[Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] my so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral to the dinery garden on this tuesday the 29th of december it's the fifth day of christmas but it's also the anniversary of the murder and martyrdom of thomas becket in the cathedral 850 years ago on the 29th of december 1170 and we were due to keep that feast with enormous amounts of people coming here normally over a thousand people will pack into the cathedral on this feast day because the murder took place during the monks vespers so as the darkness of the evening was falling on these short winter days but this year we were expecting many many more because of the special nature of the anniversary but of course the pandemic has stopped all of that and so most of the things we're doing have been online but the archbishop has already celebrated communion in the chapel of our lady undercroft and also this afternoon at 5 30 we shall have the service with as many people as possible in the nave we can't walk about in procession but we can keep this anniversary and remember all our friends across the world who had helped us to plan this occasion and that occasion will be taken up with them those plans won't go to waste i'm sitting here in the garden because behind me is the corona of the cathedral which was built to contain the relics of beckett's head which the the knights had cut off in their violence and so corona means not just crown but actually crown of the saints head and also behind me is what was built over the crypt which thomas beckett would have known very well because it was land frank's crypt and that large crypt is the place where archbishop justin has just celebrated and that was where they took the body of the archbishop in great fear the monks that more devastation was about to happen as we know king henry came in an atmosphere of penitence when he visited the place much later so we'll think about all of those things this morning but wherever you are in the world bring your own prayers and intentions to this regular event of morning prayer as we gather together in canterbury to say our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise you laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands blessed are you sovereign god creator of heaven and earth to you be praise and glory forever as your living word eternal in heaven assume the frailty of our mortal flesh may the light of your love be born in us to fill our hearts with joy as we sing 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 so may the light of your presence so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 29th morning of the month is psalm 113 and we'll use the first 18 verses of that psalm oh lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you o lord know it altogether you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i go down into hell you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there your hand shall lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say surely the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness with you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my inmost parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me o god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence our lesson this morning on this matins of thomas of canterbury is a special lesson taken from the 12th chapter of the gospel of saint john and we're beginning to read at verse 27. jesus said now is my soul troubled and what shall i say father save me from this hour but for this purpose i have come to this hour father glorify your name then a voice came from heaven i have glorified it and i will glorify it again the crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered others said an angel has spoken to him jesus answered this voice has come for your sake not mine now is the judgment of this world now will the ruler of this world be cast out and i when i am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself jesus said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die so the crowd answered him we have heard from the lord that the christ remains forever how can you say that the son of man must be lifted up who is this son of man so jesus said to them the light is among you for a little while longer walk while you have the light lest darkness overtake you the one who walks in the darkness does not know where they are going while you have the light believe in the light that you may become children of light that is a a poignant lesson for us for it follows immediately the scene in the courtyard of the temple the outer courtyard where foreigners were permitted of the group of greeks who are brave enough to go to philip and say sir we would like to see jesus and from that we in canterbury have taken our mission statement to show people jesus but at the same time jesus's response is significant for in the fourth gospel the gospel of saint john again and again he has said my hour has not yet come and in response to andrew and philip saying to jesus these would like to see you jesus himself comes to the point of saying now the hour has come the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified truly truly i say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone but if it dies it bears much fruit whoever loves their life loses it whoever hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life if anyone serves me they must follow me and where i am there will my servant be also if anyone serves me the father will honor them that lesson is poignant in two ways because it refers so much to what beckett was feeling in those days of christmas he had just returned to canterbury from exile he had no promise of accord with his former best friend king henry ii who was enraged by the fact that thomas's loyalties as archbishop were now to god and not to him and therefore he knew that he was in danger but here is jesus also saying in this lesson which is given on this morning prayer of saint thomas's day now my soul is troubled and what shall i say father save me from this hour but for this purpose i have come to this hour father glorify your name well beckett and our lord are in the same quandary our lord here and in gethsemane latia will be tussling with his own mortality and saying is it better to flee away from death that life from then on may be usefully lived and yet and yet deep within them both they know that they have to stay jesus in gethsemane gethsemane sweating drops like blood falling to the ground because of the horror the human horror and fear of the vocation and beckett must have been feeling much the same thing he knew what was going to happen if he stayed right to the last moment he had ample means of escaping he'd done that once before but now he'd return from exile to be greeted with acclamation by the people here who loved him and on this particular day four days after christmas on this fifth day of christmas he faced his vocation our psalm on this morning of the month 139 lord you have searched me out and known me you have always known me the psalm is saying every fiber of my being and if there is a sense of vocation anywhere well it's here in our lord and in thomas beckett who is this son of man say the people to jesus and he answers them obliquely but the answer is clear he is the light of the world walk while you have the light with you and you will be children of god that's the message and it would have been thomas's too this afternoon what we shall do will be very different from what we normally do on this day because the service on this day when many many hundreds attend and pack the cathedral is a service of processions walking around the building by candlelight the music is the plain song of vespers on that dark winter afternoon on these short days light fails quickly and normally as we walk around vespers continues in its plain song sung by the lay clarks of the choir well the music will be there this afternoon and the glorious palestrina which breaks out into harmony at the sign of pilgrimage beginning after the saints martyrdom and the great pilgrim hymn will be sung but there will be no movement because people of course in limited numbers have to be socially distanced and yet our hearts and minds will be with all of those who were planning this feast in rome itself and also father anthony from the catholic church is going to be here too and we together will celebrate this feast and all those across the world who are expecting this can be with us online and we will know that we are absolutely with them but at the same time it won't be the same all those plans will be reawakened the moment we can come together but i think that uh we shall be filled with sorrow because all of this can't happen in the way that we had planned and the words social distance are almost contradictions in turn but we know that we need them to keep ourselves safe as this pandemic gains more and more strength at this time at the end of the service always the congregation in their hundreds go out holding their candle flames against the winter weather it's strange that the most often asked question when people come here both as tourists and in their hundreds as pilgrims to come to the site of the shrine where the candle burns night and day to say their prayers to be sent off on pilgrimage to be received in pilgrimage all of those things the most often asked question is where was beckett killed and we can say as we point to the site of martyrdom just here for it was an event much witnessed many accounts were written by literate monks but all the citizens and the monks as vespers was interrupted by this horrendous event the slaying of an archbishop in his own cathedral in the middle of the 12 days of christmas and as that event is remembered still we can keep in our hearts and minds constantly those who are suffering for their faith even to death today and have done throughout the centuries pope john paul the second on his visit here with the archbishop in 1982 lit candles for martyrs of that time janani the womb the murdered archbishop in uganda and maximilian colbert who'd given his life for another at auschwitz one remembers oscar romero and the catholic church will remember that this afternoon saint thomas's because of course he was the archbishop murdered shot gunned down at his own altar these things happen but we remember that opening of the light into eternal life and as we show the martyrdom and as children act out the martyrdom all dressed up and round and having the story told to them then we remember that day even our nursery rhyme here we go round the mulberry bush on a cold and frosty morning remembers the knights tethering their horse their horses to the the mulberry tree in the garden of chillington chambers where there was a stone horse trough underneath this is the way we wash our hands on a cold and frosty morning we sing and the mulberry trees which grow all over the precincts are scions of that original tree and a great sign of beckett but the real sign of beckett is the interest in the way in which he was brave enough to stand and face those who faced him demanding that the doors of the cathedral church should be left open and not locked to protect him for it was a time of divine service the office of vespers was taking place and people had to be given admission whatever the danger we shall remember all of that and we do remember that as we pass the site of martyrdom daily but we shall also remember the sense of vocation answered oh lord you have searched me out and known me you have discerned my thoughts from afar all of those things we take into our own lives and remember our lord's words i when i am lifted up will draw all people to myself lifted up in martyrdom on the cross which the church has lifted high not only in liturgy but in the blood of its martyrs through the ages perhaps the the best exploration of thomas beckett's mind on that day was given us by t.s eliot for the play which was performed here in 1935 in the cathedral for the first time murder in the cathedral and eliot sees the tension in beckett's mind of what it would mean to be a martyr and what escape would mean in terms of a useful and really important life and so i think that we are really beholden to elliot for creating that wonderful meditation of thomas beckett and we remember also that in the middle of the rehearsals the producer cut two lines from the speech of one of the characters and elliot really sort of kept them stored in his head in his pocket and when he came to write what i think is the summer of all his works the four quartets the very first one burnt norton begins with those two lines and those two lines are time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future and then it goes on and time future contained in time past well we effect that this afternoon in our exploration of vocation we shall read out lines of the play which elliot wrote for us but at the same time we take that in our own life that what has happened in the past and what is happening in the present blend together into what may be our vocation in the future as we say our prayers we give thanks that christ was lifted up as the light of the world and proclaimed that as a response to the questions of tourists in the temple sir we would like to see jesus may people see jesus in the light we ourselves shine by living out our own vocation not just this day but every day let's say our prayers then on this day i think my friend here is troubled by an english robin who is tempting him by sitting on the tree and coming down at all times but he's got to have his vocation of sitting by me this morning and resisting temptation here's the colic for thomas beckett's day bring your own prayers and intentions wherever you may be lord god who gave grace to your servant thomas beckett to put aside all earthly fear and be faithful even to death grant that we disregarding worldly esteem may fight all wrong uphold your rule and serve you to our life's end through jesus christ our lord amen and in all this we still remember that we are within the compass of the christmas feast we're praying in our communion today for fredericton in canada and for the bishop there david edwards and his people and the diocese of freetown in sierra leone in west africa and pray for thomas and kunika wilson the bishop there and all his people and within the diocese we are of course praying on this day especially for our diocesan bishop justin who is also archbishop of canterbury and sits in the seat not only of augustine but of thomas beckett and today will be much reminded of that by the plain song and by the worship of the cathedral church on this 850th anniversary of the archbishop of canterbury's martyrdom in 1170. so here is the correct then for christmas time join your own prayers with this wherever you are and think of those you need to pray for at this time a pandemic almighty god you have given us your only begotten son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin grant that we who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace may daily be renewed by your holy spirit through jesus christ our lord amen so together the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language you would 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 as we ponder the mystery of vocation and also the glory of the light of the world lifted high on the cross and risen and glorified for us they christ who by his coming at christmas time gathered into one the things of earth and the things of heaven fill you and all those whom you would remember with the spirit of peace and good will at this season 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'm sorry the robin's been teasing you all through the service and you've been such a good boy all right now i think he's gone away my gosh [Music] oh my gosh oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] power of oh is [Music] ah [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] you