good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 17th of september it's a beautiful september morning and the sky is a clear blue sky there's no breath of wind a cool almost uh autumn morning now we're getting on in the late summer but at the same time the dawn was intensely beautiful and we'll show you some of that right at the end of this broadcast together with some music from mozart and susma which we'll talk about in our reflection later on but for the moment enjoy the light as it is i've just celebrated a eucharist in the cathedral in the very eastern end of the cathedral with all the beautiful medieval stained glass shining like a jewel case and at the eucharist there was a young officer who last year was serving in afghanistan and was looking at our our garden sen as he was a member of the garden congregation and was here this morning and it caused us once again to talk about afghanistan so we we don't forget the people in afghanistan and all the situation that is there but at the same time there are other areas of our world which we think about at this time and one of them would be as we're looking at all these trees one of them would be the fires in california and the danger to some of the most ancient trees in the world the great sequoia which they're now beginning to wrap in fire blankets to save those great trees one called general sherman is about 2500 years old and the fires are still raging there causes us to think of dangerous areas right across the world and you will be picturing them in your minds and at the same time you'll be giving thanks for many things and bringing many anniversaries to mind we're thinking this morning of the birthday of rita davis one of our garden congregation a special birthday for her and that will prompt you to remember anniversaries of that kind but also happy for a greek cypriot church in cyprus which at the turkish invasion in 1974 lost two precious ornate doors which were taken away and now they've been returned all those years later after from 1974 to now having done a journey all around the world and having been returned by a college in japan so the joy of the parishioners at receiving back those valuable and ornate doors part of their history and their heritage and as we look at the trees of the garden we see nature beginning to unfold a golden glory in many of them but there's some days and weeks to go yet before some of the trees will turn i'm sitting here in front of an autumnal type of border where many of the plants have grown up flowered and are now beginning to die away one of them is the the great giant bur which is growing in the garden behind me it grows all over the garden and looks wonderful when it's in full foliage and now like the plants we were looking at yesterday it's dying away the birds are obviously well known for that the kind of of fruits they leave behind and uh they're a real nuisance not only to when you're walking through with a catholic i've got one in my hand here and it sticks to your fingers and these little they're like the smaller cleavers but here's a bur and they're not kind to furry friends like tiger behind because quite often they stick in their fur as well but it's the way in which plants spread themselves around and the direction of nature and the the the completely wonderful way in which it it spreads itself across the world is something that we wonder at looking at the blue sky here as i look in the air a year ago this would have been a totally blue sky with no patterns on it and this morning is crisscrossed by aeroplane tracks showing that international travel is once again beginning to develop across the world i can see so many aircraft tracks because morning flights going off on giant aircraft have left their mark on the blue sky let's begin our prayers though on this particular morning of the month the 17th morning of september oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night 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 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 o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm this morning is psalm 86 incline your ear o lord and answer me for i am poor and in misery preserve my soul for i am faithful save your servant for i put my trust in you be merciful to me o lord for you are my god i call upon you all the day long gladden the soul of your servant for to you o lord i lift up my soul for you lord are good and forgiving abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you give ear o lord to my prayer and listen to the voice of my supplication in the day of my distress i will call upon you for you will answer me among the gods there is none like you o lord nor any works like yours all nations you have made shall come and worship you o lord and shall glorify your name for you are great and do wonderful things you alone are god teach me your way o lord and i will walk in your truth knit my heart to you that i may fear your name i will thank you o lord my god with all my heart and glorify your name forevermore for great is your steadfast love towards me for you have delivered my soul from the depths of the grave oh god the proud rise up against me a ruthless horde seek after my life they have not set you before their eyes but you lord are gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and full of kindness and truth turn to me and have mercy upon me give your strength to your servant and save the child of your handmaid show me a token of your favor that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed because you o lord have helped and comforted me a sound but also a prayer of real petition we are going now back to our reflection and lesson from the book of genesis and you'll remember where we left off with the story of joseph and the brothers have been sent now to get the grain from egypt because jacob has realized there is grain in egypt so he's sent them off to buy grain from egypt and i'm starting from where we left off in chapter 42 at verse 6. now joseph was governor over the land he was the one who sold to all the people of the land and joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground joseph saw his brothers and recognized them but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them where do you come from he said they said from the land of canaan to buy food and joseph recognized his brothers but they did not recognize him and joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them and he said to them you are spies you have come to see the nakedness of the land they said to him no my lord your servants have come to buy food we are all sons of one man we are honest men your servants have never been spies he said to them no it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see and they said we your servants are twelve brothers the sons of one man in the land of canaan and behold the youngest is this day with our father and one is no more but joseph said to them it is as i said to you you are spies by this you shall be tested by the life of pharaoh you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here send one of you and let him bring your brother while you remain confined that your words may be tested whether there is truth in you or else by the life of pharaoh surely you are spies and joseph put them all together in custody for three days then on the third day joseph said to them do this and you will live for i fear god if you are honest men let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households and bring your youngest brother back to me so your words will be verified and you shall not die and they did so and they said to one another in truth we are guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us and we did not listen that is why this distress has come upon us and reuben answered them did i not tell you not to sin against the boy but you did not listen so now there comes a reckoning for his blood they did not know that joseph understood them for there was an interpreter between them then he turned away from them and wept and he returned to them and spoke to them and joseph took simeon from them and bound him before their eyes and joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to replace every man's money in his sack and to give them provisions for their journey this was done for them then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed and as one of them opened his sack on the way to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place he saw his money in the mouth of his sack he said to his brothers my money has been put back here it is in the mouth of my sack that this their hearts failed them and they turned trembling to one another saying what is this that god has done to us well how the tables have turned it's high drama and it's wonderful in its detail we've positioned ourselves here today tiger and i so that you see us in a place where we receive guests just as joseph receives guests this afternoon we're receiving some guests a whole party of vergers from different churches are coming around to walk around the gardens and enjoy them and hear about them and also to tell their stories to one another as well in the way in which hospitality is given but this is quite different kind of this is a quite different type of hospitality for here showed before him are joseph's brothers the very ones whom he last saw when they were going to kill him and then were persuaded against that and put him into a pit and then sold him to the ishmaelite traders and that was that they tore his coat they covered it in blood from an animal that they slew and took it to their father and in a supreme act of cruelty knowing that joseph and benjamin were the sons of the only sons of rachel jacob's beloved wife who had died in childbirth with benjamin knowing that she loved joseph dearly they showed him the coach of many colors which had made them so jealous and jacob realized his son was dead had been killed by a wild animal joseph doesn't know any of that but he does know how they've treated him and he also knows that if they are to be really penitent then a little more has to go along time has to pass as the journey unfolds but she's probably enjoying himself a bit as well i doubt very much that simeon suffered much in prison from the way in which joseph treats his brothers all the way through in terms of provision but his original promise to keep them all there is is countered by the fact that he knows his father and his brother benjamin and all the household back in canaan need that grain and he joseph is certainly not going to be charging his father and the household back in canaan for food so secretly and remember he understands everything that the brothers are saying he's speaking to them through a translator but they don't know that he understands their language nor have they an inkling that he is their brother whom they thought long gone if not dead in the land of egypt they've probably forgotten all about him though in fact they mentioned him when they said when in their fear they say no we're we're all of one father there were twelve brothers one of them is no more joseph one of them is still with our father the youngest benjamin but here are the ten of us so joseph takes simeon and places him in prison this is all part of the the brothers path to true penitence but it's also all part of the destiny of joseph and the destiny of jacob and the family and all that will happen next but first there's a way to go and what is happening now in a foreign land is really significant for the life of the chosen people hereafter and it's not i think an accident that the other joseph brings jesus and mary down into jesus to egypt for protection and then goes back to galilee at the beginning of the new testament the stirrings of penitence and also the use of fear to create that penitence joseph is if you like letting them as we would say stew in their own juice because they're probably for the first time remembering what they had done to joseph and how cruel they'd been to their father well we shall continue that story with uh great interest and joy because it's an enjoyable story to tell because we know full well that joseph is not going to allow any kind of harm to come to his family but meanwhile he is enjoying the story unfolding as we are this is a day uh in 1179 and this is the name in our calendar for jay today when saint hildegard of bingham died aged 81 she was a benedictine abbess and had been a nun since the age of 18 in the the beautiful valley of the rhine and her convent some of you probably will have visited that and the the convent is is a restored convent because the convent was uh destroyed in 1804 and the the the nuns were dissolved but in 1904 it was restored and going there and i remember a very joyful visit there with a group on our way to abraham again as we went down the rhine coming from cologne and first of all remember the beauties of the rhine valley but then the astonishment i didn't think i knew anything about hildegard had been until i went there and she's mentioned in our calendar simply as a visionary well that's a very small description of everything that hildegard of bingham meant to those around her at the time she was a teacher a counselor a correspondent certainly a visionary and a visionary who with the suggestion not only of the archbishop of mainz but others a suggestion that the visions that she received within herself she would allow to be written down and described and she made sure of that not only having them written down and described but also causing the nuns to illustrate them i think what caught me most when i went to that beautiful abbey what caught me most was the the beauty of the illustrations for they illustrated the visions which hildegard of bingham enjoyed though many were painful to her as well as any visions are and any prophetic and some apocalyptic visions are but she was gifted with those visions throughout her life reflecting the light of the eternal life she said of the eternal light she said and those visions do just that for us they speak and the illustrations also speak of biblical stories right through old testament creation and write through the wonderful scriptures and stories of the new testament but at the same time they speak speak of our human condition and how we relate to the divine they are magnificent in their colors and it was wonderful this morning celebrating the eucharist on this day with all the colorful pictures from the 12th century there behind me those windows many of them had been created just about the time that hildegard of bingan died and they have the same colors and the same pictures the miraculous bunch of grapes suggesting the wine of the new covenant of the old testament but the colors of the glass with the sun shining through are very reflective of the way in which the illustrations of the visions of hildegard of bingham come forward but she was not only a writer she was also a brilliant musician and last night she um one of her little pieces of music of the psalms was sung at even song by our choristers the simplest of tunes but she composed many and lyrics to go with them really there's no end of the telling of her creativity but passing that creativity on was something that she was most interested in it's why she agreed to have things written down and then illustrated but she knew also that people did very well in remembering if tunes were given to them so at the foundation of so much of our plain song music and happily we have copies of the things that she wrote is this music of hildegard of bingham and that wonderfully creative convent in the rhine valley 77 lyrical poems with musical settings but at the same time treaties on medicine and wonderfully accurate treaties on natural history how i missed nothing the extensive correspondence as she traveled around and spoke to people over that area of the then holy roman empire is astonishing to read but her most famous treaty is called uh shivyas s-c-i-v-i-a-s kivias if you wanted in classical latin the first three words of the first three words of science because it's the latin verb of knowing but at the same time the ass no bother about that the via is the way so it's knowledge of the way the ways are in the plural of the ways remember christians were first called followers of the way at the beginning so all her knowledge and her creativity and the way in which in words and pictures and music she tries to describe the visions vouch saved to her by heaven all of those become for us knowledge of the multitude of different ways that the the eternal word and wisdom the logos made flesh in the person of jesus christ and shown in all her learning the way in which that's made known to us now the the quotes that i love of her most of all i'm reading it in translation of course but this quote is a wonderful one she says we cannot live in a world that is not our own in a world that is interpreted for us by others as interpreted world is not home part of the terror is to take back our own listening to use our own voice to see our own light we have to live in a world that is our own others can help us interpret it others can help us in the creative ways we want to express it but essentially god has made us each utterly individual and we have to inhabit our own world with its own light reflected from the light of life shown us by the word made flesh interpreted by others to help us on our way but return to our own place and making use of that and by that i mean our own humanity our own individual personage and in that we can interpret the light of our own life and also our own experiences to others many companions on the way and no better one this morning than sin hildegard of bingham we think of the life of abhing and abi in the rhine gorge at this time and give thanks for its creative life well at the same time this this day uh on the 17th of september in the year 1803 franz xavier susmaya died he was only aged 37 he'd been born in 1766 and probably you'll say i've never heard of him but i think most of you will have heard some of his music for he was a an excellent composer but he is best known for having been a colleague and companion and pupil and friend of wolfgang amadeus mozart and as you will probably know mozart died before his requiem mass was complete that that film amadeus which gives so power many powerful images of of of mozart's life beginning to ebb away and his his powers going but desperately trying to get the music of that requiem written down and the way in which that is imagined is is a a strong clue to mozart's being unable to finish the requiem so when he died there were pieces that were complete totally mozart and most of those at the very beginning there were scraps of ideas which were left and there was a lot of the requiem which was still in his head and um the i think one of the most powerful moments in the film amadeus is when he is is getting so impatient with with uh salieri trying to write it down and tapping it out and but there's no time human time runs out in the end and all that creativity is lost but susma this pupil of mozart's and colleague franz xavier susmaya picked up the pieces and the mostly complete first should we say two-thirds of the requiem up to the lacrimosa which he was in the middle of of writing when he died so smile picked up and uh touched up orchestration if it was in any way lacking in a mozart sense he tried to be as faithful as possible to mozart and then completed the lacrimosa which would not have been a hard thing to do because it was mostly finished but it needed some orchestration and things of that sort but after the lacrimosa so smyre then had to imagine with we know not what scraps and bits of paper and notes put down he had to try and imagine the work of his beloved friend and master whom he recognized to be the genius but he didn't want this requiem not to reach the public ears and so the next bits the uh coming the sanctus the anus day uh the sorry the benedict is the anus day and right through to the end was really the work of sussmeyer based on mozart's inspiration very often if you go to a performance of the mozart requiem a conductor at the end of the lacrimosa will stop for a moment to mark the change but for most of us of course it's sung through as a composite and wonderful piece one of the most popular coral pieces and at the end as we show you the dawn from this morning we shall play you a little bit of the mozart at the beginning of the requiem as he started it all in the hand of mozart and then the lacrimosa which was begun by mozart all the inspiration there from mozart but then jigsawed in with the orchestration and the completion by susmaya and then after that some susmaya itself and show you how this servant of mozart in terms of not being a house servant but a servant of his works a colleague an understanding pupil took this up and in the end used the whole requiem for should we call it almost a charity concert for the sake of uh constanza mozart's wife who was not full of of wealth and so that we think of the requiem being something that was carried forward after mozart's death and has begun to ask one of the treasures of coral music very different from the music of hildegard of bingham which she wrote in the 12th century so all of that on this day and beautiful things to think of and much much inspiration from the things that were given as our light tries to reflect the creative light of the life of life who became the word made flesh we're going to use the uh colleague for saint hilde of bingham hildegard bingham's day but first of all we think of the province this morning of the south sudan and the diocese of egypt there and all the people there and we also think in our own diocese of the church of sin dunstan at cranbrook and the ministry there and bring your own prayers and intentions as we pray for our own archbishop justin rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and pray for our own creative life as well as those whose creativity have helped us to shine as lights in a dark world here's the collect for sin hildegard of bingham most glorious and holy god whose servant hildegard strong in the face was caught up in the vision of your heavenly courts by the breath of your spirit open our eyes to glimpse your glory and our lips to sing your praises with all the angels through jesus christ our lord 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 of silence now while we make our own prayers on this day [Applause] so 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 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