Praying with the Psalms in Easter: 18 May 2022 (Psalm 84)

‘I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wickedness’ (Psalm 84: 10) … the Gate of the Holy Spirit in the walls of the Mezquita-Catedral in Córdoba (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Before this day begins, I am taking some time this morning to continue my reflections in this season of Easter, including my morning reflections drawing on the Psalms.

In my blog, I am reflecting each morning in this Prayer Diary in these ways:

1, Short reflections on a psalm or psalms;

2, reading the psalm or psalms;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Psalm 84:

Psalm 84 is found in Book 3 in the Book of Psalms, which includes Psalms 73 to 89. In the slightly different numbering scheme in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, this is psalm is numbered as Psalm 83. In Latin, the psalm is known as Quam dilecta.

Psalm 84 begins a group of psalms at the end of Book III within the 150 psalms, from this psalm to Psalm 89. These psalms attempt to provide hope to the exilic Israelite community. But, despite their celebration of the historic traditions of the Jewish people, they remind the reader that these elements no longer provide the hope they once did. Within this group, Psalm 84 ties the presence of the divine to the temple.

Four psalms of this group – Psalms 84, 85, 87 and 88 – are attributed to the Korahites, who are described as the doorkeepers of the tabernacle in the Book of Chronicles.

The psalm could have been written before or after the exile in Babylon (6th century BCE). It is attributed to the sons of Korah.

Psalm 84 is a hymn psalm, more specifically a pilgrimage psalm, a song praising Zion as the longed-for goal of the pilgrim. God dwells in the Temple, perhaps signifying that God dwells among the people (verses 1-2).

To live in the ‘courts of the Lord’ is a blessing and a joy to the heart. Those who live there have security and happiness. ‘Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow has a nest for herself’ there (verse 3).

Making a pilgrimage to the Temple offers hope to the pilgrims. When these pilgrims pass through the valley of Baca on their way to the Temple, there joy is so great that even this desolate place feels refreshing (verse 6), and they receive new strength on the way (verse 7).

The psalmist then prays for God’s anointed one, the king or the Messiah, but later understood as a reference to the ideal future king who would restore the nation (verse 9).

The psalmist rejoices in well-known words that ‘a day’ in God’s ‘courts is better that a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wickedness’ (verse 10).

God is both a ‘sun and shield,’ for he illuminates and protects, and bestows blessings. Everyone who trusts in God is happy (verses 11-12).

So, where God dwells, the many, even the most insignificant of creatures, should find sanctuary, should find a home.

The psalm is often seen as an inscription on synagogues and churches and sung for dedication ceremonies of buildings and their anniversaries.

Thomas More wrote annotations in his Psalter for Psalm 84 while awaiting execution in the Tower of London, expressing his desire to be able to take part in Christian worship again.

Psalm 84 has often been set to music. Bach quotes from Psalm 84: 11 in his cantata Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild BWV 79, written for Reformation Day 1725; Johannes Brahms included it in his Ein deutsches Requiem; and it has been paraphrased in many hymns, including ‘Pleasant are thy courts above’ by Henry Francis Lyte.

‘I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness’ (Psalm 84: 10) … the North Porch in the Church of SS Peter and Paul in Newport Pagnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Psalm 84 (NRSVA):

To the leader: according to The Gittith. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Happy are those who live in your house,
ever singing your praise.
Selah

5 Happy are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
the God of gods will be seen in Zion.

8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob!
Selah
9 Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed.

10 For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than live in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
he bestows favour and honour.
No good thing does the Lord withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
happy is everyone who trusts in you.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Advocacy in Brazil.’

The USPG Prayer Diary this morning (18 May 2022) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the Anglican Diocese of Brasília and their new Department of Advocacy and Human Rights.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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

Lady Mary Russell and Calverton’s clergy couple with Irish family links

Russell Street in Stony Stratford recalls the generosity of Lady Mary Russell and her husband Canon Richard Norris Russell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

The Russell Street School and Russell Street off Wolverton Road and running parallel to Stony Stratford’s High Street, recall Lady Mary Russell (1831-1891) and her husband, Canon Richard Norris Russell (1809-1896), charitable benefactors whose generosity benefitted schools and churches in Calverton, Stony Stratford, Wolverton and nearby Beachampton.

Mary and Richard shared interesting Irish family backgrounds and both were members of prominent clerical and political families.

Lady Mary Russell was born Mary Perceval at Calverton Rectory in 1831, where her father, the Revd the Hon Charles George Perceval (1796-1858), lived as the Rector of Calverton; her mother Mary (Knapp) was the only daughter of the Revd Primatt Knapp, Rector of Shenley Mansell.

Mary’s father, Charles Thomas Perceval was born into a very political family. His father and Mary’s grandfather, the Hon Charles George Perceval (1756-1840), was the MP for Launceston (1780-1790), Warwick (1790-1796) and Totnes (1796-1802). In turn, his father, John Perceval, was Earl of Egmont, who inherited vast estates in north Co Cork, while his mother, Catherine (Compton), was made a peeress in Ireland in her own right in 1770 as Baroness Arden, of Lohort Castle, Co Cork.

Charles George Perceval succeeded his mother as 2nd Baron Arden in 1784, but because this was an Irish peerage he was able to hold his seat in the British House of Commons until he was given the additional title of Lord Arden in his own right in 1802. An elder brother of the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval (1762-1812), was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons, the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

Lord Arden bought Calverton Manor from the Marquess of Salisbury in 1806, along with the patronage of the living or the right to nominate the Rectors of Calverton. Lord Arden presented Dr Butler as a temporary Rector of Calverton in 1814, to hold the parish until his son was ‘of a proper age.’

Many of the Tractarian leaders met in Calverton Rectory, where Lady Mary Russell was born in 1831 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Revd Charles George Perceval (1796-1858) eventually became the Rector of Calverton on 26 March 1821, at the age of 24. He was a devout High Churchman and a supporter of the Tractarians. Many of the Tractarian leaders met in the Rectory at this time, including Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), Cardinal John Henry Newman and Cardinal Edward Manning, and some of the Tracts for the Times were planned if not written at Calverton.

Perceval’s only daughter, Mary Perceval, was born at Calverton Rectory in 1831. She married on 12 October 1865 Canon Richard Norris Russell (1809-1896), Rector of Beachampton (1835-1883) and a canon of Christ Church, Oxford (1877-1896). After her brother succeeded as Earl of Egmont, she became known as Lady Mary Russell in 1875.

Canon Richard Norris Russell was born in France on 8 July 1809, but he too was from a prominent Irish family. His father, William Thomas Russell (1778-1867), was a merchant from Limerick, a son of Francis William Russell (1735-1800) and Elizabeth Maunsell Norris (1744-1813).

William Thomas Russell married Louisa Therese Letellier in Saint Giles in the Fields, Holborn, London, on 3 July 1810. Romantic lore in the Russell family says she was a French countess who was rescued by William Russell during the French revolution. The couple later returned to his native Limerick before returning to France where they lived in Toulouse. William died in Toulouse a widower at the age of 89 on 31 January 1867, a little more than a year after his son Richard had married Mary Perceval.

Richard was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris (Bachelor of Letters), and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA 1832, MA 1835). He was a Fellow of Caius (1833-1836) when he was ordained deacon (Ely 1833) and priest (Lincoln 1834), and when he became Rector of Beachampton in 1835. Richard was 54 when he married Mary Perceval in 1865 and she was 32.

Throughout her life, Lady Mary Russell was generous in her bequests to schools and churches in the Stony Stratford, Wolverton and Calverton areas. The Radcliffe Trust donated the site to build Wolverton End School and School House in 1867, and the church school for the poor, designed by Swinfen Harris, was built in 1871-1873. But the school was financed by Lady Mary Russell of Beachampton, and over 280 pupils attended in the early 1890s.

Lady Mary Russell helped to fund the Wolverton End School, Stony Stratford, until she died in 1891 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Lady Mary Russell died on 25 April 1891; Canon Richard Russell died on 13 June 1896. There are memorial windows to the couple in the parish church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Beachampton, and Lady Mary also presented the organ.

Their only son, Richard Harold Russell, was a barrister, a Justice of the Peace for Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, and was in the Bucks Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa during the Boer War (1898-1901). Their only daughter, Mary Caroline Russell, married the Revd Henry Harington Harris (1853-1936), Rector of Poynings, Sussex (1889-1917).

Meanwhile, Lady Mary Russell’s brother, Charles George Perceval (1845-1897), who was born at Calverton Rectory, eventually succeeded as 7th Earl of Egmont in 1874. Egmont was an Irish peerage, and in 1889 Lord Egmont sold off many of the family estates in north Co Cork, including Liscarroll Castle, near Buttevant. Kanturk Castle was donated to the National Trust by his widow in 1900.

Memories of days past on Russell Street in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)