good morning and welcome this morning on this friday the 16th of october it's a gray uh not raining morning although it has been and there are spots of rain in the air but we shall see in the acts of the apostles that rain is falling on that story at the beginning as well as we come together wherever you are in the world to say our prayers here in the garden at the dna at canterbury cathedral bring your own intentions there are some commemorations today in our calendar this day in 1555 bishop hugh latimer bishop of worcester nicholas ridley bishop of london who had been bishop of rochester were burnt at the stake for heresy in the middle of the short reign of queen mary they were burned publicly in the middle of the city of oxford and we remember that i think we remember how in uh all generations people have tried to destroy that of which they are frightened and the reformation martyrs of both sides but also people of faith throughout the world have suffered but as the bishop latimer was was was dying um he if you remember shouted through the flames that they would kindle such a lighters would not be um put out i don't know why but we have a portrait of him in the deanery amongst all the deans and painted after his martyrdom he's holding up a lantern as a sign of that well we can think also of this day in 1793 i prepared nothing at all october the 16th that the queen marie antoinette was executed the same kind of activity let's let's destroy this and the future will be better well that certainly didn't happen in 1793 uh what else do we remember that on this date in 1834 the house of commons was totally destroyed by fire what we see today was the creation after that apart from westminster hall jane eyre published charlotte sorry charlotte bronte published jane eyre on this day and and that that rather dark novel is so much a part of literary history now also on this day in 1996 our home secretary michael howard then after the dunbane shooting of children in scotland announced very strict controls on guns and an amnesty was was issued as people brought in their guns and threw them onto piles because after that the law was going to be much more strict and to cheer people in 1923 walt disney founded his film company and for that we can give thanks through the ages and in 1936 jean batten a new zealander an intrepid new zealander flew solo from kent here to auckland new zealand stopping on the way for refueling of course but it took her a record-breaking 11 days and 45 minutes she was a very beautiful lady and was known as the garbo of the skies let me just say something else amusing because my friend charles cell wrote in after i mentioned as a yesterday um the the philosopher nietzsche and he said that he and his wife have been walking along one day and the girl coming towards them had a t-shirt on with one of nisha's quotes with probably the most famous of his quotes god is dead and then underneath nietzsche and so um they happened to look round as she went past and on the back he said was written nietzsche is dead god and that amuses them so it may amuse you this morning so let's say our prayers on this day because there are two very significant anniversaries to think of in the reflection 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 does 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 morning psalm is psalm 80. hear o shepherd of israel you that led joseph like a flock shine forth you that are enthroned upon the cherubim before ephraim benjamin and manasseh stir up your mighty strength and come to our salvation turn us again o god show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved o lord god of hosts how long will you be angry at your people's prayer you feed them with the bread of tears you give them abundance of tears to drink you have made us the derision of our neighbors and our enemies laugh us to scorn turn us again o god of hosts share the light of your countenance and we shall be saved you brought a vine out of egypt you drove out the nations and planted it you made room around it and when it had taken root it filled the land the hills were covered with its shadow and the seeds of god by its boughs it stretched out its branches to the sea and its tendrils to the river why then have you broken down its wall so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes the wild boar out of the wood tears it off and all the insects of the field devour it turn again oh god of hosts look down from heaven and behold cherish this vine which your right hand has planted and the branch that you made so strong for yourself let those who burnt it with fire who cut it down perish at the rebuke of your countenance let your hands be upon the man at your right hand the son of man you made so strong for yourself and so will we not go back from you give us life and we shall call upon your name turn us again o lord god of hosts show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved so let's turn to the acts of the apostles and we begin the last chapter of the acts chapter 28 this morning after we were brought safely through we then learned that the island was called malta the native people showed us unusual kindness before they kindle a fire and welcomed us all because it had begun to rain and was cold when paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand when the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand they said to one another no doubt this man is a murderer though he has escaped from the sea justice has not allowed him to live paul however shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no they were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead but when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him they changed their minds and said that he was a god now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island named publius who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days it happened that the father of publius lay sick with fever and dysentery and paul visited him and prayed and putting his hands on him healed him and when this had taken place the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured they also honored us greatly and when we were about to sail they put on board whatever we needed after three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island a ship of alexandria with the twin gods as a figurehead putting in at syracuse we stayed there for three days and from there we made a circuit and arrived at regium and after one day a south wind sprang up and on the second day we came to puseoli there we found believers and were invited to stay with them for seven days and so we came to rome and the believers there when they heard about us came as far as the forum of appius and three taverns to meet us on seeing them paul thanked god and took courage and when we came into rome paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guard him well quite a journey ends on that day as they arrived in rome and that sentence and so we came to rome is very poignant for it fulfills paul's vision that he had always been faithful to as he said to king agrippa i was not disobedient to the heavenly vision that he would come to rome might be good to remind ourselves as he writes in the epistle to the romans that the church in rome had not been started or founded by paul the only influence that he had had on it was the letter he had written but at the end of that letter there's a nice little list of people that he already knows people like aquila and priscilla who obviously have gone back to rome we've met them through the acts of the apostles in corinth we've met them in ephesus after they've been exiled from rome but the christians are now allowed back and their house is obviously big enough to hold a meeting place for all the believers where they might break bread together as paul had done on the ship with all those passengers when they were in the greatest of danger and so he's not without friends but he also has that centurion julius who has been kind to him all the way through and has allowed him latitude to be with his friends to stay with folk in a gentle companionable way wherever they are and so that goes on when they reach rome itself notice that from malta they're able to find another of those great grain ships from alexandria which they've come on and it's interesting to see how um they uh are at that time uh remembering the fact that they had set out when they shouldn't have done and this ship had got there earlier and wintered and now they're on it again and at the front of that ship they have the figureheads of castro and pollocks the twin brothers and star consolations to us up there but we remember that because there was a great devotion to the roman gods castro and pollock's in egypt and so it wasn't unusual to have the twin brothers carved at the front of the ship but paul is coming with good news to the believers in rome and we'll go on with that tomorrow the little story of the viper is an interesting one because one of the probably 12th century wall paintings which have survived in the cathedral here in the chapel where sin anselm is buried actually has um the picture of paul shaking the viper from his hand into the fire it reminds us that this cathedral crypt and all over was covered in wall paintings as well as having the stained glass pictures to show people the stories of the scriptures old and new testament the stories of the gospels and that one survives there's also a clearer copy of it outside the chapel of sindhanselm in the cathedral church well i said there were two other dates that we might remember today i want to remember on that on this day october the 16th in 1854 oscar wilde was born in dublin i said that that people trying to destroy that which they fear and don't understand or feel is in some way sullying what they think to be pure and here's a case in point but the case in point actually it didn't stop them very very swiftly after his too early death from continuing to enjoy his books his plays his writings we remember his beautiful children's stories the happy prince the nightingale and the rose the selfish giant we remember the humor of the importance of being earnest and we remember his rather dark novel the picture of dorian gray but we remember too his day profundis from the depths the psalm 130 stopped april from out of the depths of i cried unto you which was written in the depths of the prison in reading jail and also we remember his ballad of reading jail which is is full of human insight there are so many quotes we could use this morning that it's i'll use a few because they're always amusing but some of them are very profound be yourself everyone else is already taken and then we're all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go and then very famous i can resist anything except temptation or it is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it and perhaps one of the nicest the only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future well perhaps the most profound thing i find is just a little paragraph in his day profundis where the kindly governor towards the end of his stay in prison a new governor comes to reading jail and gives him a greek new testament and wilde describes what a precious and refreshing gift this was how every morning after he had cleaned his little cell cleaned his tins and had put things in order he would at random read some verses in greek the original greek of the gospel and he was he said it was like entering a a garden of fresh lilies and the original language gave such freshness he advised the one he was writing to in de profundis to start that in his own disordered life he might say to all of us just make sure you've read a few verses of the gospels every day it will help our own disordered life the other thing i remember about day profundis is how precious the crumbs of white bread were to him because normally he had to have prison bread and when he was sick they gave him white bread something he'd have just taken for granted and now so precious and during lockdown we found lots of things like that that we took for granted and now it seemed to us so precious we remember him first with thanksgiving thanksgiving for the humor but also thanksgiving for the lessons of his appalling suffering and then we also remember that on this day in 1950 the lion the witch and the wardrobe was published now most of you will know that story very well it is a total allegory and aslan is absolutely there to represent christ who gave himself entirely for us and rose from the dead but there's also the sense of that dimension beyond which the youngest of them lucy finds first at first it's her secret when she enters the wardrobe and has tea with mr tumnus and then edmund finds it in a different dimension and there's a dark side to that but peter and susan and edmund and lucy become the characters of narnia now i want to say that in the christmas holiday of 2010 uh we had been planning that the archbishop of canterbury's holy week lectures would be on saint luke and i received a telephone call from archbishop rowan williams who i think at the time my memory may be faulty but i think had with his son pip gone to see the new film of the voyage of the dawn treader and he uh said quite tentatively how would it be if i didn't do sin luke but i explored what narnia meant and i was thrilled by that i'd listen to rowan talk without notes to children many times and those are the sermons saving his uh listening to this those are the sermons i can remember by heart just talking to the children he had a great way and of course the lessons were deep ones for adults too and he gave those three lectures and the titles give it to us not a tame lion the first one was and then no story but your own and finally bigger inside than outside well you may know that those three lectures were turned into a book later on it's called the lions world and there's no better explanation of all that narnia means so if you haven't read it do get it you won't be disappointed let's say our prayers for this day we are praying on this day for the diocese of pune in north india and the bishop there sharod gaikwad and his people and also the diocese of cork clyne and ross in ireland and william paul colton the bishop there and his people we're continuing here to pray for the thanet deanery and today we pray for the harvest new anglican church and for the reader there and the life of all the cell groups the reader is called terry valiant and we pray for his ministry pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and you will pray for all those whom you rely on to lead your communities and we say together the collect for this week almighty and everlasting god increase in us your gift of faith that forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to that which is before we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy through jesus christ our lord amen so in whatever language you like to use and in whatever way you like to say it we join together in the prayer our lord 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 amen moment now of silence for our own prayers 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 are men uh copper black rooster russell is very proud of his two bought blue wives and i think he's wanting to show them off this morning as they peck around it tiny crumbs on this tray you