good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this tuesday the 8th of june as we come to say our morning prayers we've come into the front of the house because the laburnum is in full flower around it there's a magnolia grandiflora and there's a dogwood um but at the same time a japanese maple and the box hedges but it's the luburnum which holds the glory in the sunshine golden chain it's often called uh and uh we remember the the walk at the malnsbury gardens at abbey house that we were talking about a couple of weeks ago where they have a walk where luburnum flowers and wisteria flowers hang down together over a long archway that you walk through but here it's pure luburnum so it's a gold morning and we're here sitting um with uh leo this morning in the sunshine for a while with us leo got rather cross uh yesterday a little bit jealous of tiger's bafta and tiger's not terribly worried about those kinds of things so we just did a little alteration this morning so that we have a bafta for leo because he too has been someone who's caused people to smile and cheer art during lockdown and he's sitting in the sunshine this morning looking proud so here's leo's bafta in golden glory like the la burnham this morning so now we are going to begin our prayers so wherever you are in the world please feel free to join us and bring your own concerns on this tuesday the 8th of june 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 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 that you have made as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and 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 so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our calendar today remembers bishop thomas ken who was a non-drawing uh bishop in the late 17th century but um he's remembered best for his morning and evening hymns and the doxology at the end of them praise god from whom all blessings flow praise him all creatures here below praise him above you heavenly host praise father son and holy ghost and his mourning hymn of course begins awake my soul and with the sun thy daily course of duty run and we remember that almost reflecting the sun's passage across the skies as given to us in that wonderful psalm 19 which begins the heavens are telling and there the sun is said like a giant rejoicing to run his course and thomas kens him asks us in the mornings to rise awake and run our course of duty with the same rejoicing as the sun does so now we're going to read the psalm for today now this is a very different atmosphere this morning's psalm we're reading is psalm 39 and there's a certain troubled quality in the psalmist this morning which we will reflect on because it fits well with our reading from saint matthew psalm 39 i said i will keep watch over my ways so that i offend not with my tongue i will guard my mouth with a muzzle while the wicked are in my sight so i held my tongue and said nothing i kept silent but to no avail my distress increased my heart grew hot within me while i mused the fire was kindled and i spoke out with my tongue lord let me know my end and the number of my days that i may know how short my time is you have made my days but a hand's breath and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight truly even those who stand upright are but a breath we walk about like a shadow and in vain we are in turmoil we heap up riches and cannot tell who will gather them and now what is my hope truly my hope is even in you deliver me from all my transgressions and do not make me the taunt of the fool i fell silent and did not open my mouth for surely it was your doing take away your plague from me i'm consumed by the blows of your hand with rebukes for sin you punish us like a moth you consume our beauty truly everyone is but a breath hear my prayer o lord and give ear to my cry hold not your peace at my tears for i am but a stranger with you a wayfarer as all my forebears were turn your gaze from me that i may be glad again before i go my way and um no more there are two old-fashioned words in that psalm which we don't use much han's breath and also wayfarer we'll come across them again when we're reflecting after our reading from st matthew's gospel but let's turn to that now and take up from where we left off here we are in st matthew in chapter 14 and beginning to read at verse 22 we are here following the feeding of the 5000 and we remember that jesus is surrounded by crowds of people and in matthew's gospel 5 000 men alone besides women and children so you could probably double the number verse 22 immediately jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds and after he had dismissed the crowds he went up on the mountain by himself to pray when evening came he was there alone but the boat by this time was a long way from the land beaten by the waves for the wind was against them and in the fourth watch of the night he came to them walking on the sea but when the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified and said it is a ghost and they cried out in fear but immediately jesus spoke to them saying take heart it is i do not be afraid and peter answered him lord if it is you command me to come to you on the water he said come so peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to jesus but when he saw the wind he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried out lord save me jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him saying to him oh you of little faith why did you doubt and when they got into the boat the wind ceased and those in the boat worshiped him saying truly you are the son of god it's a reflective passage which is written in a particularly matthew way but it follows on from jesus's almost disappointment with the disciples yesterday with not the sea bustling around them but the crowds busting around them women children all the men there and the disciples saying to jesus okay the day is um well past let's uh let's send them away and jesus says when they say they can go and buy food in the villages if you remember you feed them and at that point they said but we've got no resources well all of that was yesterday's meditation but today is the same thing there's going to be jesus's disappointment with the disciples he's gone up onto the mountain to pray and meanwhile he's put the disciples in the boat to row across or sail across to the other side and then he becomes aware that they're toiling there in the boat so beaten by the waves even they as fishermen are afraid it's the fourth watch of the night so it's well on and the watches begin from day and night and so the force watches is well on into the night and at that point they're having trouble even probably locating land at that time there are no stars the wind is beating around them the waves are beating around them the sky would be dark jesus has been on the mountain and one kind of feels that his uh his meditations haven't been all that peaceful that he's wondering what he can do to instill the faith and resources into the twelve as they go forward and now he's going to be challenged once again as he comes down to them there is uh i've got this on my lap here um this is the score of edward elgar's apostles and he wrote and formed the libretto himself and it is one of the most wonderful oratorios now this is my well-worn copy which i've had for years and years and used to sit on the top of the piano at home and i would bang out its notes on the keyboard but after the calling of the apostles these are the sections and they're all taken from the scriptures pieced together by elgar and by the wayside which gives us the beatitudes and the wonderful calm sounds as they walk along as wayfarers going along in on their journey followers of the way in the earliest sense part three though is by the sea of galilee and imaginatively elgar gives the recitative first and here it is it's a tenor recitative and straightway jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go before him unto the other side and he went up into a mountain to pray and when the evening was come he was there alone now we've had that going up into a mountain before in the choosing of the apostles in part one and on that occasion jesus having gone into the mountain to pray comes down and chooses the apostles the mountain is a place for decisions but now is a troubled place for jesus because those 12 are always pushing things back on to him and the same thing is just about to happen so that the next section called by the sea of galilee by elgar is imaginatively in words from the old testament given to mary magdalene in the tower of magdala looking out on the storm on the lake and feeling and we all we know about mary of mary magdalene before she came to be the apostle of the resurrection was that jesus had from her cast out the the the troubles that were inside her and we don't know what that was because any kind of distress whether mental or spiritual was always put down in those days to demons and so when luke says that that's what he's talking about but here elgar imagines the kind of mental and spiritual turmoil as she looks out of the tower of magdala and sees the waves beating around the boat so that you've got not only her turmoil internal mental spiritual but the physical turmoil of the apostles who feel themselves in danger and jesus comes to them in that reflection and the story takes up within the context of that troubled meditation of mary magdalene and it says that as he approaches the ship the apostles say it is a spirit and jesus says dear good cheer it is i be not afraid lord if it be thou did me come unto thee upon the waters and then jesus says come and with all the reflections still going on everything that happens there um where we end with the apostles saying in truth you are the son of god is then gathered up in mary magdalene's meditation from the tower using that lovely section of psalm 107 who still is the raging of the sea and make it the storm to be calm brings them to the haven we always read that on the 22nd morning of the month psalm 107 showing how pieces of the old testament are feeding into this sinner a reflection of body mind and spirit of scripture and danger now and darkened light shades in all that's going on in the vocation that they've been called to i would bang that out on the drawing room piano and my poor mother no doubt uh in the kitchen was it she never never complained about the noise from the piano i'll go back to that a bit later on but um this is a a day when we remember that with this particular meditation there are two different cries for our knapsack within this one is peter's cry lord save me and that's the first cry and then that is responded to as jesus stretches out his hand for his apostle realizing they're not ready for ministry without him none of us will ever be ready for any ministry without him but his physical presence is there the hand is stretched forth and that word that we've come across before in the the the grief oligopiste oh man of little faith why did you doubt and then when he is in the boat with them the other sentence for our knapsack at the end truly you are the son of god lord save me in the shadow and the turmoil and in the light of jesus himself truly you are the son of god a cry for help an announcement of faith and this is a day when light and shade are very much part of things we've got here some anniversaries which will help us in that um in and this is a very much a canterbury thing in 1376 edward the black prince died was the heir to the throne and the symbol of english chivalry he is he died in westminster of a terrible sickness and knew that he was dying but his devotion to this place was such that all the screening around the chapel of our lady undercroft was placed there by his beneficence his generosity and wanting that to be there and at first that was where he wanted to be buried but at the same time the um his father wanted him to be upstairs very near to the shrine of thomas beckett and that's where we find him with all the emblems of chivalry around him perfectly preserved tomb and even the accoutrements which are protected in a glass micro climate on the wall all there and cop is put above the tester still there with its decorations the devotion of the black prince but one knows also there were fairly shadowy and violent times in his life too but that's how we as wayfarers are made up and lord save us and truly you are the son of god are two sides of the same coin asking for help to be what god wants us to be so we remember that occasion and we're always reminded of it of course by the black prince's tomb besides the candle burning at the place of of thomas beckett's shrine today also um in 1955 i'm not being quite chronological here because i shall go back in a moment but in 1955 sir tim berners-lee was born so we wish him a happy birthday today because he was the inventor of the world wide web which we're using every morning to keep in touch with one another and that was his original vision and intention that data that we could discover would break down barriers but also that there would be a connection constantly between peoples and cultures which could be used for good and as he himself so often has said can also be used for terrible evil and the intention is everything in this so that his instruction and advice particularly to young people but to any of us is when you're typing anything onto the internet remember that it will always always be there and to young people he would say imagine that at your first interview um for a job then the folks who are interviewing you will have read this for it's easy to find out what has been written it's a terrible temptation and also as i said before the exploration tim berners-lee said you affect the world by what you browse and the temptation to browse into byways becomes also something that is for good or for evil he also said the web as i envisaged it we have not seen it yet the future is still so much bigger than the past will we give thanks to him this morning of course we do as a garden congregation because it's his discovery and invention and vision and work which has brought us together but we take the warnings he he has given and various people have been really damaged by things which they've written in their teenage years and then desperately been sorry about afterwards and it's something that the government's theresa may was in her years in in office here attempting to get parliamentary law power passed it at the age of 18 everything that had been written in the the foolish years of youth remember not my transgression my early transgressions as psalmist says would be wiped out and there would not be this capacity to go back but we're not there yet as the headlines of our papers are telling various sportsmen and and sports women and young people today so we take this as something for good or for evil by intention and then on this day also we remember in 1810 the birth of robert schumann and that brings me right back to the piano because robert schumann was above all else someone who wrote for the piano and it was in most much of his work was inspired by his wife clara and his fingers and he had a damaged hand in the end but his fingers would set out excessively hard pieces but also pieces of intense simplicity and many of you will have played little bits of of schumann but the piano cycle tapion and carnival where he imagines himself in two different aspects of his own character knowing that they're both inside him and longing to get out the passionate and unguarded and angry and and everything that just bursts out from him and also the reflective the one that will take time and muse and he invented names for himself florestan the passionate one eusebius the one that was reflective and his pieces go in and out of that many of the pieces far far too hard for me to play even thumping on the drawing and piano at at home but the the the song side the the cycles were there and song cycles were there probably is best known for his wonderful piano concerto in a minor which is fantastic but he's known also for his little sequence of childlike pieces just for piano called kinder zaynan and number seven which is trauma ray in the english dreaming is probably the most famous piano piece ever known if you play it on if you don't know know it play it on on the world wide web google it schumann trauma and you will find that piano piece i'm sure you will say oh i know that because it's easy to play and i always took delight in playing the pieces in kindergarten as my hands i was going back to the hands breath when in the beginning when i was playing the piano my hand spreads would just just reach for the seven notes before an octave and now i can go well beyond well a note or two higher than that because my hand spreads is is bigger but i give thanks that um it wasn't the world wide web that i was exploring but that a keyboard at home became my fascination and going to search for the pieces of music and those 12 notes there's seven in old-fashioned terms in ivory and the five in old-fashioned terms in ebony and now still in those colors um those 12 notes made up a whole world that i could imagine with elgar's scores or schumann's music and so often we discover ways in which we can be creative and so we give thanks for that and the dark um side of things and also the light side of things i'm sitting in shadow this morning and in front of me is great sunshine and above me the golden laburnum and then finally and certainly not least this is the day the 8th of june in 1889 when gerald manny hopkins was um i died at the age of 44 and he had been both troubled and glorious in his life as a parent and in his vocation and i'm not going to say too much about his life but uh we're i'm going to read just three of his parents one of them pride beauty which is glorying to god for the the way in which things aren't always absolutely perfect but we give glory to god for the way things have been created glory be to god for dappled things for skies of couple color as a branded cow for rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim fresh far cold chestnut falls finch's wings landscape plotted and pieced fold fallow and plow and all trades their gear and tackle and trim all things counter original spare strange whatever is fickle freckled who knows how with swift slow sweet sour a dazzle dim he father's forth whose beauty is past change praise him a wonderful poem about the particularity of creation but there are also dark poems about his own vocation when god seems not to be answering him like the psalmist this morning thou art indeed just lord if i contend with thee but sir so what i plead is just why do sinners ways prosper why must disappointment all i endeavor end were thou my enemy o thy my friend how woods thou worse i wander than thou dust defeat thwart me oh the sorts and thralls of lust do in spare hours more thrive than i that spend sir life upon thy cause see banks and brakes now leave it how sick they said they are again with freddy chervil look and fresh wind shakes them birds build but not i build no but strain times eunuch and not breed one work that wakes mine oh thou lord of life send my roots reign and then finally the way in which all of us can suddenly find ourselves at home somewhere and here he is in the valley of the el we when he was in north wales at symbino's college as a jesuit and he found a little welsh homestead where the people were really nice to him and he would go there for domestic comfort here we are it's called in the valley of the el we which is the river there i remember a house where all were good to me god knows deserving no such thing comforting smell breathed at every entering fetched fresh as i suppose off some sweet wood that cordial air made those kind people a hood all over as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing will or mild nights the new morsels of spring why it seemed of course seemed of right it should lovely the woods waters meadows combs veils all the air things wear that build this world of wales only the inmate does not correspond god lover of souls swaying considerate scales complete thy creature dear o where it fails being mightier master being a father and fond the only thing that was disappointing in all that loving hospitality of the creation around him and the family he went to was himself and each day he would pray to the father that he might be completed in the image of christ but all those things we remember so many of them on this particular day and we say our prayers and we bring to our prayers all our own intentions areas of light and shade and give thanks both for the healing and for our ability to say lord save us and to hear the cry oh you have little faith why did you doubt and then our ability through faith to say truly you are the son of god here's the collect for this week oh god the strength of those who put their trust in you mercifully accept our prayers and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without you grant us the help of your grace that in the keeping of your commandments we may please you both in will and deed through jesus christ our lord amen so we say each in our own language the prayer that our lord 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 our men moment of silence now for our own prayers on this morning [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 amen [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] room [Music] you