Praying with the Psalms in Easter: 4 June 2022 (Psalm 101)

‘I will sing of loyalty and of justice’ (Psalm 101: 1) … the statue of Justice by John Van Nost (1721) in Dublin Castle (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 101:

Psalm 101 is sometimes known by its Latin name Misericordiam et judicium. In the slightly different numbering system in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate, this psalm is counted as Psalm 100.

This is one of the psalms not included in the Revised Common Lectionary. But one way of reading Psalm 101 is to divide it into these sections:

1,, verse 1: God’s ‘loyalty and mercy’ or ‘mercy’ and ‘justice’ go together, for while justice may pronounce a penalty, mercy may grant relief. As king, David knows that before he could exercise mercy and justice, he had to understand and extol the mercy and justice of God.

2, verse 2: David is determined that his reign is marked by integrity and godliness, and to live a wise and holy life. As he came to a position of greater power, he experienced that power often exposes the flaws of character, if it does not actually help create them. His righteous life had to be real in his conduct within his own house, before it could be applied in the courts of his kingdom.

3, verses 3-4: one measure of a righteous life was what one chose to set before the eyes, as the lust of the eyes is a significant aspect of the lure of this world.

4, verse 5: to lie or speak in an evil way against another person is a significant and grievous sin and the worst of it is done secretly, so David was determined to oppose all who did so.

5, verses 6-8: Instead of looking at those who thought themselves better than others, David preferred to look at the faithful, deciding that they would dwell with him. David’s determination to rule in favour of the godly, made him decide to remove the wicked early on from the city of God.

‘A haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not tolerate’ (Psalm 101: 5) … street art in the Portobello area in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Psalm 101 (NRSVA):

Of David. A Psalm.

1 I will sing of loyalty and of justice;
to you, O Lord, I will sing.
2 I will study the way that is blameless.
When shall I attain it?

I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
3 I will not set before my eyes
anything that is base.

I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
4 Perverseness of heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.

5 One who secretly slanders a neighbour
I will destroy.
A haughty look and an arrogant heart
I will not tolerate.

6 I will look with favour on the faithful in the land,
so that they may live with me;
whoever walks in the way that is blameless
shall minister to me.

7 No one who practises deceit
shall remain in my house;
no one who utters lies
shall continue in my presence.

8 Morning by morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
cutting off all evildoers
from the city of the Lord.

Today’s Prayer:

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

This theme in the USPG Prayer Diary concludes this morning (4 June 2022), inviting us to pray:

Let us pray for everyone who has a difficult relationship with their parents, acknowledging this in how we talk to others.

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

Father of compassion, who dwells on high: remember … the pious, the upright and the blameless

Patrick Comerford

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot or Shavuos (שָׁבוּעוֹת‎, ‘Weeks’) begins at sunset tomorrow evening (Saturday 4 June 2022), and ends at sundown on Monday (6 May 2022).

The Feast of Weeks is sometimes referred to as Pentecost (Πεντηκοστή) because of its timing 50 days after the first day of Passover. This year, it coincides with the Christian celebrations of Pentecost (Sunday 5 June 2022)

This Jewish holiday occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. In the Bible, Shavuot marks the wheat harvest in the Land of Israel (see Exodus 34: 22) and, according to the Jewish Sages, it also commemorates the anniversary of the giving of the Torah by God at Mount Sinai.

The word Shavuot means ‘weeks’ and it marks the conclusion of the seven-week Counting of the Omer, beginning on the second day of Passover and followed immediately by Shavuot. This counting of days and weeks is understood to express anticipation and desire for the giving of the Torah.

This evening (3 June 2022) is the beginning of the Shabbat before Shavuot, when the memorial prayer ‘Father of compassion’ (אב הרחמים‎, Av Harachamim) is said in many synagogues and congregations.

This poetic prayer was written in a time of profound grief, at the end of the 11th or in the early 12th century. It dates from the massacre of Jewish communities around the Rhine River in 1096 by Christian crusaders at the beginning of the First Crusade (1096-1099), one of the darkest moments in mediaeval Jewish history.

This prayer first appeared in siddurim or Jewish prayer books in 1290, and since then it has been printed in every Orthodox siddur in the European traditions of Sephardic and Ashkenazic prayers.

It has become the custom to say this prayer on two special moments in the Jewish year: the Shabbat before Shavuot, as the anniversary of the massacre of the Rhineland Jewish communities, and the Shabbat before Tishah B’Av, when the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem and the victims of later persecutions are mourned.

It has come to serve as a remembrance of other pogroms and tragedies, and for the victims of the Holocaust, so that it is now a prayer recalling all Jewish martyrs.

The prayer emphasises the merit of the martyrs who died and quotes several scriptural verses: Deuteronomy 32: 43; Joel 4: 21; Psalm 79: 10; Psalm 9: 13; Psalm 110: 6, 7. God is asked to remember the martyrs, to avenge them, and to save their offspring. The wording of the last part of the prayer, invoking Divine retribution on the persecutors, has undergone many changes.

On first reading or hearing this last part of the prayer, it sounds like a call to violence. But it is nothing of the sort. Like so many of the psalms, it turns to God in honesty and despair, and lays honest feelings before God. But as we pray, of course, we realise that God is the God of both peace and justice.

The prayer is recited after the Torah reading and before the scroll is returned to the Ark. Another short prayer of the same name, ‘May the Father of mercy have mercy upon a people that has been borne by him …’, is recited in Orthodox synagogues immediately before the reading from the Torah.

Father of compassion, who dwells on high:
may he remember in his compassion
the pious, the upright and the blameless –
holy communities who sacrificed their lives
for the sanctification of God’s name.

Lovely and pleasant in their lives,
in death they were not parted.

They were swifter than eagles and stronger than lions
to do the will of their Maker,
and the desire of their Creator.

O our God, remember them for good
with the other righteous of the world,
and may he exact retribution for the shed blood of his servants,
as it is written in the Torah of Moses, the man of God:

‘O nations, acclaim his people,
wreak vengeance on his foes,
and make clean his people’s land.’

And by your servants, the prophets, it is written:
‘I shall cleanse their which I have not yet cleansed,
says the Lord who dwells in Zion.’

And in the Holy Writings it says:
‘Why should the nations say: Where is their God?
Before our eyes, may those nations know
that you avenge the shed blood of your servants.’

And it also says:

‘For the Avenger of blood remembers them
and does not forget the cry of the afflicted.’

And it further says:

‘He will execute judgment among the nations,
heaping up the dead,
crushing the rulers far and wide.
From the brook by the wayside he will drink,
then he will hold his head high.’

Shabbat Shalom