good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning this monday morning of the 12th of october it's a fairly gray morning here but no winds no rain and happy to be in the green garden and welcome you into it wherever you are in the world we remember all the difficult decisions that governments are having to make today about the combatting of the coronavirus covid19 and all those who also are working so hard to find not only vaccines but ways of helping the symptoms so people recover when they do contract the virus all those things are going on in our world and many other things you will have your own issues but wherever you are please feel welcome to bring them in prayer as we say our prayers on this monday morning if we're looking back at particular things in history which have happened on this day on october the 12th there are in our calendar itself i mean the calendar which the church keeps three very significant names wilfred of ripon and elizabeth frye the prison reformer and edith cavill whom we were thinking about on the day she was sentenced last week and on this day when she was shot and what i'm going to do because there are so many things to think about today together with our reflections on the acts of the apostles is to spread those names and so today we will think of saint wilfred of ripon but we will leave edith cavill and elizabeth fry so that we can do them justice in our thoughts and prayers tomorrow and that will be i think a healthy spreading of the load of different dates but we can remember other things that happened on this day in uh 1537 king the the the boy who was uh to be king edward vi for such a short time was born and when henry viii died his reign became a reign which was governed by protectors and an enormous era of a strong protestantism occurred with much uh destruction going on of what was considered to be the wrong kind of icons in churches that reign as i say lasted but a short time before queen mary came to return the whole country to the roman catholic church and her reign also very short and then elizabeth the first reign um so remember we remember edward this morning and we also remember in 1866 that ramsay mcdonald was born who became the first labor prime minister in great britain in 1924 and we remember that the labour party in 1922 had become the second largest party in the house of commons taking over from the liberal party and that's how it remains today but we remember ramsey macdonald who was the pioneer prime minister for labour we remember also that on this day in 1986 queen elizabeth ii our present queen was the first british monarch to visit china and as we think of international travel we remember that this in 1492 was a date that christopher columbus made his first landfall in the bahamas in the united states in some areas this is kept as a public holiday for columbus day and also in canada it's a day of thanksgiving for the harvest and the bounty of the harvest and really the life of the whole of canada so we join ourselves with those thanksgivings and in 1793 hopping about between the dates but here's a foundation stone in 1793 the cornerstone of old east the oldest state university building in the united states was laid at the university of north carolina at chapel hill i'm inclined to mention that name because our long time chairman of the friends of canterbury cathedral in the united states bishop peter lee who was bishop of virginia uh and now is at chapel hill uh he is being cared for by his wife christie but we send our best wishes and uh prayers for constant healing for bishop peter and also to christy his wife and we keep in touch with them and say thanks for all that they have done to help people into the understanding of the ministry of this mother church of the anglican communion here in canterbury also we remember in chapel hill noah and melinda van neil and the boys noah is the associate director of the chapel of the cross at chapel hill so god bless them this morning and you will in your hearts and minds be thinking of all sorts of people's names that you want remembered lastly this was the day on which rayforne williams the great english composer was born vaughn williams was born in 1872 at the vicarage at down amne in gloucestershire and later on when he was creating the english hymnal as one of the great hymn books with all the musical integrity that he wanted to bring to it then he called a tune that he wrote for the hymn come down o love divine seek thou this soul of mine and visit it with thine own arter glowing he called it after that village where he was born where his father was the vicar dynami and we sing that him with gladness just as we sing his tune to for all the saints and everything else but perhaps he's best known these days because it's very popular for his lovely the lark ascending as the violin soars and sores and sores and the lark ascends into the heavens and gives us an image of the beyond well let's then begin our prayers this morning with a memory of all those things of human destruction and also of human endeavor and human travel and russell is here waking the morning with me this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this morning of the month this 12th morning is psalm 62 on god alone my soul in stillness waits from him comes my salvation he alone is my rock and my salvation my strongholds so that i shall never be shaken how long will all of you assail me to destroy me as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence they plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour lies are their chief delight they bless with their mouth but in their heart they curse wait on god alone in stillness o my soul for in him is my hope he alone is my rock and my salvation my stronghold so that i shall not be shaken in god is my strength and my glory god is my strong rock in him is my refuge put your trust in him always my people pour out your hearts before him for god is our refuge the peoples are better breath the whole human race the deceit on the scales they are all together lighter than air put no trust in oppression in robbery take no empty pride their wealth increase set not your heart upon it god spoke once and twice have i heard the same that power belongs to god steadfast love belongs to you o lord for you repay everyone according to their deeds wonderful images as we wait on god images of strength and the rock of refuge but also images of salvation and it does us good at this time of pandemic to recognize that that word salvation is about healing for the human race the very beginning of the word tells us that we still sometimes use the word solve for ointments which heal and are put onto wounds and there's the root of the same word so we keep using images of god but salvation is one of the strongest and don't forget that that word has its root the concept of healing so let us then turn to the acts of the apostles and it's a monday morning so we're back where we were on saturday and paul is now standing not only before the governor the roman governor of the whole providence of judea they're in caesarea the romans capital but the king has arrived and king agrippa the second that we were thinking about last week with his sister berenici has come to a visit a courtesy visit we say from the royal family to the new roman governor and they're easy though the most nervous or the more nervous is festus because he well knows that king agrippa is a friend not only of the present emperor but was a friend of claudius because he'd been brought up with him in rome and will continue to be friends uh they don't know that yet of emperors that follow so when vespasian comes and trajan then a gripper is well known to them and agrippa's really wanting an accommodation with the roman empire because he sees that as the way forward for his people they do not agree and as we said on saturday there will be trouble ahead but for the moment here is paul standing and ready to make his defense before not only the governor but also the king verse chapter 26 and verse 1 of the acts so king agrippa said to paul you have permission to speak for yourself then paul stretched out his hand and made his defense i consider myself fortunate that it is before you king agrippa i'm going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the jews especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the jews therefore i beg you to listen to me patiently my manner of life from my youth spent from the beginning among my own nation and in jerusalem is known by all the jews they have known for a long time if they are willing to testify that according to the strictest party of our religion i have lived as a pharisee and now i stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by god to our forebears to which our twelve tribes hope to attain as they earnestly worship night and day and for this hope i am accused by jews your majesty why is it sought incredible by any of you that god raises the dead i myself was convinced that i ought to do many things in opposing the name of jesus of nazareth and i did so in jerusalem i not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests but when they were put to death i cast my vote against them and i punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme and in raging fury against them i persecuted them even to foreign cities in this connection i journeyed to damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests at midday o king i saw on the way a light from heaven brighter than the sun that shone around me and those who journeyed with me and when we had all fallen to the ground i had a voice saying to me in the hebrew language saul saul why are you persecuting me it is hard for you to kick against the goads and i said who are you lord and the lord said i am jesus whom you are persecuting but rise and stand upon your feet for i have appeared to you for this purpose to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which i will appear to you delivering you from your people and from the gentiles to whom i'm sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of satan to god that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me therefore o king agrippa i was not disobedient to the heavenly vision but declared first to those in damascus then in jerusalem and throughout all the region of judea and also to the gentiles that they should repent and turn to god performing deeds in keeping with their repentance for this reason the jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me to this day i have had the help that comes from god and so i stand here testifying both with small and great saying nothing but what the prophets and moses had said would come to pass that the christ must suffer and that by being the first to rise from the dead he would proclaim light both to our people and to the gentiles it's a strong defense before someone who does understand all the aspects of the jewish faith here is in a sense his own king listening to him and sitting beside what in earthly terms is a greater power the power of the representative of the roman empire but also paul knows that agrippa's influence spreads also to rome and he makes a strong defense basing himself this time exactly on what's in luke has told us in his gospel that jesus himself at the road to emmaus and also at the parting from the disciples at the end of his gospel nothing has occurred except what moses and the prophets and the psalms we read at the end of saint louis gospel spoke about this is a fulfillment jesus could have gone on and said that the book of the prophet isaiah also spoke about that that the light would be a gift for peoples of all nations and that was part of the lessons read in the eucharist yesterday a light to lighten all nations people coming from the east and the west and the north and the south it's breaking down those barriers in what will be called mission paul feels himself sent by that that word and he's expressing all this to the king his defense is merely telling his own story at the same time as saying but i've done nothing nothing that contravenes your law and he leaves it at that and as we've said again and again the best way of spreading the good news is by telling your own story and the best way of having it strengthened is by hearing another's story as they tell it by listening and then listening to god in silence all those things come together at this time when paul makes his defense tomorrow we shall see how that's received but for the moment let's just think of another missionary we were talking a day or two ago about poor linus and then about james the deacon and how the northumbrian mission of paulinus first archbishop of york came to grief because the christian king edwin was killed well this is the anniversary day this is a complete coincidence this is the anniversary day of the battle of hatfield chase in 632 when edwin was killed and paulinus came back south at the collapse of the northumbrian christian mission but james as we heard james the deacon stayed but it was wilfred known as wilfrid of ripon who had been born as one of the nobility in northumbria but came down here to canterbury to be educated in his theology and learning and then went to rome and then came back it was wilfred who took that message of the augustinian mission and also the rule of saint benedict up to the monasteries of the north and began his mission there now we could say a great deal about the ministry of wilfrid you might read it up in beads history of the church at that time but wilfred himself went through many dangers and many massive difficulties and just like saint paul he went backwards and forwards he was banished he was exiled kings came kings went he found himself in charge of monasteries he was made a bishop he went to be consecrated found when he came back that the thing had been revoked by the king there and all those things in the story of wilfred we could spend a long time looking at but at the same time the best way of learning wilfred is to hear his own words but wilfred was someone who wanted to make peace and what he wanted mostly to do was to make peace between the two sides of the christian church which were then in england the ones which had grown up because of the mission from rome which had come with augustine and then a second tranche of monks like paulinus and the christianity represented by those who had been here in the first roman occupation but had fled west the celtic church and it was wilfred who arranged the accommodation so that both sides would keep the date of easter at the same time and celebrated at the same time and that the liturgy the worship of the church might in some way be felt in common of course they would have different emphases but at the same time he achieved all that and was the spokesman for the position brought by augustine for the whole european church in the synod of whitby in 664. we give thanks for wilfried on this day but one of the best stories for me which is written up by kipling in his book the sequel to puckerfox hill rewards and fairies the best story is the story of how wilfred when in one of his missions he was shipwrecked and thought as he sat on the rocks looking at the sea um that this was the end and he had been trying to convert a chieftain uh who had a a pet seal called pada and suddenly and had failed to convert but suddenly there in the waves was the seal's head who came up onto the beach and wilfred blessed pada who had already heard the gospel from him when wilfred was trying to convert the chief and paddle turned round and swam back and later reappeared bringing him with the boat of the pagan with him and rescuing wilfred well you can read all that in kipling's story it was one of the childhood stories and i can see the drawings now the seals head popping up in the water and wilfred amazed that padder had come to save him there's another wonderful poem but it's better for christmas time which appears during that little sequence which kipling is noting but we give thanks for all missionaries and the the danger that they faced but remember that they went to tell their story and it was a story of salvation healing for the human race and therefore a breaking down of barriers of light in darkness of the strength in the rock and the refuge that the psalmist was talking about let's say our prayers on this monday morning and we pray on this morning for the diocese of port sudan in the anglican communion that's in the province of the sudan and pray for abdul al-nakadi the bishop there the diocese of colombo in ceylon the province of ceylon in sri lanka and pray for diloraj kanagas obey the bishop there and his people and the diocese of condor in tanzania and given gaula the bishop and the people of that diocese and here we're still continuing to pray for the villages of the phanet area deanery but we're praying for their ignite hub new communities in the senate deanery and the project leaders debian patrick elliston god's blessing on them also on justin our archbishop on rose bishop of dover and on tim bishop at lambeth as we say our prayers we first say the prayer of thanksgiving for the ministry of saint wilfred almighty god who called our forebears to the light of the gospel by the preaching of your servant wilfred help us who keep his life and labor in remembrance to glorify your name by following the example of his zeal and perseverance through jesus christ our lord amen and the collect for this week almighty and everlasting god increase in us your gift of faith that forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to that which is before we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy through jesus christ our lord amen so we say each in our own language the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom power and the glory forever and ever are men we keep silence for a moment in our prayers and bring our own prayers to that silence this is a time for the falling of the leaves and very often that scene is a time of sadness as life falls to the ground but we came across a little poem by an american poet from springfield illinois um who was born in 1910 robert fitzgerald it's only five short verses long and it speaks of a very different kind of sense of autumn is called lightness in autumn and he's raking up the leaves and finding that his three and four-year-old children are waiting to have a game with them and then for a special moment as evening falls here he is with the dry leaves the rake is like a wand or fan with bamboo springing in a span to catch the leaves that i amass in bushels on the evening grass i reckon how the wind behaves and rake them lightly into waves and rake the waves upon a pile then stop my raking for a while the sun is down the air is blue and soon the fingers will be too but there are children to appease with ducking in those leafy seas so loudly rummaging their bed on the dry billows of the dead they are not warned at four and three of natural mortality before their supper they require a dragon field of yellow fire to lighten toast them in the gloom so much for old ass ashen doom his two little children playing in the dry leaves each evening as they're swept into great piles but waiting for the light to kindle them as a huge bonfire light over too quickly in the darkness before they go to bed i thought a lovely thought for autumn as well as the falling of the leaves 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 are men ah you