good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 26th of february as we come to say our morning prayers together welcome wherever you are in the world and bring your own prayers and concerns but of course our biggest concern at the moment right across the world is the situation in ukraine and our hearts are filled with grief and also affection and prayer for the people of ukraine at this time as so many leaders have said throughout the world and our own prime minister here yesterday in his speech said this situation seems unthinkable in 2022 in the midst of peaceful cities in a democratic country where suddenly citizens not just soldiers are losing their lives but citizens are losing their lives and cowering in bunkers as as explosives are endangering their lives and ruining their homes and thousands and thousands are fleeing from their homes in terror all of these things we cry out in our prayers for justice and the welfare of those people and some influence for good from across the world for russia is increasingly standing alone in this and there seems to be a unity of nations in condemning such an act of war and terror unleashed on civilian populations and innocent civilian populations we see scenes like the woman cowering with her cat amongst others in in a a just a a cellar rather than a bunker and hearing the sound of gunfire and bombs falling outside we see also unbelievable scenes of a tank just crushing a passenger car and going across it and miraculously the driver inside is pulled free after that but these scenes seem to us to be like some other world from what we would expect in 2022 so our hearts go out in our prayers to the people of ukraine today and with world leaders across the world we say slava ukrainia the cry of glory for ukraine in this terrible situation we shall keep that in prayer in our hearts throughout the day and throughout the days to come and pray earnestly for those people in such a desperate situation and pray for the people of russia too because this is a situation of course involving all those and many in danger because they find themselves to be there at that time so let us uh then say our prayers and i think we will find many themes in our reflection this morning echoing this this this theme as we go through 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 the 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 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 [Applause] amen our sun this morning on this 26th morning of the month is psalm 119 the long psalm which splits into eight verse sections and we're reading verses 105 to 112 set for this morning your word is a lantern to my feet and the light upon my path i have sworn and will fulfill it to keep your righteous judgments i am troubled above measure give me life oh lord according to your word accept the free will offering of my mouth o lord and teach me your judgments my soul is ever in my hand yet i do not forget your law the wicked have laid a snare for me but i have not strayed from your commandments your testimonies have i claimed as my heritage forever for they are the very joy of my heart i have applied my heart to fulfill your statutes always even to the end it's very much a psalm where the lesson is given of going forward on the way and this garden as we know is full of many paths which lead in different directions and we choose some mornings where we go and take one pass or another but the sun begins with how that way and now we're talking about our journey of life and also our spiritual journey how that way is lit your word is a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path in danger and in sorrow in companionship and in loneliness in joy and in thanksgiving and yet were taught always as the gift of the new day dawns to give thanks for its opportunities and that of course is the theme of the psalmist we're going back to samuel but i've said that we're just going to read until tuesday morning one or two bits of that to leave it in a good place and at the moment we have left david having lamented the death of king saul and jonathan and mourned for them also showing favor to the men of jabesh gilead who themselves had bravely gone to collect the bodies of saul and jonathan and taken them back to bury under the tamarisk tree in jebus gilead and david having sung his song of lament commends the men of jabesh gilead for that act of loyalty to the king that he himself david had always given loyalty to even when he was in danger of his own life we might actually before we even go on think of the way in which david himself as a youth left the sheep to go with the five smooth stones to face the giant goliath and all the philistine armies and that's a very famous story but it shows how resources can like the five smooth stones can seem utterly irrelevant and then stand against the armies of goliath and the philistines and prevail and so we might think of that as an image today of defenseless ukraine standing against the might of russia and it's a nice image to think of with david himself as just a use despised by the king you're just a youth and the giant you're just a youth and we pray that as the months unfold this story that we're thinking of may turn itself round so i'm going to read today part of chapter 5 because it takes david's story on a little further you remember he's been anointed by the men of judah to be the king of his own house just the tribe of judah the other tribes for the moment are still staying loyal to the house of saul and there's a remnant of saul's relatives and abner who has been the captain of saul's guard but here something else happens at the beginning of chapter five so we'll read chapter five just verses one up to verse uh i think um ten no maybe twelve then all the tribes of israel came to david at hebron and said behold we are your bone and flesh in times past when saul was king over us it was you who led out and brought in israel and the lord said to you you shall be shepherd of my people israel and you shall be prince over israel so all the elders of israel came to the king at hebron and king david made a covenant with them at hebron before the lord and they anointed david king over the whole of israel david was 30 years old when he began to reign and he reigned for 40 years at hebron he reigned over judah for seven years and six months and at jerusalem he reigned over all israel and judah for 33 years and the king and his men went to jerusalem against the jebusites the inhabitants of the land who said to david you will not come in here but the blind and the lame will ward you off thinking david cannot come in here nevertheless david took the stronghold of zion that is the city of david and david said on that day whoever would strike the jebusites let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind who are hated by david's soul therefore it is said the blind and the lame shall not come into the house and david lived in the stronghold and called it the city of david and david built the city all round from the miller inwards and david became greater and greater for the lord the god of hosts was with him and hiram king of tyre sent messengers to david and cedar trees also carpenters and masons who built david a house and david knew that the lord had established him king over israel and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people israel well they're glorious verses but in one sense they're also puzzling verses and we'll come to that little bit of puzzlement in a moment but i wanted to just register that here is the consolidation of the reign of king david in the city of zion jerusalem and that's where we think of him bethlehem was the poem city of the royal line of david of judah but here we are with king david anointed over all the tribes of israel in jerusalem on mount zion a holy place from well before that for traditionally mount zion was the place that it was thought that abraham had been obedient to god by laying his son isaac on the stone in order to sacrifice him and then of course the lord's voice saying hold your hand knowing that abraham was utterly obedient and faithful and that tradition goes right through in that way and makes jerusalem also a holy place to both the jewish faith the christian faith and the islamic faith in that way but for the moment here is david's set there in the holy city of jerusalem and then we're told little facts come into things now that david was 30 when he became king and he reigned for 40 years does that remind you of anyone else because luke says in his gospel that jesus was 30 when he began his ministry and that that ministry is is there so there's that that sort of likeness in the royal line of david the coincidence of the way in which david began and then jesus himself began in that way and reigned for 40 years [Music] so 33 years was the life of our lord if we listen to us in luke and we then add the years of hebron and the 33 years in the holy city if you want to play with numbers and i remember my own sacristan wilfried barlow in tisbury who served me most days at the daily eucharist in the parish church there and would ring the bell to call the people and uh he always rang it 33 times marking the incarnational life human life of jesus himself according to saint luke so uh the qualities of kingship of course are are writ large that shepherd your people israel they say to him you've always been leading us you led us out to battle you led us back and now we come to you to anoint your king and to be shepherd over your people the right concept of kingship the right concept of leadership keeping the welfare of the people and the concept that jesus himself gives to us in the great i am statement i am the good shepherd and i know my sheep it's a davidic image and perhaps best given to us in the psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd i shall not want or in the coverdale i can lack therefore i i can lack nothing and the the sense of being led in green pastures besides still waters it's what we pray for once again for the people of ukraine this morning but for the moment that is far from them at this time but we do remember that david himself had faced the dangers alone of the enmity and violence of the power of king saul and we remember him walking away in sorrow from his last meeting with jonathan being utterly alone and now he here he is anointed and in the holy city well i said we deal with that little bit of of uh of strangeness which uh uh nick king the uh jesuit translator of all the scriptures from the septuagint all the way through that lovely translation that he's made of things says there's a bit of corrupt text here and um he's given me one of the best explanations of this little bit of shall we call it corrupt text because these ancient texts do get muddled around and there's certainly an editorial note in here which we'll see but i'm talking about the bits concerning the blind and the lame which one thinks what on earth is all this about it takes me back actually to a divinity lesson at school where the master drew on the blackboard as it was in those days with white chalk the the the way in which uh the the well to give water to the people of jerusalem in their stronghold and she went down through and he said that people were going to go up that way and because all the armed jebusites were guarding the wall all around then probably the blind and the lame would guard that shaft well i accepted that at the time but i think nick king has given a better illustration and it's an illustration that we might all totally recognize that jerusalem is so strong that even the blind and the lame could keep it safe and that's the sort of thing uh which jesus would use the the sort of um uh it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle and and this is something so easy physically i mean that even my grandmother could do the sorts of things that we use analogies and somehow he believes that that text has then been corrupted in some way from our proverbs that this is so easy to defend that even the blind and the lame could do it and then that by the editorial notes then goes on to the instructions for the temple that those with any real disability even the the ones who couldn't walk had to stay outside of the inner courtyards of the temple but really that's an editorial note coming further it comes into this passage but if you're puzzled about it then um i believe it's it's it's that kind of explanation you have to look for it's not actually meat for the passage itself and there's an editorial note for later on in the life of the temple later but we do see that that when peter and john heal the lame man they then can take him because he's whole again physically into the temple itself and he goes in leaping and praising god as you will well know following the two apostles on the way um so then we come really to the point where david is established and a neighboring king hiram sends him beautiful cedar wood as a gift in order that his own house his palace really as the king might be built later and we'll look at this on monday he has to find a fitting place for the ark of the covenant which now needs to be brought into the holy city but for the moment let's leave it there with david settled in the holiest city and go to our other point of uh uh reflection today this is the day february the 26th in 1802 when the french novelist victor hugo was born and he lived right through the 19th century till 1885 but i think he is probably best known now for the monumental novel which he published in 1862 it's a significant time for the development of europe but also a significant time across the atlantic it's a decade of the american civil war and also one can feel as one reads that monumental novel seemed to be one of the the best and most famous novels ever written but certainly one of the longest and as a book it takes quite a bit of reading i was first introduced to les miserables when i was at school i'd gone twice this morning back to school and as we do and there was a little book of printed plays and one of them had been taken from the story in les miserables where uh the the hero jean valjean is fleeing from the law and at the same time goes to seek shelter in the house of what i took to be a priest at the time i think that's how he said and uh there in the house of the priest he finds a welcome and also he finds uh food and and and wine and a meal to to keep him safe even though he's a fugitive and there in that holy house he himself as the priest goes to bed and and leaves him there and there's silver on the table and two very precious silver candlesticks and you probably know the story that in the night it's too much for him and he takes some of the silver and goes outside and runs and outside the law catches him and brings him back to the house and they knock up in on the door because the night is still going on the priest who comes down and as far as i remember the housekeeper was standing by as well and they he invites the officers of the law into the house and they say we caught this man and we believe that this is your silver and valjean is that terrified like a haunted man he has no resources and he's done this and the priest looks at him and looks into his eyes and then says to the officers of the law no i gave him the silver in order that he might have a new beginning to his life but my friend he says looking at jean valjean you forgot some of it and he walks over to the two precious silver candlesticks and says you forgot these and the officers of the law are confounded and puzzled but as they priest gives valjean his blessing they then all of them leave the house and the door is shut and i remember that the play ending with the housekeeper shaking her head at the priest's generosity thinking you'll beg yourself by all of this uh and but the priest has actually performed an act of grace now that actually caused me to look at the book and the book is massive and from time to time in the story uh victor hugo digresses to give almost a philosophical or a political or a religious or a social lecture sometimes over some chapters and almost one has to read it i've told you before perhaps how i read don quixote because i found it too long to read and i bought a cheap copy and would would cut out pages in a group so that wherever i was going i had a folder with maybe 25 pages of don quixote and by that way i got through and it may be that that's the way to get through the book les miserables but it's not as a book and we'll come on to this that people best know it now but i wanted to say what victor hugo himself felt about this huge book which must have taken quite a time to write and it's full of his own personal experiences but he wrote to first of all his publisher in italy i don't know whether this book will be read by everyone but it is meant for everyone it addresses england as well as spain italy as well as france germany as well as ireland the republics that harbor slaves as well as the empires that have serfs social problems go beyond frontiers humankind's wounds those huge sores that litter the world do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps wherever men go in ignorance or despair wherever women sell themselves for bread wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth les miserables knocks at the door and says open up i am here for you well that's a broad intention but in the book itself which as i say encapsulates so many of victor hugo's life experiences and his looking round philosophically and spiritually at the life of the world he writes to the reader towards the end of the book and i'm reading it of course in translation the book which the reader has before them at this moment is from one end to the other in its entirety and details a progress from evil to good from injustice to justice from falsehood to truth from night to day from appetite to conscience from corruption to life from bestiality to duty from hell to heaven from nothingness to god the starting point matter the destination the soul the hydra at the beginning the angel at the end it is a magnificent testimony to what veteran i believe is a book which really is a prayer all the way through it's actually a reflection on law and on grace and the overarching canopy of all that is faith which causes trust so that grace can be given and there are so many wonderful moments in that book well now how do we know it well it's because of course first of all in 1985 it was made into a musical and it was made by uh abubil and buble and uh claude michel schoenberg whose music it is and was given larry lyrics by herbert kressma and we knew him he was a a a friend to us and the last time we met him was that a lovely party given by another friend when he was in his uh 90s probably 93 or 94 at that time sadly he died in october 2020 but at that time he was sitting in a wheelchair and the party was going on around him and uh our our hosts there mentioned to him that i wrote lyrics as well and i just written that carol no room at the inn about joseph and mary's journey and syrian landscapes and all of that some of you will remember it from carol services sung by our girls choir and herbert krezmo was sitting in his wheelchair which makes you sort of lower than all the bustle and noise going on around and he said to to me he beckoned me over him i sat down and he said could you can you sing me your carol and i said well i i don't have the words and uh um our hus said uh she she had it because i'd played it to her on the piano uh a few days before and the music as well and so i didn't need the music i knew the tune but uh she brought that down and i had the words in front of me and he said well uh sing it and so i felt a bit embarrassed really with this great lyricist himself in depot age but his eyes were were soft but on me at that time nothing else mattered in the room they were on me and uh that's how we knew him both of us and and uh and then he said sing it so in an embarrassed way and no one much was listening because of the buzz of the voice but he was listening and he leaned forward in his wheelchair and i began to sing the carol no room at the end and at the end of the first verse i made as if to stop and he said go on until i had sung all three verses to him and he was sitting in complete tranquility and later he said to our posts that day and she was with him um that he would like to do something more with us uh and we treasured that but sadly at that point of course down occurred and in october 2020 herbert kretzman died but we give so much thanks for that and the grace he showed to me uh a very amateur lyricist from one who is the lyricist for one of the most popular musicals of all time and it's one that it's a musical that we are utterly devoted to and and fletcher has seen it more times than i over in the states and here in london but i think we both agree that the very best performance that we have seen was done by our own king school in the old marlow theatre which was a converted cinema when the school sang les miserables and the passion of the young people suited that testament not only of prayer but the welfare of nations which we are so much thinking of today for ukraine and and the passion with which valjean jean valjean sang and marius sang and all of those we remember well but that was the musical and uh here is the a book of songs from the musical i'll give it to you here now um and uh on the back happily are the photographs of alain boobil at claude michelle schoenberg and our friend herbert kretzma here and we think of his wife civil seva uh this morning as well uh equally uh beloved by us and um i i see that the very first quote about it is from time to time along comes the musical that makes history the spectacular enchanting les miserables is just such a production well of course it is it is absolutely wonderful and we never tire of singing the songs in this little volume i'll come back to them in a moment around the piano but of course they become much better known now because just as the musical was produced in 1885 the book in 1862 the musical in 1985 in 2012 of course the film was made and here we do have an absolute uh barnstorming or winner of a film uh with hugh jackman as jean valjean and russell crowe a name known to us here in the garden uh uh as javert the the the policeman to whom the state and the state changes in the book from uh the napoleonic state through to the restoration of the bourbon monarchy through to the um putting in place of the orleonis monastery but to to ja there the only thing that matters is the law the letter of the law and remember this is a testament to the relationship between law and grace and victor hugo is saying that law needs grace and flexibility to season it for people's welfare otherwise it becomes something which has no life to it is absolutely static and grace means that law develops bit by bit as it has and we looked yesterday at esselbert's law developing into magna carta developing into the way in which things are going otherwise people simply sort of say well um you know i can do nothing about this i wash my hands of it and like pile it with with uh jesus but javert is only interested in following the law all the way through and even on the barricades when the young students are there of fighting what they see to be the oppressive regime in paris in 1832 this was and being shot dead in their their hundreds and on the barricades uh the only thing javert is interested in is chasing jean valjean and seeing that justice as he sees it is done though jean valjean's life is a full is full of of of acts which he needs forgiveness for and acts also of immense and intense grace i was talking about the cast in the film anne hathaway as fontin who suffers so much and then samantha berka as eponine eddie redmayne as marius and helena bonham carter and sasha baron cohen as the awful tinardies the master of the house he says when he's keeping me in the most crooked of them all but the film gives almost a sense of humor about that but in the end they get their comeuppance and then daniel huttelston is little gavroche and the songs well the songs tell the whole story really and they're beautiful songs and we know them all by heart and sing them and sing them with guests when they're here around the piano and as i say this is the book taken from the musical but if i start to look at the songs then uh we have lovely songs like at the end of the day or another day older or even more touching the next one i dreamed a dream in time gone by when hope was high and life worth living i dreamed that love would never die i dreamed that god would be forgiving but the tigers came at night with their voices soft as thunder as they tear your hope apart as they turn your dream to shame and then it goes on with the song and the next one is the castle on a cloud which is the most lovely little dream and it's sung by the young gazette of her castle on the cloud that she dreams of in terrible poverty and danger master of the house with the tinardies singing about how they they absolutely trick their guests into extra pay and paying them more and more and more as they they give really bad fare and bad food and bad everything that they're in and then the song about the stars keeping watch and being immutable in the sky which the policeman seems javier that he is keeping watch and the law can never change like the stars can never change and you go back to hardy's novel you remember two on a tower when lady constantine goes up to the young astronomer swifton st cleve and he says to her if you're troubled my lady and want to believe that the stars are absolutely constant yes there they are shining but if you actually want to realize that your own condition is one that where life is going through and developing and in the end comes to a close and realize that all those stars are gradually over light years in a time concept it's hard for us to understand burning themselves out but as far as their is concerned they are like the law they can never be changed and it has to be exercised whatever the state is doing and then you get of course the contest between the young people and the state itself and the the the death on the barricades of so many in the middle of the city of paris and that takes us once again back to the city of kiev this morning in the cities of ukraine over and over again victor hugo's novel speaks into that situation and gives that reflection of law and grace but it is a journey through thickened sin towards god and towards hope and towards light and towards a development of law by grace and that's his testament in it little cosette or rather gazette herself in that duet with marius when they've fallen deeply in love in my life there are so many questions and answers that somehow seem wrong in my life there are times when i catch in the silence the sigh of a far away song and it sings of a world that i long to see out of reach just a whisper away waiting for me does he know i'm alive do i know if he's real does he see what i saw does he feel what i feel in my life i'm no longer alone now the love of my life is so near find me now find me here and then marius responds in my life she has burst like the music of angels the light of the sun and my life seems to stop as if something is over and something has scarcely begun in my life there is someone who touches my life waiting near waiting here and you then get the tension between love and loyalty and loyalty to the band of students to which malius belongs fighting on the barricades and you then come also to valjean's sacrifice for malius to go to find him and to carry his dying body as he thinks back home and at that time too he performs an act of mercy on javert when he could have killed him he fires his gun up into heaven and that is so challenging that act of forgiveness for javert who's hunted him through his life that javert can't stand it and his world breaks and that last song of javier that desperate song before he casts himself into the thames the sen rather in paris and there we ourselves know that in that act of desperate realization and his own death falling there into the river he will be into heaven's arms and forgiveness because he has realized in that way we could go on a drink with me two days gone by when marius is sitting and remembering all his friends and at the valjean's song bring him home and finally perhaps the most touching song of all empty chairs and empty tables left empty by the hope of the young who went away to fight and were slain on the barricades but they've left a world there for malius and cosette to embrace and take forward for that is what the sacrifice of of uh all that's going on you think of of dickens uh little story christmas carol so popular and in the 19th century when children were being misused in the great places of industry in the mills and all this going on and how the the ghost shows him uh the two children beneath this cloak and the welfare of those is for the welfare of the world bad treatment causes then violence but the way in which these are cared for will mean that the the the world that victor hugo is dreaming of opens up the empty chairs and empty tables don't speak in vain so as you see we could actually um we could actually uh think of that and our passion for this this novel to start with and this musical and these songs into what which so much creativity has been given and also the mighty film now we saw this film on an unforgettable occasion massive um screen and we'd gone over to westwood cross to see this but we went with two friends very dear friends of ours fred and emilia arvison and they'll remember this occasion well i think it was in 20th winter 2013 but the night was really thick with snow and thank god freddie had a four-wheel drive vehicle and we got to the cinema it's a huge cinema with a huge screen and found that no one else really had made it that night and so the four of us sat and the the person on the door was glad to see someone there sat in the middle we could sit wherever we like we sat in the middle just before it was looking at this huge screen and the whole novel opened before us in that brilliant brilliant musical and uh at the end um all that freddie and i could hear was not the script but but amelia and fletch are weeping at what the film was actually doing to them but that was the message that victor hugo wanted to give and then we went out into the snow and motored through the snow to sandwich and there in a restaurant which i think was called number six uh we sat in the restaurant and at a lovely meal and the landlord should we say and was nothing like tennadier was a hospital hospitable and wonderful person who in the end came and sat with us and had a drink with us an unforgettable experience and um i think maybe um fletcher's other uh massively popular musical in film is phantom of the opera and he remembers seeing that film um with a coincidental night much earlier than that in probably about 2005 or something of that sort in spain having gone into the cinema and this is spain on what was a perfectly reasonable winter night but when he came out having watched the film then in spain it was snowing all around on the palm trees which is almost unthinkable in that part of southern spain so near the mediterranean but that's just a coincidence of life and we remember all these things just as victor hugo used all the instances of his life even little ones lifting the cart of someone in an act of mercy because he was so strong and then uh the the man being saved rather like the passenger in the car yesterday being pulled out after the tank had gone over it by kind passers-by and and horrified passers-by who themselves were in danger but uh as the man is is his life is saved it's that action which once again right at the beginning of the book causes java to notice him and think that's the man i need to arrest the act of grace is forgotten the law by the letter is everything and yet we well know that the law is nothing it develops nothing without grace for the welfare of the people and flexibility and all those things we remember as victor hugo gives us sequence after sequence instance after instance through his life but the way in which he describes that wonderful pilgrimage to us in that paragraph i read earlier is something that we cannot forget it's very beautiful it's it's it's just simply going on in that way and that's how our laws and our societies and our civilizations develop but it needs courage and hope and faith to do that sometimes others are bearing that cost so enough you can see we could go on all day about this because it's such a favorite topic but it's come on the right day as we think of the people of ukraine facing so much and yet holding their courage fast at the moment and knowing that the rest of the world it seems is united with them and russia stands alone in this so let's say our prayers on this particular day and uh we are thinking on this 26th of february praying for the diocese of south carolina in the united church of south india and uh we're praying also in this diocese for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth praying for clergy with permission to officiate those who help out in the villages around bridge and the west bridge deanery and there are only a few of them and we know them all actually so we'll mention garth barber brian chalmers chris duncan william hill and dylan turner in our prayers bring your own prayers your own concerns and intentions as we today say for the last time the collect for this week almighty god you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children through jesus christ your son our lord who with you and the holy spirit reign supreme over all things now and forever amen so we pray each in our own language and in our own way 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 now of reflection and prayer [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] we were thinking earlier about the way in which um charles dickens and victor hugo tended to think of the same themes in their society you go writing later than dickens and certainly not deriving from dickens but you think of dickens in the tale of two cities where the uh marquis de santiago's uh carriage drives over a child in the streets of paris and he throws a coin as a compensation to the parent and and uh at the same time how the barrel of wine outside the the shop smashes on the ground and the people rush forward because they are starving and and wanting things of this sort and sop up the wine in their handkerchiefs and that becomes then a sign of the tumbles going through and blood being spilled later so that the the themes tend to echo one another but let's just before our blessing remind ourselves what of what the the vision of this book les miserables was the book which the reader has before them at this moment is from one end to the other in its entirety and details of progress from evil to good from injustice to justice from falsehood to truth from night to day from appetite to conscience from corruption to life from bestiality to duty from hell to heaven from nothingness to god the starting point mata destination the soul the hydra at the beginning the angel at the end the most wonderful opening out but bioti means the prayer thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven and that means not just opening out to the glory of the life beyond but making sure that the quality of that life is here and now something that we are fighting for people to be able to share in that quality 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 as we said yesterday keep praying through the hours of this day for the people of ukraine it's all we can do but at the same time at the same time then keep hope high for grace triumphing over law at all times the spirit gives life the letter taken neat kills and that's the the biblical context and at the same time we would want to say and perhaps you all ought to learn the phrase slava ukraine