good morning and welcome not to the dinery garden to begin with today but to this little room this little guest room in the deanery where fletcher does the editing so that the films that we make for you our morning prayers can be put online later on and we're here with his editor-in-chief lilly who is always the one who helps and she has to be around and organizing everything this is international cat day so we thought we'd begin with lily as she came down here for a quick snack before the work begins and then work she will all day long she's very much around and about but we hope that we can visit others of our feline friends today this room has been decorated because it's used especially when our little niece arabella comes and she likes being in here so hence the various ivy leaves around the room and the various lights and decorations that are here but the corner is a a place for massive work each morning so that we can share our prayers with you let's say our prayers on this day the early morning bell for the early morning communion is ringing from bel harry and uh as rather that's dunstan from the west tower as this day begins and today we have a special intention for praying for the order of preachers the dominicans because this is the 800th anniversary of the year's mind of saint dominic and today august the 8th is the day on which our calendar commemorates in dominic you'll remember that on monday evening a group of dominicans came to sing dominican vespers in memory of a pilgrimage which was taken by them to england in 1220 and that was put off last year and happened this year but today is the significant day august the 8th and the 800th anniversary we remember and give thanks for but we will come back to that let's begin our sunday morning prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise bless the lord all you works of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you heavens sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you angels of his sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all people on earth sing his praise and exalt him forever o people of god bless the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you priests of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you servants of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all you of upright spirit bless the lord you that are holy and humble in heart bless the father the son and of the holy spirit blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night is past and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind does 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 so we say our psalm together and today on this eighth morning of the month i'm going to use psalm 39 often we use psalm 40 but today this seems a good psalm when we're remembering the preaching ministry of sin dominic i said i will keep watch over my ways so that i offend not with my tongue i will guard my mouth with a muzzle while the wicked are in my sight so i held my tongue and said nothing i kept silence but to no avail my distress increased my heart grew hot within me but while i mused the fire was kindled and i spoke out with my tongue lord let me know my end and the number of my days that i may know how short my time is you have made my days better hands brett and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight truly even those who stand upright are bit of breath we walk about like a shadow and in vain we are in turmoil we heap up riches and cannot tell who will gather them and now what is my hope truly my hope is even in you deliver me from all my transgressions and do not make me the taunt of the fool i fell silent and did not open my mouth for surely it was your doing take away your plague from me i am consumed by the blows of your hand with rebukes for sin you punish us like a moth you consume our beauty truly everyone is but a breath hear my prayer o lord and give ear to my cry hold not your peace at my tears for i am but a stranger with you a wayfarer as all my forebears were turn your gaze from me that i may be glad again before i go my way and um no more so having said our prayers here this morning with lily the editor-in-chief here at my feet is telling me it's time to go outside to do the real work of the day so having said that psalm and the significant verse i think is while i mused the fire was kindled and i spoke out with my tongue the dominicans are preachers and sin dominic insisted absolutely above all else that we communicate the word in our preaching he did it also with his life but preaching has become the vocation of the dominicans and we're going now to go outside and lily you're going to lead the way i think into the sunshine but it's a beautiful day out there international cat day and lily's let us outside and i know that uh the minute she's finished this little snack she'll go off to fetter on the camera because she has to go and supervise work all around she's just looking around to see if her son leo is anywhere in the garden we shan't know until he appears because leo is very much a night cat who wanders around and explores in the night hours but then usually it's around at breakfast time before having a nice long sleep but this morning the active one the international cat in her own mind the only international cat lily is here there is a a town that we generally visit at this time of year near to a friend of ours house in gascony it's called la romere the village and at some stage in medieval times it was played with rats but a little girl there had i think 20 cats at the time whom she was feeding and she offered her cats to ridge the town of rats and they did and now if you go there there are little models uh well life-size and in stone and in all sorts of ways on every ledge that you look you'll suddenly see all being looked at by a very realistic cat all over la homiere it's a town on the the route to the camino as are so many there uh where we also spend some some time has a great covered marketplace which spans the camino on the way to santiago coming through france on that route before crossing the border into spain well our lesson this morning because it's a sunday morning is a different lesson it's a lesson taken from the second letter of saint peter and i'm reading from verse 8 of chapter 3 to verse 13. this is the lesson for morning prayer later i'll uh refer to one of the verses in the gospel reading for this morning from john chapter six but here we are in the third chapter of saint peter's second letter and at verse eight do not overlook this one fact beloved that with the lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day the lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some of you count slowness but is patient towards you not wishing that anyone should perish but that all should reach repentance but the day of the lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed since all these things are thus to be dissolved what sort of people ought we to be in lives of holiness and godliness waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of god because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn but according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells it says something about living in our time and in god's time and the two are so infinitely different that those verses capture that it's simply a scientific truism about in however many millions of years these finite things which earth and planets and every star are before the timelessness of the creator but in the midst of this we have promise of a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwell and that is of the spiritual dimension which we look forward to and prepare ourselves for for the day of the lord can be seen in two completely different ways it can be the day of the lord in a totally infinite sense or the day of the lord for us the psalmist this morning was very sure on i know how short my time is and therefore and let's go back to this day as the 800th anniversary of the dominican order and the years mind of sin dominic we need to seize the opportunity to share that gift now the dominicans in preaching but sin dominic was very very clear that in our lives and in physical action we can make that kingdom here on earth as our savior's prayer says my kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven we in our humanity have been taught by jesus that we can live in both dimensions as he did and we shall come back to that in our reflection but for the moment i think it's time to go and find another of our friends in the garden we may not find leo but i know that there will be someone who is waiting for us in his place in the garden it's interesting that that cats don't appear in the scriptures unless and this has been done today on international cat diet by the world wildlife fund where big cats are in an endangered species in so many ways and then one begins to think of lions and tigers and actually fish's favorite cat is the ocelot and i often think he's going to turn up one day with an ocelot it moved and inspired by salvador dali's picture of himself with his ocelot babu uh who used to frighten people when he would take him on a lead i guess to new york restaurants and it said that one day when someone said what on earth is that frightened to death by the ocelot he said oh don't worry it's just a domestic cat but i've painted that my cat with op art colors just for the effect and the ocelot was actually there in the restaurant there and even came on cruises with him across the atlantic well we think principally today though of the fact that in the book of revelation when the writer saint john is saying i wept because no one was able to unwrap the scroll unseal the scroll break the seal there was no one worthy and the elder says don't weep the lion of the tribe of judah the root of david has conquered and is able to break the seal and that sense of the lion of judah was taken up of course by c.s lewis in his narnia chronicles by making aslan the lion the symbol of christ both in strength and in compassion and in sacrifice let's go on to a different part of the garden we've come round into the herb garden and we knew that one friend would be waiting for us here is tiger having his breakfast on this lovely morning a little bit windy for him but nevertheless he's enjoying life here it's hardly believable that it's one year now since on august 10th last year he had his front left leg amputated as so many of you will remember and after two or three months of both shyness and recovery he's taught himself once again to be the cat that we always knew in all his activity and he is in many ways our most affectionate cat almost shy cat and also a little bit nervous but he always was and this is his safe place here in the herb garden and in the greenhouses he loves being here and on a morning like that like this what could be better so international cat day and he gets the award for bravery and also for being patient with his own body and teaching it to live in a completely different way following the amputation we're deeply grateful to uh our friend dr christoph reichmann who did the amputation and today is a special day for christoph it's his birthday and so we say happy birthday to kristoff and i know that tiger would want to say a huge thank you because it's made him into a very healthy cat again but one who's had to live in a learn to live in a different way and he's done so so well so let's continue with our thinking on this particular day there are three people i want to think about so dominic obviously on this day because of the the 800th anniversary and i'll come back to st dominic but i want to think of two other people who taught us in very different ways to show people jesus our cathedral mission statement and the first of them is james tiso who is a french artist that i grew to know well because the bristol museum and art gallery has some of his paintings and in late victorian times he was able to do wonderful paintings of scenes and characters and capture the life of that era but it's not that that i wanted to say he'd had a strange life he'd been he'd been born in france and and grew up as an artist in france and that of course becomes immensely important but in 1870 with the enormous franco-prussian war in which he fought and then the commune in paris and at the end he fled because there were political accusations against him being on the wrong side and off he came to england and then began to paint here and was hugely popular but at a later time of life between 1886 and 1896 he traveled to the middle east in order to paint scenes from the life of jesus and he painted about 350 scenes of the life of christ and they are his attempt to give a reality to jesus of nazareth and show people jesus in the context in which he lived those paintings have been published in in books so many times they are of their time of course but they do something amazing they give one story after another of the life of jesus to show people jesus in his humanity and also with the titles of the stories and the various things that he's portraying to show that the gifts of eternity and of the good news of the gospel so that god's will be done on earth as it is in heaven he used all his talent in that way and when he felt he had finished there then he began to paint scenes as we are doing now in the book of genesis day by day of the old testament so we give thanks for james tiso turning his gifts in a direction to in his way show people jesus and the culture and society in which christ lived out his human life the second person i want to mention on this day is thomas akempis whose year's mind falls and in 1471 he died but before that he had written what is probably one of the most famous books on christian spirituality of all he called it de imitatio christi the imitation of christ so many bookshelves have that book on it it's been translated into just about every language you can think of and the way in which thomas akempis actually does his his thinking and helps one to turn one's life to be showing people jesus by the very aspect of life and there's a quote i wanted to use from that book which one can turn to again and again the book itself the imitation of christ because that's what we're trying to do day by day but the imitation has in it and using the translation without the way there is no going without the truth there is no knowing without the life there is no living if however you seek jesus in all things you will surely find him it's a beautiful quote but it's one among so many in that absolute classic of spirituality we've talked about the spiritual exercises of ignatius loyola well here is another foundation stone of the church's spirituality through the ages thomas the campus of the imitation of christ and lastly let's come to saint dominic himself saint dominic who was a very apt student his his mental agility was was second to none and in his studies he became immensely gifted and skilled and had many precious manuscripts he came from a fairly wealthy if not even aristocratic uh spanish family and the manuscripts he had he when famine struck spain at the age of about 20 as he then was 20 to 22 something like that still very much an avid student of the arts and of theology he sold all his books and manuscripts in order to buy bread for those who could no longer afford it because of the famine and his friends said surely you're not giving up those manuscripts and she said it is better to feed the live skins of human beings than to read from these dead skins of animals he was speaking of the the velum he was using um and that that message was was done as a metaphor to his friends that in giving things up in quality we were with that yesterday with cain and abel the two offerings abel's heart fent felt and given at great cost to himself and and cain taking things we imagine which because of their lack of his own commitment and sense of of uh sacrifice were not as acceptable his brother abel's which then calls the jealousy which we were looking at yesterday well today of course we are thinking of dominic dominic was ordained priest at the age of of 24. but then was sent by the the bishop of the of toulouse to areas where the preaching of the word was necessary and dominic began to preach and remember the the sound the fire was kindled within me and i spoke out well his formation of the order of preachers the dominicans as they're called in their white and that they're black um uh tiger has found lily's treats there's no there's no hiding anything for fortuga i think maybe i should give him one or two in a moment let's do that he won oops little brave boy let's give you one or two of these these are ones that really are special treats and uh there we go let me put them there for you see dropping absolutely everything here we go that's right um let me take up from where i was dominic realized that in walking about and preaching and showing in his life this was the era of saint francis as well that this was the best way of bringing the faith to the people and particularly in the areas of provence and and south and france and areas of that we we tend to meet dominicans in it's uh some maximum santa boom where we talked about with the the uh um special shrine of saint mary magdalene and up on the mountain top all of that in the hands of the dominicans but we were so privileged last week to mark that that foundation stone of dominic's mission here to england by the coming again of the dominicans to celebrate their dominican vespers and to preach as they had done in 1220 at the invitation of archbishop stephen langton but dominic felt that in order to preach the best way to do this was to emulate jesus himself and if books were not ready to hand then he himself and he's always this gift is always attributed to him um he himself devised a way which probably was in the practice of some anyway and i have one in my hand and um i learned the the gift of using them from the writer austin farah whose father had been a baptist minister and he himself became a very fervent anglican but he was very much converted to the way of praying which is using what he called a string of beads held together by joel's wire keeping my hands and body and my mind on scriptural scenes and walking the way of christ alongside the companionship of christ's mother the servant of the lord now as pharaoh says you can you can use it in a very versatile way and your companionship along the way may be in a different way but what i've got here is a very simple string of beads which was actually bought by um from the shop of a lovely convent very near to the places i was describing earlier uh lauren in gascony and the whiteness reminds one of the dominican habit but it's as simple as as saying that one is looking through tiso's scriptural scenes and as many of you will well know he's fine he's found these again you're a clever cat aren't you it's international cat day so i think we can't we can't deny him things come on then little tiger come on come on hey here we are here we are you're covering me with white hairs but that won't matter at all i should become more and more dominican let me let me lift you through i think i'll put these in my pocket otherwise he's going to go crazy come on hey hey um describing those villages around uh this was bought there when justice is a memento of being there but the scenes are set out as so many of you will know in three or nowadays if you take on the new way of doing this four sets of mysteries the first is the set of mystery which are called joyful mysteries and they tell of the mysteries of jesus's birth and you begin with the our father and your hands take you through the mysteries of the angel coming to mary of of mary then going to visit her cousin elizabeth and then the birth of jesus the nativity spending as long as you like on each and sometimes also um spending time just on one in the morning because your your mind or any time of day your mind is taken with this it's keeping the mind and imagination active on to the visitation from the visitation through the nativity on to the presentation in the temple and then to jesus himself in the temple talking with the doctors of the law and in that way um we are going through walking through finding a way but all this is set to still the body because your fingers won't let you forget that you're meditating on these scriptural scenes like t says pictures and at the same time your mind because you're thinking about them and puzzling on their meaning and it sets your spirit free to imagine in a completely different dimension the next set of course are sorrowful mysteries taking jesus through from the garden of gethsemane and through the various uh mysteries of of that and then the third set are the set the the mysteries of glory of resurrection of us of the ascension of the gifts of the spirit and of both the uh this life and the life beyond in all its glory so that we then assimilate that glory now pope john paul ii introduced a fourth set which generally are said by those of us who use these things on thursdays and uh that is a set called luminous mysteries the mysteries of light and there we are thinking of jesus's human ministry and we begin with his baptism and then think of the wedding at cana in galilee and then of his teaching ministry that takes us straight back to dominic and then on to the transfiguration and on to the institution of the last supper and the eucharist all of those mysteries held by our hands fixed by our minds to let the spirit range free and still every other part of our body you don't need a string of beads um quite often i use my ten fingers and use the the ring on my finger here as the our father and go through but it's not in a way it's not the words you're saying nor even the thoughts you're thinking it's the ability of the spirit to range right through into god's time which is not governed by the business of human time and so then the fire is kindled and one can speak well saint dominic gave that that sense of preaching and speaking the word high prominence and he went to visit innocent the third this is lovely because it's the same time as in france's really and i was given the next year permission to form the order of preachers and for that we give great thanks but at the same time he would be the first to say that all day long we are showing people jesus not necessarily in art not necessarily in writing not necessarily in preaching but by the gift of our own humanity in very distinctive ways which and those ways will be utterly unique to us and for that we give thanks that we can be jesus to each other and find him in each other is the crucial activity of all that we've been saying this morning and that we can find companionship along the way and feel people traveling with us but the journey is a unique one of our own which goes back again to the psalmist and to saint thomas a campus without the way there is no going without the truth there is no knowing without the life there is no living if however you seek jesus in all things you will surely find him let's say our prayers on this particular day and we are asked to give thanks in our anglican communion for the church of south india the united church of south india which infills many christian denominations and pray for all the people there that causes us to pray for that area of the world in and many of the areas in in that part of the world are still struggling with the pandemic as our other areas of the world causes us also as we think worldwide to continue to pray for greece and turkey with their appalling fires that they are trying to combat and the danger to all those who will risk their lives in helping others today and also to think of those uh right across the world whom we know at this time in this diocese we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for tim bishop at lambeth and today for the parish of borton manchester and the parish church of saint peter their very beautiful area and philip goody the parish priests there and all his people i'm going to say first the special prayer for saint dominic's day and then the colleague sorry the colleague for this sunday morning almighty god whose servant dominic grew in the knowledge of your truth and formed an order of preachers to proclaim the faith of christ by your grace give to all your people a love for your word and a longing to share the gospel so that the whole world may come to know you and your son jesus christ our lord amen and today's collect let your merciful ears oh lord be open to the prayers of your humble servants and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things as shall please you through jesus christ our lord amen so we say the prayer our savior taught us in whichever language you like to use our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men moment of silence for our reflection on this sunday morning so [Music] so three [Music] so so the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and if 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 amen well there's no colic for international cat day but we do give thanks all of us who keep cats for their companionship on this day and our little lion leo has uh no doubt about to appear the minute we get inside back from somewhere on his journeying around he's like saint dominic one who walks around a great deal you