[Music] good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of tuesday the 21st of december it's the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and so our hours of light are very small compared with the hours of darkness and so uh join us from across the world it will be different for you in many parts of the world and here it's a a morning of very thin cloud with blue skies showing through and not a breeze at all as we sit here in the orchard there are areas of the world that we will want to pray for and as a representative selection of those let's think first of those suffering from severe floods in malaysia and those attempting to help them there and continue to pray for the philippines after the effects of typhoon ray pray also for the people of somalia who are suffering from severe hunger and famine and again a life-threatening climate that with all its drought which has gone on this is the day also when we remember in 1988 those of you who remember that back that far uh the american jet taking people home for christmas flying over scotland was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb and fell on the little community of lockerbie killing 11 people down on the ground but every passenger of the plane itself and the the pictures of that night stay etched in our heart as people were preparing for for christmas so we remember that incident and the human capacity for hurt and the fragility of life let's so also think of those who today are facing a new lockdown in various countries so friends in the netherlands saying how suddenly things have shut down completely and only the supermarkets are opened and the preparations for christmas are provisional day by day for all of us because of the pandemic and the way that things are being uh um more and more uh or this this particular strain is more and more contagious the the omicron strain and so here there's a huge push to get the booster vaccine into so many and that has been a a record number of booster vaccines going on and today as well so we think of all those in front line health care it's also a a day when we think of those having to make political decisions and uh it's uh emmanuel macron's 44th birthday so we say happy birthday to president macron but i'm sure it will be a day as with all political leaders of intensely difficult on the one hand on the other hand decisions to be made and we pray for all those having to make those decisions uh an amusing and rather good clip of newsreel from australia this morning was of a male bush turkey protecting the nesting mound in someone's garden because a diamond python was attempting to raid the nest and the turkey won the battle and there's a wonderful shot of the male turkey following the python and clipping his tail with his beak as the python in the end has enough and disappears into the undergrowth for male turkeys are there too is a bush turkey uh there to protect the nest as the eggs are hatching so we give thanks for that uh parenthood image as we come to a particular story this morning in our reflection let's begin our prayers though on this particular day oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim you proclaim your praise reveal among us the light of your presence that we may behold your power and glory blessed are you sovereign god of all to you be praise and glory forever in your tender compassion the dawn from on high is breaking upon us to dispel the lingering shadows of night as we look for your coming among us this day open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen we've come to this part of the the garden the orchard we've said it's hard to find a day when flowers are not blooming uh oh and here's the robin who's come to join me as well he's going to be fluttering around i think through our filming this morning so be aware that he's hopping about on the trees our friend the robin who is with us all through the winter very friendly birds indeed but i was going to talk about the flowers and how winter flowers very often have the most wonderful scent now i'm sitting uh here and as you look at me on your left by an abelia plant and the shrub there is putting out tiny little flowers like jasmine flowers and above me are the leaves of a fragrant honeysuckle lanisra fragrantissima for those of you who want the latin names it's full of buds and it will flower soon it's a winter flowering honeysuckle and it will break into fragrant flowers with wonderful scents well all these lovely things flowering are are good for our our lesson when we read it in a moment or two after we've read our song from the gospel of saint luke but first of all our psalm on this day the ninth the 21st of the month is psalm 105. it's a long historical psalm but it delves back into the stories from the old covenant and i shall just read the beginning and the ending of that psalm oh give thanks to the lord and call upon his name make known his deeds among the peoples sing to him sing praises and tell of all his marvelous works rejoice in the praise of his holy name let the hearts of them rejoice who seek the lord seek the lord and his strength seek his face continually remember the marvels he has done his wonders and the judgments of his mouth he brought his people out of egypt with silver and gold there was not one among their tribes that stumbled egypt was glad at their departing for a dread of them had fallen upon them he spread out a cloud for a covering and a fire to light up their night they asked and he brought them quails he satisfied them with the bread of heaven he opened the rock and the waters gushed out and ran in the dry places like a river for he remembered his holy word and abraham his servant so he brought forth his people with joy his chosen ones with singing he gave them the lands of the nations and they took possession of the fruit of their toil that they might keep his statutes and faithfully observe his laws alleluia it's a psalm with much music in it a psalm with singing to the lord and giving praise and remembering the way his promises have been fulfilled throughout their history the history of the old covenant today we're going for our second reading this week from the gospel of saint luke yesterday it was the reading of the angel gabriel coming to the priest zechariah on duty in the temple burning incense as the prayers of the people and offering the incense for the forgiveness of their sins as the day broke and the horns proclaimed the rising of the sun over the mount of olives and now today we leave the two characters uh the old couple zechariah and elizabeth zechariah we leave unable to speak so that he will only speak when he sees the lord's promise which he doubted fulfilled and elizabeth who cannot believe that in her old age her as she calls it reproach has been taken away and she is with child and the lesson yesterday ended with after those days elizabeth conceived and for five months she kept herself hidden saying thus the lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among people say we go on today in the six months the angel gabriel was sent from god to a city of galilee named nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was joseph of the house of david and the virgin's name was mary and the angel came to her and said greetings oh favored one the lord is with you but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be and the angel said to her do not be afraid mary for you have found favor with god and behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name jesus he will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the lord god will give to him the throne of his father david and he will reign over the house of jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end and mary said to the angel how will this be since i am a virgin and the angel answered her the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you therefore the child to be born will be called holy the son of god and behold your relative elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son and this is the sixth month with her who was called baron for nothing will be impossible with god and mary said behold i am the servant of the lord let it be to me according to your word and the angel departed from her it's probably one of the best known passages in all the new testament the proclamation and announcement of a new beginning just as yesterday the announcement of a new beginning there in the temple in jerusalem the very center of the worship of the people in whom our lord is to be born among whom he will grow up but now the scene the landscape has shifted and our ever faithful narrator who is full of color and music and giving us little snippets of history to locate things politically and with the the even the names of those who are leaders of the faith in the society in which jesus grew up luke is giving all the detail he can about landscape time and character but he also gives the sense of what is going on in the hearts and minds of those to whom the good news of a new beginning is brought and that becomes very important to us as the narrative goes on we are as i said at the beginning of this week and i think i said it on sunday when we were reading matthew we are in the hands of the narrator and the landscape and the pictures and the characters are drawn by them as the facts are slowly revealed and the landscape now has changed from the capital city we saw zechariah led home unable to speak back to his own home which we shall find out is in the hill country later not in this lesson and we have seen elizabeth wondering at the impossibility seemingly of all that is going on within her and now we change and we've gone to galilee and to a place called nazareth not famous and the country province of galilee all of that was at the moment in political terms under the reign of herod the great it will be split into different uh provinces when jesus has grown up and the peron's sons begin to take over but for the moment it's under herod but that's not troubling nazareth nazareth a country place well away from the shores of the galilean lake where so much trading goes on and where leisure capernaum will be the place which we have the focus on now we've gone to nazareth and we find that a character who is part of our story this morning and another one named and today's character is mary mary is a young boy's girl at that time and is also although espoused to joseph not yet with joseph as a marital couple and in the course of her ordinary life in that unnoticed part of the world in the middle of the mighty empire of rome but just a really a a a side so small it's hardly noticed here we have the town of nazareth and just as yesterday something entirely impossible is going to be announced impossible in human terms but we see simply the figure of the one who will become the blessed virgin mary and the angel comes in to announce everything that is to be given as her vocation in the sixth month that's the six months of elizabeth's pregnancy the angel gabriel was sent by god to a city called nazaris to the home of mary he was espoused to joseph of the royal line of david and the angel comes to say to her now here we begin a series of words which have become the music of the whole church day by day and the music of christians day by day and this will happen throughout chapters one and chapter two as we shall see for much luke is not only a healer a physician and an artist with the way he draws his pictures so there is a long-standing tradition that he was also an artist in the true sense of the word but he's also clearly something of a musician in his rhythms of the words and the images that he gives us and if you think and let's go into the traditional language that has always been used in our english language in this way the angel's greeting hail mary full of grace the lord is with you and those words often in the latin ave maria is those words are sung and set to music so many times but they are also the beginning of that sequence of prayers which the bells of churches used to ring out for at six in the morning at 12 midday and it's six in the evening to mark the incarnation of our lord in the middle of people's working times and because of the first word of the angel of the lord brought tidings to mary and she conceived by the holy spirit and then that prayer hail mary full of grace the lord is with all of that because of that the the first latin word angelus angelus domini angelus is given to the way in which those bells still ring out we hear it from the little church of saint thomas here which is just outside the wall the angelus ringing out the summons in the middle of work so that people know that prayers are being said and they may say the prayers themselves and we pray this morning for father anthony and the church of saint thomas this is a day when traditionally uh the 21st of december was seen as the birthday of of thomas becket and the year when he was born whether it be 11 18 11 19 or 11 20 is in some doubt but it seems there's a common feeling that the 21st of december was the birthday and his uh father anthony's church is that the church of saint thomas beckett just outside the walls but the angelus ringing out in that way is reminding us of those words which have become absolutely part of the the lifeblood of the church and in the same way mary's answer of faithful obedience is also part of that memory and as we think of that first we see how she responds and the response first of all is a question which is most natural but how can this be since i'm a virgin and then the angel explains that the holy spirit will come upon her and the power of the most high will overshadow her and the one to be born of her will be called great and the son of the most high and all of that that massive vocation which will in luke's gospel even unfold but let's think about that in a moment for the moment the response and let's go to traditional words again behold the handmaid of the lord be it unto me according to thy word and in our modern translation here am i the servant of the lord let it be to me according to your word and very different from uh zechariah the angel then the message given leaves her leaves her to ponder and meanwhile those those words of the the the rhythm of the prayer of the church used in order to remind us constantly of what happened on that particular occasion rather like the lunissera fragrantissima the sweet smelling honeysuckle just in bud behind now mary is left to ponder and there's a certain loneliness at the moment about that vocation until joseph in realizing things and we saw that on sunday morning with the the matthew story her into his protection as her husband and that then gives her a companionship as all this begins to unfold but for the moment a lonely vocation and one senses then and we shall go through the story of saint luke telling all of this in chapters one chapter two but then after that there are hidden years and mary and jesus himself disappear in time and landscape from our site and in all those years that vocation has to be carried until the moment comes for in our earthly life time is important john's gospel makes much of that the fourth gospel my hour is not yet my r is not yet and then finally the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified lifted up to draw all nations to himself but there's much waiting there's much patience in vocation there's much heart searching and there's much by others pointing at the finger and and uh and uh human emotions of of for someone else's uh jealousy or even as we shall see in a moment in the person we'll look at today that there's success in certain areas there's there are hostile reactions as well but for the moment we think of mary carrying her vocation silently and faithfully and that journey we shall go on with tomorrow in st luke's gospel but today let's give thanks for the music of st luke's gospel which will gradually unfold and feed the church's worshiping life as the epistle to the hebrews did with its liturgical images for our sacramental life and enrich the daily prayer of the church's life so today we are being given two new characters equally unlikely rather like the two old people yesterday equally unlikely in a landscape of total unimportance politically geographically in a community without huge resources there in its rhythm of life and the message of the angel for with god nothing is impossible words that our lord himself will say in his own ministry so let's think and we've tended to concentrate on one or sometimes two people during this time of thinking about vocations and i want to do the same today on the 7th of november 19 sorry 1867 marie curie was born and she was born in warsaw which was an unimportant part of the russian empire at that time because poland in 1867 didn't exist the city of warsaw did but poland didn't exist it had been split at the congress of vienna between the austrian empire and the kingdom of prussia and the russian empire and the part that marie was living in with her polish family was part of the russian empire of the tsar and as we think of that we also remember the poverty of her family because they had been penalized for attempting to stress their polish identity and so their resources had become very small indeed but from the very beginning marie had a sense of a vocation in the scholarship of science and she began to attend uh what was called a flying university because it had to be secret but girls were admitted to it and it met in secret and in the end this became too hard and she went to paris instead where her sister had gone and lived for a while with her sister and brother-in-law and then in a garrett and uh in extreme cold weather wearing every scrap of clothes that she had she continued her studies and there in paris she met her husband pierre pierre curie and took his name so pierre and marie curie but all the way through in the wonderful discoveries made it was marie who was leading and very often marie's discoveries which were then shared with pierre who himself had been a teacher of physics and science uh but everything that marie was doing he encouraged and she herself went on questing through for this tremendous thing which she discovered and what they came across were elements the first of them in in radioactivity the first of them she called polonium that's after poland she wanted all the time to stress her own location and not forget the culture in which she was born and then the second they called radium after the latin word for array the radium inventing that word they had no concept as she helped by her husband pierre worked in what was no more really than a shed on the side of the institute in paris and no resources were given to them and no real help given they had no idea either of the danger of this vocation which they were both engaged in and she particularly but in 1898 and on this day radium was identified after much hard work and pounding with pestle and mortar tiny quantities of radium and its possibilities but they had no idea with their their bare hands and their ordinary clothes of the intense danger they were putting themselves in in fact in the early 20th century that kind of danger was just not realized and the nobel prize when given in 1903 a nobel prize for physics was first given or that the first citation was meant to be to pierre because it was seemed impossible to give a woman a nobel prize for science and it was when friends stepped in scientific friends and said no no it's marie who has done this that the the nobel prize was then shared but all the money of the nobel prize was as nothing to her everything was poured into resources for others and her own family as well uh resources for those still whom she loved in poland and resources for this or a shack that they were working in and then in 1906 tragically and it's it's rather like the the uh ed ricketts story yesterday tragically in 1906 on a really rainy day uh pierre was crossing the rudolfine in paris and a horse-drawn carriage knocked him down in the wheel uh broke his skull he died instantly and marie was left alone and went on with her work still not realizing the danger and again in 1911 the work had become very very significant scientifically by then she got a second this is unheard of second nobel prize she had one in physics with her husband and then in 1911 a second nobel prize in chemistry but what this was doing to her body in the end uh took its effect and although she she lived long enough and worked herself to a complete frazzle really she worked long enough to see a curie institute opened in paris in 1920 and the curie institute opened in warsaw in 1932 and she lived long enough at the end of the first world war to see poland re-established as a nation but then in 1934 all that she had been doing took its toll and she died probably of the effects on her bones and her body of all that radiation marie curie and pierre curie are now honored by being buried in pontial in and that was done in 1995 honored by the french before that she had been often vilified and called terrible things and everything about her was called into question and it but it didn't matter because the one thing she knew she had to do was to follow this story through because there was healing in it and we know that that all the cancer treatments that one one thinks of there was healing in it but at the same time there was tremendous danger from this vocation and pierre and marie are buried in lead caskets and all of marie's papers have to be inspected when they are taken out of their lead boxes by people with protective clothing to protect them because they are still radioactive and none of that was really known at that time this woman with such a lonely vocation on the way through and doing such great good and only understanding a tiny part of the power of the little parts of radium and polonium that she was releasing but before she died she knew how much of a difference that could make and we certainly know it now so another vocation of somebody who heart and soul in the most strange circumstances knew that that's what they had to do and so that becomes part of our thinking and thanksgiving today in terms of healing particularly those in front line health and let's think also of all those uh who are being given treatment for cancer and many of them have had to to to wait longer because of the desperate needs of the pandemic in our world today these things come on a day when we hear luke's joy at the vocation of the blessed virgin mary and mary's obedience to the lonely vocation that she's going to have to carry and also one that as simeon says to her later on in sin luke's gospel a sword shall pierce your own heart also and the secret thoughts of many will be laid back vocations have great joy in their obedience but they also come shall we say double edged and marie curie is very much a symbol of that too let's say our prayers on this particular day and pray in our anglican communion for the diocese of ilaje in the church of nigeria in the ondo province pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and also for emma bishop at lambeth and today here in our own diocese we pray for the church of saint martin and st paul in canterbury here i always say that the little church of saint martin where queen ethelbert sorry from queen bertha the wife of king ethelbert uh used to worship because she was a frankish princess at that time and was a catholic when she came here that little church is the mother church of canterbury cathedral because it was already there when augustine arrived and we uh pray for mark griffin in his ministry there and in the parish church of saint paul's just beyond the wall from where i'm sitting really and uh the various people who assist him in his work there the readers samuel keller walker chris robinson and rosemary walters many of the folk who worship at saint paul's orsin martians also worship perhaps at eden song or special services in the cathedral too says that there's a great connection between saint martian and sin paul and with canterbury cathedral church of christ here let's then say the prayer for this fourth sunday of advent and it is of course a collect about the vocation of the blessed virgin mary linking it to our own response so bring your own prayers on this day god our redeemer who prepared the blessed virgin mary to be the mother of your son grant that as she looked for his coming as our savior so we may be ready to greet him when he comes again as our judge who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen and the advent collect almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to us in great humility that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so we say together the prayer our savior taught us in whichever language you like to use 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 reflection now as we say our own prayers and remember those for whom we would want to pray um [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh foreign [Music] oh oh [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] you may have noticed that when leo went away uh earlier in the service this morning our friend the robin came down and he's here again on the chair beside me and uh is pinching leo's food and leo suddenly noticed that and that's what caused him to come back in a very bad temper that the robin was pinching his food but the robin actually is someone who's brave and doesn't mind at all so i suppose you could say that as on sunday uh morning leo was playing joseph and this morning he could have been playing king herod because he came back in a great rage and sat here guarding his kingdom of the little pellets which he wasn't eating himself but the robin is enjoying hugely christ the son of righteousness shine upon you scatter the darkness from before your path and make you ready to meet him when he comes in glory 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 will pray for today and always amen theo's gone off now and he's having a drink in the the stream down there i think he's given up on on the robin foreign so so [Music] you