good morning and welcome to the deanery garden on this 29th of april thursday morning and we are beginning with a message because uh in at the weekend a young rugby player james lassis who was educated at brighton college here as a sussex person played for the harlequins team and was playing in nice and a scrum collapsed on him and injured his back so badly he's now in intensive care in nice and his mother judy who was watching the match and watched it all unfold has asked on television has asked for messages of love and support to be sent from everyone to james and we send that from canterbury this morning and say our prayers for him to and for his parents who have now flown to nisunda with him there so just a message across the world of love and support for james and on this day uh we've come into the greenhouse one of the working greenhouses and we are the guests not only of tiger and achilles here achilles eating his dandelion breakfast um but also of the seedlings impatient seedlings the promised rain from yesterday did not arrive in the night it's a strange place this uh nose which sticks out at the east of kent into the the channel because we seem to have a microclimate of our own which sometimes completely confounds weather forecasting but i don't remember a drier april and we were both trying to remember if we'd seen a drop of rain at all through the month of april which is meant to give us april showers at the same time though that's not why the seedlings are still in here so impatiently the nights the north wind is still blowing and the the weather vanes on the top of belle harry are showing north winds still and frost has been the hallmark of the knights and so these uh little seedlings are safer in here for now but they should be being planted out so when the wind changes its direction and it's may the first on saturday we hope we can begin to plant these out so let's remember some things just before we begin there i wanted two congratulations to give and uh the first goes to the duke and duchess of cambridge who ten years ago today on this day which was a great festival day in england uh they were married in westminster abbey and uh we remember the happiness of that day but i remember also bishop richard charters who was then the bishop of london standing in the pulpit and reminding us that this is catherine of siena day and quoting sin catherine of siena a 14th century saint who died on this day in 1380 age 33 and the sentence he said from her writings a great theologian and a dominican lay member the sentence he used in his sermon and was talking to the bride and groom on that day now the duke and duchess of cambridge be whom god meant you to be and you will set the world on fire well that's a good sentence to begin the day and to send our congratulations to the duke and duchess of cambridge today and at the same time i want just to say and we'll all have personal things to say that today is my god sons luke our 40th birthday and so i say happy birthday to luke albus luke i was born in england on this day 40 years ago but live most of his early life in the netherlands so we also send greetings to lucy and yop and emily and thomas in the netherlands but since then he's come back to work and live his life in england so we also pray for his family here i remember you remember days for silly reasons but i remember being in the hospital with his grandmother mary that day and going to get some tea for everyone waiting as luke was being born and we approached the the tea vending machine at oddsstock hospital in salisbury and pressed the button for some sugar for someone who wanted it and it was meant to come out in short bursts and having pressed it it just began to flow and flow and flow until it was going all over the floor and we crept away guiltily because there was no one else there and we couldn't actually stop this flow and i was saying that to fletcher this morning he said well it would be you that's always always happening in that way uh so um i remember that but especially i want to say happy 40th birthday to luke there will be other things to remember today of course but let's say our prayers first and foremost on this sunny morning in the greenhouse guest of tiger guest of uh achilles here but athena is a run somewhere the tortoises too are kept inside still because of the cold nights oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice alleluia blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the firstfruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your mighty acts 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 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 are men be whom god meant you to be and you will set the world on fire saint catherine of siena so let's say the psalm for today which is psalm 139 for the 29th morning of the month oh lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you o lord know it all together you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i go down into hell you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there also your hand shall lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say peradventure the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness with you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my inmost parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me o god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence search me out o god and know my heart try me and examine my thoughts see if there is any way of wickedness in me and lead me in the way everlasting so we return now to the gospel of saint matthew and take up from where we left off yesterday we're in the first section of those five sections of saint matthew that we've been talking about which each has narrative and then discourse and we're still in the narrative of the first section of saint matthew's gospel after the prelude i'm in chapter 4 and i'm reading from verses 1 to 11. then jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil and after fasting 40 days and 40 nights he was hungry and the tempter came and said to him if you are the son of god command these stones to become loaves of bread but he answered it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of god then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him if you are the son of god throw yourself down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone jesus said to him again it is written you shall not put the lord your god to the test but again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory and he said to him all these i will give you if you will fall down and worship me then jesus said to him be gone satan for it is written you shall worship the lord your god and him only shall you serve then the devil left him and behold angels came and were ministering to him well very different from the markan sentence the in since in mark's gospel everything that happened in the wilderness happens in a short verse and everything is going on together jesus goes into the wilderness and faces temptations and at the same time he is with the wild creatures and at the same time angels are ministering to him and mark then um says that all of that happens and then the spirit has driven jesus into the wilderness following his baptism which speaks of an event shall we say so traumatic in jesus life the baptism and the words that he heard being said as the spirit in the bodily form of a dove descended on him you are my beloved son in whom i am well pleased he has driven into the wilderness to make of that what he will in his vocation and to wrestle with it and with the temptations of what that might mean which are placed into his head here is very different jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness not the same sense of trauma to be tempted by the devil so after fasting 40 days and 40 nights this is sequential the tempter came and it seems that the hunger and thirst in matthew's minds that was induced by those days of fasting caused at the end the hunger to bring the tempter it's an interesting passage and very like the one instant luke and certainly doesn't depend on st mark at all if we're back to our detective let's find the sources this is a story that is common to luke and matthew and the only difference really in the two gospels is that the order of the temptations uh two and three are changed round but apart from that we have the tempter using passages of scripture which was the foundation of jesus's own vocation to tempt him and if you're the son of god command these stones to become loaves of bread and jesus replies with scripture it's jesus who starts with scripture the temptation is from the hunger to start with just your if you're the son of god you could do anything you like then make these stones into bread that's the temptation you don't need to feel human need and hunger and jesus responds with a sentence from scripture man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that cometh from the mouth of god jesus twice uses the book deuteronomy one of the books of the law the pentateuch and the last of the books of the law and once uses a psalm but the devil begins to quote scripture too and the devil is the one who uses the psalm 91 he will command his angels concerning you on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone and we use that as a compliment arm as you well know and the temptation is there's no need for a really hard ministry going around on foot person by person community by community if somebody sees you being carried by angels when you've thrown yourself from the pinnacle of the temple then the game is one they'll know you're the son of god and jesus says in return you shall not put the lord your god to the test everything must be as it is ordained to be full humanity with all its limitations and then finally in this version the third temptation the temptation to kneel down and worship satan and all the power of the world will be given to him and at this time jesus names the tempter and says be gone satan for it is written you shall worship the lord your god and him only shall you serve and it's only then sequentially again that angels come and minister to him the the three gospels luke and matthew and mark are different interpretations of an experience which jesus himself must have spoken of to his friends and were carried then by oral tradition and finally by written tradition so don't be surprised at the differences because what the evangelists are trying to do is not give you a biography but to give you what they believe you need to know to believe in the one who will give the gift of eternal life which can be shared on the good news that will be shared on by you in so many different ways everything in the present tense but founded on the scriptures just as jesus founded his ministry on the scriptures well let's think a little bit about this day because it's a day when there are anniversaries of enormous creativity and new life jesus tomorrow in when we start to read will begin a galilean ministry and it's almost like these little seedlings here there's a tray here which is simply almost bare soil it's a tray of mint which has been recently planted and we'll spring up but for the moment from what seems like a desert we wait for new shoots and it's our task to give the conditions in our lives for those new shoots to grow to let the seed be planted within us which we do by reading the scriptures sharing the sacraments hearing the stories of others and then give those little seedlings the right circumstances to grow each utterly individual and unique from the tiniest seed and that represents us be whom god meant you to be and you will set the world on fire everyone unique and particular this is a day shall i go through uh chronologically shall we say um i want to mention the birth in 1895 of somalian sergeant great choral conductor fantastic musician so elegant in the way he presented himself particularly at the last night of the proms which he conducted from 1947 to 1967 and was a cult figure in his tail coat with his carnation and his wing collar and white tie and was known to all his loving fans throughout the world as flash harry and uh sir adrian bolt in talking about sergeant said he had so many gifts he was a brilliant pianist he was a composer he was an organist above all else he was a conductor particularly of coral works but right across the board and his recordings are so many that he had connections with the royal choral society for years until the day of his death all the way through from 1928 to 1967 and at the same time um the dolly cart opera company and recorded so many of the gilbert and sullivan operas the huddersfield choral society that well we could go on and on in australia and new zealand he toured there and conducted choral works and saw it as his vocation to take his gift to as many people as he possibly could and my goodness he did no one would have been unaware of who this conductor was when they saw him and to see him standing at the last night of the proms in the royal albert hall during all of those years until in the end illness finally ended his career but he came in to give a last message to the promenaders two weeks before his death and he didn't conduct that night he was brought in by colin davies his successor to give a a greeting and it was a last appearance of him looking very ill but immaculate and he died two weeks later and he himself said um i think my musical career was was really built on two recordings and both beginning with m mikado and messiah well that was that was a big joke and exaggeration but i remember going to his uh royal choral society christmas carol services in the albert hall packed albert hall and often he would include one of his own arrangements or compositions it was the first time i heard the czech carol which he had had arranged himself and also of course he did an arrangement of the sea songs which he took on from sir henry wood we could talk a lot about samarkam sergeant but the fact that he didn't concentrate on one particular aspect of his unique creativity but concentrated on sharing that gift we give thanks for on this particular day i want to say also that on this day in 1957 the actor daniel day lewis was born now he holds the record for having won three academy awards three oscars and the only one to do so for the class of best actor and we remember him he was knighted in 2014 but has retired from from acting uh now and i remember first seeing him and noticing him on a television adaptation of jennifer johnston's lovely little novel how many miles to babylon and that's a a time in ireland when the great war was was looming and he plays a young man growing up in ireland at that time the thing about daniel day-lewis has one watched his career on the way through was that he never became typecast every film that he and he got more and more and more famous but every film that he came to seem to be a completely different character and he had a way of interpreting that and throwing his whole self into that the son of uh cecil day lewis who's whose birthday was a few days ago and we remember that i think it was the best day was it yes born on the 27th of april 1904 cecil day lewis who became the poet laureate in 68 to 72 beautiful poetry and a way of of using his huge intellect uh to translate other classical works to write poems of his own but strangely he made his name and his fortune by writing detective stories as well as nicholas blake not as c day lewis and his detective was nigel strangeways still a popular detective in in terms of the books as they are published but fascinating as it goes through creativity being set out for others enjoyment others learning and at the same time others appreciation of what it felt like to be and then you can go through the characters that daniel day lewis portrays in so many of his films we give thanks for that it's another filmmaker we want to mention this morning as well and that is alfred hitchcock and he died on this particular day but we remember his films as a master of suspense and the film i remember his earliest one that i remember is rebecca which was the great novel about the country house and what is going on there and laurence olivier and joan fontaine the film was made in 1940 but we've seen it so many times since then and still it holds that we could name so many of the hitchcock films which have excited us on the way through perhaps the one that's most famous in 1960 is psycho with anthony perkins and that still has the possibility of shocking you're you're you're right on the end of your seats and uh anthony perkins uh playing norman bates uh that that uh in that film and hitchcock always appearing just for a moment in his own films so you wait to spot the moment when he appears colin dexter used to do that in the inspector morse series and also the endeavor series just for a moment you say ah there he is maybe waiting at a bus stop or reading a newspaper or something of that kind in a cafe just giving themselves a moment of fame but never naming themselves just just sort of being there so it's a day of sharing unique gifts and the seedlings are helping to show how that unique gift can be developed in wilderness experiences and then held on to and kept faithful on the way through and then to grow into something which is specific and fruitful for the needs of the world it's a lovely day to be thinking of that but i'm bound to say in this sunshine we're still praying for rain and hope that that will come and a little warmer weather so that my friend here achilles can actually go outside with athini and also that uh tiger can have warmer days uh than being here in the greenhouse because the days are are cold whenever the shade comes so let's say our prayers on this day and we are praying particularly today let me find the list for archbishop justin of course and in the anglican communion the diocese of brisbane in the anglican church of australia the queensland province of uh of the anglican church in australia pray for the bishop and all the people there and here in this diocese for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and the very near parish just along the high street from here in the city of sint dunstan sint mildred and saint peter canterbury pray for joe richards in her ministry there and all the people there in the area encompassed by those parishes in our city so let's say the collect for this particular day as we bring our own prayers almighty god whose son jesus christ is the resurrection and the life raise us who trust in him from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that we may seek those things which are above where he reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so we also use today the prayer for the saint catherine of siena god of compassion who gave your servant catherine of siena a wondrous love of the passion of christ grant that your people may be united to him in his majesty and rejoice forever in the revelation of his glory who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever be whom god meant you to be and you will set the world on fire let's say the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language you like to use 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 amen moment of silence now as we say our own prayers on this day the god of peace who brought again from the dead our lord jesus christ that great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight 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 are men [Music] perhaps it would interest you to know that mildred's church is the oldest church within the city walls of canterbury many churches within the city walls because of the particular place of canterbury within the church of england and also now the anglican communion but also saint dunstan's church which is on the way up to the university but still uh um very near to us so outside the city walls you have to go through the ancient west gate to get to some dunstance and sin dunstan's holds the head of of thomas moore there um who was of course executed by henry viii because he he would not swear the the the oath uh which recognized henry as the supreme head of the church uh and it's there because will roper the husband of uh his moore's daughter had a family house uh say the ropa family were living there and that is very much a a focus of of the st dunstan's parish church there well now little achilles here i'll give you a dandelion flower to have your breakfast here we go a slow breakfast which is the best sort of breakfast really do you want a bit of that very much so hey okay i've been interrupted the digestion but i have no idea where athene is no doubt she will appear a bit later on because they normally walk about together there we are can't find can't find defenie certainly can't see her from here hey let me put you back to your breakfast on the table there we are i think it's the dandelion stalks you're going for isn't it oh and tiger you're behind me here in the straw having some warm sunshine as well this is a good place to be here we are so alright