good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on this monday morning the 5th of october we have a very special friend with us this morning for the first time for many weeks we've got tiger here following the um amputation of his left leg as you will well remember his front paw and uh he's very shy but just for a moment you saw how easy he is finding it to get around so that was our introduction to tiger i know he'll get used to us more and more and he may come backwards and forwards and uh we'll see how it goes through today there you see he's come back and run up onto the steps and so he'll once again be um part of our our life in the general which you're sharing this is uh an interesting day when one looks back but our prayers very much today are for those who have been so badly flooded with houses destroyed in southern france and northern italy and also for those still fighting fires in california those also struggling with the containment of the pandemic throughout the world there are others who are threatened by what's going on in in their jobs and their work and the future looks quite bleak in the next few months for um areas of performing art this is the day in 1958 that cliff richard and the shadows had their first gig and we remember that cliff ridges was coming here to do a great christmas concert in canterbury and for one reason or another that was put off and then again and the last time we saw him in new york he was still thinking that this might happen but of course now nothing like that can happen at the moment in 1962 the beatles released their first hit record love me do and on this day in 1962 the same day the first james bond film was released dr no and now it looks as though cinemas will probably have the major ones to close for a few months because no blockbuster films are being made and it's from those that they will make their money so with all the threats of our world around us we say our morning prayers i shall be remembering also in our reflection that today is the birthday of michael morpergo sir michael morpergo the great writer of children's books but also the one with his wife claire who had the vision in 1976 for the charity farms for city children which is really blossomed and given city children wonderful times in the places that they now have in devon and in pembrokeshire and in gloucestershire think about that and and the books he writes in the reflection but for the moment let's say our prayers o 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 do 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 as 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 our morning psalm on this fifth morning of the month is psalm 24 the earth is the lord's and all that fills it the compass of the world and all who dwell therein for he has founded it upon the seas and set it firm upon the rivers of the deep who shall ascend the hill of the lord or who can rise up in his holy place those who have clean hands and a pure heart who have not lifted up their soul to an idol nor sworn an oath to a lie they shall receive a blessing from the lord a just reward from the god of their salvation such is the company of those who seek him of those who seek your face o god of jacob lift up your heads oh gates be lifted up your everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is the king of glory the lord strong and mighty the lord who is mighty in battle lift up your heads o gates be lifted up you everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is this king of glory the lord of hosts he is the king of glory we're sitting here in the greenhouse in front of this lovely detura which is generally known as angels trumpets and you can see that this morning so what better to welcome the king of glory on this first day of a working week monday than angels trumpets here behind so we turn to the acts of the apostles and we find paul now standing on the steps of the tower of antonia looking down at the angry mob shouting and shouting for his uh his blood really as paul was about to be brought into the barracks he said to the tribune may i say something to you and the tribune said do you know greek are you not the egyptian then who recently stirred up a revolt and led four thousand men of the assassins out into the wilderness paul replied i am a jew from tarsus in cilicia a citizen of no us obscure city i beg you permit me to speak to the people and when the tribune had given him permission paul standing on the steps motioned with his hand to the people and when there was a great hush he addressed them in the hebrew language saying brothers and fathers hear the defense that i now make before you and when they heard that he was addressing them in hebrew they became even more quiet and paul said i am a jew born in tarsus in cilicia but brought up in this city educated at the feet of gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers being zealous for god as all of you are this day i persecuted followers of this way to the death binding and delivering to prison both men and women as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness from them i received letters to the believers and i journeyed towards damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to jerusalem to be punished as i was on my way and drew near to damascus about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me and i fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me saul saul why are you persecuting me and i answered who are you lord and he said to me i am jesus of nazareth whom you were persecuting now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me and i said what shall i do lord and the lord said to me get up and go into damascus and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do and since i could not see because of the brightness of that light i was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into damascus and one ananias a devout man according to the law well spoken of by all the jews who lived there came to me and standing by me said brother saul receive your sight and at that very hour i received my sight and saw him and he said the god of our fathers appointed you to know his will to see the righteous one and to hear a voice from his mouse for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard and now why do you wait get up and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on his name when i had returned to jerusalem and was praying in the temple i fell into a trance and saw him saying to me make haste and get out of jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me and i said lord they themselves know that in one synagogue after another i imprisoned and beat those who believed in you and when the blood of stephen your witness was being shed i myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him but the lord said to me go for i will send you far away to the gentiles we learn several things about paul from that retelling of his story to his own people who are standing below in a crowd that was eager for his plant first of all the tribune is surprised by the person he has in front of him and he says to him do you speak greek i thought you were the egyptian who led that enormous crowd of assassins out into the wilderness to come back to attack the city of jerusalem that is a an historic fact from a few years before that we we learn from other histories so we've verified that there had been such a man and paul no doubt smiling says no i'm a i'm a jew and he's meaning an educated jew from a really sophisticated city of tarsus and i studied here and he gives his academic credentials from having sat at the feet of gamaliel at the temple then he asked to speak to the people and done so in hebrew to prove his credentials having until then been speaking as he would later write in greek and paul began to speak notice how he does it he tells his own story always the most powerful way of communicating the good news he tells his own story no better eyewitness to one story than oneself and several times in the acts of the apostles he tells that story and it's interesting to compare how he tells it as luke writes it down but as he goes further and further into that story we learn other things about him and we learn only in this place of a visit after he has been baptized back to jerusalem and back to the temple and there almost in shall we call it a daydream for it's not at night he falls into a trance i hesitate to use the word daydream because sometimes that has the feeling of the sort of bubbles we bro blow with soap suns it go out and pop in the air and this is a daydream a vision an intention a revelation of his vocation which is very real indeed and yet he is half conscious of what's going on around him and half in a vision of heaven well we give thanks for the way paul tells his story over and over again there are snippets and snatches throughout his epistles and the same thing happens as luke writes the account in his acts of the apostles so let's give thanks for that first of all but i wanted to turn back to the fact that this is sir michael morpago's birthday he had some time here at the king's school being educated here and also um has been here many times and always when he and claire his wife come they bring with them insights in to the way that one might dream a dream and tell a story i was looking at some of his quotes this morning and my goodness there are so many of them because he's written so many books and they've been put into films they've been made into plays and all the time he has this other wonderful vision of sharing the life that he and claire have lived on the farm in devon and now in other places in gloucestershire and pembrokeshire and bringing classes of children from the cities with their teacher to spend a whole week farming in a completely different atmosphere looking after creatures and caring for them so important a lesson and really a lesson to how we deal with one another gently and carefully and learning lessons from each other as we do from the plants and the creatures of god's creation to no better teacher than um sir michael moore pergo but here's another teacher this morning who has recovered so well from a really severe operation a life-changing operation physically for him he now just has the one front leg and two back legs but he's learning very much to be part of life again and sitting here enjoying himself as well i don't want to startle him too much because he's used to me here but he's he's actually just the cat he always was when he used to put his paw into the milk it was the right paw that he's using it to stand on at the moment but i'm sure he'll soon learn to stand on his back legs a bit like a rabbit and stand up and put the other paw and the the right paw back into the back into the milk again at some stage so i wanted to just give a quote or two from michael moore pergo probably his most famous book is war horse the tale of the horse jerry in the first world war there is in our cathedral precincts an enormous wooden horse made by the students here and it wasn't exactly meant to be joey but the inspiration came from that and uh this huge horse has become quite a feature in the precincts it was meant there need to be there for a few months in 1918 when we celebrated the end of the conflict in 2018 rather when we celebrated the end of the conflict in 100 years before in 1918 but it's so popular um i've been unable to take it away and nobody would want to at the moment because it cheers us all up and is a sign of god's creation in a special way but let's think of just one or two things from private peaceful another of his books also made into a film and war horse here are some quotations i could believe only in the hell i was living in a hell on earth and it was man-made not god made or else another quote but i didn't dare that has always been my trouble i've never dared enough and another in the midst of a terrible situation tonight i want very much to believe that there's a heaven that death is not a full stop and that we will all see one another again and finally looking at the horse there's a nobility in his eye a regal serenity about him does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be but the best quote is from michael writing about himself and the way he writes all these wonderful stories for us for me the greater part of writing is daydreaming dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out the writing down of it i always find hard but i love finishing it then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers wonderful words and one remembers both paul's dream of his gentile his gentile ministry his ministry to the whole world across the barriers his dream that he had in the temple as he was praying and then we also remember that the way he communicated that dream was simply by telling his own story the very best way of spreading the good news of the gospel but there's a corollary you have to be ready to listen to other people's story and let them know by your body language your eyes and everything about you that you are listening and learning from it so let's say our prayers on this particular morning and we're thinking today of the diocese of peterborough in england and pray for the bishop here in england donald uh alistair the bishop of peterborough and all his diocese and the diocese of christ the king in southern africa and william mostert the bishop there and his people pray for justin our archbishop and also for rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth today for the united benefits of reculva so that contains the parish church of bartholomew han bay holy cross at hove and we are bound to think of two great friends of ours graham and charlotte and graham is is struggling with a very severe illness indeed so we pray for healing for him as you will be praying for so many across the world who in need of healing and finally saint mary the virgin recover we remember that old saint mary's was a 7th century church created out of a roman fortification which was placed so many years before so let's give thanks for all those communities but pray also especially wherever you are for your own communities and your own intentions as we use the prayer for this week almighty god you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself and so bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face through jesus christ our lord amen so with angels trumpets hanging above us we say the prayer that our lord taught us to say whichever language we 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 for ever and ever are men moment of silence now for your own prayers the peace of god which passes 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 there what a good boy you've been haven't you what a good boy you've be hey