foreign [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] good morning and welcome to the dinery garden on this sunday the 15th of august as we meet to say our morning prayers the 15th of august throughout the world by many christians is taken as the feast of the blessed virgin mary and as with all saints days in their usual course the feast is held on the opening into eternal life at the end of the course of their earthly pilgrimage and so that is the focus of today it's been called different things by different ex parts and communions of the holy catholic church the roman catholic church always call it the assumption and many anglicans call that too and orthodox christians call it the door mission the falling asleep of the virgin mary others called the repose of the virgin mary but whatever we call it today we focus that's why we've come back to the orchard on the way in which god the creator gave to humanity the fruit of the tree of life that it may be embraced in this life and in that way taken through as a precious gift and all of that we remember this morning as we say our prayers it's why we've come back to the orchard and it's the time of year as we saw when we were beginning the book of genesis it's the time of year when the fruit is beginning to ripen the apples on the tree in front of me are turning red but essentially it's a day when we give thanks for the role of the blessed virgin mary i just celebrated the early communion and later on we'll preach at the sung eucharist and of course our our creed gives thanks by the statement of our faith but also the gospel at the eucharist is mary's song the magnificat this morning so we'll think about that then but for the moment we're going to say our prayers and have a reflection about what this actually means to us we remember of course people in really desperate situations throughout the world we could begin with afghanistan where the situation for people living there gets worse and worse and more dangerous as the war spreads right across the country we pray for the citizens of cities already taken and for their safety but also we pray for the citizens of kabul on this morning we also remember the uh country of haiti after the catastrophic earthquake and all those attempting to help there we um are holding in our hearts also those still in danger from fire and flood in different parts of the world and continue to pray for the people of algeria the great loss of life there pray for those who are combating the pandemic and increase of cases and still suffering lockdown you will have areas of the world that you will want to pray for keep those images in your heart and mind that's on this day of great celebration usually uh through so many countries in europe a holiday and that holiday i think will probably be kept tomorrow because it's been missed this being a sunday this year so often we ourselves are away at this time and over in france and enjoying the festivities and the fireworks and everything else associated with this day so let's say our prayers as an act of thanksgiving 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 and 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 our psalm on this 15th morning of the month is psalm 76 in judah god is known his name is great in israel at salem is his tabernacle and his dwelling place in zion there broke he the flashing arrows of the bow the shield the sword and the weapons of war in the light of splendor you appeared glorious from the eternal mountains the boastful were plundered they have slept their sleep none of the warriors can lift their hand at your ribuco god of jacob both horse and chariot fell stunned terrible are you in majesty who can stand before your face when you are angry you caused your judgment to be heard from heaven the earth trembled and was still when god arose to judgment to save all the meek upon us you crushed the wrath of the peoples and bridled the rostful remnant make a vow to the lord your god and keep it let all who are round about him bring gifts to him that is worthy to be feared he breaks down the spirit of princes and strikes terror in the kings of the earth so many of those themes are themes found in the song of mary the magnificat which will be our gospel at the eucharist this morning but i'm choosing to read and there are many lessons we could read from this morning i'm choosing to read from the gospel of saint matthew perhaps you thought i'd go to luke because luke is full of the stories of the birth of jesus and the acts of the apostles well luke will be read at the eucharist and luke will be read throughout the day in other ways but we've studied matthew ourselves in the garden congregation recently so i've come now and i wanted to begin at the very last verse of the genealogy in chapter one and continue to the end of chapter one so i'm beginning at verse 17 of chapter one of the gospel of saint matthew so all the generations from abraham to david were 14 generations and from david to the deportation to babylon 14 generations and from the deportation to babylon to the christ 14 generations now the birth of jesus christ took place in this way when his mother mary had been betrothed to joseph before they came together she was found to be with child from the holy spirit and her husband joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly but as he considered these things behold an angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream saying joseph son of david do not fear to take mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the holy spirit she will bear a son and you shall call his name jesus for he will save his people from their sins all this took place to fulfill what the lord had spoken by the prophet behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name emmanuel which means god is with us when joseph woke from sleep he did as the angel of the lord commanded him he took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name jesus if i went on i'd be in familiar ground in chapter 2 for then comes i'll read the first verse now after jesus was born in bethlehem of judea in the days of herod the king behold wise men from the east came to jerusalem saying where is he who has been born king of the jews for we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him and when herod the king heard that he was troubled back to our psalm of kings being afraid at the purposes of god and then thinking that they're violent measures if one thinks of head of the great their violent measures might prevent the plan of god we then go on to the role of joseph in the protection of the holy child but when the magi the three wise men the three kings traditions of name them differently come to the end of their journey going into the house they saw the child with mary his mother and they fell down and worshiped him there is in the crypt where we say our morning prayer and we showed you on a stained glass window recently and the sun shining through that east window through the medieval blast shows the virgin mary sitting with the child in her lap and her hand supporting his hand in blessing and one remembers the way in which she herself bowed herself to her own vocation that lesson we read yesterday at evensong but the most important thing that we need to think about is how that obedience that instant obedience gave the fruit of the tree of life as a possibility to us even here and now and that then is something which is given out in images in prophecy and root and stem and flower and fruit so the other important thing is that this continuity all the way through till we get to the person of mary is something that is according to prophecy this great aria in our recitative in handel's messiah and alto wrestles achieve the words that have just been spoken in the gospel of saint matthew behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name emmanuel god with us so as we think of the prophecy being fulfilled on this day we also think of what that meant in terms of cost to marry and the not only the joy but also the pain and worry and the way in which things went forward from that moment it wasn't an easy beginning but it was the beginning where she gave herself to perfect obedience there's a a hymn which we sing quite often crown him with many crowns the lamb upon the throne is full of images and matthew bridges the writer has given us lovely verses crowned him with many crowns the lamb upon his throne heark how the heavenly handsome drowns all music but its own awake my soul and sing of him who died for thee and hail him as thy matchless king through all eternity crown him the virgin's son the god incarnate born whose arm those crimson trophies won which now his brow dawn fruit of the mystic rose as of that rose the stem the root whence mercy ever flows the babe of bethlehem you will know that him well i'm sure but i remember i'm i'm uh reading it here out of an old hymn book uh which was my knits and chads in shrewsbury where i was a curet and there are bits and pieces of music stuck in it from the old organist there sam baker who wrote a hymn tune or two and stuck them in the book there so it reminds me back we'll come back to that in a bit but in ancient and modern in the old days there was an asterisk against the mystic rose and at the bottom of the page said this is a medieval traditional title for the blessed virgin mary well here's a rose a pure white rose and of course symbolically the rose has been seen as a flower of perfection used in so many different ways and growing in so many different countries and often scented my father was a rose grower and quite often when he would cut her a rose that he was particularly pleased he would show it to mother and say look at this it's perfection and the beauty of that is something that is associated with this feast but the mystic rose is a symbol of the the rootedness of our lord's own humanity going deep deep down into his own people and in our thinking in the book of genesis throughout this week we shall be thinking of the earliest ancestors of jesus the forebears the patriarchs and matriarchs of that society growing up in a particular culture and at the same time then the mystic rose which is associated with the virgin mary and that is associated with a a partnership between the creator and humankind and humankind in an answer of obedience in the person of mary saying behold i am the handmaid of the lord let it be to me according to your word becomes the stem of that rose and so i brought a pure white rose out from the garden because in a moment i'm going to ask jared manny hopkins to help us with this as well this image of the humanity of jesus a humanity and human flesh he took from his mother and also the divinity of jesus and that from the holy spirit and the spirit which is in our lord himself as the anointed one totally obedient in human life to the will of the creator up to the garden of gethsemane up to the cross which then became the tree of life as his arms outspread and beyond the outpouring of the gift of the holy spirit which in a wonderful way he invites us to give to each other and that we've been looking at in all our reflections of the gospels what that good news is well prophecy and imagery but essentially today a human life in all its limitations i'm talking about the virgin mary going through so many different ways of being faithful but this is the day when we remember that faithfulness being gathered into eternity there are aspects of this in the traditions of the early church and one remembers the words from the cross that jesus spoke to his mother before his own human life ebbed and the followers below were filled with tragedy but before that he uttered words of care and passing her into the hands of the beloved disciple and as saint john says in his gospel from that moment the that disciple took her into his own home and there are traditions as to where that was in ephesus for example the the the house there which has gathered to itself the the stories of the older days of the blessed virgin mary but today we're thinking of the early obedience and fruitfulness and the passage of that right through in faithfulness to the end even to that scene described in st luke's gospel in the acts of the apostles where mary is sitting with the others in the upper room and a recipient herself of all that will happen next and i wanted to turn to one of gerald manny hopkins poems before going on with our reflection because it's one of his really early poems but it speaks of the sense of the virgin mary as the mystic rose almost hidden and here it is it wasn't in my original book of hopkins and that's copied it in because it's such a beautiful poem the rose in a mystery where is it found is it anything true does it grow upon ground it was made of earth's mold but it went from men's eyes and its place is a secret and shut in the skies in the gardens of god in the daylight divine find me a place by the mother of mine but where was it formally which is the spot that was blessed in it once though now it is not it is galilee's growth it grew at god's will and broke into bloom upon nazareth hill in the gardens of god in the daylight divine i shall look on thy loveliness mother of mine what was its season then how long ago when was the summer that saw the bud blow two thousands of years are already past since its birth and its bloom and its breathing its last in the gardens of god in the daylight divine i shall keep time with thee mother of mine tell me the name now tell me its name the heart guesses easily is it the same mary the virgin well the heart knows she is the mystery she is that rose in the gardens of god in the daylight divine i shall come home to thee mother of mine is mary the rose then mary the tree but the blossom the blossom there who can it be who can her rose be it could be but one christ jesus our lord her god and her son in the gardens of god in the daylight divine show me thy son mother mother of mine what was the color of that blossom bright white to begin with immaculate white but what a wild flush on the flakes of it stood when the rose ran in crimsoning down the cross wood in the gardens of god in the daylight divine i shall worship his wounds with the mother of mine how many leaves had it five they were then five like the senses and members of men five is their number by nature but now they multiply multiply who can tell how in the gardens of god in the daylight divine make me a leaf in the mother of mine does it smell sweet too in that holy place sweet unto god and the sweetness is grace o breath of it bathes great heaven above in grace that is charity grace that is love to thy breast to thy rest to thy glory divine draw me by charity mother of mine it reminds us of the wedding in cana of galilee where the mother of jesus says to the servants do whatever he tells you and that's the focus of the very young hopkins writing that poem early in his career as a poet and also as a priest this is a day when on the 15th of august 1858 edith nesbit was born she died in may 1924 now she is buried in this diocese in a most beautiful spot in the marsh in the church of saint mary in the marsh in that part of kent and her grave lies there with an interesting wooden grave marker which was carved by her second husband her first died and her second husband was a woolwich ferryman but they came to live at new romney and eventually lived on a longboat for some of the time but that's not what we know her for we know her because of her novels mostly for children her life if you read about it was was not an easy one um but her books give that sense of adventure shall we say and some of them have happenings which you think well that could never have happened that's a different kind of dimension and the stories of five children and it and the the bastivals and all of those um but there's one which is entirely human and that's the railway children it's a story that i've always loved i think first i saw it in a black and white sunday afternoon week by week uh bbc television series in about i don't know 1958 but then of course it was take i read the book then and then it was taken over by the really strong images of the wonderful 1970 film which lionel jeffries bought the rights to do and did it as a with favors called in from so many friends acting in that lovely representation of the family in wealth in london with their father a high-ranking officer of the foreign office at that time and you remember at a particular festival day a birthday the father comes home to celebrate the birthday and there's a knock at the door and two men arrive and gradually the evening they lose mother she goes into the next room they hear voices being raised and that the children know that the house is filled with tension and when mother comes back she is in a state of tremendous distress and is saying now be good children and ruth who's the the parliament at the time ruth will put you to bed um but then from that moment onwards all things become different as the father is imprisoned wrongfully as it turns out as a spy and all the resources spent on lawyers and everything else of and the end of his salary means that they are now in abject poverty and go to live in three chimneys little cottage and the railway children is the story of their time there it's the story of the excitements of their adventures as the train goes past day by day and they run to meet it and wave cheerfully sitting on the fence it's the story of their mother combating illness and writing stories to sell so that they have enough money to buy food and trying to keep all that from the children as a mother would but there's a sense also as roberta bobby the eldest of the three children as roberta and phyllis and peter as she begins to grow up she senses how much sacrifice there is in her mother helping them to live an ordinary life but around them are the people of the village and above all else of the station albert perks the station not the station master the station porter station master is a more solemn figure and uh but albert perks becomes their very best friend and you remember in the film he's played by bernard cribbins uh in a very humorous way and at the same time the doctor dr forrest who in those days was a country doctor who knew all his people not very well off himself because he kept reducing the fees that people have to pay so that he could give treatment and one such case was the the mother of the three children who was really sick and uh needing the doctor happened to say she would get much better if they they had these uh these um things that she could eat and get strong on and they had no money to buy that and the children have waved every day when you know the story of to the old gentleman on the train and the old gentleman turns out to be their savior in this and of course there are other adventures we won't go through the whole story there are other adventures in the in the uh in the tunnel when they save the train knowing that there's been a landslide in the tunnel when they save the runner who's gone through with all the boys who are running through the tunnel knowing a train's not coming but they count them in and they count them out by running across the tunnel and getting there at the same time and realize one's missing and so there's there's that act of salvation and of course there are coincidences in this and that is the fact that the boy they save happens to be the old gentleman's grandson but in those ways and the way in which they get to know people there is this constant giving of very little and great joy and people's response to one another and even to the russian refugee who is a political refugee whom they find on the station and they they begin to help and they they take him to their mother uh because what is the most natural thing to do if you think she helps them then she'll help this man too and of course she does in this this lovely story i've got a special interest as well because the doctor in the 1970 film is played by peter bromilow who was a brother with two other brothers of a family living in my first church in shrewsbury who became really close friends and the two other brothers david abase and john and also sang in the choir of my first parish church since its rosebury and at the same time their family became very well known to me and peter came home at one stage from hollywood where he was the pride of his mother and father and his brothers because he was appearing in films of this this sort camelot he died too young sadly but at the same time he was a a really a brilliant wonderful figure who when he arrived would give great cheer and seeing him as the doctor still on that moment when he opens his feet and and you see his face and he calls roberta head nurse she's going to be the one who looks after her mother now so all those things and it's my delight to be the god son of peter's nephew who's the son of david the base and also to still be in touch very much with vivian david's wife and the brahmalo family but the the father alf bromolo was a great base with a deep voice in a different choir he worshipped at the abbey and all of that is is immensely important at that time but we can come back to those stories i'm i'm likely to ramble on otherwise this is a story when we give thanks for editing his and her capacity to tell a story so simply and to have that picture of the children waving people on their way to their work and at the same time being cared for so much by their mother and at the end the story has the most happy ending as you probably know so on this morning of the motherhood of mary and the sacrifice of mary and the way in which she is there to not only bear her son but show her son and his total vocation to the world and let us know that that can be shared too we give thanks on this feast for her vocation and also her role in presenting once again for us the tree of life so that we might embrace eternity as she did and this feast commemorates that day let's say our prayers and we're going to pray this morning for the anglican church of southern africa and pray also for archbishop dustin and bishop rose bishop of dover and also bishop tim at lambeth and we're praying for the villages all around osbring today in the area deanery of offspring praying for the area dean steve lillycraft in his ministry there and all who live in that area and once again we shall pray for the parishes one by one as we go through the days of the week pray also for all churches like saint mary in the march which are dedicated to the blessed virgin mary on this particular day you'll know many so let's say the prayer for this particular feast day and join our own prayers with that bring your own intentions and concerns almighty god who looked upon the lowliness of the blessed virgin mary and chose her to be the mother of your only son grant that we who are redeemed by his blood may share with her in the glory of your eternal kingdom through jesus christ our lord amen so let's say the prayer our savior taught us in whatever 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 amen moment of silence for your own prayers so crown him the lord of peace whose power acceptor sways from pole to pole that wars may cease absorbed in prayer and praise his reign shall know no end and round his pierced feet fair flowers of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet 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 amen 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