As the “base line” of my prayers I use the Church’s Divine Office. I do so because I think that for me having a regular and external discipline is helpful, because I love the Psalms, and because – living and therefore praying alone – it gives me a sense of community and solidarity, of Church.

But, dear Lord, it makes demands of me. Because daily, more than once a day, it reminds me – painfully and forcibly – of just how sexist, how deeply anti-women, the Church “authorities” are. Every morning I pray the great hymn of praise and hope, the “Benedictus”, and am directed to say “by the lips of holy men, those who were his prophets from of old”.

Do the translators believe there were no women prophets even though they explicitly appear in the Old Testament – Deborah was not only a recognised prophet she was also a “judge in Israel”? And three lines later I learn that God’s “love for our fathers is fulfilled.”