good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral we've come up into the orchard there was a frost this morning when i went to matins in the cathedral early but this at last is a really warm day and the wind has changed direction and it feels almost like the first day of spring because the blossom is beginning at last to open the apple trees fruit trees around me here in the orchard and the various flowers are beginning to spring they're all rather late but that's no bad thing because we still have to enjoy them we've a sadness because uh a friend jennifer hulsey in virginia her husband byron is the head of the woodbury forest school in virginia and she has lost her long battle against cancer and leaves two teenage children ben and claire so we think of byron and ben and claire this morning and give thanks for jennifer's life and comment her into the hands of god and pray also for our friend tyler montgomery and his wife mary tyler is the chaplain of that school and there will be sadness right across that school in virginia woodbury forest school this morning but sadness is across the whole world as well and you'll have your own concerns and memories to bring with you on this day when our calendar gives us christina rossetti as someone to remember it's not the day on which the date on which she was born or in which she she died but it is the date on which she wrote her first recorded poems in a letter to her mother on this 27th of april 1842 and we give thanks for her wonderful christian faith and we'll use some of her words in our reflection among other things this morning on this lovely day so bring your own prayers and intentions and all that you would like to think of as we walked up um followed by leo here uh to this spot in the orchard past the stream so many birds had come down to drink in the stream on this particular day and the the waters were being enjoyed in a a lovely way by the creatures and birds in this part of the of the orchard so let's begin our prayers and their easter prayers as we say the beginning of our easter morning prayer together oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice alleluia blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the first fruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your mighty acts blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this morning the 27th morning of the month is psalm 121 i lift up my eyes to the hills from where is my help to come my help comes from the lord the maker of heaven and earth he will not suffer your foot to stumble he who watches over you will neither slumber nor sleep the lord himself watches over you the lord is your shade at your right hand so that the sun shall not strike you by day neither the moon by night the lord shall keep you from all evil it is he who shall keep your soul the lord shall keep watch over you're going out and you're coming in from this time forth forevermore oh we've been joined by some some friends here they're busy eating uh leo's breakfast i'm going to put that on the floor for them and then they will enjoy it better as we go on to here we go here we are darcy and everyone how's that lizzie everyone there we go put that down a lovely psalm for this particular day and we're going back now to the gospel of saint matthew we've no saints day which takes special lessons today and although that will happen again on may the 1st for philip and james we actually on this occasion have a chance to complete what we might call the prelude of the gospel of saint matthew as we continue our way through that first gospel in the order of the way in which they're set out in our new testament but as we were thinking on st mark's day yesterday not the first gospel to be written and here we have the end of chapter 2 remember when we read from the gospel of matthew last we heard the story of the wise men or magi coming to herod's the king and asking where the christ would be born and we went through that particular story and we heard that being warned of herald's plans in a dream they went home to their own country by another way now we continue on in chapter 2 verse 13 to complete matthew's prelude to his gospel now when the wise men had departed behold an angel of the lord appeared to joseph in a dream and said rise take the child and his mother and flee to egypt and remain there until i tell you for herod is about to search for the child to destroy him and joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to egypt and remained there until the death of herod this was to fulfill what the lord had spoken by the prophet out of egypt i called my son then king herod when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet jeremiah a voice was heard in rama weeping and loud lamentation rachel weeping for her children she refused to be comforted because they are no more but when herod died behold an angel of the lord appeared in a dream to joseph in egypt saying rise take the child and his mother and go to the land of israel for those who sought the child's life are dead and joseph rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of israel but when he heard that archelaus was reigning over judea in place of his father herod he was afraid to go there and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of galilee and he went and lived in a city called nazareth so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled that he would be called a nazarene well it may be a prelude but it contains so many clues to all that matthew is going to give us and the way in which he's going to order his gospel but some of the first things to notice is that we're starting a gospel with many journeys and journeying is so much part of pilgrimage body mind and spirit the search for our own way with many clues given again in body mind and spirit creative gifts which we have physically mental gifts which we receive in our thinking but also spiritual gifts so very difficult to say how and when we will receive those and here we have them departing to their country by a different way let's never forget that christians were first called before ever they were called christians followers of the way and it's a good title to have but now the wise men have gone and joseph re-enters the story he's not been named in the first part of chapter two his story began at the end of chapter one after the genealogy now here he is again in his role as the protector and guardian of the holy family and we have here the role of dreams and what that might mean certainly in ponderings in the night when so many thoughts come through our head and realizings and sometimes we don't know where they come from and sometimes we wake up with certain knowledge and think i know that i need to contact somebody none of that is explicable in terms of the ordinary logic of how our lives are but then the wise men themselves had followed a star and we read right at the beginning of our scriptures in the book of genesis that when god created the sun and the moon and the stars he created them for seasons and for signs we've heard this morning of the plans only this is on the bbc news of an ex-sas soldier from hereford uh ian rivers who is going to attempt a solo row across the atlantic never been done before from the silly islands here in the united kingdom across to new york a vast journey and one that he's going to attempt to accomplish simply with the aid of a sextant and the stars so when he begins in may we pray for fine weather for clouds obscure those stars but as we were talking about that news bulletin fletcher said he had an experience once when uh on a yacht with some friends they were asleep down below on the calmest of nights in the mediterranean sailing from majorca back to the spanish mainland and he was left above all by himself and the sea was dead calm and the sky completely clear and the stars were his companions above on a moonless night and he was just sailing through the the stars there but they seemed to be not just above him but all around him for the mirror calm of the sea reflected the stars above and made the picture one full of starlight apart from the occasional dolphin keeping the yacht company as the others slept below so we give thanks for the seasons and the stars and the way in which moon and sun and stars cause our seasons to develop i said it feels like the first day of spring we'll come to some seasons in a bit when we think about uh christina rossetti but let's go on with this little passage because what is important here is that joseph has inner certainties and knows that there is danger and takes in matthew's story the child and his mother into egypt so that life begins for the child as a fugitive a fugitive in danger and then finding hospitality in a foreign land all according to prophecy so important in matthew's gospel he's building the foundation on the scriptures in which jesus will be educated and brought up and which he will use constantly to define his anointed role later in life and then when the time comes joseph realizes that it may be safe to go back so they journey again and come into judea in which bethlehem was situated where they had fled from and find there that the son of herod is reigning now but in galilee not and so joseph decides he'll go on to galilee and goes to nazareth all according to prophecy and matthew keeps punctuating his prelude as he will his gospel with prophecy a voice was heard in rama not isaiah this time the weeping of the mothers of bethlehem rachel jacob's wife rachel who was buried in bethlehem and so that's that uh that word rachel is symbolic of bethlehem and of motherhood for rachel died as benjamin was born joseph's brother and jacob loved her dearly and she was buried in bethlehem so all of those things are pointing back to the scriptures and to the importance of our knowing them just a verse will spring out just as it does from the new testament but often from the psalms as the verse springs out it helps us like one of the stars to guide our way followers of the way but of course the largest light the morning star the day star from on high all of that is our coming to realize jesus himself which we do in the gospel and in the breaking of bread and the sacraments with each other and in the lives of each other where christ shows himself so often in the life of another calling for our help and encouragement or in turn giving help and encouragement let's go to christina rosetti because on this day our calendar mentions her and it's a good thing to think of her on this day this little book which is a precious book it belonged to my sister and i took it into my my own collection from her books when pauline died but i had always known it because she loved the poetry of christina rosetti and christina rossetti's poem when i am dead my dearest sing no sad songs for me was sung to the music of my friend whose census died still richard shepard who had written it for a victorian melodrama so to speak with and pauline had always kept that in her mind and wanted it sung so that was sung at her funeral here in the decrypt but this book is a precious book and quite rare now it's it's called called to be saints by christina rosetti and in it right on the first page it says to my sister in hope of our reunion and to a dear and gracious memory of her well that's a wonderful thought but what i wanted to do was to show just briefly how this wonderful old book goes through all the saints of our prayer book as they are named and uh so christina rossetti says i will endeavor to write of the 19 saints commemorated by name in our book of common prayer with the holy innocents of course the babies of bethlehem rachel mourning for her children neither named nor numbered with sin michael and his cloud of all angels with all saints as the stars of the firmament and as the sand by the seashore innumerable and lest anyone in reading what i write should condemn me as dwelling too prominently on the servant in lieu of the master i pray them to recall the words of abigail who because she was the king's bride protested let's sign be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of the lord now there's a long introduction as the key to the book but i can do it quite quickly because she starts as the book of common prayer does in the saints that are named with sint andrew's day and if i start with him then each apostle when they come is treated differently but this is how the pattern for most will go first of all the sacred text whenever andrew is mentioned she quotes the references then there are biographical additions things of the tradition of the church which might not be noted in definite form in scripture but have been carried by memory and tradition in different cultures through and that also she mentions she then foreseen andrew writes a prayer for large-heartedness remembering that is andrew who brings his brother to jesus and andrew who finds the young man with the loaves and the fishes all of that and then uh she goes on once more looking at the texts and delving into the life of andrew from those and then these pages because they needed to be cut it's an old book and say they're rough because he's an apostle he gets a foundation crystal stone from the book of revelation where the gates of the holy city heavenly jerusalem have 12 foundation stones represented by different jewels and she gives to to andrew the jasper and then after that everyone not just the apostles gets a flower and sin andrew gets the daisy and she's written underneath the daisy there's a drawing of the daisy as well there are lovely botanical drawings right through the book each one gets a flower but underneath the daisy she says we are well placed where god places us well that's a good thought and she begins her little reflection on the daisy the daisy scattered over many soils blows the whole year round in geneal weather and though less plentiful in november when sin andrew has his feasts than in mild a month its rarity may then be viewed as choiceness for throughout november flowers are few the daisy must also be always a precursor and companion of some blossom more gorgeous she's saying the daisy is a humble flower and that suits in andrew and so it goes on with biographical additions to the end of her thought about saint andrew and on then to the next saint which in those days because on the 21st of december in the book of common prayer sin thomas the doubter was kept we'd move that feast now the modern church moved that out of the way of advent but here in this book it's the old calendar what she's saying is that the year the seasons and the signs become important to us in our rhythmic life and in her poetry she was moved in that way well i've chosen to read this morning from her two poems one you will know well here it is in the hymn book and it goes well with the wise men's journey and joseph's winter journey in our minds into egypt this is christina rossetti at christmas time and then we'll go to easter time in the bleak mid-winter frosty wind made moan earth stood hard as iron water like a stone snow had fallen snow on snow snow on snow in the bleak mid-winter long ago our god heaven cannot hold him nor earth sustain heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign in the bleak mid-winter a stable place suffice the lord god almighty jesus christ enough for him whom cherubim worship night and day a breast full of milk and a manger full of hay enough for him whom angels fall down before the ox and ass and camel which adore angels and archangels may have gathered there cherubim and said of him thronged the air but only his mother in her maiden bliss worshipped the beloved with a kiss what can i give him poor as i am if i were a shepherd i would bring a lamb if i were a wise man i would do my part yet what i can i give him give my heart there will be music in your minds possibly the tune by gustav hilst which we sing as a carol possibly the beautiful music of harold dark which the choir often sing as an anthem to those lovely words but as we've said before reading the nativity story at a time of year when we least expect it can be a way of implanting it in a very different way in our minds and christina rossetti would like that but here's an easter song from her and it's a song which is very like the song of songs which we read in easter week the song of solomon when the time of the singing of birds is here and she writes a love song because of the the birth in resurrection of the one she loves you could attach it if you like to marry magdalen you can put it wherever but it's an easter song from christina rosetti my heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a watered shoot my heart is like an apple tree whose bowels are bent with thick set fruit my heart is like a rainbow shell that paddles in a halcyon sea my heart is gladder than all these because my love is come to me raise me a deus of silk and down hang it with their and purple dyes carve it in doves and pomegranates and peacocks with a hundred eyes work it in gold and silver grapes in leaves and silver fleur de lis because the birthday of my life is come my love is come to me echoes of george herbert of mystic parrots like henry vaughan in christina rosetta's simple words and we could be reading so many of her poems or her long imaginative poem goblin market but i leave that for you to do on this day when we remember her i've left out the memory of others we might remember on this day because we shall have other days when there aren't so many themes crowding in on us and certainly cecil day lewis we should remember on this day but we shall carry that thought forward and come back to it and milton also who on this day when he was absolutely penniless in 1667 sold the copyright to his paradise loss for 10 pounds what is a poem worth and in human terms of money and riches it's unquantifiable but those things we can think of on a different day because here in all the juice and joy of this garden to use the words of gerald manny hopkins in spring we think of christina rossetti and give thanks for her imagination and her constant and absolute faith in our lord jesus christ the offering of her heart in that lovely christmas carol so let's say our prayers on this particular day and we are praying on this 27th of april in the anglican communion for the diocese of brazoville in the province of the anglican church of the congo and we also pray of course for justin our archbishop and for the life of this diocese of canterbury today for the parish church of sin stephen in canterbury pray for the clergy kevin mattis stephen ladd and the life of that parish which is very near us here on the road up to the university of kent and so we give thanks for the life of that neighboring parish today so uh let's then bring all our intentions and prayers we will think of so many people and at this time our hearts go out to the people of india and we've also had really sad communications from our friend pedro and his family in brazil about the way in which the pandemic is gaining so much ground help from other nations is going out to them and india today will receive beginning of that help but the suffering of those people is is that written large across our screens and in our media so we we pray for all of them at this particular time let's say then the prayer for this fourth week of easter almighty god whose son jesus christ is the resurrection and the life raise us whose trust in him from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that we may seek those things which are above where he reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever 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 the power and the glory forever and ever are men a moment of silence now as we say our own prayers on this day the god of peace who brought again from the dead our lord jesus christ that great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight 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 is that your men russell you've eaten the rest of leo's breakfast but you're having a lovely time this morning all of you aren't you and darcy coming like a great sailing ship up the garden path past the stream and jane here too the turkeys tend to keep everyone else very gentle it's a lovely day for you all isn't it i'm guinea fowl too oh darcy you're looking calmer here we [Applause] are good and tits here with a cock-a-doodle-doo which is a bit uh higher voiced than russell's you're right you're very very elegant oh ducky you're behind me here as well shining in the sunshine ducky is happier in the stream but a great companion to all of these and they're a very colorful body this morning all right good boy [Music] okay okay lizzy too you're here there we are loving the warm sunshine