good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral wherever you are in the world on this morning of tuesday the 14th of december it is really a lovely morning not too cold a bright blue sky and the sun rising through the trees of the garden onto this scene where we've come you will have prayers that you want to say as we pray together and worship together this morning we're thinking of a dear friend as she goes into surgery this morning and thinking also of our friend nigel vanderbilt who has has died on saturday and pray also for his wife loba and the family at this time of grieving so add your own prayers uh quietly uh and uh we will worship together now we've come to a special part of the garden you remember we were going to places where last year we went to sit by particular trees and on this day it must have been not so good weather we were in the greenhouse with tiger i'm not with tiger this morning i've got another friend here who's sitting a little bit patiently but she's happy for the moment and uh we have come outside to the same plant it's a spa mania i'll talk about that in a moment you're also seeing astrumeria they're still flowering and sedums still flowering and miraculously almost the spar mania flowering there there's a a bit in beverly nichols where he says he prided himself he could always find on every day of the year in his garden the capacity to find a flower which were flowering somewhere and i think we've tried to do the same uh i'll just give up our friend he's been so patient helping us set up here you are there you are just have a little bit that's enough then you can have the rest afterwards uh we pride ourselves as well that we can let's say usually find a flower and the winter flower as they begin in january tend to be very strongly scented which is wonderful but this morning we're looking at a spammania and spamania is an african plant it's often known as african hemp a south african plant and usually when plants are trans translated shall we say brought across to another area of the world from southern to northern northern hemisphere they adapt and flower in the same season that they would have flowered there and so that their springtime here uh is actually the autumn in the southern hemisphere most plants do that as they've been transferred from trans uh what should we say transported to different different countries but there are some which don't and the spar mania and and also the mimosa which we're used to don't they flower at exactly the same time that they would have flowered in the land they came from and that means that this sparmania which should be flowering in spring in south africa which it now is is actually flowering in autumn because it's kept to the same sequence and last year we were saying as we sat in front of it in the greenhouse the mother plant in the greenhouse which is massive uh we were saying we're going to try some outside and see whether they were hardy enough to survive so they're all along the herbaceous border and here is one and we've had fairly heavy frosts already but look at it it's flowering as though it was spring and so we have a taste of flowering in spring and that will help us in part of our reflection as well so spa mania remember that's what that is african hemp let's say our morning prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall 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 oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 14th morning of the month is psalm it's a psalm full of imagery and we shall explore that a little in our reflection give the king your judgment so god and your righteousness to the son of a king then shall he judge your people righteously and your poor with justice may the mountains bring forth peace and the little hills righteousness for the people may he defend the poor among the people deliver the children of the needy and crush the oppressor may he live as long as the sun and moon endure from one generation to another may he come down like rain upon the moon grass like the showers that water the earth in his time shall righteousness flourish and abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more may his dominion extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth may his foes kneel before him and his enemies lick the dust the kings of tarshish and of the isles shall pay tribute the kings of sheba and siba shall bring gifts all kings shall fall down before him all nations shall do him service for he shall deliver the poor that cry out the needy and those who have no helper he shall have pity on the weak and poor he shall preserve the lives of the needy he shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence and dear shall their blood be in his sight long may he live unto him may be given gold from sheba may prayer be made for him continually and may they bless him all the day long may there be abundance of grain on the earth standing thick upon the hilltops may its fruit flourish like lebanon and its grain grow like the grass of the field may his name remain forever and be established as long as the sun endures may all nations be blessed in him and call him blessed blessed be the lord the god of israel who alone does wonderful things and blessed be his glorious name forever may all the earth be filled with his glory our men are men it's a psalm that's usually used at the feast of the epiphany with kings coming to kneel and bring gifts but at the same time it's something very very suitable for advent with its sense of judgment with justice for all nations in the on the earth and people being given the good news of the anointed one and it's also something which can be used at christmas time for images of showers coming down to water the earth and causing it to flower and flourish are very often used in our carols as a sign of fruitfulness with the coming of the anointed one and those who bring gifts to him but also the reign of peace which he ushers in terms of goodwill in all the prophecies we'll come back to that when we begin our reflection but for the moment i'm going to the epistle to the hebrews which as we've seen is also full of amazing imagery and i'm going to read this morning chapter 10 and i'm because some of it repeats the imagery of former chapters and we're going to complete the epistle by saturday i'm going to read verses 1 to 10 and 19 to 25 of chapter 10. for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year make perfect those who draw near otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshippers having once been cleansed would no longer have any consciousness of sins but in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins consequently when christ came into the world he said sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure then i said behold i have come to do your willow god as it is written of me in the scroll of the book when he said above you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings these are offered according to the old law then he added behold i have come to do your will he does away with the first in order to establish the second and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of jesus christ once for all therefore brothers and sisters since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the veil the curtain that is through his own flesh and since we have a great high priest over the house of god let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near that is the heartland of chapter 10 and our epistle writer once again is full of imagery which we're really quite used to because we use it in our liturgies in our worship and especially in our eucharists first and foremost though he quotes that psalm 40 verses 7 to 9 going dipping back again into the psalms sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings you've taken no pleasure then i said behold i have come to do your willow god as it is written of me in the scroll of the book it's a psalm of the anointed one but it's a psalm which jesus of nazareth as the anointed one claims for himself and these verses used from the very beginnings of the life of the early church to show that perfect offering of the humanity of jesus a body you have prepared for me and behold i have come to do your will o god and we're back once again with jesus in his humanity in the garden of gethsemane amongst the olive trees saying nevertheless your will be done anchored in the prophecy given in the psalms but much more than that of course we have those sentences which take us as we found yesterday when we were in chapter nine and let me just speak about yesterday as well because yesterday we had the greatest of fletcher had the greatest trouble with youtube and although uh he saw the morning prayer go on to our website later in the day we discovered it wasn't on youtube something had happened so he had to sit again for a long time until it in the evening we've got it onto youtube so maybe you've missed a section of our epistle to the hebrews but you can click onto it now easily and go back to that and i hope you will because then that continues the sense of liturgical reading from this epistle full of imagery which is given to us here and in the second part that i read this morning of course there are very familiar words and they come in so many of our modern eucharist seeing we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens jesus the son of god let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith and make our confession to our heavenly father we know those words and where have they come from they have come from here the epistle to the hebrews giving us the imagery of christ our great high priest priest making intercession for us and giving us those gifts of the sacrament the bread as his body the wine of the new covenant for the forgiveness of sins poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins and now here we have once again sentences which we are glad to use at our offering and sacrifice of thanksgiving of ourselves as well and here they are therefore brothers and sisters since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the veil that is through his flesh and since we have a great high priest over the house of god let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water and let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and then the let us once again the invitation to consider how to stir up in one another love and good works not neglecting to meet together well that's what we've missed during lockdown and we've kept going virtually of course as we still are but now despite restrictions we are able to meet together and encourage one another in faith and hope and love and good works and all of this is being given to us by this very special epistle the imagery of the eucharist so in going back to the prophecy in psalm 40 the body which has been prepared that itself can give itself entirely and both the humanity and divinity of our lord is expressed in that and then fulfilled in the life and death and raising up on the cross of jesus at the resurrection and the glory beyond passing through the veil and bringing us with him so that day by day the gift of the new day as the sun shines on me coming up over the trees we give thanks for the opportunity to be part of all that new and living way which the writer to the hebrews is setting out so gloriously in the writing and the the verses that are expressing the coming of the anointed one and all that that's accomplished well on this day there are various things that i've not forgotten we're going back to psalm 72 but i'll do that at the end i want first of all to say that this is the day on which we remember the life and ministry and works and spirituality of saint john of the cross saint john of the cross was born in 1542 and he was born in spain of course but he died on the 14th of december 1591. spanish priest mystic and carmelite friar is listed as in the calendar but he is best known of course for his mystical writings exploring the life of the spirit and we give thanks not only for him but for his constant correspondence following his mentoring by sin teresa of avila they kept in touch and teresa of avila at the beginning mentored john of the cross when he was thinking what will my vocation be and he was influenced by the society of jesus ignatius loyola at that time he was influenced in many other ways by other orders of religion religious life but he was attracted to the carmelites but attracted still further by the purification of their rule to a greater simplicity but also a greater asceticism which teresa of avila was was giving that and he went to her for mentoring and decided that he would become a carmelite but in the end he would form his own order of carmelites discussed carmelites which would be stricter to the simplicity of the rule and in that he found hostility from those who already were carmelites now the hostility was a violent hostility when people believe in things very firmly sometimes they can let anger and rage and jealousy and everything else get hold of them and this happened to john of the cross he wasn't called that then but he was suddenly captured and bound in toledo and taken to the home of the carmelites there and imprisoned that were told and reminds me of what i was saying about terry weight the other day uh was held in a prison cell of complete darkness between 1577 and 1578 a cell eight feet by six feet and was given very little to eat and drink and was publicly beaten to try and get him to obedience to the way the carmelites were expressing their rule then which was an easier rule and he felt his vocation he knew his vocation was different from that and he escaped out of uh a window and this was in toledo fletcher and i could never believe anything bad happens in toledo it's one of our most famous cities among favorite cities rather in all the world but it did with saint john of the cross but he escaped and and fled to the nuns of saint teresa and there was was healed from all that had happened but in that da hello tiger good morning um in that dark place that very dark place his spiritual writings and his consciousness that in the development of the life of the soul there is always going to be something of hostility set up with the body for the body resists what the soul is trying to do in breaking away for full union with uh the creator and it's it's in in that writing that we remember saint john of the cross in the cell he began in his mind a spiritual canticle on paper which was passed to him by one of the brothers who was friendly towards him and that spiritual canticle which depends a great deal on the the song of songs or sometimes called the song of solomon uh there is that it's it's almost a love story of the soul crying out to be uh in in union with god uh and as we read that now we think back to that desperate time in prison but at the same time after that his other writings began and from that is writing the dark knight normally spoken of as the dark knight of the soul once again that tension between the spirit and the flesh and the body itself of course part of god's holy creation and mystically in union with with mind and spirit and and the the commandments love the lord your god whether you're all your part and with all your mind with all your soul and with all your strength expresses that unity but it also has realistically to know the tensions which saint paul is forever speaking of between body mind and spirit intention and uh the the way in which the body wants to carry in a different direction well since john of the cross and with his ascent to mount carmel all those writings encouraged by his correspondence with teresa of avila survive and for many that mystic way has become a way forward in their spirituality so we give thanks for him on this day of his year's mind 14th of december 1591. i want also to remember somebody who has a particular vocation in acting his acting career really began with shakespearean parts at the bristol old vic it's a place the theatre royal in bristol was some somewhere where my sister helped me to cut my teeth on shakespearean drama and this i'm talking about is the actor peter o'toole who was born in 1932 and died on the 14th of december 2013 aged 81 but his early parts were on the stage that was his vocation and a very memorable hamlet in the national theater in 1963 playing parts exploring the tensions of humanity with a a stronger vision but of course then his time came with the great film in the early 1960s lawrence of arabia it's how we remember him and that enormous screen was was so powerful in those days there's that image if you remember of going back to find the one who had been lost on the camel the boy who'd been lost and and uh lawrence on his camel is on one side of the screen the the great screens we only became used to it that time and they seemed like magic in those days and the lost boy is sitting on his camel thinking no one would think of him in the desert and lawrence has gone back for him and then there is that wonderful race across the screen as the camels go to to meet one another in a joy of expectation and finding those kinds of scenes he portrayed very well in that film but i want to remember him too in two completely different films as king henry ii the king who was beckett's best friend and then who was exasperated by what happened to thomas beckett when he became archbishop of canterbury and decided to serve god rather than the king's will and that ended in bloodshed of course and it's not t.s eliot's play that uh o'toole played in but annui's play just simply called beckage made into a wonderful film with richard burton as thomas beckett and peter o'toole as king henry ii and the tension and juxtaposition henry ii doesn't appear in murder in the cathedral elliot's play but he certainly appears in the honoree the tension between those two and the way in which each has a completely different vocation and how they match one another and how their friendship has turned into something which causes the rage of the king to be even greater and then his sorrow what has happened to be even more intense and o'toole shows all of that and then again he plays king henry ii later in life in that passionate film the lion in winter so that in two ways he shows us henry ii that chastened henry ii after the death of beckett but the passionate henry ii at the time of his frustration with his best friend who has now become a servant of god and archbishop of canterbury just want to mention too from a personal way uh he he played in the the musical uh with patula clark uh in 1969 goodbye mr chips it's a very old black and white film about the school master mr chips with robert donut as uh as mr chips but this is a musical which was made in 1969 which got good reviews and i remember seeing it but later on in life for me it became important because part of it was filmed in my vicarage in sherburne and before i went there uh and uh they used the rooms of the vicarage so i would watch the film and say gosh that's the uh that's the drawing room but as you do in films you realize they've come through a door from a room that wasn't there but was in a different place in the house so in some ways it's wonderful to see it in other ways i spend my time saying well that can't have happened because that's the drawing room door and they've come from a completely part of different part of the house but it was set at sherburne school and the abbey and various other places that i knew well actually are in that film so i'm giving thanks for o'toole's capacity to play various characters but also to express the tensions that are writer to the hebrews and the psalmist and sin paul in his epistles are expressing between our own humanity and our desire to embrace the the first of the commandments to love god with heart soul mind and strength and make a unity of that by grace and we have then to each day the gift of the new day embrace also the forgiveness of sins achieved for us by the one who opened the gate to life eternal and that eternal dimension i said we'd go back to psalm 72 and i'm going to but not in the salter but actually in the hymnbook for so often the psalms have been and isaac watts was a great one for doing this john milton did it but others have done it with psalms and made them intrametrical verses that we can we can actually sing and get the full fruit and meaning of the psalm and so it was with a hymn writer a very great hymn writer called james montgomery who was born late in the 18th century and lived through the earlier years of the 19th century and wrote beautiful hymns but one of them is one that again is sung at the epiphany but as i said about this this uh image of the anointed one coming with the good news and giving fruitfulness to us in our humanity and also using the gifts of creation to share it to us is given in a great hymn which again we normally sing at epiphany but goes equally well now in advent and equally well at christmas time with the sense of fruitfulness coming down with the child in the manger kings coming to offer their gifts at epiphany but at all times of the year when this song is a wonderful sound to sing psalm for the 14th morning of the month but here's the poem which was set to music and it's james montgomery's poem this is uh sorry this is uh psalm 72 in metrical form hail to the lord's anointed great david's greater son hail in the time appointed his reign on earth begun he comes to break oppression to let the captive free to take away transgression and rule in equity he comes with sucker speedy to those who suffer wrong to help the poor and needy and bid the weak be strong to give them songs for sighing their darkness turn to light whose souls condemned and dying were precious in his sight he shall come down like showers upon the fruitful earth and love joy hope like flowers spring in his path to birth before him on the mountains shall peace the herald go and righteousness in fountains from hill to valley flow arabia's desert ranger to him shall bow the knee the ethiopian stranger his glory come to see with offerings of devotion ships from the isles shall meet to pour the wealth of ocean in tribute at his feet kings shall fall down before him and gold and incense bring all nations shall adore him his praise all people sing to him shall prayer unceasing and daily vows ascend his kingdom still increasing a kingdom without end or every foe victorious he on his throne shall rest from age to age more glorious all blessing and all blessed the tide of time shall never his covenant remove his name shall stand forever that name to us is love a most marvelous poem but it sings very well as we sing it as i say mostly at the feast of the epiphany but very apt for today with flowers blooming all around us like spiritual gifts let's uh then say our prayers on this day we think of areas of the world still suffering from intense climatic change the effects of of flood and and fire tornado in the areas around kentucky with great loss of life uh storms and hurricanes in texas the heat in australia which at the moment is utterly intense and also earthquakes in indonesia and now thank god the all clear has sounded that there will be no tsunami and we pray that that is so we also think of human tragedy and we remember the school in oxford in the united states where a shooting took place in schools it was about to open yesterday but they've had other threats from people threatening more violence and they've had to keep closed and they don't know where these threats are coming from but for safety's sake they've kept close so we think of that school today once again in our prayers you'll have many many other situations to be thinking of bring them now as we say our prayers first the collect for the day of sin john of the cross and then of course the advent collect oh god the judge of all who gave your servant john of the cross a warmth of nature a strength of purpose and a mystical face that sustained him even in the darkness shed your light on all who love you and grant them union of body and soul in your son jesus christ our lord amen so the advent college 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 amen moment of reflection will follow us saying together 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 [Music] [Applause] [Music] five is [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is is is so foreign is [Music] christ the son of righteousness shine upon you scatter the darkness from before your past 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 would pray for today and always amen [Music] so so [Music] [Music] [Music] you