good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this wednesday the 10th of february the snow has almost stopped falling and leo and i have come out into the garden so you see something still of the white landscape which will be very relevant for one or two of our reflections a bit later on but this morning we remember in our christian calendar since scholastica who was the twin sister of saint benedict and saint benedict who wrote the rule by which this place lived its life for so many years the influence of which still pertains and again we can think of that a bit later on but scholastica is seen as the founder of the benedictine order of nuns now it's a good day to think of that because we hear on bbc news today that the second oldest person in the world and the actually that the oldest person in europe aged 117 a nun who lives at toulon and will be 117 on thursday um she has had covid diagnosed at very early january and has recovered from it and was was interviewed yesterday uh and and saying how happy she will be to celebrate her birthday in the care home that she's in in too long uh but at the same time that she has no fear of going on for she longs to see her her big brother again and also members of her family she's uh she said i have a total faith in all of this so in this life and in the next i give thanks to god well that's a wonderful statement of faith at the age of a day off 117 i think where the oldest person in the world uh recorded at the moment is a lady in japan but we give thanks for sister andre in tulong that beautiful city overlooked by more farron across the mediterranean the top of that mountain you get the most wonderful view but extraordinarily there's a little zoo up there where we enjoyed seeing um some big cats rather bigger than our cats and certainly a bit braver with the snow leo's going to lick his paws from the the cold snow at the moment let's say our prayers and please feel welcome wherever you are 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 refresh 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 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 this morning this tenth morning of the month could have been psalm 50 or psalm 51 or for that matter psalm 52 i'm going this morning normally i'd use psalm 50 but uh i'm going to use psalm 51. it's it's very well known to us as the misery may have mercy on me oh god and for reasons that will become apparent when we read saint mark i shall use this one you will know it well have mercy on me o god in your great goodness according to the abundance of your compassion blot out my offenses wash me thoroughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin for i acknowledge my faults and my sin is ever before me against you only have i sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified in your sentence and righteous in your judgment i have been wicked even from my birth a sinner when my mother conceived me behold you desire truth deep within me and shall make me understand wisdom in the depths of my heart purge me with hyssop and i shall be clean wash me and i shall be whiter than snow make me hear of joy and gladness that the bones you have broken may rejoice turn your face from my sins and blot out all my misdeeds make me a clean heart o god and renew a right spirit within me cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me give me again the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your gracious spirit then shall i teach your ways to the wicked and sinners shall return to you deliver me from my guilt o god the god of my salvation and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness o lord open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise for you desire no sacrifice else i would give it you take no delight in burnt offerings the sacrifice of god is a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart oh god you will not despise or be favorable and gracious to zion build up the walls of jerusalem and then you will accept sacrifices offered in righteousness the burnt offerings and oblations then shall they offer up bulls on your altar the sacrifice of god is a broken spirit it's a sentence we begin lent with but at the same time so many sentences in that psalm which have resonance and particularly perhaps we remember the sentence that we always use at the beginning of our prayers oh lord open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise a song known to us from the beauty of allegri's music in all its simplicity and wonder and that we shall be hearing quite soon in lent but for the moment let's go to our reflection in st mark's gospel and some good connections can be established we're in chapter seven and i'm taking up from exactly where we left off yesterday with jesus's complete irritation with the controversies being stirred up about nitpicking matters of of minor traditions and and and the absolute outskirts of interpretation of the law with the pharisees and also those sophisticated lawyers who have come from jerusalem to put down this local itinerant preacher as they see him who might be a troublemaker for them so jesus goes on from there and jesus called the people to him again and said to them hear me all of you and understand there is nothing outside a person that by going into them can defile them but the things that come out of a person are what defile them and when jesus had entered the house and left the people his disciples asked him about the parable and he said to them then are you also without understanding do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile them since it enters not their heart but their stomach and is then expelled into the sewer thus jesus declared all foods clean and jesus said it is what comes out of a person that is what defiles them for from within out of the heart of a person come evil thoughts sexual immorality theft murder adultery coveting deceit sensuality envy slander pride foolishness all these evil things come from within and they defile a person strong words and prompted by the criticism of the pharisees of his disciples who are going through the villages with him in rapid speed proclaiming the good news and eating where they can and the pharisees are picking up the tradition of washing one's hands before taking any food and jesus saying why on earth are you bothering about this when it's the heart and wholeness of a person that i am most concerned he doesn't say that but he does say to them now that nothing that that enters a person um with unwashed hands is what he's meaning uh from your tradition in that way can defile and remember how he he pointed to the law of honoring father and mother yesterday we dealt with all that yesterday but when they go into the the house he left the people behind yeah i should think he was in a complete turmoil of irritation anger again the hardness of heart of those who are interrupting this crucial ministry of restoring the divine into human life the image of god into folk and the desire to give the gift of the spirit in all that to bring wholeness being interrupted by little bits and pieces of controversy with those standing around and upsetting this ministry goes into the house and then says again to the disciples but here's that that word again which makes them disciples and not apostles as they were in the chapter before do you not understand even you not understand that nothing that you eat or drink is going to defile you and by the word defile i would mean something that mars the image of god in a person and jesus says that can't happen with the created things being eaten or drunk that simply goes into your stomach and is expelled of course poisons he doesn't say his poisons can do you harm he's not talking about harm he's talking about defilement that the willful marring of the image of the divine in the human being that god has created and he says what defiles are those things that come out of the heart and you could say that fed by the mind as well now that takes us really in a very good way to the rule of saint benedict for benedict's rule for communities which has been the mainstay of religious communities from that time in the sixth century when it was created it's absolutely firm that a human being is an integral concept of body mind and spirit and it's the wholeness of that that needs to be exercised and fed and the rhythms that benedict and his sister scholastica for her nuns established during the day the rhythms of life took account of body mind and spirit physical creative work mental active study and conversation and worship the offering of the spirit in community with others and individually to god making a wholeness and in that community some find one aspect of life easier creative work with the hands or in whatever way the body can do creative work with the gifts were given some find study easier reading and that kind of thinking and some find prayer easier and in the community we're taught to encourage one another but let no one simply concentrate on one or even two of those for wholeness and healing come with all three being looked after day by day by the grace of god and with eyes fast fixed on jesus the reading constantly not only of the the gospels and the interpretation which the church developed in the writings of the new testament follows but anchored in the words jesus himself knew well in the scriptures in the prophets in the psalms in the law in the writings all of those things as we do that using imagery in this particular way and jesus gives the imagery of defilement how easy it is to see on a day like this because the psalm mentioned it and i shall make them white as snow your sins be scarlet that's a quotation from isaiah as well as the uh as the the misery and jesus of course rests so much on the prophecies of isaiah but you remember in chapter 2 of isaiah we read the lord saying to his people though your sins are scarlet i will make them white as snow and though they are crimson i will make them white as wool the great thing and this we held to in dostoevsky yesterday we'll have some more rations in a moment was the fact that our faith and our concentration on jesus gives us the aspect of forgiveness remember how dostrogeski gathered his children and had the parable of the prodigal son read to them just as he was dying and we remembered that that sequence of transgression repentance forgiveness is at the heart of our faith but also at the heart of our faith is the way in which joy and sorrow are so integrally linked and that too is something that we see in the humanity of jesus the disciples have not yet understood they've another journey to make tomorrow but tomorrow also gives jesus another peace in the puzzle of his messiahship but for today let's see what this february the 10th brings us and it brings us many things not only since scholastica and uh um saint benedict in monte cassino but also and i might say that since scholastica's day is is an important day in the history of the university of oxford because there was a three-day riot a desperate violent riot on and it's called the scholastica day riots in 1355 when the townsfolk and the students clashed over a dispute on the price of beer which the townsfolk were charging 63 scholars were killed and 30 townsfolk killed in those three days until it was settled and for years afterwards the mayor and councillors had to walk bare-headed on this day through the city of oxford and pay one penny for every scholar killed to the university the mayor the mayor of oxford refused to do that in 1825 and the custom dropped but one remembers that that that violence in that city of scholarship where mind and spirit could not stop the violence and passions of the body in those riots some some nice things today we congratulate princess eugenie and her husband on the birth of a new baby and on this day in 1840 queen victoria married prince albert a marriage of great love but as i said joy and grief are integri integrally connected whenever one loves argently there is a possibility of grieving ardently as well in texas today the technological college was founded now university in lubbock in 1923. i mentioned that because three of our great friends uh uh kenneth cohen and mark and and uh becky lanier uh are there from lubbock and it's not a name i knew well before knowing them so we give thanks for the town of lubbock today and uh for friendship as well across the world you can you'll have so many friends you're giving thanks for too it's the day that shirley temple died and we give thanks for her 2014 her name her name is well known here because the great school hall was built by canon shirley who was the headmaster at the time in the in the first part of the the 20th century and so the school hall is is jokingly known as shirley's temple and um then on this day in 1841 upper and lower canada were united so prayers for canada on this day too in 1824 samuel plimsoll was born i say that because that plimsoll line which was drawn on ships which showed when the ship would become overloaded where greedy owners had been overloading ships which were then wrecked by storms because of their overloaded state and so many were killed plimsoll's line was established on the on the water line to show when a ship had enough cargo and no more was to be put on working for the safety of others which so many are doing today during this pandemic but i wanted next to deal with the russian aspect today as we did yesterday with dostoevsky in 1837 alexander pushkin was died as a result of a duel but he actually was respected and is still respected as the father of russian literature particularly the great russian literature of the 19th century and beyond into the 20th and 21st century and one remembers him being also at the root of great operas too he wrote eugene onyegan a book in verse which tchaikovsky of course converted into an opera and has been uh later i think my don cranco into a ballet and in it there is a most famous duel uh which is reminiscent of pushkin he wrote ruslan and of miller and that overture by glinka is one of the most exciting overtures in all opera and he wrote the book boris godnoff and muzorski turns that into an opera but most of all we give thanks for pushkin at the root of so much literature and as we remember his anniversary today we also remember that in 1890 on this day boris pasternak was born who wrote dr zhivago a book that in the ussr was rejected for publication but we all i think probably came to realization of it i certainly did in the massive film which was made i remember um sitting in a london cinema in 1966 i think christmas 66 and watching that film spellbound the great scenes of snow and the the enormous turmoil of the russian revolution terrible scenes wonderful scenes and a love story with that theme going right through it so um we give thanks for pasternack's writing because rather like dostoyevsky he plums the depths of human relationships and passions and their resulting painfulness grief or joy or sorrow and all of those things a great depth of spirituality and of humanity in russian literature but always we remember uh dostoevsky's sense that um the the transgression can be repented of and forgiven though your sins be scarlet i will make them white as snow and then just one last thought before we finish and say our prayers um today in 1910 joyce grenfell was born and those of you who know her know that she was the most amusing and graceful comedian and student of human characters and the characters she portrayed and the little scenes that as she spoke she called us to imagine were so wonderfully humorous that they too would have you both laughing and crying but also looking at other characters around you and also laughing at yourself that was the most important thing any humor with her was always gracious kindly but oh so pertinent and we put one or two links on today from her the perhaps the most famous one is is her little nursery class and you get to know the little characters neville and and and of course george and that phrase george don't do that and we never quite discover what it is george is doing but all of those and her musical ability was second to none and her face was rock solid as a foundation in everything but from the characters like the vicar's wife in church singing a solemn hymn and then suddenly remembering and the the words get faster and faster different words across the tune of the hymn that she's left some chicken bones boiling on the top of the oven and not turned the the gas off and and has someone else done it and she punches her family and nobody has and in the end the panic is so great she has visions of the whole vicarage burning down and as she goes out and and then a lovely one as the vice chancellor of uh a university uh his wife at a at a cocktail party all of those things are there for those who enjoy them and the the link is there if you would like it but most of all we remember today scholastica and benedict who gave us the rule and rhythm of life and one remembers also that once a year they would leave their communities and benedict would visit scholastica based on monte cassino where they could almost see one another in the in the the two communities and on the last occasion that that happened benedict went to spend the day there and at the appointed time in the evening got up to go and scholastica said please don't go and uh stay a little longer we we've much more to talk about and they as they they conversed and prayed together benedict said i must go my rule says i must go back and as he rose to leave and got to the door a great storm broke and he looked back and said to her did you have anything to do with that and she said well i asked you and you said no and i asked god and he seems to have said yes so benedict sat down and stayed and then a few days later from his monastery he saw a white dive ascending from schonastica's convent and knew his sister had gone to glory so we remember that too so here we are with the prayers for today and we remember in our prayers for the communion the diocese of angola in the anglican church of southern africa and in our diocese just in our archbishop tim bishop at lambeth rose bishop of dover and today the parish of staple housed all saints and silke tetzlaff in the ministry there and all the people of staple hest and we are going to say the prayer for this week so please bring your own intentions your concerns and your thanksgivings as we join together in that here we are almighty god you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children through jesus christ your son our lord who with you in the holy spirit reigns supreme over all things now and forever amen few moments of praying together the our father and then of silence for your own prayers say the words 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 [Music] 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 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 in [Music] so [Music] you