good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of wednesday the 9th of march as we meet together to say our morning prayers welcome wherever you are in the world yesterday uh became a very historic day here in the united kingdom as president zielinski of ukraine uh on a screen uh in the house of commons the parliament here with members of the other house the house of lords sitting in the gallery and the ukrainian ambassador who received a warm round of applause also sitting in the gallery and for the first time in history members of parliament were addressed by a head of state of another country in their own chamberlain it was impossible for president zielinski to be there because he of course was in a bunker probably in in kiev but at the same time he was addressing them live and his presence was greeted first by a total standing ovation a prolonged standing ovation and then he spoke for probably 12 or so minutes to the house with the translator and at the end it was greeted by an even longer and total standing ovation from everyone an historic time indeed and he spoke in words reminiscent of those words spoken by the prime minister winston churchill in 1940 to the members of parliament then saying that whatever it cost the fight and wherever they were fighting we will never surrender and uh that was the tone of the speech so he really did what we were saying yesterday morning and reclaimed the letter zed which is found on the armaments of so many of those coming in to try to to take the country by storm uh reclaimed it for for himself in terms of the zed for us very definitely meaning zelensky and we own that zed this morning as we pray for the ukrainian people and all those attempting to help them in their desperate plight at present we salute their courage on this day and later in our um morning prayer in the reflection we're going to talk about a new charity which we've discovered it's not new in itself but we have discovered this through the agency of a friend uh lady kingstown um and she put us in touch with anna peroles the chief executive officer of hospices of hope it's i say not a new charity it's been working in palliative care particularly in romania with a hospice in bucharest and with training teams conducting up till now 25 000 training sessions in those lands in southeastern europe it's an english-based charity there's also an american website and you can look up the website and their colors are pink and green rather like the hyacinths that are in the garden at the moment and so later on we'll explain what this hospice movement is now going to do in an a new development for ukraine itself in terms of palliative care and the training of palliative care because so many have been snatched children and adults in terminal illness have been snatched from that palliative care so we will look at hospices of hope later on but let's then begin our prayers on this morning it's uh lovely to sit amongst the daffodils here it was a sunny morning but the sky has now turned gray and uh it's reminding us that it's still very early in march as we begin our prayers this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice so lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks forth like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our lips to sing your 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 does 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 son this morning psalm 46 god is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore we will not fear though the earth be moved and though the mountains tremble in the heart of the sea though the waters rage and swell and there the mountains quake at the towering seas there is a river whose streams make glad the city of god the holy place of the dwelling of the most high god is in the midst of her therefore shall she not be removed god shall help her at the break of day the nations are in uproar and the kingdoms are shaken but god utters his voice and the earth shall melt away the lord of hosts is with us the god of jacob is our stronghold come and behold the works of the lord what destruction he has wrought upon the earth he makes wars to cease in all the world he shatters the bow and snaps the spear and burns the chariots in the fire be still and know that i am god i will be exalted among the nations i will be exalted in the earth the lord of hosts is with us the god of jacob is our stronghold it's a fine son to read on this morning he makes wars to cease in all the world well that's what we pray for and the destruction of weapons often in the old testament we read that passage of the weapons of war being turned once again into plowshares and farming implements so that peaceful life can continue and it's our prayer today for the people of ukraine that peaceful life will be restored to them in their nation where war is the order for the day today we're going back to chapter 5 of st john's gospel now where we left off yesterday and i am starting today at verse 30 of chapter 5 and going to the end of the chapter 47 remember that jesus is confronting those jewish authorities who are both questioning him by what authority are you doing these things and also proving hostile but there is great violence in their hearts and they're already wanting to kill him because they believe he's not only overturning established order but disobeying laws and even committing blasphemy against god by the ways in which he is talking and jesus is answering them in this controversy with equal force as we come to the end of this chapter which i've called the angry chapter but it's also the chapter in which the healing took place at the beginning of the man who first of all didn't ask to be healed do you want to be healed said jesus jesus heals him but where no mention of belief or face on that person's part or of a response following other than the fact that he reported jesus as the one who had told him to carry his bed on the sabbath day and break that holiest of laws and here are the jewish authorities coming and confronting jesus and jesus answering i can do nothing on my own as i hear i judge and my judgment is just because i seek not my own will but the will of the one who sent me if i alone bear witness about myself my testimony is not true there is another who bears witness about me and i know that the testimony that he bears about me is true you sent to john the baptist and he has borne witness to the truth not that the testimony that i receive is from man but i say these things so that you may be saved john was a burning and shining lamp and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light but the testimony that i have is greater than that of john for the works that the father has given me to accomplish the very works that i am doing bear witness about me that the father has sent me and the father who sent me has himself born witness about me his voice you have never heard his form you have never seen and you do not have his word abiding in you for you do not have you do not believe the one whom he has sent you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is the scriptures that bear witness about me and yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life i do not receive glory from people but i know that you do not have the love of god within you i have come in my father's name and you do not receive me if another comes in his own name you will receive him how can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only god do not think that i will accuse you to the father there is one who accuses you moses on whom you have set your hope for if you believed moses you would believe me for moses wrote of me but if you do not believe his writings how will you believe my words so we end that chapter with jesus's fierce statements about not coming to perform his own will but to perform the will of the one who sent him the creator whom he teaches people to call abba father and in performing his will which we well know jesus finds his humanity struggling with at important points in his ministry wrestling with temptations wrestling with that vocation even to gethsemane if this cup can be taken from me yet not what i will but what you will to the father he gives everything but for the moment he points them first of all to the witness that john the baptist gave them right at the beginning of the gospel of saint john when a deputation of authorities were sent to john to say who are you and you remember he said i am i am not the christ nor the prophet i am the voice crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord and as john says this he points to one who will come after who is greater than he who will baptize with the holy spirit and with fire i had baptized with water he were baptized with the holy spirit and with fire and jesus points to that witness and said you rejoiced in in the light that john gave for a while but now you don't you don't believe the witness that he gave of me so he's pointing to witnesses who can attest what he is doing and the second witness he points to is the work that he is performing in his humanity for the will of the creator believe in me for the work's sake that i am doing works of compassion works of healing works of helping intuitive works about people where they are as they stand before him all of that he is pointing to if you don't believe me for the witness of john then believe me because of the works that i am performing here for that also is a true and living witness in your human life of what is going on and this chapter as you know began with a healing and there are many crowds standing around listening to this argument which is going on at the moment and the accusations they're throwing at him with growing and growing violence and then he talks about the word which is also the witness the word of the father and that word the minute you get the mention of word in john's gospel you're back with that divine principle of order and communication in greek the logos but right at the beginning in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god the same was with god in the beginning all things were made by him and without him not what not was not anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the life of all humanity and all of that and the fact that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we are seeing it as they are seeing it lived out so believe in the word and the words that i am speaking because they are from the one who sent me all these things are being said as witness to what jesus is doing there in the temple in jerusalem in judea at this time and there's controversy and kickback from those who don't want the order upset and at the same time are feeling violent about authority being challenged you glory in glory given to you by one another why can you not believe in the glory that the eternal creator is willing to give you and in that she is giving you life and life not just in this dimension but in the eternal dimension beyond a gift for your physical humanity a gift for your thinking mental humanity a gift for the capacity of humanity to have a spiritual dimension which receives the gifts of eternity even now and then lastly the last of the four witnesses that he points to the words of scripture and the words that even moses wrote because moses was seen to be the author of the first five books of the the scriptures traditionally and yet moses was the one who with the burning bush like these daffodils in all their golden glory the burning bush took off his shoes because it was a holy place and was given the first time was given the name of god as i am the affirmation of that which is always present in the verb to be and that jesus uses again and again i am i am i am sometimes he is says it as an overarching statement as he did with the woman at the well i the one who is speaking to you am he and other times he uses symbols and signs like parables to give those gifts so let's begin to think of uh first of all uh two dates today and then i'll go on to hospices of hope because this is a charity i think we do want to explain and cause you it might attract you as one way of helping the ukraine and different people will be attracted by different charities but this is a very very attractive one first of all i want to say that today is uh the day in uh 1892 that veto sackville west was born and she is known to us most of all these days as the great gardener at sittinghurst which is in kent but first and foremost she'd been born at the great house at noel and she adored the life of that house and the community of that great edwardian house at the time because she tended to know them all as a child and make friends with the whole household think downton abbey if you like and as you do that think of the life of noah because later on that love of the house and her love of kent which was set out in her poetry but also set out in her novels are testaments to the way in which she felt about this particular county but her novel the edwardians is a novel not so much about the people in it but about the great house which she was never because of her gender permitted to inherit it had to go to a cousin a masculine cousin instead and she mourned the loss of noel but created instead with her husband who was a member of parliament and a diplomat a marriage which at first the family frowned on and she went off to constantinople to be a diplomat's wife for a while before the first world war broke out but at that time and uh were thinking pre-first world war at that time she she was thinking back and carrying those memories in her head until in eventually she wrote them down in 1930 in a novel which became very popular it was simply called the edwardians and she called the house which is almost the hero of the book chevron it's really noel and that too is a house here in kent and uh that together with sissinghurst became her great loves it's later on in life after a series of turbulent relationships and all kinds of of stories and poems being written that in 1930 harold nicholson and vita sackville west the two of them his husband and wife bought sittinghurst and began to create it into a beautiful garden and she became known as a writer of gardening articles weekly in the observer an article called in your garden if i can do this you can do it that kind of of article but it's sitting house itself which is now a national trust uh property uh but in sicily house itself you see in the the areas of the garden uh and some of them are enclosed so you step from one area to another from white garden to rose garden to orchard to cottage garden to kitchen garden to the nuttery and all of those as you walk and find new things opening up for you in exploration is what we try to do for you with this garden as the seasons change but also as we go to different locations and we remember her for that gift of suddenly finding herself not as a novelist as she still remembered as a novelist but as a gardener and if you think vita sackville west her name is inextricably bound up with sittinghurst and also her love of kent let's go on also because uh this is a an anniversary also for samuel barber the american composer and we've talked about him a lot and we've we've done several of his things quite recently but he as a boy felt a holy vocation to be a musician and the compass of his compositions as a a witness to that holy vocation to be a musician is vast but again rather like veto sackville west he is remembered it's interesting how people are remembered for just a few things as well as the great compass of his compositions of course but there are things that there are points which you might point to of his developing and perhaps his most well-known work which we have played so many times is his adagio and that adagio was the slow movement of a string quartet that's how it began and then he developed it into that adagio with all its its connotations is played for on so many occasions of remembrance and of serious sadness it's become associated with that 9 11 event but he also he he made he wrote the adagio itself in its orchestral form in 1936 but in 1967 he added and created it as a choral piece for the words of the anestheti lamb of god you take away the sins of the world have mercy on us lamb of god you take away the sins of the world have mercy on us lamb of god you take away the sins of the world grant us your peace that's a prayer for today as the psalmist spoke about peace for the world [Music] then again we have blitz had sung and played so many times sure on this shining night just a a a solo song at the beginning one of four songs in a song cycle and it's taken from a poem by james agee and we love to hear it sung sure on this shining night all of these are our steps in his own spirituality as well as steps in his composition and finally not so well known but very important in his spiritual life in 1954 the prayers of soren kierkegaard set in four movements as a cantata and they have four sections as they go through and they're interesting sections as a witness to the testament of baba's faith the first is the unchanging god the unchangeable nature of the creator and at the same time that then goes on to the next section which is a single solo voice in response to the call and the next section a community voice different kind of music in harmonies in response to the call and finally a dance which joins earth with heaven in the joy of celebrating the creator's gifts all of those things taken from the words of kirkegaard's book the unchangeableness of god and his other notebook christian discourses but set to music in those in that cantata in four sections by samuel baba whom again we remember today witnesses to their creativity fetus angel west the gardener samuel baba the composer the musician the musician but moved in their spiritual and mental and physical life to create and that moves others to create as well to answer the call well let's think about the call which so many have been answering to help the war-torn and stricken people of ukraine and we have another charity this morning to share with you and as i said this has come through the agency of a friend and it's called the charity is called hospices of hope and you yourself can google their website there's an english website and there's also a an american website and there are also charity shops here but the work of that charity has always been done in south eastern europe and based itself on romania and it's a work of palliative care hospice care for people children and adults with terminal conditions and that work has been carrying on as i said uh already 70 000 children and adults have been looked after by this charity in hospices in palliative care and their teams go round training other teams in palliative care in the hospices of those lands around romania and as they do so uh and in the surrounding countries they are making as hospices do every day count for those who are terminally ill and taking the burden off their families well we well know how that palliative care has been interrupted by the war in ukraine for the ukrainian people and some of those children and some of those adults coming out are badly in need of palliative care and this hospice is this this this hospices of hope this charity is there to provide palliative care for those crossing borders and needing transport to be taken to the proper hospice care and this is godly work in a great way this is jesus saying if you don't believe me for for for uh the the things which you're being sent in terms of gifts from the creator believe me for the work you see going on in compassion and healing well here is a work of intense compassion and healing and it's a work that you can help by donating so once again we will give the link for hospices of hope never was a charity better named and this is a specific kind of help in palliative care for those who are terminally ill children and adults care which has been interrupted and so a special appeal has been launched by this charity hospices for ho of hope and it's opened up a new dimension called the ukraine appeal and it's that you can tune into if you would like and contribute to that we're trying to give you ways where we here can physically of our own resources help people stricken by this terrible war at present and this seemed to us one of intense imagination which is already proven by all the work that they've already done with so many in not only in palliative care and their hospital cars taking them to palliative care and that can happen now from the border across but at the same time in training others in that medical professionals being trained as i said they've already done 25 000 training sessions in that way and that will continue so here's the thought for today in terms of uh how the works can be a witness to the way in which god's love and gifts are expressed as well as our prayers undergirding that situation too so let's say our prayers are on this particular day and give thanks for all the charitable exercises which are going on to help but nothing takes the place of our urgent prayer for the restoration of peace for the ukrainian people we're going to say our prayers in a moment but in the anglican communion today on this 9th of march we're praying for the diocese of north kagazi in the church of the province of uganda and we're praying also for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambus and the diocese today is is giving us a list listening and discerning during lent so no names of parishes from the diocese today so let's bring our own concerns the images that we have seen and the thanksgivings for the courage of so many at this time and we joined together first in the colic for this week then the colic for lent itself and then the our father almighty god whose son jesus christ fasted 40 days in the wilderness and was tempted as we are yet without sin give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your spirit and as you know our weakness so may we know your power to save through jesus christ our lord amen almighty and everlasting god you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent creating making us new and contrite hearts that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness may receive from you the god of all mercy perfect remission and forgiveness through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own way we pray 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 so a moment of reflection now as we bring our own intentions and thoughts to our prayers so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign so [Applause] [Music] the pink and green of the hyacinths remind us of the brave and wonderful work of the workers of hospices of hope working with such skill in palliative care across that region in southeastern europe but at the same time now the special work that they are accomplishing in the same way of palliative care for ukrainians fleeing from their own land and needing that help when they are terminally ill children and adults it's a work of immense compassion and we give thanks for it christ give you grace to grow in holiness to deny yourselves take up your cross daily and follow him 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 it's not long since uh we were um sharing the story on an anniversary of ernest shackleton and the way in which in 1914 1915 in the antarctic well away from the the first world war was going on in in europe his antarctic expedition found their ship endurance crashed in the ice and set and it sank below the ice into the waters of the antarctic and we we spoke about the the very brave and wonderful journey which took months to get them all to safety which he accomplished well as you may have seen uh the people have been searching there's been an expedition searching for endurance that ship and they found it and they've lowered cameras into the water and found miraculously the ship which sank 107 years ago wonderfully preserved and you can actually uh um in a search engine look at that on online it's it's been on bbc news but it's a wonderful thing to look at to show how a thing from the past can speak to us and that was the sort of age that vita sackville west was talking about when they set off it was the world she knew and there's the ship perfectly preserved below the waters which shackleton and his crew saw with horror as the ice just cracked and took it under the under the water and they standing on the ice flow simply had to watch so uh that's a a lovely uh reminiscence of the past with that ship being found and no lives were lost shackleton brought all his men home so uh enjoy your day wherever you are uh and don't forget to write your your line of one good thing at the end of the day as a notebook for the end of lens when you look back me m [Music] m a [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] today um [Applause] you