good morning and welcome on this friday the 9th of october as we come to say our morning prayers welcome wherever you are in the world bring your own intentions to our prayers as we meet in the dienery garden here under a mulberry tree mulberry is always very significant in canterbury for because of the becket connection but this morning we're sitting here because the sun is breaking through and showing a lovely morning so be welcome wherever you are and as we begin we look back as we always do on october the 9th in years gone by there are multitude of dates today sometimes there are very few so it's really just a selection of those so that we don't do too many things in terms of our mind we remember if we think of the church in canada at this time that this is a fire prevention day there and also a day on which the calendar of the church both there and the episcopal church remembers wilfred grenfell a medical missionary in newfoundland um to us the name grenfell also connecting with fire prevention reminds us of the appalling tragedy of the fire at the grenfell tower three years ago now and the investigation into that and the safety of people still goes on so we remember all those affected by that and those who died there on this particular day with the fire prevention theme in canada so also we think of certain beginnings today foundations shall we say laying the foundation stone for something whether figuratively or really and we remember that as far as europe was concerned in 768 charlemagne was crowned king of the franks and his his career went on and on building the empire in western europe until in 800 on christmas day he was crowned in saint peter's basilica as the emperor of the romans and that was the foundation of the holy roman empire which was if you like the secular version of christendom and we remember the uniting of so much of western europe under his crown at the same time the kingdom of valencia was was uh founded today by james the first of aragon in 1238 and we give thanks for all our friends that are celebrating days of celebration for that kingdom of valencia that area of spain in 1701 the collegiate school of connecticut was founded and a few years later became yale university now there we have so many contacts again we we can't name them all we give thanks for the life there but we will name the uh principal of berkeley divinity school within the university there and pray for andrew mcgowan and felicity both very close friends and that's a a lovely thought of yale university at this time city of hobart in tasmania was founded very recently we sent a canterbury cross stone to be in the foundation there and then in 1835 um the composer camille sansone was born he died in 1921 but perhaps he's most famous he wrote so much but but she's well known for his carnival of the animals and that beautiful gliding cello solo of the swan and then the xylophone fossils and all of that beautiful pictures of animal life well this also is world post day that's a united nations exercise when we give thanks for the concept of universal post the universal postal union began in 1874 giving people for the first time the chance to send letters to each other right across the world and from 1969 onwards this has been world post day when we celebrate our capacity to communicate with each other perhaps letters seem an old-fashioned way i always enjoy receiving them but it might be a day to write a letter to each other but there are other ways of communicating which are much faster now but i remember with joy when i was cut off from everyone ministering in in the southern sudan or tanzania or somewhere like that receiving air letters at that time and and they'd taken an age to get there but it was a contact so communications between us all and we remember yesterday of course the end of what was called by british airways the queen of the skies the 747s which so many of us have enjoyed across the world but now they've been decommissioned and are a piece of airline history just one last thing roger williams was expelled by the puritan leaders in massachusetts bay and founded what became the colony of rhode island to give a sense of freedom to worship and he studied native american languages and wrote the first book on the narragansett language and we remember our friends nancy and the reverend andrew mead now living in retirement but still working hard in narragansett rhode island where that which has always been nancy's family home so that's enough of that you'll have memories of your own there there is a very significant anniversary which we'll remember in our reflection so now let's begin our prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence 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 and 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 on this ninth morning of the month is 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 though 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 so we turn back to the acts of the apostles and we have arrived at chapter 24 and verse 24. yesterday we saw paul before felix the governor of the whole of the roman province of judea and now felix has sent back to jerusalem the chief priests and he's kept paul in custody quite a loose custody in the sense that his friends can visit him and look after him while he's there and that's going to last for some time but let's go back to verse 24 of chapter 24. after some days felix came with his wife drusilla who was jewish and he sent for paul and heard him speak about faith in christ jesus and as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment felix was alarmed and said go away for the present when i get an opportunity i will summon you at the same time felix hoped that money would be given him by paul so he sent for him often and conversed with him when two years had elapsed felix was succeeded by perseus festus and desiring to do the jews a favor felix left paul in prison now three days after festus had arrived in the province he went up to jerusalem from caesarea and the chief priests and the principal men of the jews laid out their case against paul and they urged him asking as a favor against paul that he summoned paul to jerusalem because they were planning an ambush to kill him on the way but festus replied that paul was being kept at caesarea and that he himself intended to go there shortly so he said let the men of authority among you go down with me and if there is anything wrong about the man let them bring charge against him after he stayed among them not more than eight or ten days he went down to caesarea and the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered paul to be brought when he had arrived the jews who had come down from jerusalem stood around him bringing many and serious charges against him that they could not prove paul argued in his defense neither against the law of the jews nor against the temple nor against caesar have i committed any offence but festus wishing to do the jews a favor said to paul do you wish to go up to jerusalem and there be tried on these charges before me but paul said i am standing before the emperor's tribunal where i ought to be tried to the jews i have done no wrong as you yourself know very well if then i am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which i deserve to die i do not seek to escape death but if there is nothing to their charges against me no one can give me up to them i appeal to the emperor then festus when he had conferred with his counsel answered to the emperor you have appealed to the emperor you shall go well here's a finality but it's not going to happen quite yet and in an important way festus has taken over from felix and paul has stood before both of them as a roman citizen appealing to the shall we call it the pax romana let's go back to this breaking down of barriers between nations for the imperial law of rome held fast right across that area the procurator of judea felix was a strange man and we're told he was brutal in putting down any kind of disturbance and certainly not a verse to receiving a bribe to have decisions made he was not um from the kind of background that you would expect roman governors normally to come from he had come from a family of freed slaves but his brother palace was a secretary to the emperor in rome and so there was much influence behind felix yet nevertheless he himself had chosen as his second wife to marry a jewess one of the royal family there the daughter of herod agrippa and he himself had her divorce her husband at the time to marry him this is all important as we'll see what is interesting is that this dates things rather well it's dating all this between the years 52 and 60. and it's it's saying that this is happening according to the time we know from roman imperial records from inscriptions on on stone monuments the procurators were important people and it's significant also that that date line comes right into the middle of the creeds we say extraordinary that the roman procurator at the time of jesus pontius pilate is named by us over and over again again dating that into the time when pilate himself was the procurator and trying to deal with the same problems no wonder they put their capital at caesarea because jerusalem was a hotbed of increa intrigue and it has become more and more liable to violence so felix and festus are nervous about jerusalem and nervous about the chief priests nervous because of their own position so many of the procurators after a bad decision were shipped back to rome that happened to felix but when he got there he found that palace his brother had become a friend of the emperor nero so he was guarded and all was well so uh this kind of influence and also his susceptibility to a bribe comes through the pax romana as well but paul is relying on it little did he know when he prophesied that he would go to rome that this is how he would get there standing in front of festus whom we'll come again to tomorrow standing in front of festus and saying how can you possibly hand me over to people i've done no wrong against there's no no crime that can be proved against me and i appeal to the emperor's tribunal as is my right to do and so it's festus who announces that paul's prophecy will actually be true you've appealed to the emperor to the emperor or to rome you will go and the rest of the acts of the apostles will travel with him in that journey i said that this was another important day and it's a sign in someone else's journey we keep the feast of john henry newman on the day of his death on august the 11th but the catholic church throughout the world the roman catholic church keeps sit today on this particular day because this was when john henry newman became a catholic he converted at that time it was the most incredible step for him to make personally i mean because his journey would now take him away from friends and family from the oxford that he knew and his life from then on although of course we know him as cardinal newman a cardinal of the roman catholic church we also remember that his life was one of almost seclusion at the oratory at uh at edgbaston in in birmingham which he himself founded and his real weapon and messenger of the gospel was his pen nib no one wrote more letters than john henry newman so to remember him also on this world post day is a is a wonderful thing and of course they they survive to a great extent and at the same time we remember the bridge he formed from the church of england the anglican communion now and the roman catholic church the sister communions he becomes an icon of all that so we rejoice in him we rejoice in his holding up the beacon of the primacy of conscience and the way index doctrine can develop all those things but we remember him for his hymns two of them perhaps best well-known praise to the holiest in the height and then again firmly i believe and truly god is three and god is one come from the dream of jurantius long poem he wrote which has become famous because sir edward elgar set it to music in a really fine oratorio but perhaps his best loved him is another one which he wrote when he was on a journey and found himself becomed in the mediterranean on a boat much earlier in his life and wondering where his journey would take him and he wrote on that ship lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom lead thou me on the night is dark and i am far from home lead thou me on keep thou my feet i do not ask to see the distant scene one step enough for me it's one of the most wonderful journeying hymns and when it looks forward to that glory which is heaven the last two lines always almost move me to tears that those two lines and in the morn those angel faces smile whom we have loved long since but lost a while those who are waiting for us whom we've loved so much but on the other side well newman is someone who was im important to me in so many ways in reading his theology and his thought and reflection but for all of us we hold on to that ecumenical understanding which in studying his works from both communions has given us a light in the darkness for the journey beyond and maybe one step at a time in any vocational journey is enough recently i was asked to just pare down a bit one of his meditations so that it could be used as an anson and and set to music and i did so and i'm just opening the the journal on the day i did it which was on may the fifth uh in the middle of this this lockdown and this is how it came out these are newman's words but if you look it up you'll find there there's a a little more to it but he wrote and this is the essence god has created me to do some definite service some work which has not been committed to another i am a link in a chain a bond of connection between persons i shall do good be an angel of peace a preacher of truth in my own place if i do but keep god's commandments whatever i am i can never be thrown away my sickness my perplexity my sorrow may serve god who does nothing in vain when i am among strangers and friendless when my spirits sink and my future is hidden still i may serve for god does nothing in vain one step enough for me maybe that's a wonderful thought as we see paul's journey unfolding in the acts of the apostles and come to say our own prayers this morning so today in the anglican communion i'm going to make an apology because yesterday on the sheet um i read that the ones that we were praying for today uh that was popon dota in papua new guinea and coimbatore in south india so i'm going to use the ones i missed yesterday to pray for today and god will sort the dates out we pray for polynesia air tierra new zealand and polynesia and ferrami karma the primate there and also the diocese of clocker in ireland and john mcdowell the bishop there and his people and the diocese of cochin in south india and baker ninten but the the dialysis and ones i did get right something went right and so we remembered the ones that we're praying for today now we're back with the thanet deanery here and that as you will remember is the area around broadstairs margate ramsgate and the list of villages in what is now called the cmarsh group minster birchington saint nicholas it wade moncton chislet minis bay ecole and westgate on sea and we pray for archbishop justin for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and the life of this whole diocese and you will be praying for your own areas and communities wherever you are as we say the prayer for this week almighty god you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself and so bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face through jesus christ our lords are men and in the mourn those angel faces smile which we have loved long since so lost a while let's say 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 amen moment of silence now for our own prayers on this day [Music] 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 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