Praying with the Psalms in Easter: 11 May 2022 (Psalm 77)

‘I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit’ (Psalm 77: 6) … darkness in the City of London last Saturday night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

I arrived back in Askeaton, Co Limerick yesterday. Before this day begins (11 May 2022), I am continuing my morning reflections in this season of Easter continues, 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 77:

Psalm 77 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 76.

This is the sixth of the ‘Psalms of Asaph.’ These are the 12 psalms numbered 50 and 73 to 83 in the Masoretic text and 49 and 72-82 in the Septuagint. Each psalm has a separate meaning, and these psalms cannot be summarised easily as a whole.

But throughout these 12 psalms is the shared theme of the judgment of God and how the people must follow God’s law.

The superscription of this psalm reads: ‘To the leader: according to Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A Psalm.’ The attribution of a psalm to Asaph could mean that it was part of a collection from the Asaphites, identified as Temple singers, or that the psalm was performed in a style associated with Asaph, who was said to be the author or transcriber of these psalms.

Asaph who is identified with these psalms was a Levite, the son of Berechiah and descendant of Gershon, and he was the ancestor of the Asaphites, one the guilds of musicians in the first Temple in Jerusalem.

Asaph served both David and Solomon, and performed at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple (see II Chronicles 5: 12). His complaint against corruption among the rich and influential, recorded in Psalm 73, for example, might have been directed against some of court officials. The words used to describe the wicked come from words used by officials of the cult or sacrificial system.

Several of the Psalms of Asaph are categorised as communal laments because they are concerned for the well-being of the whole community. Many of these psalms forecast destruction or devastation in the future, but are balanced with God’s mercy and saving power for the people.

Psalm 77 finds parallels in other biblical poetry, such as Psalm 118: 18 and the hymn in the final chapter of Habakkuk. All three share a common theme of becoming aware of ultimate divine deliverance from seemingly intractable terrors.

This is a psalm of lament from a community of people crying out to God and asking God to not be silent in their time of need. The question is posed: has God’s steadfast love ceased for ever But this psalm comes full circle with the end proclaiming the wonder of God as creator and reflecting on his care of Moses and Aaron.

Psalm 77 begins with a cry of distress. The psalmist has been experiencing profound difficulties, and his cries to God appear to have been ignored. Only his memories of the past seem to bring anything even resembling joy.

However, the psalmist then remembers God’s integrity and realises that the failure of his hopes is the result of misplaced expectations of God's actions, rather than God's failure to act.

Recalling God’s actions in the past and God’s rule even over the natural world, he concludes with praise of ‘the God who works wonders’ or ‘the God who performs miracles’ (verse 14).

‘When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid’ (Psalm 77: 16) … waves on the shore at Morriscastle, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Psalm 77 (NRSVA):

To the leader: according to Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A Psalm.

1 I cry aloud to God,
aloud to God, that he may hear me.
2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
my soul refuses to be comforted.
3 I think of God, and I moan;
I meditate, and my spirit faints.
Selah

4 You keep my eyelids from closing;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5 I consider the days of old,
and remember the years of long ago.
6 I commune with my heart in the night;
I meditate and search my spirit:
7 ‘Will the Lord spurn for ever,
and never again be favourable?
8 Has his steadfast love ceased for ever?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?’
Selah
10 And I say, ‘It is my grief
that the right hand of the Most High has changed.’

11 I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
I will remember your wonders of old.
12 I will meditate on all your work,
and muse on your mighty deeds.
13 Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is so great as our God?
14 You are the God who works wonders;
you have displayed your might among the peoples.
15 With your strong arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
Selah

16 When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
the very deep trembled.
17 The clouds poured out water;
the skies thundered;
your arrows flashed on every side.
18 The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lit up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
19 Your way was through the sea,
your path, through the mighty waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
20 You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Celebration in Casablanca.’ It was introduced on Sunday morning by the Right Revd David Hamid, Suffragan Bishop in Europe.

The USPG Prayer Diary this morning (11 May 2022) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for inter-provincial relations across the Anglican Communion.

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

Praying with the Psalms in Lent: 8 March 2022 (Psalms 19, 20, 21)

‘The heavens are telling the glory of God and the firmament proclaims his handiwork’ (Psalm 19: 1) … evening lights on Morriscastle Beach at Kilmuckridge, Co Wexford, on Sunday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began last week on Ash Wednesday (2 March 2022), and Sunday was the First Sunday in Lent. Before today begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

During Lent this year, in this Prayer Diary on my blog each morning, I am reflecting 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 19:

Many of us are familiar with this Psalm because the concluding verse (14) has traditionally been used in the Church of Ireland to introduce sermons: ‘Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.’

This psalm is a hymn of glory to the universe as God’s work and to God’s precepts in word of God.

In Psalm 19, the heavens and the earth proclaim God’s glory and power (verses 1-6), the covenant is an expression of God’s will for Israel (verses 7-9), and we are reminded that the ‘fear of the Lord is clean and endures for ever’ (verse 9). This Psalm also links God’s judgement with God’s forgiveness. Note too, the description of the psalmist as God’s ‘servant’ (verses 11, 13).

In the first half of the poem, the Psalmist speaks metaphorically of creation singing a song of praise to its Creator. The former Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan) Sachs, describes this as ‘a silent song yet one that can be heard by those whose ears are attuned to wonder.’

‘Yet their sound’ or ‘Yet their music’ (verse 4) – literally ‘their line’ – may refer to the reverberating string of a musical instrument; but it may mean the line marking a boundary – a reference to the order and ‘fearful symmetry’ of the universe.

But God’s word not only gives life to the natural universe: it instructs the human universe, the world we make by our actions and reactions. The Psalmist pours out his praise to God’s creation of the world-that-is, and God’s revelation of the world-that-ought-to-be.

‘Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God’ (Psalm 20: 7) … part of the Parthenon frieze in the Acropolis Museum in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 20:

There are many words and phrases in this psalm that at first glance suggest a great conviction that the Lord will grant whatever we wish, as long as we have enough faith. But this is, at the very least, an over-simplification.

Several of the verses in Psalm 20 start with the word ‘may’ (see verses 2, 3, 4, 5a, 5b in the NRSV and NRSVA translations; verses 1, 5a and 5b in the Book of Common Prayer Psalter, pp 612-613).

This may suggest that what follows is not guaranteed to come to pass, but we are also asked to consider whether what we desire is the same as what God desires. God knows better than us what we need and what we want.

At the same time, God is our loving father we should not be afraid to ask for things. Verses 6, 7 and 8 are perhaps a good illustration of this point: if the Lord will help or save his anointed (verse 6), then as God’s children we can be sure God will help us.

‘Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you’ (Psalm 21: 8) … the ‘Hands’ sculpture by Seamus Gilmore in Ennis, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 21:

Psalm 21 is accredited to David. It is numbered Psalm 20 in the slightly different numbering system in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations of the Bible.

This royal psalm and the previous psalm, Psalm 20, are closely related: they are both liturgical psalms; in both, the king is the prominent figure. This psalm may have been written before a battle, after a victory, at the king’s coronation, or at an annual celebration of the king’s accession.

Psalm 21 is characterised as a psalm of thanksgiving. It focuses on the imagery of a king. In the Bible, the king is often credited with being an example of the moral state of a kingdom.

The New Revised Standard Version describes Psalm 21 as a psalm of ‘thanksgiving for victory.’ The Jerusalem Bible identifies both messianic and eschatological themes in Psalm 21 (20), and associates this psalm with the idea of ‘Christ the King.’

The King James or Authorised Version, in its translation of verse 9, gives us the phrase in English ‘the time of thine anger.’ This is translated in the Jerusalem Bible as ‘the day that you appear.’

Psalm 19 (NRSVA):

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hidden from its heat.

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the Lord are sure,
making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring for ever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
and drippings of the honeycomb.

11 Moreover by them is your servant warned
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can detect their errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.

14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Psalm 20 (NRSVA):

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 The Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
The name of the God of Jacob protect you!
2 May he send you help from the sanctuary,
and give you support from Zion.
3 May he remember all your offerings,
and regard with favour your burnt sacrifices.
Selah

4 May he grant you your heart’s desire,
and fulfil all your plans.
5 May we shout for joy over your victory,
and in the name of our God set up our banners.
May the Lord fulfil all your petitions.

6 Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with mighty victories by his right hand.
7 Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,
but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.
8 They will collapse and fall,
but we shall rise and stand upright.

9 Give victory to the king, O Lord;
answer us when we call.

Psalm 21 (NRSVA):

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 In your strength the king rejoices, O Lord,
and in your help how greatly he exults!
2 You have given him his heart’s desire,
and have not withheld the request of his lips.
Selah
3 For you meet him with rich blessings;
you set a crown of fine gold on his head.
4 He asked you for life; you gave it to him—
length of days for ever and ever.
5 His glory is great through your help;
splendour and majesty you bestow on him.
6 You bestow on him blessings for ever;
you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
7 For the king trusts in the Lord,
and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be moved.

8 Your hand will find out all your enemies;
your right hand will find out those who hate you.
9 You will make them like a fiery furnace
when you appear.
The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath,
and fire will consume them.
10 You will destroy their offspring from the earth,
and their children from among humankind.
11 If they plan evil against you,
if they devise mischief, they will not succeed.
12 For you will put them to flight;
you will aim at their faces with your bows.

13 Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength!
We will sing and praise your power.

Today’s Prayer:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary this morning (8 March 2022, International Women’s Day) invites us to pray:

Today we pray for women across the world. May we celebrate women’s achievements and continue to demand gender justice and equality.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold’ (Psalm 19: 10) … a mask in a shop window in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Wexford is looking good in autumn and harvest colours

High Street, Wexford, where I lived in the mid-1970s, is preparing for this year’s Opera Festival (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Wexford was looking good today. Despite what Laurence Mackin said in TheIrish Times earlier this week. In his review following the first episode of Billy Roche’s Clean Break on RTÉ last Sunday, he wrote:

“Wexford itself looks bleak and suffocating; ambition and hope are in short supply in the autumnal tones of Anna Valdez Hanks’s photography and Gillies McKinnon’s direction. And there is something menacing in the everyday emptiness of much of what we see.”

Certainly summer had turned to autumn today, and the ‘Indian Summer’ we have been enjoying all week turned to a hazy, cloud-filled day. But I though Clean Break was complimentary to Wexford, to the point that I even felt a little homesick for the town.

Over 40 years ago, when I was living in High Street, Wexford, and working for the Wexford People, Billy Roche was involved in the Roche Band, and he took part in the poetry and music evening’s I organised in the YMCA beside White’s Hotel on North Main Street.

At the time, the YMCA was effectively the Church of Ireland parish hall in Wexford, and a generous rector, the late Canon Eddie Grant, gave me almost free rein when it came to inviting aspiring poets and musicians to these evenings.

The YMCA has been sold and transformed, and is now home to boutique shops and a restaurant. But Billy Roche, who is now 66, is still on the scene and proud of his home town, and we still bump into each other every now and then.

Billy Roche hopes his new RTÉ four-part tiger kidnapping crime drama will put Wexford on the map and recently he told the Nationwide reporter Helen McInerney that it is important for him that parts of the series were filmed in Wexford.

Lifting the boats in Courtown Harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Being a little homesick, two of us decided to head back to Wexford this morning, and stopped first in Courtown for a walk around the harbour. The harbour was a hive of activity late this morning as boats were being lifted by a heavy crane.

Initially, I thought they were being moved to dry dock for winter. But later I learned that Courtown Harbour is being sealed off and drained for emergency repair works on the piers and walls and the harbour basin is deepened.

The €2 million project was postponed from the height of the summer season because of the fears on the part of local business owners and fishermen of the impact on summer trade.

The beach at Courtown has been badly eroded in recent storms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The work must begin by the end of November, and local businesses are deeply worried about the impact on the life of the town. Most of the beach in front of the harbour has been washed away because of heavy storms last year, and for the past few months sections of Courtown Beach have been cordoned off for rock armour reinstatement.

The work on the harbour is work that cannot be postponed, local people say both piers are close to collapsing, and the basin has filled up with silt.

Courtown Sailing Club went ahead with lifting its boats today, and some owners were their boats to Arklow before the harbour closes. But local fishermen are said to be worried about their livelihoods.

Blues of Greece and reminders of summer at Cahore Pier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

After double espressos in the Wishing Well Café in Courtown, we travelled along the coast to Cahore Point, where we watched children “crabbing” for a while, and walked along the pier.

The long white stretch of sand at Morriscastle in Kilmuckridge this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Our next stop was Kilmuckridge, for a walk along the long sandy beach at Morriscastle. It is some years since I had summer breaks there.

At lunchtime, there were few people on this long white sandy beach which stretches for miles. In hot summer days it rivals any beach in Mediterranean, but here, once again, local people are afraid that unchecked farming practices threaten the sustainability of the sand dunes which protect this long stretch of coast.

Harvest fields of green and gold between Kilmuckridge and Kilnamanagh this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

We rejoined the road to Wexford at Kilnamanagh, and as we drove on the fields and farms of Co Wexford were a rich mixture of green and gold in this late harvest season, despite the clouds above.

Eventually, we reached Wexford by mid-afternoon, and enjoyed a few hours strolling through the narrow streets, browsing in the bookshops and bumping into old friends here and there. The town was looking well this afternoon, enhanced perhaps by preparations for the Opera Festival later this month.

The courtyard in The Yard in George’s Street, Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Sadly, one of my favourite restaurants in Wexford, La Dolce Vita in Trimmer’s Lane, has closed its doors, the restaurant in the Opera House on High Street was closed this afternoon, and The Yard in Lower George’s Street had not yet opened its doors … although we were offered a warm welcome.

Looking up Mary Street towards the Friary in Wexford this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Eventually, we had a very late lunch in the Centenary Stores on Charlotte Street. By the time we left, dusk was beginning to fall, but we still stayed around Wexford for a little longer.

As we drove through Ferrycarrig and Oylegate, the fields around us were still aglow in green and gold, but the sun was setting in west beyond the Slaney, and it was dark by the time we reached Edermine. I was home in time to see the England v Australia match.

Clean Break continues tomorrow night [Sunday 4 October 2015] on RTÉ 1 at 9.30 p.m.

The Crescent in Wexford … the town was looking well this weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Searching for an old house and listening to an old maestro

Walking along the beach in Kilmuckridge, Co Wexford, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

As dusk fell on Wexford town this evening, I found myself in a nostalgic mood in High Street, looking across the rooves at the back of the new Theatre Royal to the old offices where I once worked for the Wexford People and in front of the theatre looking at the house I had once lived in.

It’s almost forty years since I began working with the Wexford People. But I was back in Co Wexford today not to take a trip down the Memory Lanes of the narrow streets of the old town, but to search for a former family home, and to have some walks on the beaches at Courtown, Kilmuckridge and Katts Strand on the east side of Wexford Harbour.

I left work early, late in the morning, and two of us drove south, arriving in Courtown, 6 km east of Gorey in north Co Wexford, in little more than an hour. Despite all the warnings of heavy rain and heavy cloud cover, the sky was blue, the few clouds were white, and – although the temperatures had dropped to seven or eight – there was a crisp bite in the air that added to the refreshing feeling of this bright day.

The rubble of Invermore gives no hint of a lost story (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

I was in Courtown looking for a house that was first known as Invermore when it was built in 1859. Invermore was designed by the Victorian architect Sir Thomas Newenham Deane as a house for M. Scott, the land agent of the Earls of Courtown. Later in the 19th century and in the early 20th century it had been home to the Hon George Stopford, brother of the Earl of Courtown, and Lady Mary Lloyd.

However, my interest in the house was a family association. When the future journalist and republican Máire Comerford (1893-1982) returned to Ireland from London around 1915, she moved to Co Wexford with her mother, Eva Mary Comerford (nee Esmonde), niece of Sir John Esmonde.

At first, they lived with Eva’s sister, Thomas Louis Esmonde (1864-1918) of Gorey, but they soon rented Invermore in Courtown, where they then set up a school for girls and where Máire was a teacher for a time.

We drove around Courtown for a while looking for the old house. After Máire and Eva Comerford left Courtown, the house changed hands and names over the decades, and eventually became an hotel. It was known at different times as Levuka, the Oulart Hotel, the Sands Hotel and the Stopford House Hotel.

Thinking perhaps the hotel had changed names once again, we kept driving around in circles, still hoping to find the house. Eventually, we were pointed to a heap of rubble and a clump of trees in a fenced-off field near two small housing estates.

Like most of the hotels in Courtown, the hotel had fallen on hard times, had closed, and was then demolished. Nothing is left of the stepped arches over the windows, the pyramid-shaped roof, the classical porch, the Gothic entrance arch, the elaborate fretted balusters on the main and secondary staircases with their plant and animal motifs, or the courtyard at the rear with its eclectic design executed in local red brick and the outbuildings with carved bargeboards.

The once planned apartments were never built on the site, and the rubble of a grand old house that once looked down towards the harbour and out to sea – the rubble of a house that once played a minor role in Irish architectural and political history – shows no traces of a forgotten grandeur.

The harbour at Courtown Harbour was built by the Stopford family as a famine relief project in the 1840s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Back in Courtown, we parked above the north beach. The tide was in as far as the rocks, and we walked south and around the harbour, built in the 1840s at a cost of £25,000 as a famine relief programme by the Stopford family, Earls of Courtown. Apart from a few shops and a few strollers, the town looked deserted, many of its former seaside hotels closed and boarded up.

A deserted look at the old Courtown Hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

The former Courtown Hotel is on the market, but even there the estate agent’s “For Sale” sign has started to fall off the wall precariously, and the shutters on the windows have fallen away in many places.

From Courtown, we drove out through Riverchapel and Ardamine, passed one caravan park after another, with sale signs offering mobile homes and caravans for rock bottom prices.

On we went through Ballygarret, past Church pretty Clonevan Church near Cahore Point, and the wind generating farm before reaching Kilmuckridge.

Wind turbines on a ridge near Kilmuckridge, Co Wexford this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Down on Morriscastle Beach, the tide was out and the fine white and golden yellow sands stretched for miles in both directions. We were undisturbed as we walked along the shore line, listening to the waves roll and then break. Despite the low temperatures, it was possible to imagine that this was an early Spring if not a an early Summer day.

Looking across Wexford Harbour towards Wexford Town in the fading lights of the early evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Eventually – and reluctantly – we left, and continued along the coast road to Wexford, stopping briefly at Ardcavan, south of Castlebridge, to enjoy the view across the harbour to Wexford Town.

We parked beside the railway line on the Quays, and summer days came to mind when we placed pennies on the tracks and waited for trains to roll over them and flatten them into misshapes.

We had lunch in La Dolce Vita in Trimmer’s Lane, a broad square close to North Main Street and below the ruins of Selskar Abbey. It was a wonderful lunch, and it called for a stroll through the town’s narrow streets afterwards.

The shops in North Main Street reflected in the windows of Saint Iberius’s Church, Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

At one stage, I found myself catching reflections of the shops in North Main Street in the windows of Saint Iberius’s Church, and I was giving thanks for life and ministry of the late Canon Norman Ruddock.

A few moments later, I found myself in High Street, remembering balmy and youthful days filled with poetic idealism forty years ago.

Back on South Main Street, I was bought as a birthday present Leonard Cohen’s new album, Old Ideas, which was released today.

As we drove back under a star-filled night sky, we listened to new songs from the old maestro all the way to Dublin.

Looking across at the former ‘Wexford People’ offices from the back of High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)