good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this sunday the 14th of february we've come out into the garden for what probably will be the last day of the snow we're told that the weather will warm up the the uh weather veins on the top of bell harry which i can see here are still pointing to the east but beginning to turn and so by tomorrow we'll promise warmer weather but the fuel field temperature factor this morning the field the chill feel as they say on the weather forecast is minus eight degrees and so it's still a bit siberian out here but we thought we'd just enjoy this white landscape for one more morning and as we do so we will say our prayers together from wherever you are in the world please feel very welcome we've lit the brazier here to give a sense of warmth in wintertime and also to help us later on in our reflections as we go on it isn't valentine's day today he's not a saint we know much about but certainly he's a saint which uh gives a an enormous popularity to him in public consciousness because from the time of jeffrey chaucer onwards there is this sense of him being the patron saint of lovers and so there's great romance and red roses and hearts attached to his name and we give thanks for that this morning for the joy that valentine brings it uh his feast day was was made much of in victorian times and in modern times has gained enormous popularity so we give thanks for today people renewing their relationships and affirming their love one for another and uh that's a happy aspect of this winter day but let us then think of our prayers today and perhaps i should say because i mentioned yesterday that uh there were two sports matches going on in which we were interested i'm going to draw a veil over over the uh the test match at the moment of the cricket in india uh and uh we'll talk about that on another day but uh we will just think of the excitement of the rugby matches yesterday the england italy match which england won very convincingly but there were two magnificent tries it won't be forgotten young jack willis who scored that first try in the first match he played in this way and then sadly was involved in the most horrendous injury and accident and so we pray for him today and and that he will be able to to to mend from that but in the the uh welsh scotland match which was an absolute nail-biter right to the end uh young louis uh rhys zamit scored the most amazing try and uh it was something that then carried by one point the match to wales it's not often those kinds of matches go right to the last minute in a nail-biting finale and it was very difficult to know which team was the best and so in fact fletcher has a smiley face because he was supporting not only england in the english match but also wales which is another favorite face of ours in the welsh match this is a day also when we're praying for the anglican church in canada and all our friends in canada i pray especially for archbishop linda nichols the primate there i had the pleasure recently of conducting an evening's retreat for the canadian bishops hosted by archbishop linda and so our prayers go out from canterbury to the anglican church in canada today in all its communities so let's begin our prayers on this sunday the sunday next before lent 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 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 does we rejoice in the gift of this new day and so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm this morning is psalm 71 in you o lord do i seek refuge let me never be put to shame in your righteousness deliver me and set me free incline your ear to me and save me before me a stronghold to which i may ever resort send out to save me for you are my rock and my fortress deliver me my god from the hand of the wicked from the grasp of the evil doer and the oppressor for you are my hope o lord god my confidence even from my youth upon you have i leaned from my birth when you drew me from my mother's womb my praise shall be always of you i have become important to many but you are my refuge and my strength let my mouth be full of your praise and your glory all the day long do not cast me away in the time of old age forsake me not when my strength fails as for me i will hope continually and will praise you more and more my mouth shall tell of your righteousness and salvation all the day long for i know no end of the telling i will begin with the mighty works of the lord god i will recall your righteousness yours alone oh god you have taught me since i was young and to this day i tell of your wonderful works forsake me not o god when i am old and grey-headed till i make known your deeds to the next generation and your power to all that are to come your righteousness so god reaches to the heavens in the great things you have done who is like you o god what troubles and adversities you have shown me and yet you will turn and refresh me and bring me from the deep of the earth again increase my honor turn again and comfort me and therefore will i praise you upon the harp for your faithfulness o god i will sing to you with the liar o holy one of israel my lips will sing out as i play to you and so will my soul which you have redeemed my tongue also will tell of your righteousness all the day long for they shall be shamed and disgraced who sought to do me evil so we turn to the gospel of saint mark for the last time for a month or two because i'm going on monday to begin the third chapter of the gospel of saint john and then go through saint john's gospel through lent and up till easter as the lectionary gives us in normal years we'd have had one or two more weeks before lent began but easter being very early lent is very early and it means that when we come back to synthmark just after pentecost we shall arrive at chapter 10. this morning we'll complete chapter eight but we mustn't miss chapter nine because it's one of those hinged chapters we were talking about and so next uh may when we come back to sin mark in at pentecost time i'll spend a day or two before pentecost sunday with chapter nine of st mark because it actually is crucial to see mark's plan of going forward but this is the last part of our current journey with mark and it ends perfectly well because the galilean ministry is over and christ opens up that ministry now to others and then to the whole world as st john's gospel will make absolutely clear and also today at the eucharist later the gospel is part of chapter nine of st mark's gospel it's the story of the transfiguration and so as we read that we're completing what we do today at this morning prayer so here we are taking up from the passage we read read yesterday at verse 22 of chapter eight jesus and his disciples came to bethsaida and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him and he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village and when he had spat on his eyes and laid his hands on him he he asked him do you see anything and the man looked up and said i see people but they look like trees walking then jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he opened his eyes his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly and jesus sent him to his home saying do not even enter the village and jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of caesarea philippi and on the way he asked his disciples who do people say that i am and they told him john the baptist and others say elijah and others one of the prophets and he asked them but you who do you say that i am peter answered him you are the christ and he strictly charged them to tell no one about him and he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again and he said this plainly and peter took him aside and began to rebuke him but turning and seeing his disciples he rebuked peter and said get behind me satan for you are not setting your mind on the things of god but on human things [Music] then calling the crowd to him with his disciples he said to them if anyone would come after me let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me for whoever would save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for my sake and the gospels will save it for what does it profit someone to gain the whole world and forfeit their own soul for what can a person give in return for their soul for whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of that one will the son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels it's a powerful set of stories at the end of chapter 8 chapter 8 began after the sentence to the disciples do you not yet understand and probably therefore it's no coincidence that mark puts immediately afterwards the opening of the eyes of the blind man the difficult opening of those eyes until the blind man himself plays a part in it he opened his eyes and saw things clearly it's a message for the disciples with the hard lesson they're beginning to understand but dimly and they reach for the glory first jesus and his disciples begin to walk north towards caesarea philippi they're well outside galilee and already in bethsaida they've crossed the border into the tetrarchy of philip but now they're going north to caesarea philippi and at that point jesus turns to them and asks who people are saying that he is and they give their tentative answers until he confronts them with the same question themselves and at all times as we read mark's gospel which is so immediate and so absolutely without frills shall we say when jesus confronts the disciples the learners with the question that question is for us all these years later as we reflect on it you who do you say that i am and it's peter who says you are the christ nothing more than that in sin mark's gospel it's trimmed of everything else that you find in matthew's gospel sin mark it's in luke's gospel here's the earliest gospel you are the christ you are the anointed one you are the messiah all that but what do the disciples mean by it what does peter mean by it because jesus then begins to unburden himself with his friends about what that vocation means in the giving up of his life before the spirit can be released and new life begin it's a wonderful passage to read as we set out on our lenten journey on wednesday but at the same time peter can't take this it takes jesus aside and this witness clearly comes as a very very long-standing tradition that mark's gospel was full of information which peter gave to mark the evangelist and this information must have come from peter jesus hears in peter's words and the words of the rebuke saying don't think about this this isn't your vocation the ministry of the christ this is all the inference is of glory and jesus knows that that glory is going to come when his arms are open wide for us on the cross and that sense is within him and all the fear it brings to his humanity and so looking at peter he sees the same temptations that were put in front of him and will be read to us as lent begins in the wilderness and says get behind me satan this is human thinking not divine thinking the divine journey is much harder than that and then he stresses he calls not only the disciples but the crowd together and says if anyone would come after me they must take up their own cross and follow me hard teaching but for this morning we can look forward to that teaching and that journey as we explore our own response to the christ and what is called of us during the weeks of lent so with thanksgiving for the journey mark has taken us on let's give thanks for all our time together with mark and look forward to hearing the tran the transfiguration story read in the eucharist this morning and we'll come back to that in may but for the moment moment let's turn to our usual habit of looking at dates when february the 14th let's say valentine's day every year of course was thought of in the past and there are some dates here and two of them i want to just concentrate on just a little bit and here we have the killing of richard ii at pontefrack castle by henry iv in uh not directly by him but through the the agencies of him in 1400 henry iv is actually buried here in the in the cathedral in the trinity chapel and richard ii also took a great interest in this place because of the devotion of the black prince to it and the tomb of the black prince here and then in 1556 on this day archbishop thomas cranmer was declared a heretic later on in march we shall remember his martyrdom in 1779 james cook the explorer captain cook was killed in hawaii on this date and in 1852 this is a cheerful exercise london's great ormond street children's hospital took its first patient and was the first hospital specific plea for children in english-speaking territories and so we give thanks for the long ministry and work of the great ormond street children's hospital 1922 marconi began regular broadcasting transmissions from essex what would we do with that that ability to broadcast from each other and we think also that in in 2005 a group of college students launched youtube which is now the largest video sharing website and how we use that at the moment for our own coming together right across the world you will well know 2006 chip and pin began remembering our numbers when we use the plastic cards that became a very important security aspect and then let's do some wintry things in 1984 jane torvill and christopher dean won the ice dance gold medal at the winter olympics in sarajevo with maximum points for artistic impression and the the way in which the the the ice was a dance arena for them and that wonderfully exciting dance will never be forgotten and the maximum points raised an enormous chair fletcher says it's one of his earlier dateable memories and the excitement of his whole family gathered around the television set well that happened all over uh england at that time at the olympics and we give thanks for that skill another skill we give thanks for on this day is in 1959 renee fleming the great soprano was born and will put a link on to her singing strauss one of the four last songs this morning and in 1571 cardinal de colony was killed here by poison in canterbury by he was seen as a huguenot sympathizer and acted for the huguenots and one of the agents we don't know who poisoned him in the house next door here meister omas and he was buried a cardinal here post reformation in canterbury cathedral temporarily at the time but temporaries a long time in the church of god and he still lies here with us well two things this morning which brightened the morning as well this was in 1895 the occasion of oscar wilde's play the importance of being earnest being first performed in the st james's theater what pleasure and humor that play has given us and the paradoxes that he just uses throughout in order to make us laugh but in order to see that probably the best seeing of that is the 1952 film which was made with edith evans saying that wonderful line of lady bracknell about the handbag and an elegant performance by every actor in margaret rutherford they're playing playing miss prism and miles madison as canon chassis well that actually is something you can easily find also on google and then lastly this is today the day on uh which pg woodhouse the novelist who gave us jeeves and worcester and lord emsworth and all the blending as castle crowd he died in 1975 in the united states age 93 but his books still give huge pleasure and the gang of characters that he created and his wonderful use of language is still very much with us as we go on in our enjoyment of him so for creativity and for the way in which humanity can reach across the world in communication and the way that every aspect of god's creation and remember the ice this morning on which those two dance with such pleasure we remember all that on this sunday before lent let's say our prayers together and as i said well we're praying today for the anglican church in canada and everyone there and here in this diocese we're praying for archbishop justin of course bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth and still praying for the parishes around the town of ashford in the area deanery there and for all those who exercise at chaplaincy ministry formerly and informally there and for god's blessing on that bring your own prayers and intentions this morning here is the collect for the sunday next before lent almighty father whose son was revealed in majesty before he suffered death upon the cross give us grace to perceive his glory that we may be strengthened to suffer with him and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory who is alive and 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 moment of silence now as we say our own prayers 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 i just wanted to say before we finish that many of you have inquired about monkey whom as you know about a week and a half ago suffered an embolism and that affected his back legs and then on monday very sadly he had another severe embolism he died suddenly without pain but of course it's a huge loss for us because he was the cat above all others who was totally intuitive totally calm at all times always present wherever you looked in the house if someone was there monkey would be there somewhere and we will miss him hugely but thank you for your inquiries about him and we shall constantly give thanks for him we also give thanks for the wonderful care that our vet christoph reichmann gave him monkey knew him very well and monkey had always even since he was a little kitten we'd known he had a heart murmur and we'd forgotten all about that in the 14 years of his constant presence and intuition about us and life here not many people came to the house without coming across him no formal meal ever took place without him sitting at his place at the table uh and uh when even when her majesty the queen came to unveil the statue uh monkey was there at that time but hardly noticed very still very calm very philosophical and very encouraging so we give thanks for all of that and also for the care that chris gave him right to the end