[Music] hey [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] good morning and welcome on this wednesday morning the 30th of december yesterday evening when it had got dark at vespers we kept with great solemnity but also with a sense of celebration in which we were joined by people all over the world the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of saint thomas becketts and thomas of canterbury in canterbury cathedral on the 29th of december 1170 was an act of enormous violence and today as the sun rises on this 30th of december i wanted to consider what it felt like to the monks the next day they were terrified that more armed nights would come to destroy the foundation the human community of the monastery at christchurch canterbury here and they must have wondered what to do i'm holding in my hands two red roses it's not really the time of year for roses but these have come late and they are of a rose the thomas beckett rose which my partner here on the camera decided first of all that could be created and with the partnership of wonderful david austin senior fletcher found the rose with him and it took patience for them to decide which rose it would be and i know that now many of you have it growing in your gardens it flowers in the summer part of the year but roses have a habit of producing just one or two and here is one this morning in the summer it's fragrant there's no fragrance here in this winter air it's very frosty as you can see from the frost in the herb garden today on the sagebush perhaps but i've got in my hand this rose whose color is still very much the red signifying martyrdom yesterday i said that we would use sentences of t.s eliot's play murder in the cathedral which we did as many of you will have seen at vespers last night punctuating the service as a reflection on what thomas himself was feeling as marched him approached and then afterwards of two monks talking about disaster and the other no this is not disaster the church is strengthened by the blood of the martyrs and that sentence is an important one in beckett's life and our reflection of it and in elliot's words but remember i said that two lines were taken out by the producer in the rehearsals for murder in the cathedral here in 1935 and elliot later used them for the beginning of his glorious four quarters which is in a way a summer of his thinking the phrase time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future well of course we acted that out yesterday and remembered many martyrs right across the world and those suffering persecution for their faith at the same time i wanted to go right to the end of the four quartets and those of you who know them will know that little gidding the last of the four quartets ends like this and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well when the tongues of flame are enfolded into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one a memorial of the fact that the fire represented the holy spirit's indwelling and strengthening of becket to know that this moment was a moment when he would glorify god it's the fire of vocation and the rose is the blood of human life not always given in death in martyrdom but given in self-sacrifice in a thousand little acts day by day so as we say our morning prayers what did the monks do and think on this particular day well the bells rang and matins had been said prime was said and sung and just as we're saying our morning prayers this morning and using the psalms so did they oh 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 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 30th morning of the month is psalm 144 blessed be the lord my rock who teaches my hands for war and my fingers for battle my steadfast help and my fortress my stronghold and my deliverer my shield in whom i trust who subdues the peoples under me oh lord what are mortals that you should consider them mere human beings that you should take thought for them they are like a breath of wind their days pass away like a shadow bow your heavens o lord and come down touch the mountains and they shall smoke cast down your lightnings and scatter them shoot out your arrows and let thunder roar reach down your hand from on high deliver me and take me out of the great waters from the hand of foreign enemies whose mouth speaks wickedness and their right hand is the hand of falsehood oh god i will sing to you a new song i will play to you on a ten-stringed harp you that gives salvation to kings and have delivered david your servant save me from the peril of the sword and deliver me from the hand of foreign enemies whose mouth speaks wickedness and whose right hand is the hand of falsehood so that our sons in their youth may be like well-nurtured plants and our daughters like pillars carve for the corners of the temple our barns be filled with all manner of store our flocks bearing thousands and ten thousands in our fields our cattle be heavy with young may there may there be no miscarriage or untimely birth no cry of distress in our streets happy are the people whose blessing this is happy are the people who have the lord for their god our reading this morning is from the gospel of saint john the fourth gospel taken from the first chapter and we begin at verse 19. this is the testimony of john when the jews sent priests and levites from jerusalem to ask him who are you he confessed and did not deny but confessed i am not the christ and they asked him what then are you elijah he said i am not are you the prophet and he answered no so they said to him who are you we need to give an answer to those who sent us what do you say about yourself john said i am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness make straight the way of the lord as the prophet isaiah said now they had been sent from the pharisees they asked him then why are you baptizing if you are neither the christ nor elijah nor the prophet and john answered them i baptize with water but among you stands one you do not know even he who comes after me the strap of whose sandal i am not worthy to untie these things took place in bethany beyond the jordan where john was baptizing what did the monks do on that next morning they believed that gospel that christ was amongst them the word became flesh and dwelt among us one of the great sentences of the first chapter of saint john's gospel and the climax of our christmas message and here we are at the sixth day of christmas the sixth day of the twelve what did they do well rhythm is a great thing when there is fear or grief and the rhythm of life was always given and still is given to christian communities by the singing or saying of the psalms the old bravery and also our book daily prayer is full of psalms interspersed with sentences from the gospels antiphons about special days little prayers which mark the seasons but nevertheless bound together by those words that jesus would have known and clearly did know by heart in the psalter which was the hymnbook of the second temple and as the bell rang out for prime the monks would come to sing the morning office sun the winter sun is just rising it's not cleared the great wall around the precincts yet but soon it will crest that wall and shine down because it's a morning of clear blue and frosty skies and the sun is a bright winter sun but prime must have felt desolate that morning the psalms are not without sentences of desolation but more than one psalm is said during the morning and the old breviary gave little offices all through the day when the bell would ring and the rhythm of the salter was established and different sentences for different seasons were said and sung and one of those great sentences was the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and another said morning by morning oh come let us adore as the great carol oh come only faithful oh come let us adore him and all these things would have kept this community together with the rhythm of life for it was at vespers that the archbishop had been so brutally slain and now his body lay in the crypt the crypt built long before um beckett was here and still now the place which is the praying heart of our cathedral the chapel of our lady undercroft where later the king would come and kneel in penitence but it can't have felt like that on this morning they must have felt terror at what would happen next and the rhythm of the psalms would have kept them going you may have seen that there is and so so many puzzles attached to beckett still and when the questions are asked scholars are still puzzling out things but there is the most wonderful discovery made by christopher de hamel who was the librarian at corpus christi college cambridge which is the steward and keeper of so many books including the gospels which augustine brought to england with him when he came in 597 and was taken from here by archbishop matthew parker and given to his college at corpus christi cambridge but is always brought back here whenever oaths are sworn of importance and certainly twice i have held those gospels for an archbishop of canterbury to swear the oath of faithfulness to this community before i enthrone him and the holding of those gospels with their colored illustrations is a profoundly wonderful thing to do they've been carbon tested beyond doubt to be from tuscany in the mid 6th century they are the gospels that augustine brought and at the same time in the library at corpus christi college is a small soldier and professor hamill now believes that that salter was the one which thomas beckett treasured because beckett believed and this may well be so that it belonged to the martyred archbishop of canterbury saint alfaj who the millennium who is martyrdom we kept in 2012 he was killed by the danes in his captivity in 1012 and we're told that in his captivity having refused ransom from the poor citizens of canterbury because he said his poor bones and weren't worth their precious money which they needed for themselves he would sit and sing the psalms for assaulter was with him and beckett obviously believed that it was this sorta when in 1164 beckett first escaped from northampton from henry ii and made a journey disguised as a monk all the way down through crossed the channel and went into exile in france a time of deep reflection for him he sent his faithful herbert of bosom to find in canterbury a precious little book which is believed to be this sorter you can read the the whole story it's it's uh given out on on google but that sorter clearly was of immense immensely precious nature to him and all kinds of conjectures are made of of how that sorter was was with him but what is very clear is that the saying of the psalms and the rhythm of the daily offices was crucial to thomas beckett in his exile and in his coming back and also that his mind was also filled with the thoughts of alphage's martyrdom for arthage himself had been martyred and becket in his last christmas sermon four days before his own brutal death preached the sermon about sintalfage and martyrdom you may say a strange sermon to preach on christmas day but the word was made flesh and dwelt among us dwelt among us even to the giving of his life when the fire of the spirit and the blood of the rose are one making through the resurrection as the sun has just crested the wall and is now shining down onto me a pale winter sunlight the sun the sign of christ's resurrection oh come let us adore him the sentence of prime venice adoramus other things have happened on this particular day this 30th of december it's the day on which sir david wilcox was born and i mention him because he is almost the father of carols for not only cathedral choirs but uh english choirs as they are now sung it would be unthinkable to have oh come only faithful without the the singh choirs of angels with its descant by sir david wilcox we're used to it but it was not always so and in 1961 when he was the organist of king's college cambridge with its famous christmas eve carol service he published the first carols for choirs book i remember it this is carols for choirs three which i brought for a very special reason but the covers are the same and the first one was green and that became a very very important book to all of us who sang in carol services and played the piano and loved the versions which he created and gave to us with little instructions and at the back the bidding prayer and the nine lessons all printed out he himself had been organ scholar at king's left his organ scholarship to go and fight in normandy won a military cross at hill 112 at a a famous part of the conflict in normandy and then simply came back and continued his organ scholarship and hardly ever spoke about his time in normandy again but that mc was there at the end of his name but nevertheless to us he was important first of all for all the recordings he gave of the psalms and of many things from kings but these books 1961 the first one and in 1970 he was asked for another by christopher morris the musical editor at oup oxford university press and christopher morris suggested that carols for choirs book two should come out christopher morris is a good memory for me my sis my sister pauline was his secretary for a while before she went on to the guardian but uh um today uh i'm remembering him for these carols for choirs and he suggested also that david wilcox needed another co-ed editor because reginald jakes had died and so wilcox found an undergraduate at cambridge and he became the co-editor and his name on this book john rutter who again is one of the people for whom we thank so much for the development of carols as we sing them so many of the sentences are known to us because of christmas carols and one thinks also of things which are really just the bible in metrical form while shepherds watch their flocks by night all seated on the ground gives us in luke 2 almost word for word but in english rhine all of that we give thanks for on this morning as we remember the fire and the blood of occasion being won and also on this particular day and this is a bit of a humorous stuff really uh in the uh royal bijou theater paintern can you believe it a very strange performance took place at two o'clock in the afternoon it had been listed for the day before and was postponed one performance only and there in front of a very small audience on a winter's afternoon gilbert and sullivan's pirates of penzance was performed for the very first time anywhere else in the world the second company of the doily cart opera were actually down there performing hms pinafore and in their costumes of pinafore with scards time round their heads to be pirates and with scores in their hands they sang this premiere how odd well it's because richard jorley cart and gilbert and sullivan were in new york preparing for the great premiere in fifth avenue which took place on new year's eve great success but at the same time they needed an english copywriting performance before the work was copyright here so we give thanks for that little performance of that work which became so popular and became also the uh sense of something that everyone could sing and perform and gave heart to many over many many many years and so the last thing i wanted to say was that this also is the birthday of rudyard kipling and kipling was born let me remember the date kipling was born in 1865 but there's some a poem of his i wanted to read today which again is a lovely thing and it's talking about wilfred saint wilfrid's chaplain eddie and he uh was taking a service for the saxons at his chapel at manhood end and it was a fearful night and nobody came but as with the beckett service the doors of the chapel were open here's the little poem eddie priest of st wilfred in the chapel at manhood end ordered a midnight service for such as scared to attend but the saxons were keeping christmas and the night was stormy as well nobody came to service though eddie rang the bell wicked weather for walking said eddie of manhood end but i must go on with the service for such as care to attend the altar candles were lighted an old marsh donkey came bowled as a guest invited and stared at the guttering flame the storm beat on at the windows the water splashed on the floor and a wet yoke weary bullock pushed in through the open door how do i know what is greatest how do i know what is least that is my father's business said eddie wilfred's priest but three are gathered together listen to me and attend i bring good news my brethren said eddie of manhood end and he told the ox of a manger and a stall in bethlehem and he spoke to the ass of a rider that rode to jerusalem they steamed and dripped in the chancel but they listened and never stirred while just as though they were bishops eddie preached them the word till the gale blew off on the marshes and the windows showed the day and the ox and the ass together wheeled and clattered away and when the saxons mocked him said eddie of manhood end i dare not shut his chapel on such as care to attend well a lovely story and one of kipling's most attractive poems as we keep this sixth day of christmas with the rhythm which the monks themselves would have kept on their sixth day of christmas in their shock and fear and distress this morning we woke to glad news not of a death but of a birth of little grace a new baby daughter for our friends tyler and mary tyler is the chaplain of a school in virginia and we send enormous greetings right across the world to them and we'll light a candle for little grace this morning she was born yesterday and say we woke to that news this morning so bring your prayers and whatever thoughts you may have on this particular morning wherever you are in the world and we use the collect for christmas tide almighty god you have given us your only begotten son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born as 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 today we are praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of gahini in rwanda and bishop alexis there and his people the diocese of gambia in west africa and bishop james odiko and his people there we pray in our own diocese for all schools and young people at this time when there is doubt about how schools will gather again when the term begins because of the pandemic pray for all leaders at this particular time and the wisdom of the decisions that they were made that then we have the spirit to make right and good decisions wherever we are in the world so we say each in our own language the prayer that jesus 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 for our own prayers [Music] remembering elliot's last words of the four quartets and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well when the tongues of flame are enfolded into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one may 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 pray for with the spirit of peace and good will at this christmas time 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 [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] dresses [Music] [Music] ah [Applause] oh god [Music] [Music] is [Music] have you seen me is [Music] [Laughter] [Music] is [Music] he is [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] you