Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 101, Tuesday 19 August 2025

‘Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (Matthew 19: 24) … a camel at the Goreme Open Air Museum in Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IX, 17 August 2025).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Squeezing through the Eye of a Needle? … a narrow, low gate in the streets of Tangier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 19: 23-30 (NRSVA):

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’

27 Then Peter said in reply, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ 28 Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’

‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor’ (Matthew 19: 21) … a town centre hotel for sale in Ballybunion, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

A rich young man has come to Jesus seeking advice. He has many possessions, but he knows this is not enough. He wants to possess eternal life, and comes to Jesus for advice. When Jesus suggests he should go, sell his possessions, and give the money to the poor and then return and follow him, the young man ‘went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’

Then Jesus tells the disciples ‘it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven … it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’

During her sermon preparation some years ago, a priest colleague asked on Facebook: ‘If a fire broke out in your house, what three possessions would you grab?’

The answers she got were interesting. People included their laptop (with their photographs), their phone, their keys, their wallet or purse with their plastic cards, and their passport.

What would you take with you?

What do we cling to?

I once had a large collection of old banknotes. They were enough to make me a millionaire or even a multimillionaire … in Weimar Germany, war-time Greece or Ceausescu’s Romania. But in reality they are worth nothing today and would earn no interest apart from the interest they might have for collectors.

They were in circulation at times when inflation became rampant in those countries and at times of crisis in Europe. Had they been spent at the time they were issued they might have bought something of value; had they been given away in their day, they might have helped the poor and the hungry. But circumstances saw to it that those who became attached to their wealth on paper would lose all they had.

The Gospel reading this morning challenges us to think again what we cling to and what are our true values.

Does the faith of the man who falls down before Christ in the Gospel reading depend on his own wealth and money? When our prosperity and wealth disappear, like the fast-fading value of those banknotes, are we in danger of feeling abandoned by God?

How would we grab our faith and take it with us if we rushed to escape a crisis?

In the Gospel reading yesterday, the man runs up to Jesus, and falls on his kneels as if in adoration, or like a servant before a master, and asks what he should do to inherit eternal life.

Christ’s response is cautious. Is he challenging the man to see whether he really knows the Ten Commandments? Or is he testing the man to see how he has acquired his riches and wealth?

The man slinks away because he has much property.

What acts as a ball and chain that holds us back in our lives today, leaving us not fully free to follow Jesus? I may not have much property. But is there something else that I need to shed, in my attitudes, values, habits, behaviour, priorities, use of time, commitment or lack of commitment?

In his compassion, Christ sees this man’s weakness. He has emphasised his relationship with others. But is this founded on his desire for personal salvation, some sort of personal version of the concept of ‘karma’?

What about his relationship with God?

Does he trust in God because God is God, rather than because of what God can do for him?

The man asks how he may inherit eternal life. Is eternal life something to be inherited, like wealth and social status or place in society? In that society, religion was inherited rather than a matter of personal choice – one was born a Jew, but few people ever became Jews. Is eternal life to be inherited, like religious identity and social class?

Are we in danger at times of thinking that we are entitled to our place in the Kingdom of God?

And in our behaviour, as well as our prayers, do we let God know, and others know, this?

Christ comes to the quick when he points out that this young man puts his trust in his own piety and wealth, in his achievements, in his inherited status. But wealth stands in the way of his relationship with God.

So, Christ tests the man. If he truly loves the poor, he will make a connection between loving God and loving others. The man is shocked and makes quick his departure.

This rich young man may lack nothing, but he wants eternal life. Yet he fails to realise he has met the living God face-to-face, and he turns away.

But Christ does not say the rich and the wealthy cannot find salvation. He says money and riches can hold us back and make it difficult to be true disciples, to enter the kingdom of God. It can be so difficult that, ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (verse 24). The Talmud suggests though it would be even more difficult, perhaps even impossible, where it speaks of ‘an elephant passing through a needle’s eye’ (b. Ber. 55b; b. B. Metz. 38b).

We cannot save ourselves, but God can save us. However, Peter’s implied question (verse 27) points out again how easy it is to think that being a disciple or follower of Christ should be linked with the hope of rewards in the here and now.

I find I have to ask myself again after reading this Gospel passage: What do I cling onto most now that I can shed – not in terms of property and possessions, but prejudices and values – that get between me and Christ, and between the way I live my life and eternal life.

Then will I be happy to get down on my knees, like a camel, and squeeze into the City of God through the smallest and most narrow of the city gates, and find in the most humbling of ways how to squeeze into the Kingdom of God?

The Talmud speaks of the difficulty of ‘an elephant passing through a needle’s eye’ … an elephant in Lichfield Cathedral as part of the March of the Elephants in support of Saint Giles Hospice last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 19 August 2025):

The theme this week (17 to 23 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Tell the Full Story’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 19 August 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we lift up Caribbean church members in the UK, remembering the pain caused by the 2007 abolition anniversary. Heal their hurt, strengthen their voices, and guide us towards true justice and equality for all.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
revive your Church in our day,
and make her holy, strong and faithful,
for your glory’s sake
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Tourists on camels near Levissi (Kayaköy) near Fethiye in Turkey (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

Lewis Carroll, creator of a Wonderland: hidden antisemitism or secret commentary on the Talmud?

Alice drawing back the curtain on Oxford … is there an antisemitic thread in Lewis Carroll’s writings?

Patrick Comerford

I am musing over these few days about Alice in Wonderland and how the Alice stories began on a boat trip in Oxford on 4 July 1862, when Lewis Carroll first told the ‘Alice’ stories to Alice Liddell and her two sisters.

Alice’s Day is an annual city-wide celebration in Oxford on the first Saturday in July of all things about Alice in Wonderland, and this year it takes place tomorrow (6 July). It commemorates the afternoon of 4 July 1862, when the Christ Church don and mathematician Charles Dodgson took 10-year-old Alice and her sisters Edith (then 8) and Lorina (13), daughters of the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, on a boat trip from Folly Bridge to Godstow, where they had a picnic.

Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of the Revd Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. His books have been translated into 70 languages and are still among their best-selling children’s books. They have influenced a great variety of artists and writers, and Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951) remains a cult classic.

What Alice Found There (1871) includes several celebrated poems such as ‘Jabberwocky’, ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ and ‘The Hunting of the Snark.’

Lewis Carroll was a polymath and was a pioneering photographer and portraitist in the early field of photography. He created several games, including a forerunner of Scrabble. He was also an accomplished mathematician and logician credited with establishing much of the foundation for modern logic, number theory and cryptography. Many of his invented words are now part of everyday conversation and many of his expressions have become common catchphrases, including ‘down the rabbit hole’, ‘curiouser and curiouser’, and ‘off with their heads’.

Carroll was an ordained deacon in the Church of England and remained a faithful Anglican throughout his life. But in recent years many writers and researchers have examined his writings more critically and claim that Carroll exhibits unambiguous antisemitism.

He characterised Jews as, among other things, ‘sarcastic’, ‘either hunchbacked or misers’, ‘obsequious unless very young’, ‘squinting’, ‘dishonest’, ‘look like goats’, ‘have beards a yard long’, and, of course, ‘have hooked noses’.

In his use of syllogisms and establishing logical premises, Carroll frequently used phrases such as ‘All Juwes [sic] are greedy.’ In his Symbolic Logic (1897), he used such propositions as ‘No Gentiles have hooked noses’, ‘No Jew is ever a bad hand at a bargain’, ‘There are no Jews in the house’, ‘No Gentiles have beards a yard long’, and – that frequent antisemitic allegation – ‘No Jews are honest.’ His other phrases include ‘No Gentiles say “shpoonj”,’ ‘No Jew is ignorant of Hebrew,’ ‘Some Jews are rich’.

Recent editions of Symbolic Logic retain these phrases, but include prominent disclaimers that the vile language was not deleted in the interests of retaining the historical accuracy of the original work.

Carroll saw Judaism as a religion of whiners and complainers entirely devoid of spirituality. For example, in Chapter 19 of his Sylvie and Bruno, Dr Arthur Forester, a character Carroll portrays as a highly intelligent and ethical character, depicts the Jews as mentally undeveloped. This is evidenced by a blind and faithful adherence to their Old Testament, in which ‘rewards and punishments are constantly appealed to as motives for action. That teaching is best for children, and the Israelites seem to have been, mentally, utter children.’

In Sylvie and Bruno, Carroll tells the story of a tailor – a stereotypical cliché for Jewish trades, although Carroll does not identify him as Jewish – who agrees to extend credit to a customer only if he agrees to pay double the outstanding debt each year.

In an essay ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’ (1930), the economist John Maynard Keynes cites the attempt by Carroll’s tailor to secure specious and illusory future gain as a metaphor for his proposition regarding the irrationality of postponing personal gratification, and observes that Carroll almost certainly intended the tailor to be Jewish.

In a diary entry in 1885, Lewis Carroll comments on a children’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. He writes: ‘It was a very charming performance, and some of them have lovely voices, specially Elsie Joel who acted Mabel: she looks Jewish.’ It is as though Carroll is saying she was a surprisingly good actress, even though she is Jewish. Other reviewers admired Elsie’s performance without mentioning her Jewish appearance.

On the other hand, in correspondence on 18 August 1884, Carroll wrote: ‘One hospital manager wrote that he knew a place where there were a number of sick children, but he was afraid I wouldn’t like to give them any books – and why, do you think? ‘Because they are Jews!’ I wrote to say [that] of course I would give them some! Why in the world shouldn’t little Israelites read Alice’s Adventures as well as other children?

Perhaps on that occasion Carroll’s love of children trumped his contempt for Jews. He had already characterised Jews as ‘obsequious unless very young’, suggesting his animus towards Jews did not extend to Jewish children.

Carroll delighted in puzzles, metaphors, wordplay, and invented words – consider ‘Jabberwocky’, for example. There are many theories about the cryptic allegorical meanings of the Alice stories. Freudians, for their part, suggest his books represent an outlet for his repressed desires.

Some writers see Alice as a secret history of religious controversies in Victorian England, others as a metaphor for the monstrous mindlessness of the universe. Martin Gardner argues in The Annotated Alice, the entirety of Through the Looking Glass is a chess game ‘in which living pieces are ignorant of the game’s plan and cannot tell if they move under their own will or by invisible fingers.’ Indeed, Alice is the only mature and rational character in Wonderland. ‘We are all mad here’, says the Cheshire Cat.

One of the most intriguing, if not bizarre, hypotheses I have come across in recent weeks is by Dr Abraham Ettelson (1897-1971), an American Hasidic Jew and brain surgeon who fought in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.

In a self-published 80-page small book, Through the Looking-Glass Decoded (1966), Ettelson argues that Alice is actually a cryptogram of the Talmud written in code. He notes the frequency and importance of mirrors and inversion in the Alice stories and concludes that Through the Looking Glass and the Talmud are mirror images of each other.

He argues that the principal subtext of Alice and Looking Glass is ‘the Jewish way’ and sees the books as Carroll’s use of a Midrashic approach that employs layered interpretations and ethical analysis to expound on the pshat or the primary meaning of the text.

Ettelson believes Jabberwocky is a code name for the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement. He divides the word ‘Jabberwocky’ into two halves and then reads each part in a mirror; the result is ‘Rebbaj Yckow,’ or Rabbi Jacob. This gamesmanship echoes Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s construction of his own pseudonym: he formed the name by translating his first and middle names, Charles Lutwidge, into Latin, which became Carolus Ludovicus; reversed their order; and translated the name back into English as Lewis Carroll.

The first stanza of ‘Jabberwocky’ is:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Ettelson suggests these opening lines contain no less than half of all the Hebrew letters. One of Carroll’s nonsense words in ‘Jabberwocky is frumious, which Ettelson reads as a fusion of the words frum, a Yiddish word for a devout Jew, and pious. In another instance, the ferocious jaw-snapping Bandersnatch contains an anagram for Satan.

The ball of worsted wool that Alice’s kitten plays with symbolises the woollen tzitzit, which is not a far-fetched suggestion, for worsted wool is a twisted woollen thread and a tzizit is a tassel of twisted cord. Moreover, Carroll says Alice’s kitten ‘curled up in a corner.’ For Ettelson, this evokes the ‘four corners’ on which tzitzit are worn.

Most commentators dismiss the ‘Talmud theory’ as, at best, sheer fantasy. Yet they agree Ettelson’s methodology and analytical framework favourably compare with Carroll’s own logomania.

The illustrator Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), who provided 92 illustrations for the Alice books, was the principal political cartoonist for Punch. His portrayal of Jews included the usual antisemitic features such as a hooked nose and dark, oily hair. In particular, he frequently lampooned Benjamin Disraeli as Fagin, the Jewish leader of a crew of child pickpockets and robbers in Dickens’s Oliver Twist. In one drawing, he has Disraeli instructing his fellow politicians how to effectively pick the pockets of the public.

A cartoon by Tenniel in Punch on 9 August 1890 depicts Tsar Alexander III – a staunch antisemite who accused the Jews of the murder of Alexander II and launched pogroms against them – with his boot on the neck of a feeble and helpless bearded Jew and about to wield his sword of persecution. However, the ‘Ghost of Pharoah’ appears behind him and, speaking from bitter experience, warns ‘Forbear! That weapon [of persecution against the Jews] always wounds the hand that wields it.’

In this classic example of antisemitism, Tenniel is claiming the Jews wield a secret power that they use against those who would abuse them. In later drawings, he claims the Jews of Russia appear weak but are actually rich and powerful and use their secret cabal against poor Russian citizens.

Yet, when a number of prominent Oxford graduates joined in sending a memorial of solidarity to British Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler expressing sorrow and amazement regarding the Russian persecution of Jews, Lewis Carroll was one of the 245 signatories.

Carroll’s statements about Jews remain unexplained. No excuses should ever be made for his statements about Jews. They may well have been within the parameters of Victorian British behaviour, like the rest of his idiosyncrasies. Yet Alice in Wonderland is such a remarkable book and a lasting classic, its readers should wish the author was capable of transcending the common prejudices of his day.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום

Could Jabberwocky is a code name for the Baal Shem Tov?

Praying with the Psalms in Easter: 3 May 2022 (Psalm 69)

‘To the leader: according to Lilies. Of David’ (the superscription in Psalm 69) … the Lily Prince in a fresco in the Minoan palace in Knossos in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have a medical appointment early this morning (3 May 2022) as a follow-up to my stroke a few weeks ago. But, before this day begins, 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 69:

Psalm 69 is sometimes known by its opening words in Latin, Salvum me fac Deus. In the slightly different numbering system in the Greek Septuagint and in the Latin Vulgate, this psalm is counted as Psalm 68.

This Psalm speaks of exile, so it is to be accompanied on the shoshanim or roses – the NRSVA says lilies. The symbolism is that Israel is like a rose, but the trials of exile are like thorns.

David asks God for salvation from troubles that reach the soul like deep water up to one’s neck. David cries for help until he reaches the point of exhaustion and his voice goes hoarse. He strains his eyes scanning the horizon for help, but he sees none.

Most Christian commentaries cannot comfortably place the events in Psalm 69 in the life of King David. Many say this Psalm contains prophecies about Christ, his rejection by his family, and even that he was given vinegar to drink on the cross. But few refer to the traditional Jewish interpretations that Psalm 69 was written during David’s youth.

These traditional Jewish interpretations say Psalm 69 is full of pain, rejection, and hardship because David was an outcast among his family.

They say David grew up in a family in which he was despised, rejected, shunned, and outcast. He was treated with scorn and derision (Psalm 69: 7-8). The community followed the example of the family, and assumed that David was full of sin and guilt (Psalm 69: 11-12). If something turned up missing, they believed he stole it, and forced him to replace it (Psalm 69: 4). He was often the object of jokes and pranks, filling his plate with gall and his cup with vinegar (Psalm 69: 20-21).

If this is true, it somewhat explains why Jesse did not have David present when the Prophet Samuel came to choose a man to be God’s anointed king (see I Samuel 16: 1-13), and why his oldest brother Eliab reacted when David later showed up at the Israelite camp when they were being mocked by Goliath (I Samuel 17: 28).

The traditional Jewish answer to why David’s family rejected him is that they all thought that David’s mother had committed adultery and borne him out of wedlock. They thought he was a bastard – the word ‘stranger’ in verse 8 has the same Hebrew root as muzar, meaning ‘bastard.’

David’s father, Jesse, was the son of Obed, who was the son of Boaz, who married Ruth, the Moabite woman. Jewish traditional law explicitly forbade Hebrew women from marrying Moabite men because of how the Moabites treated the Israelites when they were wandering in the desert after fleeing Egypt. But the law was unclear about whether a Hebrew man could marry a Moabite woman. Boaz believed the law allowed such a marriage, and so he married Ruth.

However, according to the Midrash, Boaz died on the night he and Ruth were married (Midrash Zuta Ruth 4). Many believed his death proved that God had condemned Boaz’s marriage to Ruth, and had punished him. And yet, after this one night, Ruth conceived and gave birth to Obed.

Obed was regarded as illegitimately born, as was his own son Jesse. Nevertheless, both of these men laboured hard in learning the Torah and loving God. Their lives helped convince others that although Boaz had sinned, they were accepted by God as part of the covenant community.

Jesse married a Jewish girl, Nizbeth (Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra 91a). After Jesse had been married for many years, had fathered seven sons with Nizbeth, and had gained honour as a righteous man and spiritual leader, he began to doubt whether his line and seed were permanently polluted by his Moabite blood. It was at this point that he resolved to cease all sexual relations with Nizbeth. He did this out of love for her, because she, as a pure Israelite, would be sinning to be married to someone who was of impure Moabite ancestry.

Furthermore, Jesse began to doubt the legitimacy of his seven sons. If he was impure, then his children were illegitimate and impure as well. So, wanting a legitimate heir, Jesse came up with a plan to have a son in the same way that his forefather Abraham had done: through relations with his wife’s Canaanite maidservant.

Whether Jesse was viewed by God as a true Israelite or just as a Moabite convert to Judaism, the law allowed him to marry a female convert to Judaism. If they had a son, he would be recognised as a legitimate heir, thus securing Jesse’s family line.

When the Canaanite woman heard of this plan, she did not want to take part, for she loved Nizbeth, and had seen the pain that she had gone through by being separated from her husband for many years. She told Nizbeth about Jesse’s plan, and they decided to do what Laban had done with Leah and Rachel. On the night that Jesse was to have intimate relations with the Canaanite maidservant, she switched places with Nizbeth. Nizbeth conceived that night, and Jesse remained ignorant of what had taken place.

Several months later, Nizbeth began to show that she was pregnant, and Jesse and her seven sons believed that she had committed adultery. The sons wanted to kill their adulterous mother by stoning her and her illegitimate baby. But out of love for his wife, Jesse intervened. Nizbeth did not reveal to her husband that the child was his, for she did not want to embarrass him by revealing the truth of what had happened. Instead, she chose to bear the shame of their son, much as her Tamar was prepared to be burned rather than bring public shame upon Judah, her father-in-law and the father of her child (see Genesis 38: 24-25).

David grew up in a family in which he was despised, rejected, shunned and outcast, as described in Psalm 69. He was treated with scorn and derision. The community followed the example of the family, and assumed that David was full of sin and guilt. If something turned up missing, they believed he stole it, and forced him to replace it. He was often the object of jokes and pranks, filling his plate with gall and his cup with vinegar.

It was said that all the great qualities of Boaz were to be found in Jesse and his seven sons, while all the despicable traits of Ruth the Moabite were concentrated in David. The tradition is that this is also why David’s family forced David to be the shepherd in the fields by himself … they were hoping a bear or lion might kill him.

This may also help explain why later in life, when David was fleeing from a murderous Saul, David asked the King of Moab to harbour his mother and father (I Samuel 22: 3-4).

Some years later, when David became King of Israel, he slaughtered two-thirds of the Moabite army. According to Jewish tradition, this was because after David left his three family members under the protection of the King of Moab, the King killed David’s father and mother, but left his brother alive (see II Samuel 8: 2).

Indeed, this may also explain why David, when he was confessing his own adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, he says ‘In sin my mother conceived me …’ (see Psalm 51: 5).

‘I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me’ (Psalm 69: 2) … winter floods in Kilcoole, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 69 (NRSVA):

To the leader: according to Lilies. Of David.

1 Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
3 I am weary with my crying;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.

4 More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;
many are those who would destroy me,
my enemies who accuse me falsely.
What I did not steal
must I now restore?
5 O God, you know my folly;
the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

6 Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me,
O Lord God of hosts;
do not let those who seek you be dishonoured because of me,
O God of Israel.
7 It is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
that shame has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my kindred,
an alien to my mother’s children.

9 It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;
the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.
10 When I humbled my soul with fasting,
they insulted me for doing so.
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became a byword to them.
12 I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate,
and the drunkards make songs about me.

13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.
With your faithful help 14 rescue me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.
15 Do not let the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the Pit close its mouth over me.

16 Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
17 Do not hide your face from your servant,
for I am in distress – make haste to answer me.
18 Draw near to me, redeem me,
set me free because of my enemies.

19 You know the insults I receive,
and my shame and dishonour;
my foes are all known to you.
20 Insults have broken my heart,
so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none;
and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They gave me poison for food,
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

22 Let their table be a trap for them,
a snare for their allies.
23 Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
and make their loins tremble continually.
24 Pour out your indignation upon them,
and let your burning anger overtake them.
25 May their camp be a desolation;
let no one live in their tents.
26 For they persecute those whom you have struck down,
and those whom you have wounded, they attack still more.
27 Add guilt to their guilt;
may they have no acquittal from you.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;
let them not be enrolled among the righteous.
29 But I am lowly and in pain;
let your salvation, O God, protect me.

30 I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 This will please the Lord more than an ox
or a bull with horns and hoofs.
32 Let the oppressed see it and be glad;
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
33 For the Lord hears the needy,
and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

34 Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and everything that moves in them.
35 For God will save Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah;
and his servants shall live there and possess it;
36 the children of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall live in it.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Truth Tellers.’ It was introduced on Sunday morning by Steve Cox, Chair of Christians in the Media.

The USPG Prayer Diary this morning (3 May 2022, World Press Freedom Day) invites us to pray:

We pray for journalists and all who work in the media. May we work to protect press freedom across the world.

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

‘Make the bonds of sleep fall on my eyes, and slumber on my eyelids’

‘When you are disturbed, do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent’ – words from Psalm 4: 4 used in the traditional Jewish prayers before sleep at night … ‘every night I flood my bed with tears’ (Psalm 6: 6) … a traditional Cretan bedroom near Vryses (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

On this Friday evening, I am reflecting on the traditional Jewish prayers before sleep at night, which begin:

‘Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who makes the bonds of sleep fall on my eyes, and slumber on my eyelids.

‘May it be your will, Lord my God and God of my fathers, that you make me lie down in peace and arise in peace.

‘Let not my imagination, bad dreams or troubling thoughts disturb me.

‘May my bed be flawless before you.

‘Enlighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death, for it is you who illuminate the pupil of the eye.

‘Blessed are you, Lord, who gives light to the whole world in his glory.’

Writing about these traditional prayers before sleep at night, the former Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan) Sachs, says: ‘Just as our first words in the morning should be words of prayer, so should our last at night.’

He identifies ten components of these night prayers:

1, a prayer for peaceful sleep and a safe awakening, mentioned in the Talmud (Berachot 60b);

2, the first paragraph of the Shema, ensuring these words are with us ‘when we lie down’;

3, Psalm 91, a prayer for protection from danger;

4, Psalm 3, chosen because of its reference to night: ‘I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me’ (Psalm 3: 5);

5, ‘Help us lie down …’ – three paragraphs from the evening service;

6, ‘May the angel who rescued me from all harm …’ – a series of Biblical verses about safety and security;

7, A verse about angels, based on ‘The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them’ (Psalm 34: 7) and ‘He will command his angels about you, to guard you in all your ways’ (Psalm 91: 11);

8, Psalm 128, about work, recalling the phrase from Ecclesiastes 5: 12, ‘Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much; but the surfeit of the rich will not let them sleep’

9, ‘When you are disturbed, do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent’ – words from Psalm 4: 4, mentioned in the Talmud (Berachot 4b) as an appropriate verse before sleep;

10, The hymn Adon Olam (אֲדוֹן עוֹלָם‎), ‘Eternal Lord’ or ‘Sovereign of the Universe,’ one of the best-known and best-loved Jewish prayers. It has been a regular part of the daily and Shabbat liturgy since the 15th century. It is said here because of its closing lines with their reference to entrusting our souls and bodies to God’s safekeeping at night:

Into his hand I commit my spirit
When I sleep, and I awake

And with my spirit, my body
The Lord is with me, I will not fear.

Shabbat Shalom



Scripture references are to 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

White horses on the sea at Ballybunion and ponies and riders in the water

White horses, with ponies and riders on the shoreline at Ballbunion, Co Kerry, on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

One of the pleasures I miss from the each coast in recent years is the excitement that builds up around the annual races on the beach at Bettystown and Laytown, three miles of golden beach on the ‘Gold Coast’ of Co Meath. These races are colourful, exciting and unique, and this is the only race event in Ireland that is run on a beach under the Rules of Racing.

The first recorded meeting was over 250 years ago in 1868, when races were run as a side show to the Boyne Regatta, with the rowing competition taking place on the high tide and the racing later at low tide. The Home Rule leader, Charles Stuart Parnell, was one of the first stewards at these races.

At one time, strand races were common throughout Ireland: they were run at Milltown Malbay, and at Baltray and Termonfeckin in Co Louth, and even feature in the movie The Quiet Man.

I was reminded of these colourful races on Sunday afternoon when I went for a walk on the beach at Ballybunion after our first services in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, and Saint Brendan’s Church, Tarbert, with the easing of restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.

There was a strong wind, and the sea breeze was blowing sand into our eyes as we walked from the South Beach to the North Breach.

Despite a red flag warning of the high waves, some surf boarders were braving the water and the white horses, under the watch of lifeguards.

And, as we walked, three ponies and their riders came into view below the cliffs, enjoying an afternoon canter at the point where the waves meet the sand.

There is a classical Japanese phrase, Jinba ittai, expressed in a four-character compound (人馬 – 体) and describing how a horse and rider become one.

The phrase was used some years ago in an advertising campaign by Mazda to describe a driver and car. But this description of the unity of horse and rider as one, which comes from Japanese mounted archery, could have described the scene out of time on the shoreline at Ballybunion on Sunday afternoon.

On the other hand, horses and riders must have seemed as one to slaves fleeing Egypt when Pharaoh’s pursuing troops and horses were drowned as the waters of the Red Sea closed again.

In the story in Exodus, Moses and the people sing to God:

‘I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea’ (see Exodus 15: 1 ff).

This song is known as the ‘Song of Moses and Miriam,’ the ‘Song of the Sea,’ or as the ‘Song of Miriam,’ to distinguish it from the ‘Song of Moses’ (see Deuteronomy 32). It was deleted from the Canticles in the Book of Common Prayer (2004) when it was revised in the Church of Ireland almost 20 years ago.

In the Talmud, in Megillah 10b, Pesachim 64b, and Sanhedrin 39b, the rabbis tell a corrective story about this song. In the story, attributed variously to Rabbi Yochanan or Rabbi Yonatan, God hears the angels singing and rejoicing, and asks, ‘Why are you rejoicing?’

The angels reply, ‘Your children, the Hebrew children, were saved today.’

God then rebukes the angels as he asks, ‘Did you not know that the Egyptians who died today were also my children? My children are drowning and you would sing my praises?’

Meanwhile, the next Laytown races are planned for 1 September 2020.

White horses in the water at Ballybunion on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

‘Bless me with peace, O messengers of peace’ …two Sabbath Eve hymns

Welcoming the Sabbath Queen … an exhibition in the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

There is a Jewish legend or story in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 119b) that two angels accompany the Jew from the home to the synagogue on Sabbath Eve.

If the home has been made festive in honour of the Sabbath, with a lamp burning and a table set, the good angel says the good angel says, ‘So may it be also next Sabbath.’ And the evil angel answers, against his will, ‘Amen.’

And if the person’s home is not prepared for Shabbat in that manner, the evil angel says: ‘May it be your will that it shall be so for another Shabbat.’ And the good angel answers, against his will: ‘Amen.’

A hymn dating from the 17th century and based on this legend is traditionally sung on returning home after the Sabbath Eve Service, but has recently become popular also as a synagogue hymn.

There is a version of this hymn in Service of the Heart, the prayer book published in London by the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues in 1967, and which I use regularly in my daily prayers. In this version, recommended for use at the kindling of the Sabbath lights, the reference to ministering angels’ has been changed to ‘messengers of peace’:

Peace be to you, O messengers of peace,
messengers of the Most High,
of the supreme King of kings,
the Holy One, praised be he.

Enter in peace, O messengers of peace,
messengers of the Most High,
of the supreme King of kings,
the Holy One, praised be he.

Bless me with peace, O messengers of peace,
messengers of the Most High,
of the supreme King of kings,
the Holy One, praised be he.

Depart in peace, O messengers of peace,
messengers of the Most High,
of the supreme King of kings,
the Holy One, praised be he.

A Sabbath Eve story of two angels is told in the ‘Babylonian Talmud’ (‘Shabbat’ 119b)

L’Cho Dodi (לכה דודי‎) is a Hebrew-language Jewish liturgical song recited Friday at dusk, usually at sundown, in synagogue to welcome Shabbat before the evening services, and is part of the Kabbalat Shabbat or ‘welcoming of Sabbath.’

The Sabbath gently steals in with the very beginning of dusk on Friday evening. Traditionally, it is compared with a queen coming to visit her subjects, bestowing peace and serenity.

Earlier this afternoon I was listening to a version of L’Cho Dodi recorded by the Jewish story-teller and folk musician Mike Tabor. L’Cho Dodi means ‘come my beloved,’ and is a request of a mysterious ‘beloved’ that could mean either God or one’s friends to join in welcoming Queen Shabbat.’

While the last verse is being sung, the entire congregation rises and turns to the west towards the setting sun – or towards the entrance to the synagogue – to greet Queen Shabbat as she arrives.

If you think there are Greek echoes in this song, then perhaps it is because it was composed in the 16th century by Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, who was born in Thessaloniki and later became a Safed Kabbalist.

As was common at the time, the song is also an acrostic, with the first letter of the first eight stanzas spelling the author’s name. The author draws from the rabbinic interpretation of Song of Songs in which the maiden is seen as a metaphor for the Jews and the lover is a metaphor for God, and from Nevi’im, which uses the same metaphor.

The song shows Israel asking God to bring upon that great Shabbat of Messianic deliverance. It is one of the latest of the Hebrew poems regularly accepted into the liturgy, both in the southern use, which the author followed, and in the more distant northern rite.

Inside the Monasterioton Synagogue, the only surviving, pre-war working synagogue in Thessaloniki … ‘L’Cho Dodi’ was composed by Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, who was born in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Sabbath – L’Cho Dodi (‘Come my beloved’)

Chorus:

Let’s go, my beloved, to meet the bride,
and let us welcome the presence of Shabbat.

‘Safeguard’ and ‘Remember’ in a single utterance,
We were made to hear by the unified God,
God is one and God’s Name is one,
In fame and splendour and praiseful song.

To greet Shabbat let’s go, let’s travel,
For she is the wellspring of blessing,
From the start, from ancient times she was chosen,
Last made, but first planned.

Sanctuary of the king, royal city,
Arise! Leave from the midst of the turmoil;
Long enough have you sat in the valley of tears
And He will take great pity upon you compassionately.

Shake yourself free, rise from the dust,
Dress in your garments of splendour, my people,
By the hand of Jesse’s son of Bethlehem,
Redemption draws near to my soul.

Rouse yourselves! Rouse yourselves!
Your light is coming, rise up and shine.
Awaken! Awaken! utter a song,
The glory of the Lord is revealed upon you.

Do not be embarrassed! Do not be ashamed!
Why be downcast? Why groan?
All my afflicted people will find refuge within you
And the city shall be rebuilt on her hill.

Your despoilers will become your spoil,
Far away shall be any who would devour you,
Your God will rejoice concerning you,
As a groom rejoices over a bride.

To your right and your left you will burst forth,
And the Lord will you revere
By the hand of a child of Peretz,
We will rejoice and sing happily.

Come in peace, crown of her husband,
Both in happiness and in jubilation
Amidst the faithful of the treasured nation
Come O Bride! Come O Bride!