Praying with the Psalms in Ordinary Time: 14 July 2022 (Psalm 141)

‘Let my prayer be counted as incense before you’ (Psalm 141: 2) … in the vestry in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In the Calendar of the Church, we are in Ordinary Time. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (14 July 2022) recalls John Keble, Tractarian and Poet (1866) with a lesser festival.

I have an appointment in Milton Keynes University Hospital later this morning. But, before today begins, I am taking some time this morning to continue my 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 141:

Psalm 141 is the fourth psalm in the final Davidic collection of psalms (Psalm 138 to Psalm 145) that are specifically attributed to David in their opening verses.

In the slightly different numbering system in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, this is Psalm 140. Its name in Latin is Dirigatur oratio mea.

This Psalm is a plea to God not only for protection from the psalmist’s enemies, and also from temptation to sin.

This psalm contains a prayer for deliverance from ‘from the trap that they have laid for me, and from the snares of evildoers’ (verse 9), and seeks God’s support to live a life without sin (‘Do not turn my heart to any evil,’ verse 4).

This could be read as the prayer of an ordinary worshipper. But there indications too that this a ‘king’s psalm,’ offered during a military campaign far away from Jerusalem, or in exile, for he cannot offer the sacrifices in the temple (see verse 2) and he laments over losses in battle (see in verse 7).

A wisdom teaching in verse 4, asking to be kept away from bad company, is similar to Psalm 1.

A phrase in verses 6-7 is translated ‘When they are given over to those who shall condemn them’ in the NRSV. But the translations vary, for example: ‘When their judges are overthrown in stony places …’ (KJV), or ‘thrown down from the cliffs’ (NIV). But the full saying is difficult to translate, and, at best, translators are offering a guess.

Verses 8-10 express a plea for help against persecutors in terms similar to words in Psalm 140.

Perhaps there are two sets of petitions in prayer (verses 5-7 and verses 8-10).

The King James version offers an archaic phrase: ‘Keep me from … the gins of the workers of iniquity’ (verse 9). The word used to translates מקשות in this verse is a form of ‘engines’ and is translated as ‘traps’ or ‘snares’ in many modern translations.

‘Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity’ (Psalm 141: 9, KJV) … a poster for gins from Whitechapel Distillers seen in a bar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 141 (NRSVA):

A Psalm of David.

1 I call upon you, O Lord; come quickly to me;
give ear to my voice when I call to you.
2 Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.

3 Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord;
keep watch over the door of my lips.
4 Do not turn my heart to any evil,
to busy myself with wicked deeds
in company with those who work iniquity;
do not let me eat of their delicacies.

5 Let the righteous strike me;
let the faithful correct me.
Never let the oil of the wicked anoint my head,
for my prayer is continually against their wicked deeds.
6 When they are given over to those who shall condemn them,
then they shall learn that my words were pleasant.
7 Like a rock that one breaks apart and shatters on the land,
so shall their bones be strewn at the mouth of Sheol.

8 But my eyes are turned towards you, O God, my Lord;
in you I seek refuge; do not leave me defenceless.
9 Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me,
and from the snares of evildoers.
10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
while I alone escape.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘Partners in Mission.’ It was introduced on Sunday.

Thursday 14 July 2022:

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for our partners across Bangladesh and India. May we learn from their thriving churches and walk alongside them in mission.

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

Missing a Bellini in Harry’s Bar for one of the rival cafés in Saint Mark’s

Napoleon described Saint Mark’s Square as ‘the drawing room of Europe’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

There are cafés and bars with such history and aura that their names become symbols of their cities. Yet, while I cannot count how many times I have got on and off vaporetti at San Marco in Venice, I have never had a Bellini in Harry’s Bar. Nor, until Charlotte and I were in Venice last week, had either of us ever been in any of the cafés on each side of Saint Mark’s Square, Piazza San Marco.

There are two sides of Saint Mark’s Square: the Procuratie Vecchie on the north side, once the apartments of the nine Procurators of Venice, and the Procuratie Nuove on the south side. At its east and west ends, the square is book-ended by Saint Mark’s Basilica and the Museo Correr and the Napoleonic wing.

Napoleon described Saint Mark’s Square as ‘the drawing room of Europe.’ Each side of the square has rival cafés, known for their romantic locations, their competing musicians, the ideal venues for people-watching, and the unrivalled atmospheres on a balmy summer night.

Florian Francesconi first set out his tables under the arcade of the Procuratie Nuove in 1720 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

These two famous rivals on opposite side of the square are Caffè Florian and Caffè Quadri. Which one you chose today is a matter of taste. But in the 19th century, these two cafés defined the political views of Venetians and divided the city.

Gianfrancesco Morosini – whose family gave their name to the Morosini Fountain in Lion Square in Iraklion – first brought coffee to the attention of the Venetians in 1585. He reported to the Senate that the Turks had developed a taste for drinking ‘a black water, boiled up as hot as they could bear it, which is distilled from a seed called kahvé and which they say has the property of making a man stay awake.’

By the mid-17th century, coffee was being sold in Venice as a medicine. Its popularity increased and imports rose.

Florian Francesconi first set out his tables under the arcade of the Procuratie Nuove over 300 years ago, on 29 December 1720. He named his café ‘Alla Venezia Trionfante’ or ‘Triumphant Venice.’ The name did not stick, however, and the café was soon known by its owner’s name, Florian.

Café le Procope was founded in Paris in 1686, and Baroque Haus Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum was founded in Leipzig in 1694. So, Caffè Florian in Venice is the third oldest café in Europe to be continuously open in the same location. This is also the first café ever to be open to women.

Patrons who have visited Florian’s over the centuries include Rousseau, Canova, Foscolo, Goethe, Byron, Dickens, d’Annunzio, Stravinsky, Proust and Modigliani. Its six beautifully decorated rooms include the Sala del Senato, the birthplace of the international arts fair, Il Biennale.

Giorgio Quadri opened his café after he returned to Venice from Corfu in 1775 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

When Giorgio Quadri returned to Venice on 28 May 1775 after many years in Corfu, his Greek wife Naxina urged him to buy ‘Il Rimedio’ or ‘The Cure,’ a restaurant under the arcade of the Procuratorie Vecchie, and to open a coffee house on the Piazza.

Following the defeat of Napoleon, Venice was occupied by the Austrians for half a century, from 1815 to 1866. Florian’s was favoured by local patriots who dreamt of reviving their country and of Italian unification. On the other hand, on the opposite side of the square, the Gran Caffè Quadri, was chosen by the Austrian officers.

Quadri’s was more bustling, pretentiously pro-Austrian, and the guests included Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas and Richard Wagner.

But Quadri’s was shunned by Italian patriots. The garrison was ignored, no-one applauded when their bands played Wagner and they were unable to mingle with the people. As Wagner observed, ‘the Austrian officers … floated about publicly in Venice like oil on water.’

Since then, though, Quadri’s more recent guests have included Gorbachev, Mitterrand and Woody Allen. Quadri has been run since 2011 by the Alajmo family from Padua and it was redecorated in 2018 by the French architect Philippe Starck.

Close by, Harry’s Bar was founded in 1931 by Giuseppe Cipriani (1900-1980), and has given the world the Bellini. Harry’s Bar was a favourite of Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh mentions it in Brideshead Revisited.

Other clients have include Toscanini, Marconi, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Truman Capote, Orson Welles, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Aristotle Onassis, Barbara Hutton, Peggy Guggenheim, George Clooney and Woody Allen.

Today, Florian’s and Quadri’s have tables in the square and each has its own quartet or small orchestra. They may have different interiors and menus, yet they seem to complement each other. Although rivals, their musicians alternate playing so as not to drown out the sound of each other.

Florian’s is still seen as a bohemian institution, and it was there – rather than Quadri or Harry’s Bar – we elected for a drink in ‘the drawing room of Europe’ late in the evening last week.

Listening to the quartet at Florian’s on a balmy summer evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)