19 July 2022

Praying with the Psalms in Ordinary Time:
19 July 2022 (Psalm 146)

‘Happy are those whose help … is in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth’ (Psalm 146: 5-6) … evening skies after sunset in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

In the Calendar of the Church, we are in Ordinary Time. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (19 July 2022) commemorates Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, and his sister Macrina, deaconess, teachers of the faith in the fourth century. 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 146:

Psalm 146 is the first of fthe ive final concluding praise Psalms in the Book of Psalms (Psalm 146 to Psalm 150). In the slightly different numbering system in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, this is Psalm 145. The opening words of this psalm in Latin are: Lauda anima mea Dominum.

Psalms 146 to 150 form the culmination or crescendo of the Book of Psalms as a whole. These six psalms correspond to the six days of creation. These psalms are not attributed to David. In the Septuagint, Psalms 145 to 148 are given the title ‘of Haggai and Zechariah.’

Psalms 146 and 147 are seen by some commentators as twin Psalms. Both psalms draw on images from Isaiah 61, such as setting captives free, opening blind eyes and healing the broken-hearted.

Besides Isaiah 61, the themes in this Psalm are also found in Leviticus 25 (the year of Jubilee).

This is one of six Psalms involving preaching to self, using the evocative phrase ‘O my soul’ (see Psalms 42, 43, 103, 104, 116 and 146).

Psalm 146 draws a contrast between human and divine rule. As humans, we are mortal, we come from dust and return to dust (see verse 4); God is eternal, as are the values by which he governs the affairs of humanity.

Psalm 146 reminds us how God loves those who follow his ways, cares for the stranger in the land, looks after the orphan and the widow, and upsets the plans of the wicked.

The psalmist will praise God throughout his life. We should not look to powerful people for security and help because they are finite: when they die, so do their plans.

But God is to be trusted, for he is creator, and he keeps his promises forever. He gives justice to those who suffer, bread to those who hunger, freedom to the prisoner, sight to the blind, hope to the oppressed and those on the margins of society.

He loves those who follow his ways, cares for the stranger in the land, looks after the orphan and the widow, upsets the plans of the wicked.

The former Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, says these principles of justice and compassion run through Jewish history as the governing ideals of a society under the sovereignty of God.

This is the God who shall reign for ever.

‘The Lord … gives food to the hungry’ (Psalm 146: 5-7) … lunch in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Psalm 146 (NRSVA):

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith for ever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

10 The Lord will reign for ever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘Turning Point,’ looking at the work of the Diocese of Kurunegala in the Church of Ceylon in Sri Lanka. This theme was introduced on Sunday.

Tuesday 19 July 2022:

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

We pray for the Diocese of Kurunegala and their capacity-building programme. May they teach, tend, treasure and transform churches within the diocese.

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

Tory leader hopeful Penny Mordaunt has deep family roots in County Wexford

Penny Mordaunt at the launch of her campaign to be Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, at the Cinnamon Club, in Westminster, London. Picture date: Wednesday July 13, 2022

Patrick Comerford finds one of the Tory leadership hopefuls has Wexford ancestors linked with the 1798 Rising, the Land War and the Civil War

Patrick Comerford

The Tory leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt has strong family roots in Co Wexford. Ms Mordaunt (49), who hopes to stand against the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, was born Penelope Mary Mordaunt in Torquay in 1973. She hopes to get to No 10 Downing but has to beat Rishi Sunak in the ballot of Tory party members.

The convent-educated daughter of a former paratrooper, Penny Mordaunt has held a number of posts under Boris Johnson and Theresa May, including Defence Secretary, Paymaster General, Trade Minister, and the Women and Equalities and International Development portfolios.

The MP for Portsmouth North is a niece of Henry Mordaunt, who maintains the family’s genealogy website. Henry traces their family roots back to Denis and Mary Mordaunt, born in north Co Wexford in the late 18th century.

The family were tenant farmers on land in Ballintlea, near Gorey, throughout the 19th century and in north Wexford the family name was often pronounced and even spelt ‘Morning.’

In England, one branch of the Mordaunt family held the title of Earl of Peterborough from 1628 until the family line died out in 1814. Another Mordaunt family have been baronets since 1611, and included five MPs for Warwickshire and Warwickshire South. The present and fourteenth holder of the title is Sir Richard Mordaunt.

A family legend claims the Mordaunt or Morning family in Co Wexford is descended from Osmund Mordaunt who married Mary Bulger, from ‘Liraan nr. Gorey in Ireland,’ in London in 1673. This Osmund Mordaunt was said to be a grandson of the 1st Earl of Peterborough.

However, Henry Mordaunt admits this is a ‘curious tale’ based on a ‘clumsy and incompetent forgery.’ He admits no one knows how or when the Mordaunt family came to Co Wexford, nor has anyone traced a direct link between his family and the titled Mordaunt families.

He declares: ‘Given the number of Mordaunt family groups in Co Wexford in the late 1700s, it does suggest the family had been settled there for several generations.’

Before 1840, most members of the family were identified by the name Morning, and it is only after 1840 they usually spell their name as Mordaunt.

The earliest family members in Co Wexford identified with any certainty are the brothers Patrick and Michael Morning or Mordaunt, born in the 1740s or 1750s and possibly the second generation of Mordaunts born in Co Wexford.

Michael Morning is named in the memoirs of the 1798 leader Miles Byrne from Monaseed as his aunt’s husband. Michael sympathised with the early rebels, and his son Miles Morning, who was a 15-year-old in 1796, was a first cousin of the hero of Vinegar Hill.

Michael’s brother Patrick Mordaunt or Morning was a tenant of the Hatton family, living for much of his life on a small holding in Ballantlea, near Gorey, with his wife Mary. When Patrick died – sometime before 1825 – his farm was divided between his two sons Patrick and Denis Mordaunt.

Denis Mordaunt (1783-1868) was baptised in the parish of Kilanerin, near Gorey, and, as Denis Morning, he married Mary Byrne (1791-1851) in Avoca, Co Wicklow, in 1813. He held about 30 acres in Ballintlea, and may also have held land at Clone, near Monamolin. He died in 1868 and was buried in Boolavogue.

One of his younger children, Edward Mordaunt (1831-1917), married Bridget Crowe (1841-1921) in Litter Parish in 1863. They lived on 86 acres at Cullentra until he was evicted in 1886 for non-payment of rent and was jailed for his role in the ‘Land War.’ The house was destroyed by fire, and Edward and his family later lived in Court Ballyedmond, Monamolin, where he was a farmer and shopkeeper. He died in 1917, and he was buried in Boolavogue, alongside his father and older brothers.

Edward’s son Patrick Mordaunt (1874-1914) was baptised in Monamolin and married Bridget Plunkett (1873-1957) in Wexford in 1898. He enlisted in a cavalry regiment and the family moved to Canterbury.

His son, Penny Mordaunt’s grandfather, Edward (Ned) Patrick Mordaunt (1900-1982), was born in Canterbury, but was sent back to Ireland to school, attending a Christian Brothers school in Dublin and Mungret College in Limerick until 1918. After a brief time in the British army in France during World War I, he returned to Ireland in 1919, and during the Civil War he was jailed for his Republican sympathies.

Penny Mordaunt’s father, John Edward Patrick Mordaunt, went to St John’s College, a Catholic secondary school in Portsmouth, and spent three years in the Parachute Regiment before training as a teacher in Leeds.

The Morning or Mordaunt family in Co Wexford married into the Brennan, Byrne, Connolly, Crowe, Doyle, Laffin, Murphy, Nolan, Sinnott and Willoughby families. Many of their descendants have continued to live in the Craanford, Monaseed, Gorey, Enniscorthy and Rosslare Strand areas.

(Revd Professor) Patrick Comerford is a former Wexford People journalist. Now an Anglican priest, he lives in retirement in Milton Keynes. www.patrickcomerford.com

Patrick Mordaunt (1874-1914), left, Penny Mordaunt’s great-grandfather, was baptised in Monamolin, Co Wexford

This feature is published this week in the ‘Wexford People’, the Enniscorthy Guardian’, the ‘Gorey Guardian’ and the ‘New Ross Standard’, p 22.