[Music] good morning and welcome to the deanery garden on this wednesday the 3rd of march here at canterbury cathedral and welcome wherever you are in the world bring your own intentions and prayers to us this morning yesterday we began with the bright shining marsh marigold the king cup a little sun in its own right shining to us from the pond this morning a much more modest flower a sign of humility the violet there are patches of violet it seems to be a wonderful year for violets in some way and the snowy seems to have brought them on patches of violets all over the garden in shady places and here at my feet are great patches of of of violets in full flower such lovely flowers in their scent but if you're walking across the garden and being unnoticing then in a shady place you can really walk over them and hardly notice them and yet their scent and their flavor when used in making sweets and and and lovely things to to decorate their their sweets are wonderful for human taste and their scent cheerful and lovely when picked in little bunches they are in full bloom and we could take you to so many places in the garden and in the middle of the fresh green leaves you will find the violets flowering in profusion so we give thanks not only for the violets as a sign of spring and the ongoing year in this part of the world in the northern hemisphere but also the sign that they've always been seen of as of humility and modesty very often they've been used as a symbol for the blessed virgin mary's obedience to her vocation but this morning we rejoice in them just because they're violets and they give us cheer by their sight their lovely colors and also their scent and flavor we're going to say our prayers together here in this part of the garden around me you will see various other plants just behind me on my right your left as you look at me are flowering hellebores they've been flowering more or less since christmas and uh they're lovely flowers too at this time of year much more noticeable of course and behind me also on the other side to your right the tree ferns which have suffered a little bit through frost and snow but mostly have come through and recovered and will begin to give their great green fronds for our enjoyment i've also got here in front of me again on your right a liquid amber tree a young liquid amber tree leafless at the moment of course at this time of year but but an interesting tree to be growing up in this part of the garden and also you can see behind me an american oak which has been planted beside the great ash tree because we're nervous that the ash tree is suffering a little very doubtfully of ash dieback so we're beginning to plan for the future as one must with trees let's say our prayers then on this morning when the mist is all around us it's come up from the sea again no wind at all bird song and there's a family of wrens who like to play about in the leafy behind me which we've disturbed this morning but there are robins also about and other birds that you'll hear throughout but the mist is hiding the cathedral completely from me this morning and the sky looks gray with the mist around me it's a damp not very cold mist and no wind the wind would blow the mist away but we rejoice in the dampness and i'm sure the violets do as well o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks force like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our lips to sing your praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind as we rejoice in the gift of this new day show me the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen the third day of the month is almost almost my favorite day for the psalms given to us both in the morning and in the evening and certainly the three morning psalms are beautifully encouraging psalms 15 16 17 normally i would read you 15 on the third morning of the month 18 this afternoon a glorious psalm but i'm going to read 16 this morning and just for a change and psalm 16 is full of wonderful things too lovely sentences preserve me o god for in you have i taken refuge i have said to the lord you are my lord all my good depends on you all my delight is upon the godly that are in the land upon those who are noble in heart though the idols are legion that many run after their drink offerings of blood i will not offer neither make mention of their names upon my lips for the lord himself is my portion and my cup in your hands alone is my fortune my share has fallen in a fair land indeed i have a goodly heritage i will bless the lord who has given me counsel and in the night watches he instructs my heart i have set the lord always before me he is at my right hand i shall not fall wherefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices my flesh also shall rest secure for you will not abandon my soul to death nor suffer your faithful one to see the pit you will show me the path of life in your presence is the fullness of joy and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore who could want a lovelier psalm than that so we turn to saint john's gospel again and today we complete the crucial chapter six we've come to verse 60 and we just read now the last paragraph as our morning lesson john 6 16. when many of his disciples heard this teaching they said this is a hard saying who can listen to it but jesus knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this said to them do you take offense at this then what if you were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before it is the spirit who gives life the flesh is no help at all the words that i have spoken to you are spirit and life but there are some of you who do not believe for jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him and he said this is why i told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted them by the father after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him so jesus said to the twelve do you want to go away as well simon peter answered him lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of god jesus answered them did i not choose you the twelve and yet one of you is a devil he spoke of judas the son of simon iscariot for he one of the twelve was going to betray him chapter six then ends with that sense of those around him who had rejoiced in the easy teaching finding this teaching too hard and walking away one goes back to the parable of the sower told in the synoptic gospels of the seed falling in different types of ground and different kinds of temptations or intentions falling foul of the not only the conditions but also the the resolve and the not understanding of all that is being given or what is expected in terms of body mind and spirit in terms of response and here this is happening this all must have been heartbreaking for jesus himself for he is holding to the vocation he knows that the father has given him and he is attempting to share that with those who will take on that passing on of the gift of the spirit and of the good news of the gospel as we call it but at the moment many walk away and he turns to the twelve and that word becomes rather touching of the little group whom he has chosen and he says to them do you want to go away as well this is a real question and peter gives us one of those wonderful sentences which stay in the head lord to whom else should we go you have the words of eternal life wonderful words and remember the gospel is always in the present tense and so the question is asked of us as well always every day do you want to go away as well lord to whom else shall we go you have the words of eternal life messages in our son messages here this is their goodly heritage rooted in prophecy rooted in scripture rooted in the signs of wonder in creation and rooted particularly in jesus himself but heartbreaking at how difficult this is to get to the message is he's only begun the new way of teaching in this chapter i am the bread of life i am the living bread whoever eats of me will never die my flesh my humanity is true food we spoken yesterday the day before of the bread and what it means to christians to meet together physically to break bread and how much we miss that at the moment at this time of pandemic but at the same time this is a question of faithfulness of holding on when it seems hard to hold on the psalmist quite often goes into that kind of of area in in the psalms but here we are peter answering for them all but still the heartbreaking knowledge that even in the 12 there is one who will betray him and chapter 6 ends there but there are other i am statements to come you may find it odd but i'm going to read something else now rather rather different you'll see why i think um as we get to the end of it that it helps in our understanding this is actually a a mill it's taken from the house it crew corner and you will get the picture you remember if you don't know the book the characters in it always remind you of various people that you know yourself and today there are only um three characters in it and that's little piglet and then uh the most unnoticed and unassuming of them all and then eeyore who's always doubting and grumbling and questioning and and um looking on the the shady dark side of things and then rabbit business-like full of agendas and and process and strategies and everything else that rabbit is wanting to do with the day they all come into this piglet had got up early that morning to pick himself a bunch of violets and when he had picked them and put them in a pot in the middle of his house it suddenly came over him that nobody had ever picked eor a bunch of violets and the more he thought of this the more he thought how sad it was to be an animal who had never had a bunch of violets picked for him so he hurried out again saying to himself eeyore violets and then violets in case he forgot because it was that sort of day and he picked a large bunch and trotted along smelling them and feeling very happy until he came to the place where eeyore was oh uh your began piglet a little nervously because he always busy eeyore put out a paw and waved him away tomorrow said eeyore or the next day piglet came a little closer to see what it was eor had three sticks on the ground and was looking at them two of the sticks were touching at one end but not at the other and the third stick was laid across them piglet thought that perhaps it was a trap of some kind he began again i just oh is that little piglet said eeyore still looking hard at his sticks uh yes your and i do you know what this is no said piglet it's an a oh said piglet not o a city or severely can't you hear or do you think you have more education than christopher robin uh yes no said piglet very quickly and he came closer still christopher robin said it was an a and an a it is until somebody treads on it your added sternly piglet jumped backwards hurriedly and smelt at his violence do you know what a means little piglet i know he or i don't it means learning it means education it means all the things that you and pooh haven't got that's what a means oh said piglet again i mean does it he explain quickly i'm telling you people come and go in this forest and they say it's only eeyore so he doesn't count they walk to and fro saying ha ha but do they know anything about a they don't it's just three sticks to them but to the educated mark this little piglet to the educated not meaning poos and piglets it's a great and glorious a not he added just something that anybody can come and breathe on piglets step back again nervously and look round for help oh his rabbit he said bradley hello rabbit rabbit came up importantly nodded to piglet and said ah in the voice of one who will be saying goodbye in about two more minutes there's just one thing i wanted to ask you what happens to christopher robin in the mornings nowadays what's this that i'm looking at said eeyore still looking at it our three sticks said rabbit promptly you see said eor to piglet he turned to rabbit i will now answer your question he said solemnly thank you said rabbit what does christopher robin do in the mornings he learns he becomes educated he instigates i think that is the word he mentioned but i may be referring to something else he instigates knowledge in my small way i also if i have the word right um well i'm doing what he does that for instance is an air he said rabbit but not a very good one well i must get back and tell the others he all looked at his sticks then he looked at piglet what did rabbit say it was he said an a said piglet did you tell him no he or i didn't i expect he just knew he knew you mean this a thing is a thing rabbit knows yes you're he's clever rabbit is clever said you're scornfully putting a foot heavily on his three sticks education said he or bitterly jumping on his six sticks what is learning us your as he kicked his 12 sticks into the air a thing rabbit knows ha i think begun piglet nervously don't said eeyore i think violets are rather nice said piglet and he laid his bunch in front of eel and scampered off three people different intentions different understandings and yet we recognize maybe things of those in ourselves but certainly recognize them in people that we know and at the same time they shed a light on our lord's frustration on how how you help people to learn in the your way seeing it in trying to see it in letters and or in the the rabbit way with his lists and agendas and business like day all planned out in two minutes for eeyore and and brush picked it aside it doesn't fit with rabbits agent all of that and then in piglet's way of some somehow getting up and feeding the morning calling him and picking the violets for his own enjoyment and the moment he's got them in the at home and he's enjoying them and smelling them the thing he thinks of is i bet no one has ever picked a bunch of violets for eeyore how sad that there's an animal that hasn't had a bunch of violets picked for him and off he goes and then this conversation but at the same time the great question which eel asks it sounds like pilate what is truth what is learning when he's kicked the sticks apart and spurns it and yet learning is something that we ask ourselves how do we learn in so many different ways and morning by morning there's a a quote in the prophet isaiah which i absolutely love morning by morning he awakens my ear and causes me to listen and then gives me the tongue of a teacher that's that's the verse but there's that phrase morning my morning he awakens my ear and the lord awakening someone to go out and learn so many things in listening and in humility the violets are a sign of humility they're low down hardly noticed and sometimes trodden on because we don't notice them and yet that humility that sign of our lady's vocation in the church's images quite often is something that we benefit from so often if we stop to notice the ones who are teaching us most by their lives their intentions and the way that they encourage others we have a lovely friend in uh new haven at yale and when we go to visit andrew and felicity felicity knowing that i love violets when we go at this time of year maybe a little later because new haven is a bit colder than here always in my bedroom there a bunch of violets are placed beside the bed nothing said but there's an understanding that these fresh violets are a consciousness of me from her and that would be so for both of us in different ways constant encouraging imaginative encouraging and it's also difficult to know how to repay that encouragement and the sensitivity with which we give these encouraging signs i've called it imaginative encouragement is all there in the activity of the smallest and most unnoticed of the creatures and at the same time the others think that they have the important way and i think it's a lesson for the church it's certainly a lesson for communities that listening to one another sensitively noticing one another experiencing things is the way we learn of course the lists and the strategies and the targets and everything else are there they need to be there but they must take their place is the lowest place and the highest place is the moment when realization comes in one fact of what we are in our humanity and what christ is offering in his divinity and in his humanity the gift he is willing to give us which can so often be missed in a maelstrom of activity and the moment you come away you think oh yes that was a wonderful meeting or something of that sort and in fact really nothing much has been accomplished in the way of learning learning is something that is given otherwise very often in the midst of all that so that the three creatures are important to one another those three animals but of course i read it because they are signs of the people standing around jesus as well and uh i always think that uh a mill um writing books for children was one of the great philosophers and he sets those lessons within the creatures well this morning let's look and see who's around on on march the 3rd 1847 alexander graham bell was born who was the person credited with the first practical telephone a step in communication across the airwaves and then in 1869 here's someone who gives us chair so henry wood the english conductor was born and he of course is the guiding spirit still with his effigy in the albert hall of the proms concert each year which gives an enormous freshness to music of course they're suffering the same or last year they suffered the same kind of restrictions and uh cancellations that we all had to suffer 1894 um gladstone retired resigns as prime minister aged 84. so um he uh was prime minister we mentioned israeli the other day and queen victoria used to say mr gladstone addresses me like a public meeting so that takes us back to the kind of character she thought he was 1966 the bbc announced it would begin broadcasting in color i know that my father enjoyed that because he could tell what color the snooker balls were from then on because he used to to um uh have great difficulty when they they put snooker on in black and white and uh he used to laugh at a commentator saying for those of you later on for those of you watching in black and white the brown ball is the one behind the green ball [Music] 1982 the queen opened the barbican arts center again performing arts as a way of learning and hear a sign of freedom 1861 tsar alexander ii on this day signed a manifesto emancipating the surfs it's the beginning of a very very long journey 1910 john d rockefeller announced his retirement from managing business to devote himself full-time to philanthropy and so many have great uh um reason for thanksgiving with that 1931 the united states adopts a star-spangled banner as their national anthem and then in 2005 when margaret wilson was elected speaker of the new zealand house of representatives all the highest political offices were then occupied by women and that's the first country for that ever to happen the head of state of course was queen elizabeth herself and then every other senior political figure at the at the highest point of office was a woman so that was a great sign of of women taking that senior role which has now become a a common place in many nations 1986 the australia act made australia fully independent of the united kingdom so hooray for australia saved that of course the queen was still and still is the head of state 1875 this is cheerful georges bizet's opera carmen was first performed in that lovely theater opera comic in paris and uh so that the lovely tunes of the torreodor song and the march of the toreadors and carmen's heartbreaking songs all of that were heard for the first time and then in 1968 brian cox the physicist who taught us so much on his programs uh was born so we give thanks for him and his programs showing us the wonder of science as best he can though rather like the people around jesus quite often he he leaves me standing physics was never very much one of my strong points at school um there is a news story this morning also of the danger of being a ranger in the virunga natural park in the democratic republic of the congo where very recently just a few days ago the italian ambassador was killed violently with his security officers when he was visiting that park which is there to protect the mountain gorillas 20 rangers can you believe this 20 rangers have been killed in their work protecting by those who are actually wanting to to get at the creatures in that park for profit and gain and in the last year 20 rangers have been killed and then also cheerfully um dolly parton going to get her vaccine changed her song jolene to um vaccine vaccine vaccine and that's also shown on the news the encouragement which the queen gave us a vaccine well i can encourage you as well i was vaccinated a few weeks ago utterly painless and i had no serious after effects and and uh look forward to the second vaccine in a few weeks time and by having these vaccines we protect one another and gradually can come to the time when we can break bread together and also sense each other physically in a way that although the virtual way of being with each other is is good and wonderful we long to be physically with friends and family again and by these vaccines we seem day by day to be getting to that place and please god that will happen so bring your prayers wherever you are in the world i wanted also to say today before we say our prayers and that we're beginning um the uh recruiting for the choristers in the boys choir we're hoping the the boys choir and the girls choir will in a week's time be coming back in some way or another certainly the boys are returning to the boarding house here but there is something you can click onto on our website um and it's it's it's uh um written out there if you search showing uh a sort of day in the life of a chorister and also saying that any any boy wherever in the world because it's a boarding choir who would like to think of being a chorister and sing in the cathedral church here and and many will testify to the enjoyment that's given them and also the the musical future and other kinds of futures in in terms of other careers that it's gone on to um many will testify to that so to have a look at that and if you think of someone that needs encouraging to just think of of applying then then do get them to um so let's then say our prayers this morning which gives us a chance to thank and give god thanks for the the music that we sing and which again in the hint thingy of hymns we're missing at the moment uh i should sorry i need to look to see who we're praying for today um and the third of march gives us the diocese of aru in uh uh appropriately enough the uh um anglican church in the congo and we've just mentioned that that varunga natural park in the democratic republic of the congo so we pray for christians there and here in the diocese we pray for archbishop justin bishop rose of dover and bishop tim at lambeth and today we're praying for temple euro saint peter and saint paul we've got uh our school versa uh mark and his wife louise have a lovely house in temple yule in the countryside there and then uh we have some people say our lidden said mary the virgin and we pray for ian parish in his ministry there and the life of those parishes bring your own communities to pray for and your own intentions on this day continue to pray for the health of prince philip almighty god you show to those who are in error the light of your truth that they may return to the way of righteousness grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of christ's religion that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same through our lord jesus christ amen so we say the prayer our lord taught us in whatever language you like our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men moment of silence now for our own intentions christ give you grace to grow in holiness to deny yourself take up your cross daily and follow him and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen wanted just to tell you an amusing story from yesterday when we had uh ap media cameramen here and interviewers in the garden it was a a nice sunny sunny morning and they were wanting to take pictures of of the garden where we have our services and to tell our story and they wanted to have some of the creatures shown as well and so um tiger and leo who are the ones who really show themselves most um uh were the ones that we were expecting and um uh our little girl cat lily whom you've seen from time to time but rarely comes certainly rarely comes in this part of the garden and mostly is near the house and you can't really coax her on to to the camera for very often often at all and uh suddenly um when we came up here and we're thinking right we'll go and now find tiger and find leo lily arrived having made herself already and took over the whole scene posing and and and being frisky in front of the cameras i've never seen anything like it and so she wound herself round and round and and uh would look at the camera and look away and so on so uh ap media went away with a full camera of lily pictures and uh then uh she she walked back into the house having done her film shot and now i think the the two boys have had their noses put out a joint so there's no cat inside anywhere today and lily is certainly still in bed she gets up quite late [Music] being a chorister a full stop is such a great opportunity and responsibility but being in canterbury cathedral is amazing it feels like you have 25 other brothers supporting you for your whole career i'm very lucky to be a chorister because we get to sing with other talented musicians being a pupils is amazing because you're not actually always going to be in the cathedral you're also going to make friends out of the cathedral and in school everyone's really kind there in school and in the academic area and the musical area [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] for me [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] foreign [Music] me jesus [Music] [Music] is [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] is [Music]