good morning and welcome to a very different looking dinery garden at canterbury cathedral we've come outside to show you the complete transformation that the continuous falling snow over the last more than 24 hours now has brought to us and it's a beautiful sight to see the snow has carpeted all the gardens the little growing plants are snug under the snow it has a very protective quality to them and as we say our prayers from across the world well enjoy the winter landscape and bring your own concerns and prayers on this monday the 8th of february as we come together early in the morning i must say that my friend leo here who's covered in snow isn't caring about it this morning he's had wonderful games with the snow jumping in it and allowing the the flakes to fall all over him i don't know how long that will last let's begin our prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ's day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night bless the lord all you works of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you heavens sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you angels of the lord bless the lord all you his hosts bless the lord you waters above the heavens sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord son and moon bless the lord you stars of heaven bless the lord all reign and dew sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all winds that blow bless the lord you fire and heat bless the lord scorching wind and bitter cold sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord dews and falling snows bless the lord your nights and days bless the lord light and darkness sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord frost and cold bless the lord ice and snow blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son this morning on the eighth morning of the month is psalm 40 and i'm going to read the beginning of that song now i waited patiently for the lord he inclined to me and heard my cry he brought me out of the roaring pit out of the mire and clay he set my feet upon a rock and made my footing sure he has put a new song in my mouth a song of praise to our god many shall see and fear and put their trust in the lord blessed is the one who trusts in the lord who does not turn to the proud that follow a lie grace are the wonders you have done o lord my god how great your designs for all of us there is none that can be compared with you if i were to proclaim and tell of them they would be more than i am able to express sacrifice and offering you do not desire but my ears you have opened burnt offering and sacrifice for sin you have not required then said i lo i come in the scroll of the book it is written of me that i should do your will oh my god i delight to do it your law is within my heart i have declared your righteousness in the great congregation behold i did not restrain my lips and that o lord you know your righteousness i have not hidden in my heart i have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation i have not concealed your loving kindness and truth from the great congregation do not withhold your compassion from me o lord let your love and your faithfulness always preserve me so we turn to the sixth chapter of the gospel of saint mark and i'm beginning just where we left off yesterday at verse 53. when jesus and his disciples had crossed over they came to land at jenissarit and moored to the shore and when they got out of the boat the people immediately recognized jesus and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was and wherever he came in villages cities or countryside they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment and as many as touched it were made well it's a wonderful little paragraph ending that dramatic chapter which we've read over the last three days and we see once again the boat bringing jesus and his disciples we've gone back to that word because they're learners in this and finding the lessons hard just after they'd been called as we said yesterday apostles on the return from their mission two by two because they were so exuberant about the things that they had been able to share with the people and the authority they seemed to have and then suddenly it all collapsed with the inability to understand the true vocation of that which jesus was discovering about the ministry of the christ the anointed one bringing the quality of the kingdom of heaven and the gift of the divine spirit to our humanity and yet the psalm which jesus must have known very well because he of course would have had the psalms as his constant companions and none better than psalm 40 in the scroll of the book it is written of me that i should do your will oh my god i delight to do it your law is within my heart but even more so in verse 8 burnt offering and sacrifice for sin you have not required then said i lo i come the response of jesus the human figure of jesus to the divine vocation as the christ the messiah which is now being shared with those who are disciples learners as they go across the lake and land on the north western shore between capernaum and magdala father south in what might be called the plain of jesuit there and this is a general pericopy little piece which mark has put at the end of chapter six gathering up all the things that were happening see how he says walking about in villages in cities in towns out in the countryside and the people racing to enjoy this ministry perhaps it's time for us to think how mark has shaped his gospel for in this gospel jesus goes up to jerusalem only once mark has so arranged it that the galilean ministry comes first and in that jesus himself is a learner he's reacting to the people's needs but he's also reacting to all those sounds and pieces of prophecy and the law inside him known by heart reacting to the sentences which speak to him a new and afresh he's just come down from the mountain and joined the turbulent boat in the in the waters and created calm and now they've come to jenezerit and the ministry continues marcus strung all those galilean episodes together right at the beginning of the gospel and takes us into chapter seven and then into chapter eight these will become extremely significant chapters for us and happily we're able to conclude that galilean ministry before we get to ash wednesday on the 17th of february for the gallon minute galileo ministry is the crucible in which jesus works out in almost a white heat of prayer with the father and interaction with the twelve and the wider band of those following him and the town spoke and their need of his own country galilee rural galilee by the lakeside and we shall go on now up until ash wednesday with saint mark and that will allow us to complete the galilean ministry and that learning of them all but there's much more to learn because then since mark takes us on further and then begins the journey to jerusalem taken just once in st john's gospel and we shall be with john's gospel through the first weeks of lent there are several journeys up to jerusalem and back to other areas but in st mark only one let's remind ourselves this isn't a biography it's a setting out of the good news of jesus christ who in the first verse of his gospel the evangelist proclaims the son of god jesus himself referring constantly to himself as son of man the symbol of our humanity that word in the greek for man there is is one which includes us all of whatever gender not like the one at the end of the feeding of the five thousand which was very much sort of signifying almost an army in groups as we saw and that's very much men a very different word but but on this occasion we are thinking of a little i don't know a collection almost a mosaic of the ministry in galilee on the shores of the lakeside at jenezerit a place that jesus would have known well not too far from home and remember we've had the hidden 30 years of his life the life of us and mark says the carpenter who says that in the mouths remember of his friends and neighbors when he is at home just a chapter or two ago so let's give thanks for that galilean ministry as we continue tomorrow and the day after with that story tomorrow we drop back into controversy but for today it's a hopeful and good chapter of the fruitful ministry of jesus and the twelve so let's just think for a moment about things which have happened on this date in the past we're talking about february the 8th and um some tragic things have happened on this day mary queen of scots was beheaded one of the hardest decisions queen elizabeth the first was ever forced to make after evidence of mary's complicity in the babington plot to to murder her elizabeth the first um but nevertheless her heart was rung to pieces as having to sign as the sovereign the political head of state and she in the end does sign and mary queen of scots is executed on this day perhaps even harder on this day in 1601 the earl of essex which she'd had a close and it's thought to be romantic relationship with um raised a revolution against her and it lasted only three weeks and then the wisdom of her counselors when they had captured essex said this man also must be executed and the queen had to just send them away and and think and with their heart and mind all through this so it's a day for remembering hard political decisions that our leaders have to make uh not generally these days about death penalties but nevertheless hard political decisions and they're doing it on our behalf and for the stability of the state and then we think more happily in 1693 that in the united states the college of william and mary was founded by charter of king william and queen mary who reigned jointly here at the end of the 17th century and we have a close connection here because at the college of william and mary there's a canterbury chaplain and our good friend tyler montgomery held that for several years he's not there now but we keep in touch with him and it's near colonial williamsburg which maybe some of you have been to where the time is reenacted of about i don't know 1775 or so and it's a wonderful place to go and brewton parish church which is the old parish church in the middle of that uh is a place where the canterbury chaplain under the rector chris epperson when we were there um was carrying out a parish ministry as well as the college ministry so our prayers over there and giving thanks for our connection with that from canterbury what else do we have on this day strange things like in 1855 mysterious devil's footprints appearing in south devon in the snow we've no idea how that happened but the tale certainly grew should we say grew legs and you see he has mysterious footsteps in the snow and we know it's it's leo and then in 1983 the horse shergar was captured kidnapped and never reappeared the ransom demanded for this agar khan's derby winner was two million pounds and it was never paid and the horse never reappeared and then what else do we remember that james dean sadly who was born on this day in 1931 and we remember that he died in 1955 in a car accident and is his legend continues even though he was only in three films really and then perhaps i would want to remember iris murdoch who died on this day in 1999 a novelist a philosopher who was brought by archbishop ranci when he was the principal of the seminary in constant to help us understand relationships and morality and that which is divine and philosophy and so on a great person and we remember also her husband john bailey but i i like best her book the bell and which she published in 1958 she died after two years of total alzheimer's which is an extraordinary thing with that wonderful mind but it causes us to remember those who have to look after people with alzheimer's and that was well told in john bailey's book and in the film iris 1828 jules verne was born a man of such imagination he could be called the father of all those um what would you call it um science and and and uh the the the kind of books which take us out into outer space and all of those things um so uh let's remember his journey to the center of the earth his from the earth to the moon when the rocket went up his 20 000 leagues under the sea with the nautilus submarine and captain nemo and perhaps best of all around the world in 80 days he was writing in the 1860s none of those things were happening his imagination was absolutely massive and so we remember him today with thanksgiving because most of us have seen one film or another about based on those books and they've been translated into just about every every language well that brings me probably to the person that i wanted to remember most this morning and that's john ruskin he lived from 1819 to 1900 and was very much an interpreter of creative art architecture and all kinds of ways in which humanity joins its creator in being creative he was a man whose parents had taught him the scriptures almost by heart his mother used to say chapters of the scriptures with him saying alternate verses and that stayed with him through quite a pilgrimage of faith and doubt and faith and yet at the same time his own exploration went on he said i'm going to quote two of his things it would take all morning to talk about ruskin but he said no true disciple of mine will ever be a ruskinian but will follow not me but the instincts of their own soul and the guidance of its creator he was one who wrote about the painting of turner and the pre-raphaelites and those who by their painting and their realism explored the depths of creation well this would make the most wonderful painting today here but ruskin was interested in actually explaining in the best possible way for words were really his medium and he was respected for it tolstoy described him as one of the most remarkable men not only of england of our generation but of all countries and all times what a what a tribute from leo tolstoy but just as tolstoy translated his work into russian gandhi quoted him extensively and translated his work into languages that his own people could understand and proust translated him into french three very different characters tolstoy gandhi and proust and yet the influence of ruskin on writers and artists all over the world continues and we remember his seven lamps of architecture and in that the lamps were moral categories for architects building for people building anything for people sacrifice truth power beauty life memory and obedience and then his books the stones of venice where he extolled the beauties of venice and began to explore not restoration which half the time destroyed what was there but conservation and preservation and making sure that things were safe just as the snow is is actually protecting all the tender things which are growing so he wanted a preservation and an atmosphere and an ecology which would protect what was very fine in creation he wrote them while staying in the hotel danieli or those of you who know that uh a wonderful hotel the last time we were there it was at aqua alta and i remember that the magnificent front hall being actually a lake but they were quite used to it the marvel floors uh were simply given little stands and and duck boards to walk across as we went out and then opposite and you can see it better in the bedroom window that marvelous sight across to the quiescent giorgio maggiore and across the the gondolas just the the most wonderful part of of venice to look at but for for ruskin it was a time to think and he wrote there is no wealth but life life including all its powers of love of joy and of admiration that country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings that person is richest who having perfected the functions of their own life to the utmost has always the widest helpful influence both personal and by means of their possessions over the lives of others it was that which attracted gandhi that kind of statement so from his christian foundations he was able to talk to people as diverse as tolstoy and as a post and gandhi and a host of others and i wish we could talk about him a bit more this morning but there we are let's say our prayers on this snowy morning and this morning i actually have brought the right sheet so let me first of all pray for those i missed yesterday having bought the wrong sheet and that was the dia the uh the the diocese of um uh the anglican church of burundi and then also the parish in our diocese of hedcorn and the suttons under their priest fiona haskett and this morning the eighth of the month then we're praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of saint andrews dunkeld and dunblane in the scottish episcopal church and in this diocese for archbishop justin and for bishop rose of dover for bishop tim at lambeth and the parish of st michael and all angels and for nicola harvey in her ministry there and all the people of those parishes well bring your own prayers and intentions on this snowy morning here whatever the weather is like for you but most of all bring those whom you would want to pray for in whatever kind of danger or necessity or joy that they find themselves in or simply because they come to mind with anything that we've said this morning here is the prayer for this week almighty god you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children through jesus christ your son our lord who with you and the holy spirit reign supreme over all things now and forever amen so we say each in our own language the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men moment here then in the silence of the snow and for you in silence to make your own prayers and intentions the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen [Music] you