good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 11th of september that date is etched in everyone's mind 9 11 the 11th of september and 20 years ago the 9 11 event of terrorism which changed the world for really all of us on that day and made the world feel a less safe place but we recall that today we recall in a a special type of morning prayer with a different kind of shape this morning we recall all the grief felt around the world many nations involved but just those moments and particularly we pray for the american people and all those nations so much affected but really this was a world event to me it when i think back it seems immediate and it will to so many of you but hearing the voices even of our senior school children today 17 18 years old i had to remind myself that at that time in 2001 they weren't even born and it's it shows how quickly time passes it's a little paragraph here before we start our prayers and this will be a day when cathedral life is interrupted it's a particular time for an act of remembrance but this is the background on september the 11th 2001 almost 3 000 people lost their lives during the attacks at the twin towers the pentagon and aboard united airlines flight 93 at 8 46 a.m manhattan time american airlines flight 11 traveling from boston to los angeles hit the north tower of the world trade center in new york at 903 united airlines flight 175 traveling from boston to los angeles hit the south tower of the world trade center in new york at 9 37 american airlines flight 77 traveling from dallas virginia to los angeles hit the pentagon building in washington and at 1003 united airlines flight 93 traveling from newark new jersey to san francisco crashed in a field near shanksville pennsylvania that plane which also had been hijacked was on its way to destroy we believe the capital building and the centre of american government at that time and had passengers not taken it into their own hands bravely to rush the terrorists and cause the plane to crash in that field many many more lives would have been taken it's still the largest terrorist peacetime attack on civilian population that exists and the image of where we were on that day i'm sure will be strong with you it certainly is with me so that our reflection is about that day about that grief about how we have used memorials but also how we have used the event to go on as a world it took place just after the millennium when there had been so much hope for a new world opening up so as we say our prayers today i shall use a different pattern to go through and cause us to reflect on that occasion and pray for those who still grieve for the sudden loss of loved ones many of them very young oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise let your ways be known upon earth your saving power among the nations blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief your only son was lifted up that he might draw the whole world to himself may we walk this day in the way of the cross and always be ready to share its weight declaring your love for all the world 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 o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever are men instead of a sound this morning i'm using some verses from the song of lamentation but also then some verses from the book ecclesiastes is it nothing to you or you who pass by look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow for these things i weep my eyes flow with tears for a comforter is far from me one to revive my courage but this i call to mind and therefore i have hope the steadfast love of the lord never ceases his mercies never come to an end they are new every morning great is your faithfulness the lord is my portion says my soul therefore i will hope in him the lord is good to those who wait for him to the soul that seeks him it is good that we should wait quietly for the salvation of the lord we remind ourselves that many nations were involved in this huge terrorist tragedy but all became involved because the capacity of us to view what was going on in real time across our screens was something that involved us in that real time and the days which followed we remember that in new york there is a a memorial garden which our queen elizabeth ii opened a commonwealth memorial garden and also in the church of st thomas fifth avenue in new york the queen is quoted in a carving there on the wall with the letter of comfort and standing beside the people that she sent as the head of state not only of this nation but many commonwealth nations and the quote this given underneath elizabeth ii is grief it's the price we pay for love i'm going to read from the book ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verses 1 to 8. for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven a time to be born and a time to die a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted a time to kill and a time to heal a time to break down and a time to build up a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing a time to seek and a time to lose a time to keep and a time to cast away a time to tear and a time to sow a time to keep silence and a time to speak a time to love and a time to hate a time for war and a time for peace old testament poem sets are humankind in the experiences which it undergoes individually and as communities together in the most wonderful way sets it in time and i found a little quote and it's by an unknown person meditating on the night before so it would have been a monday night the night before september the 11th 2001 and it says about the day before september the 10th on this day you can say 20 years ago 246 people went to sleep in preparation for their morning flights 2606 people went to sleep in preparation for work in the morning 343 firefighters went to sleep in preparation for their morning shift 60 police officers went to sleep in preparation for morning patrol eight paramedics went to sleep in preparation for the morning shift none of them saw past 10 a.m on september the 11th 2001. in one single moment life may never be the same as you live and enjoy the breaths you take today and tonight before you go to sleep in preparation for your life tomorrow kiss the ones you love snuggle a little tighter and never take one second of your life for granted it's what it means to live in time with the fragility of human life and day by day in our morning prayers we see that but this anniversary is one which showed it to us in a very particular way what it means to live in the fragility of life and sometimes we seem to be resting assured that everything is absolutely safe and it was on that day when an ordinary autumn morning a beautiful morning i remember one of the newspaper reports saying it was the kind of morning when you forgive autumn for not being summer and in all that peaceful tranquility this terrorist event happened think where you were i can certainly think where i was i set off that morning from here to spend a few days in paris and had arrived off the train not knowing that the day was going to be any different from any other and then in the afternoon in paris for that was the time there when all this began to unfold the news began to filter through and i went back to watch the television screen and at that point everything else that was my concern every aspect of the day disappeared in the shad horror and grief puzzlement and fear for none of us knew what was happening none of us knew first of all whether this was an accident and then if a terrorist attack who was perpetrating this and then as one thing followed another when would there be an end of all of this was every place now under threat was a city like paris or a city like london under threat and certainly that sense of insecurity was writ large over everything as the horror unfolded well to begin with there was a stunned silence everywhere and one doesn't want to go into too many personal details about those silences because every one of you if you're old enough will remember how you first came to that knowledge and there was a sense of unbelief that manhattan which seemed such a place removed from that kind of danger it wasn't a time of war it was a time of peace going back to our ecclesiastes and then this began to happen and it changed the world and the perception that the world had of itself but first there was that almost frozen silence and then afterwards people began to talk to talk to one another seeking comfort seeking understanding attempting to give comfort failing to give understanding just talking for we are a chattery species and the way in which we communicate is right at the heart of everything and that talking began and then now i am speaking of my own experience we looked around for those most affected and they would naturally be citizens of the united states and there were many in paris but i doubt that many of them paid for their own meals that night and certainly in the little restaurant that we were eating in jul the old proprietor just ripped up all the bills for american customers on that night but there was a sense of coming together in grief in shock and again in a sense of puzzlement now one of the writers who wrote for me best about this experience was ian mcewen the novelist i read him on the next day but as he himself said later he found it difficult to write at that time for we were in the mode of talking to one another but having no understanding having seen horrendous pictures and felt involved in situations which before had been a a peaceful sophisticated city and now was a scene of horror and of the wreckage and of everything that was there which became a sign of grief and it was only on the saturday morning following that's the 15th by then that mckeon felt himself able to write and i found it such a moving passage i'm going to quote it now emotions have their narrative after the shock we move inevitably to the grief and the sense that we are doing it more or less together is one tiny scrap of consolation initially the visual impact of the scenes those towers collapsing with malign majesty extended our state of fevered astonishment even on wednesday the next day fresh video footage froze us in this stupefied condition and denied us our profounder feelings the first plane disappearing into the side of the tower as cleanly as a posted letter the couple jumping into the void hand in hand a solitary figure falling with a strangely extended arm was it an umbrella serving as a hopeful parachute the rescue workers crawling about at the foot of a vast mountain of rubble and in our delirium most of us wanted to talk we babbled by email on the phone around kitchen tables we knew there was a greater reckoning ahead but we could not quite feel it yet sheer amazement kept getting in the way the reckoning of course was with the personal by thursday i noticed among friends and in tv and radio commentaries a new mood of exhaustion and despair people spoke of being depressed no other public event had cut so deeply the spectacle was over now we were hearing from the bereaved each individual death is an explosion in itself wrecking the lives of those nearest we were beginning to grasp the human cost this was what it was always really about the silent relatives grouped around the entrances to hospitals or wandering the streets with their photographs was a terrible sight it reminded us of other tragedies of wars and natural disasters around the world but manhattan is one of the most sophisticated cities in the world and there were some uniquely modern elements to this nightmare that bound us closer to it the mobile phone has inserted itself into every crevice of our daily lives now in catastrophe if there is time enough it is there in our dying moments all through thursday we heard from the bereaved how they took those last calls whatever the immediate circumstances what was striking was what they had in common a new technology has shown us an ancient human universal a san francisco husband slept through his wife's call from the world trade center the tower was burning around her and she was speaking on her mobile phone she left her last message to him on the answering machine a tv station played it to us while it showed the husband standing there listening somehow he was able to bear hearing it again we heard her tell him through her sobbing that there was no escape for her the building was on fire there was no way down the stairs she was calling to say goodbye there was really only one thing for her to say those three words that all the terrible art the worst pop songs and movies the most seductive lies can somehow never cheapen i love you she said it over and over again before the line went dead and that is what they were all saying down their phones from the hijacked planes and the burning towers there is only love before oblivion love was all they had to set against the hatred of their murderers earlier today i had an interview with radio kent and towards the end of the interview when i had explained what we will be doing in the cathedral today to call this place to silence at 1 46 that moment when the first plane came into the tower and the bell of bell harry will toll for 10 minutes at that time but in the cathedral we shall be saying prayers prayers remembrance prayers of grief but prayers of intention and the interview on radio kent said do you think it's a more tolerant world now it was a question i wasn't expecting but tolerance is a precious commodity and has to be grasped day by day and it feeds on the kind of experience that i've just described the fact that deep within us there is that capacity to love which is the should we say um planting ground for and the growing ground for tolerance it's a very different world but it means that every day the gift of the new day as we saw this morning we say each morning receiving the gift of a new day and using its hours becomes something that we start again with and this memorial day which is so important to us all to remember is a day which was overarched by those desperate loving messages which were the last things that those who knew that their life was coming to an end wanted to give it's why i've chosen as our reading this morning not to continue with the book of genesis but to go to saint paul's letter to the corinthians chapter 13 and to use that as our reading if i speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love i'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol and if i have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if i have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love i'm nothing if i give away all i have and if i did love deliver up my body to be burned but have not love i gain nothing love is patient and kind love does not envy or boast it is not arrogant or rude it does not insist on its own way it is not irritable or resentful it does not rejoice it wrong doing but rejoices with the truth love bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things love never ends as for prophecies they will pass away as for tongues they will cease as for knowledge it will pass away for we know in part and we prophesy in part but when the perfect comes that which is partial will pass away when i was a child i spoke like a child i thought like a child i reasoned like a child that when i grew up and became an adult i gave up childish ways for now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face now i know in part then i shall know fully even as i have been fully known so now abide faith hope and love but the greatest of these is love one of the most sublime passages of scripture reaching from here in the world of time to the world beyond of infinite love where we are fully known already and whose gifts we can already claim day by day during the hours of the gift of this new day it happened in 2001 that very near to those towers uh near to trinity wall street the church there rowan williams at the the little church associated with with uh with uh trinity saint paul's church very very near to the towers roane williams who then was an archbishop of wales and later of course became archbishop of canterbury was there making certain recordings when all this happened he himself had woken to an ordinary day and then found himself sitting in a stairwell with courtney carrick who was helping him at the time not knowing whether they would live or die as all that enfolded around him and the great dust clouds of those collapsing towers happened later on quite soon afterwards he like ian mcewen tried to set his thoughts down and he did it in a book called writing in the dust quickly put together because the images had to be fairly immediate i've just taken a paragraph from that because the most important thing to him was that the incident not only enfolded us but it also opened certain doors of understanding and compassion for others in our world and gave us a new key to intolerance and a clue to what globalization actually means here is rowan in his book writing in the dust we have had an experience that is not just a nightmare to us but a door into the suffering of countless other innocents a suffering that is more or less routine for them in their less regularly protected environments never again can we turn our backs on the fear and the anguish of those in cities where terrorism or civil war makes life a hell on earth this thread of unity ties us all together in a way that was inconceivable before that september day now we are all together in the same wobbly boat always unsure of what the future will bring the gift of a new day and the capacity to perceive we seem to go through stages and at the end of grief and waiting patiently and quietly we come to the time when we want to set memorials in place the most wonderful memorial to those twin towers and those who died there and the aircraft is the great freedom tower now in new york but also the memorials of both running water and also the memorials of architecture which speak of moments in time and light shining through them the great oculus there which is positioned so that on this day at 8 46 the sun shines and floods all of that with light and it's in the sense also of a dove's wings the sign of peace is the world more tolerant is the question to me and the answer is well only we can make it so and we do so by constantly reflecting on all who have given their lives as a sign of peace sometimes utterly unexpectedly and those voices reaching for the quality of love and knowing it to be the strongest gift that we have received to use throughout the day let's say a prayer this morning not the colleague for the week but too little prayers one by eric milner white and another bison francis both in our daily prayer we remember all those who suffered on this day those who died and those who still suffer that terrible sense of loss and terror o holy spirit giver of light and life impart to us excuse me thoughts better than our own thoughts prayers better than our own prayers and powers better than our own powers that we may spend and be spent in the way of love and goodness after the perfect image of our lord and savior jesus christ and lord make us instruments of your peace where there is hatred let us sow love where there is injury pardon where there is doubt faith where there is despair hope where there is darkness light where there is sadness joy grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console to be understood as to understand to be loved as to love for it is in giving that we receive it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life amen we say the prayer our savior taught us in the many languages of the world 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 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 some silence now for our own reflections on this day [Music] of your peace [Music] faith in you [Music] oh [Music] make me [Music] let me bring home where there is [Music] so it is [Music] eternal life [Music] my souls [Music] is [Music] [Music] unto god's most gracious mercy and protection we commit you the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you the lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and make you know his presence 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 and remember today and always amen [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you