptures – see above. Dating from 1549, and regularly being revised, the Book of Common Prayer introduced by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer continued the practice of the synagogues and early Christians in having set readings on which preaching would be based. He developed the lectionary of one-year Bible readings following Henry VIII’s order in 1538 that an English Bible must be placed in every parish church and so the scriptures became more accessible to the congregations who had previously heard them in Latin. Cranmer began a series of reforms which brought further conflict with the Catholic church following the posting of Martin Luther’s 95 theses in Wittenberg on 31st October 1517, and the Protestant Reformation lead to violent struggles for change. Cranmer’s terrible death by burning at the stake under the Catholic Mary I is a reminder of how costly those reforms would prove to be and Bible Sunday is now marked on the Sunday nearest to 31st October, Reformation Sunday. 

It’s an astounding thought that, for most of its existence, the Bible would only have been heard as most people could not read and its cost before the printing press would have been the equivalent price of a house. Today, the availability of a Bible is often taken for granted and it’s sometimes forgotten that it’s actually a library of books with different purposes ranging from history and religious practice to love poems and theology. Here in Wales, it was in 1588 that the priest William Morgan in nearby Llanrhaedr ym Mochnant first translated the Bible into Welsh whilst the smaller ‘Y Beibl Bach’, the Little Bible, of 1630, was later intended for use in homes and making the Scriptures available to all. It was also in Wales that, after saving for six years, the fifteen years old Mary Jones walked for twenty-six miles to Bala to buy a Welsh Bible from Revd. Thomas Charles, which lead eventually to the establishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 

As a prison chaplain, I was initially impressed with the demand for the Gospels that could be given out – until I realised that their popularity was due to the thin paper which was ideal for rolling cigarettes! However, I still have a Bible from those days, used by a prisoner who originally wanted cigarette papers but had read some of its words as he tore its leaves to smoke and so began to develop a faith. Its cover is decorated with the matchstick art used by some prisoners, notes are written in the margins and its contents underlined in significant places such as Jesus’s words to the prisoners crucified beside him. This is a well-used tome, with pictures and comments full of insights into the struggles and hopes being faced by the rehabilitation that was ongoing. It contrasted greatly with a Bible I was shown when visiting the home of a woman who had been given it when she was confirmed many years previously. This was still in its box and in pristine condition as she proudly told me that she had never used it as she valued it too much to do so – but she’d not used any other either, and the Scriptures remained, literally, a closed book to her. 

Nowadays, the Revised Common Lectionary has a three year cycle of readings and there are many ways of exploring the Bible and its messages. There are many versions of it, too, ranging from the beautiful prose of the King James Bible to the more contemporary language of The Message and it remains the world’s best selling book. This Bible Sunday, as religious persecution, warfare and the struggles for change continue in many places, perhaps the words that inspired Cranmer’s original collect will strengthen faith today, too: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4, KJV)


With my prayers; pob bendith,

Christine, Priest Guardian.

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