good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 23rd of october i wanted to begin by saying what a tragedy it is for alec baldwin having accidentally killed someone with a gun that was meant to be an innocent prop for the film that they were making and how awful he must feel there's no explanation for any of this yet but we we really feel heart and soul for someone who in the middle of making something for others enjoyment has actually ended the life of another so so our prayers are for him and of course the family of the one who's died and all those involved in that tragic incident it reminds us how even uh weapons which are are meant to be just props if it's a gun if it's a knife is a sign of something that you really do need to take care of uh gun incidents and we had a gun amnesty here uh some years ago when people were asked to turn in their guns which were unlicensed and everything else and and that happened i think now in this country following sir david amos's murder last weekend or the friday before last weekend a knife amnesty might be the same kind of thing but any kind of weapon of that sort is something that reminds us how much care we need to take of each other and how fragile human life is on this planet well we've come this morning up to the dean's walk it's a favorite place to come we haven't been here for a bit and we've bought bought with the two girls uh clemmy and winnie i'm going to give them their breakfast first otherwise i shall be attacked for not feeding them but they love coming up here they come on rotation to keep the plants down come on can we we nee you can have your breakfast over here there we go okay that's the way i think you'll make short work of that probably there we go [Applause] we don't bring the birds up here because russell loves to go up high and uh cockadoodledoo at the at the top of his voice and uh it wouldn't be a popular sound up here but what you would you do get because there's no tree canopy you'll get a bit more city noise of traffic from over the wall here which is the ancient city wall as well as the precinctual wall as we've said so many times in the past so be welcome and bring your own prayers and concerns on this saturday morning wherever you are it's uh it began with one of those red sky mornings and the sun came up in a gleam of glory along the rim of the earth with a blanket of cloud as well and you'll begin to see the the kind it was peeping through um but you'll begin to see the kind of morning it is no wind no rain just a thin layer of cloud and some blue sky behind me as well which you may catch in the in as we go through oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you praise 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 say may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 23rd morning of the month is psalm 111 alleluia i will give thanks to the lord with my whole heart in the company of the faithful and in the congregation the works of the lord are great sought out by all who delight in them his work is full of majesty and honor and his righteousness endures forever he appointed a memorial for his marvelous deeds the lord is gracious and full of compassion he gave food to those who feared him he is ever mindful of his covenant he showed his people the power of his works in giving them the heritage of the nations the works of his hands are truth and justice all his commandments are sure they stand fast forever and ever they are done in truth and equity he sent redemption to his people he commanded his covenant forever holy and awesome is his name the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have those who live by it his praise endures forever we return to the book of exodus and this morning we are on the eighth plague and it's chapter 10 and i'm beginning at verse 1. then the lord said to moses go into pharaoh for i have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants that i may show these signs of mine among them and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how i have dealt harshly with the egyptians and what signs i have done among them that you may know that i am the lord so moses and aaron went into pharaoh and said to him thus says the lord the god of the hebrews how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me let my people go that they may serve me for if you refuse to let my people go behold tomorrow i will bring locusts into your country and they shall cover the face of the land so that no one can see the land and they shall eat what is left to you after the hail and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field and they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the egyptians as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen from the day they came on earth to this day then moses turned and went out from pharaoh and pharaoh's servant said to him how long shall this man be a snare to us let the men go that they may serve the lord their god do not yet understand egypt is ruined so moses and aaron were brought back to pharaoh and pharaoh said to them go serve the lord your god but which ones are to go moses said we will go with our young and our old we will go with our sons and our daughters and with our flocks and herds for we must hold a feast to the lord but pharaoh said to them the lord be with you if ever i let you and your little ones go look you have some evil purpose in mind no go the men among you and serve the lord for that is what you are asking and they were driven out from ferry's presence then the lord said to moses stretch out your hand over the land of egypt for the locusts so that they may come upon the land of egypt and eat every plant in the land all that the hail has left so moses stretched out his staff over the land of egypt and the lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night when it was morning the east wind had brought the locusts the locusts came up over all the land of egypt and settled on the whole country of egypt such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before nor ever will be again they covered the face of the whole land so that the land was darkened and they aired all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left not a green thing remained neither tree nor plant of the field through the land of egypt then pharaoh hastily called moses and aaron and said i have sinned against the lord your god and against you now therefore forgive my sin please only this once and plead with the lord your god only to remove this death from me so moses went out from pharaoh and pleaded with the lord and the lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind which lifted the locusts and drove them into the red sea not a single locust was left in all the country of egypt but the lord hardened pharaoh's heart and he did not let the people of israel go a dramatic story but no more dramatic than any massive plague of locusts the locusts are often mentioned in the scriptures in very different ways locusts as insects are normally solitary creatures who keep to themselves and munch their food in a solitary sort of way uh they're small insects usually and they're quite tasty insects if they're fried and eaten as one knows from the the the diets of certain country and of course we have the the witness of john the baptist who fed himself on locusts and wild honey but at the same time environmental changes which happen suddenly can bring the locus into a complete union with one another it changes their metabolism completely and this was no better shown than in the year 2020 when all over the world locust plagues were experienced in the same way that climate change was being experienced and nowhere more than in that horn of africa which we're talking about near to the red sea and and uh to the to the north of of of the sudan and the the um east of of egypt drought brings that on in a great way and the locusts come together not come together in manageable quantities but some of them go into clouds of tens of billions of locusts and dark clouds of locusts flying together 25 miles long and 35 miles wide have been seen in 2020 and those are going on in different parts of the world for the way in which the weather the climate changes the way in which drought is followed by enormous storms and then more hot weather and drought can cause creatures to do very different things from what they normally do and the appetite of the locus is voracious so the united nations believes that if this is not checked but there's little resource at the moment to do anything to check things because of all the resources being thrown into climate change in terms of fires and floods and damage done with that and the pandemic and combating that humankind at the moment is facing one crisis after another and 10 percent of the world's population have their food sources threatened by locust plagues we see how the east wind brings in the locusts to an egypt which is already being ruined and the plague after plague and egypt the egyptian cultures go to pharaoh and they blame the presence of the hebrews as we've said people are always looking for blame and on this occasion they blame the presence of the hebrews and moses is reading the signs as we read the signs in the sky and the signs in the world and apply tests but intuition with some also who know the land and know certain areas and have lived in certain areas know what's going on migration is is something that um happens again intuitively with birds but the the locusts migrate to find resources for food and as i said that appetite is voracious so that the cry of the egyptian cultures is heartfelt how long are you you're not going to let these people go egypt is ruined and moses leaves pharaoh but once again pharaoh is thinking of economic recovery shall we say having let all his workforce go and his heart is hardened this is a day the 23rd of october that is the feast day of the saint the italian saint san giovanni de capistrano and he's known normally because he he was an austrian uh in in ministry franciscan working in austria and hungary those areas of the world as they are now and died in croatia but he is known also in california by his spanish name because of the the way that the mission is dedicated to him in in southern california not too far from san diego and that is called san juan capistrano and there uh it's the most beautiful town if anyone of any one of you has been there not only as the mission itself which was founded in the 18th century um the the the mission itself is something which is of extreme beauty is dedicated to this saint the italian san giovanni de capistrano who himself was a forceful preacher and were told that he preached across the the holy roman empire at that time in the 15th century and his words were so powerful that the churches could not hold the people who wanted to hear him and there is a a a an attested uh occasion when in brechtia in italy 126 000 people gathered flooding the public square and beyond for him to preach how his words carried i do not know he must have had a voice like a lion roaring because people followed him everywhere and up until his mid-seventies he was still being powerful and actually led because uh in 1453 uh the city of constantinople had fallen to the ottoman forces and this really frightened medieval europe at that time as the ottoman forces came nearer and nearer to hungary and those lands there and san giovanni went with the armies around belgrade to to to lift the siege of belgrade he must have been a really powerful man sadly at that point he he uh caught part of the plague that was going around with the forces there and and died in 1456 but his preaching is remembered as a theologian and a franciscan preacher who gave his life to the order of saint francis and he is remembered as i say in in the mission there at san juan capistrano in california but there's a splendid legend which goes with that mission the place itself is very beautiful but there's a splendid legend which goes with it it's about the birds the swallows they're cliff swallows but uh they they made their home and they migrate from argentina usually backwards and forwards to california and uh um there's a legend that one of the fathers in going through the city found a shopkeeper knocking down the nests of the cliff swallows and he said don't do that um and he said but they make such a mess and and uh father sullivan said well um they can come and and and build their nests with us in the mission and say the swallows from then on in the legend they probably found a much better place as the mission was developing and the mission suffered a horrendous earthquake which which also made walls that they could the cliff swallows could nest in but suddenly in 2009 the cliff swallows started nesting in another part of california not too far away but because it was thought the conditions had changed in capistrano and so for some years capistrano put itself to the test of making the conditions right even um broadcasting that the swallows call at the time they came back generally at st joseph's day march the 19th was the feast when the swallows are welcomed and huge processions welcome the swallows well in 2017 they came back which is a wonderful thing so the festival and the the processions through the street welcoming the swallows the migratory birds coming back to the mission in great beauty and on this day after the earthquake when the huge church was was uh was demolished then the the bell tower was demolished too and the ancient bells were put in a bell wall instead but they're only wrong on certain days by special people but today october the 23rd the feast of san juan capistrano is the day that the swallows leave and the bells are rung they gather and they go on their migration to argentina and then they'll be welcomed back next march all that festival couldn't happen last year in 2020 because of the pandemic but we remember well a very happy time in capistrano and the the the wonderful way in which it feels a very holy place and the lovely swallows and other insect life but lovely butterflies and everything else in that perfect place near to the pacific ocean but of course it's a very threatened place as well and um we we also love it because around the fountains and the flowers are fletcher's favorite bird of all the hummingbird just whizzes around looking utterly beautiful as it is stature absolutely static with its his wings invisible because they're going so fast and it's long bill going in to suck the the nectar and and and and uh sweetness from the flowers there all of that we remember on on this day uh the swallows being a friendly presence the locusts being anything but a friendly presence but each being driven by climate changes the swallows by the ordinary changes of the season winter and summer california argentina but the locusts driven by pure hunger to fly to find food so on this day too and this i want also uh to make something of really because i think it's a a lovely thing robert bridges was born on this day in uh 1844 and robert bridges became poet laureate of england he was the poet laureate from 1913 to 1930 his poems are not terribly well known now though they are beautiful and the way in which they are described are words like restraint purity precision and delicacy these poems were set to music by people like um parry and host and finzy but at the same time we we know him best for his hymns but i wanted to start with something quite different he was born here and in walmart in kent and his father was a a wealthy man and had a lovely house and a lovely estate which overlooked the sea yeah and uh overlooked the channel and until he died and he died while the his family robert was was just in early teenage years and everything of that stopped his his mother married again and moved from walmart and bridges was sent to eaton but he he managed well there and was musical and and and began to write verse but he had in mind as a vocation he wanted to be a doctor went to oxford and read the mods and greats classics and um then uh he then went to be he trained as a doctor and for years he worked in the hospitals of london thousands and thousands of people coming to him in casualties in bartholomew's hospitals in baths as it's normally called at the great ormond street hospital for sick children and also for at the royal northern hospital in islington day after day working as a doctor and his poetry was sort of put on hold until he himself suffered with a lung disease having treated so many and then decided that he couldn't continue at this pace and he went to yatundan a village in berkshire and that he and the wife he married who was the daughter of of after waterhouse the architect um who obviously bridges got on with well and there they settled and bridges began to write again he wrote hymns and we'll look at some of them in a moment but he also kept up a friendship which was to become very important for english poetry let me look first though at probably the set of verses from bridges that you will know best of all and i'll read them to you now you'll have a tune by the composer herbert howells going on in your head because he set this to music and called the tune michael after his son who died here are bridges words all my hope on god is founded he does still might trust renew me through change and chance he guideths only good and only true god unknown he alone calls my heart to be his own pride of man and earthly glory sword and crown betray his trust what with care and toil he buildeth tower and temple fall to dust but god's power hour by hour is my temple and my tower god's great goodness a and doris deep his wisdom passing thought splendor light and life attend him beauty springeth out of naught ever more from his store newborn worlds rise and adore daily thus the almighty giver bountious gifts on us bestow his desire our soul delight us pleasure leads us where we go love doth stand at his hand joy doth wait on his command still from man to god eternal sacrifice of praise be done high above all praises praising for the gift of christ his son christ doth call one and all ye who follow shall not fall it's a very favorite hymn but a poem of bridges and while he was at yattenden with 20 very happy years there he sang in the choir and he created a little hymn book of yatundan versus the yatunden hymnal which became one of the foundation stones for the new english hymnal which form williams was the musical editor of which was being created at that time and was published early in the 20th century so we thank god for that gift of bridges but i thank him for something else as well this book is one of my most treasured books it is actually a volume of the letters of jared manley hopkins to robert bridges hopkins made friends with bridges at oxford and bridges never let that friendship go however uh solitary and however distant hopkins became in his jesuit life bridges made efforts not only to write to him and to keep him abreast of things that were going on but also to go and see him and make journeys to just go and be with him and to visit when he could it wasn't always possible but this book is a book of the letters which hopkins wrote back to bridges and it's folsom and the uh letters are really demonstrated i'm sorry we haven't got bridges letters to to uh to hopkins um but uh we can guess them from the way in which they're written and they go all the way through hopkins life right up to 1889 when he died and the very last sonnet that hopkins wrote and here's the book of his poetry which i've used again and again for you and the very last sonnet he wrote was an explanation to robert bridges written in april 1889 as to why his poetry has been so lackluster and hardly happening and it's simply the solutions simply are headed to rb robert bridges his faithful friend the fine delight that fathers thought the strong spur living and lancing like the blowpipe flame breathe once and quench it faster than it came leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song nine months she then nay years nine years she long within her wares bears cares and combs the same the widow of an insight lost she lives with aim now known and hand at work now never wrong sweet fire the sire of my muse my soul needs this i want the one rapture of an inspiration oh then if in my lagging lines you miss the roll the rise the carol the creation my winter world that scarcely breathes that bliss now yields you with some size our explanation the flame has not been there to light all those things waiting to come out but now in this explanation it proves one last sonnet and the last letter written to bridges in april april the 29th 1889 says to bridges at the end that probably i shall enclose a sonnet and he then sends his kind love to mrs bridges mrs millsworth that's british's mother and says i'm your affectionate friend gerard but the letter had begun from uh dublin where he was unhappily was dearest bridges i am ill today but no matter that as my spirits are good and i want you to to buck up as we used to say at school about those jokes over which you write and so dodging as a spirit obviously hopkins has teased him about his poetry once too much but that illness was the illness which was to take him away the typhoid that was to take him away he died after that letter and the sonnet was sent and he died just a few weeks later his poetry then lay hidden from 1889 until his faithful friend collecting together all that he could knowing that often hopkins would destroy his poems because he felt that his vocation was elsewhere and collected them from friends that hopkins had copied them to in letters and even in sending that sonnet hopkins says i you know that i don't like copying poems out in that way i don't i don't find it good but he sends it because it's his gift to his friend whether he had an intuition it was a last gift or not we don't know but in 1918 bridges published all that he had of hopkins and by then bridges was the parrot laureate and uh was a very distinguished man but all the way through he had known in his heart of hearts that hopkins was a better poet than he and therefore was going to be faithful to the trust to his friend that those poems would be shared with the world so god bless the faithfulness of robert bridges as well as his own creativity and hymnady and verse and also his own care of people in medicine for one of his friends said there's nobody who understands the pain of the human spirit when they're sick better than robert bridges many things to think about today as we say our prayers then and as we do so um we use the colic for the last time for this 20th sunday after trinity bring your own prayers and intentions as we do so as we're thinking sorry i've forgotten to say the various places we're meant to pray for we're praying today for the diocese of guatemala in the anglican church in south america of the central south america and we're also in this diocese praying for justin our archbishop and for uh rose visual dover emma bishop at lambeth and the very historic and wonderful chapel of saint mary in castro which is right within the bounds of dover castle it would have been a place that obviously bridges knew when he when he grew up so we give thanks for that and we give thanks also for the clergy and it's a very special ministry this done by volunteer clergy jonathan russell bob coles peter sherridge polly mason brian duckworth and a reader john morrison that they keep the life of the chapel going saint mary in castro said mary in the castle here's the prayer for today god the giver of life whose holy spirit wells up within your church by the spirit's gifts equip us to live the gospel of christ and make us eager to do your will that we may share with the whole creation the joys of eternal life through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language we say together 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 amen moment of silence now for our own prayers [Music] is [Music] is [Music] hello [Music] is [Music] eyes [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] 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 are men so there's the bell kemi and winnie you've had a good time and you've been good girls today as well [Applause] hope you've enjoyed yourself have you hey we'll leave you here for a bit so that you can do your work in this part of the garden today this food's more interesting today