good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this saturday the 31st of july the last day of the month of july and it's a saturday morning the bell for the morning communion is just ringing there but uh matins is rather later this morning so we'll follow that and i'll join them then and we're going to say our morning prayers at this point so uh bring your own intentions we've come it's a saturday morning and we've come out with the pigs as we always do on a saturday morning but we've we've one or two other treats for you so although we're beginning here we're going to move around a little bit as we do sometimes so we'll become pilgrims in our own garden with different themes today and today we reach the end of our journey through st matthew's gospel so our reflections will be on that we are thinking very much of those suffering terrible things from wildfires in different parts of the world fanned by high winds and perhaps we should think first of all of the people of turkey because those fires are are new to us in in our thinking and praying and yet they are being devastating and uh uncontrolled because of the high winds at that time at this time we continue to think of course of the western parts of the united states and of canada british columbia particularly where fires are raging and people's homes and lives are threatened there think of those attempting to fight the fires this morning and of course our thoughts still go out for the people of japan at this time of the olympic games with all the difficulties they're having to face as hosts at this time of pandemic as well as difficulties in in travel and all kinds of quarantines so let's bring all those thoughts to our prayers this morning and we'll begin just here with our friends having their breakfast oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice alleluia blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the first fruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your mighty acts 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 perhaps the bell may remind us of worship going on across the world in different places and here always different congregations tend to gather for different aspects of worship within the cathedral church itself so it's lovely to feel as we worship as a garden congregation that worship is being offered across the world at this time as well our psalm on this morning of the month this last morning of the month is psalm 145 i will exalt you o god my king and bless your name forever and ever every day will i bless you and praise your name forever and ever great is the lord and highly to be praised his greatness is beyond searching out one generation shall praise your works to another and declare your mighty acts they shall speak of the majesty of your glory and i will tell of your wonderful deeds they shall speak of the might of your marvelous acts and i will also tell of your greatness they shall pour forth the story of your abundant kindness and joyfully sing of your righteousness the lord is gracious and merciful long-suffering and of great goodness the lord is loving to everyone and his mercy is over all his creatures all your works praise you o lord and your faithful servants bless you they tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your mighty power to make known to all peoples your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom your dominion endures throughout all ages the lord is sure in all his words and faithful in all his deeds the lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all those who are bowed down the eyes of all wait upon you o lord and you give them their food in due season you open wide your hand and fill all things living with plenty the lord is righteous in all his ways and loving in all his works the lord is near to those who call upon him to those who call upon him faithfully he fulfills the desire of those who fear him he hears their cry and saves them the lord watches over those who love him but all the wicked shall he destroy my mouth shall speak the praise of the lord and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever and forever and ever always wants to make us say amen as the whole of creation does and here are creatures certainly enjoying their breakfast as the psalmist says well let's go to our reading which is the 28th chapter the very last chapter of the gospel of saint matthew and tomorrow in our prayers i'll explain what we're going to do next but of course tomorrow we shall have the special lessons for sunday the verse 1 of chapter 28 of saint matthew's gospel now after the sabbath towards the dawn of the first day of the week mary magdalene and the other mary went to see the tomb and behold there was a great earthquake for an angel of the lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it his appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow and for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men but the angel said to the women do not be afraid for i know that you seek jesus who was crucified he is not here for he has risen as he said come see the place where he lay then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and behold he is going before you to galilee there you will see him see i have told you so they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples and behold jesus met them and said greetings and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him then jesus said to them do not be afraid go and tell my brothers to go to galilee and there they will see me while they were going behold some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place and when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep and if this comes to the governor's ears we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble so the guards took the money and did as they were directed and this story has been spread among the jews to this day now the 11 disciples went to galilee to the mountain to which jesus had directed them and when they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted and jesus came and said to them all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you and behold i am with you always to the end of the age matthew tells this story in a very different way from the other evangelists and it's as though he has collected some of the other evangelists account of that first day of the week but also he is relying on a different tradition probably a verbal tradition which is coming through and he is relying on his absolute certainty that prophecies were being fulfilled to me there are two different scenes of easter tide which we celebrate on easter eve and is today the one is heaven's own gift unwitnessed and when the account is given in mark's gospel the earliest of the gospels the second is of easter morning and the first perception of what has happened in terms of prophecy being fulfilled in glorious resurrection the first is an act of heaven and of god so powerful that matthew accompanies everything with all the prophecies of what will happen and the earth giving its response in earthquake and heaven's angels rolling back the stone and everyone being absolutely confounded but this is something that has happened in the middle of the night and so it's a difficult story to tell what is an easy story to tell is the coming of the women through the gray dawn and being the human eyes which witness this empty tomb the stone rolled back they've come to anoint a dead body and they find no body for them to anoint but just the simple message which jesus himself had given go before me to galilee and i will see you there and all of that is so confounding that in mark they run away matthew includes the speed of the running the women given the message all the components there but tells it in his particular matthew way which is showing prophecy fulfilled and also the glory that he and his own christians all those years later no accompanied the fact of the resurrection of jesus an earth-shattering literally an earth-shattering event the breaking of the bonds of death and the great gift given but he also lets us see the quietness of easter day as the nervous women come to perform offices of reverence and love for the one whom they had loved and now believe to be dead and find their gaping for them the empty tomb all these shall we say fragments of the resurrection day and we ourselves can compare the four narratives and what st john most of all gives us because it's that gospel we tend to read together with the emmaus road in luke all those stories and the resonances that are there in this story too so we give thanks mightily for heaven's gift earth shattering shall we say and certainly for humankind the best gift of all the gateway to eternity and the opening up of our spiritual dimension which was the gift of god making us in his own image from the very beginning but then this ends of course with the great commission and that takes place for matthew back where all things began it's as though that message is saying go back to the beginning and start again and that's exactly what we find the 11 in this account doing and meeting jesus on the mountain an unnamed mountain you can have the mountain of transfiguration in your mind you can have certainly any of the mountains of galilee which in have appeared in our stories of the gospel where jesus would go himself up into the mountain to pray or to teach and there the gift is given to the disciples and another imperative just as the imperative of the last supper the taking of the bread take eat this is my body and the cup drink from this all of you this is the cup of the new covenant of my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins poured out for all for the forgiveness of sins imperatives there's another imperative now go and give this gift to the whole world baptizing all in the name of the father the creator the son all that humanity which god shows us in the earthly life of jesus and the opening of that gate beyond and the spirit the gift yet to be given in all its fullness and the commission is theirs those apostles who ran away and now are given charge of that gift the two commissions the two imperatives and those imperatives ring out at the end of saint matthew's gospel not only to his own christians but to us who hear that commission too and perhaps also the message go back to the beginning and start again it's always a good thing to do i know we can't do so in time but we can do so in experience and as we're giving the gift and we do this day by day reflecting on so many beginnings in our own life chasing them back and finding out where the meaning that we're searching for began to kindle a flame and that would have happened in time so many times but the message is go back to the beginning and uh he will have gone before us and will lead the way and the the huge promise given i am with you always to the end of the age so we've now come to a different setting and uh later on i have some guests to introduce to you but let's look at some of the dates which are important from the past on this last day of july this 31st of july because there is a common thread to some of these states and i'll point that out as we get to the end of that before introducing our guests so the first one and it's a motley group of of of dates is the fact that in 1703 daniel defoe the novelist who wrote robinson crusoe and the journal of the play gear was put in the pillory for and that was a form of punishment where he would be punished then by the crowds who would generally throw rotten tomatoes and and rotten cabbages and everything else at him for writing an article which offended both the government and the church and when he was put in the the pillory the crowds came out for their entertainment and they brought flowers and threw flowers at him and stood toasting his health showing what they thought of the government's punishment for daniel defoe so uh the the most powerful were confounded by the opinion of the people on that day 1942 july the 31st the oxford committee for famine relief was founded oxfam think how that's developed first and and since then and think also in 1942 we were in the middle of the most desperate time of the second world war and yet there was the intention to help people in famine relief how important that has proved to the world since then and still continues to do so 1950 britain's first self-service store sainsbury's of croydon was opened on july the 31st before that and discontinued of course and it's the the the grocers that i remember from my childhood you went and you queued up and and everything was served to you individually but now there's a a a a a system where people can go and and do their own shopping and be helped in all sorts of ways we take it for granted but this only developed here from this date in 1950 1968 and this for us who know the series is an amusing one 1968 and again i remember it happening and not taking much notice of it the first episode of the series dad's army was tellified and we first heard that opening song which has become uh such a well-known tune but at the same time the characters in dad's army captain mannering and sergeant wilson and corporal jones and private pike and all the others whom we've grown to know and there were throughout the 1970s a regular 18 million people watching that series and it's it's pretty well been on and reputed ever since um and yet it was about the people in the war who were much much less noticed that the the home guard as they were called a folk who would come home from their work and it was generally reserved occupations that had to be done for the nation and not people who were sent away but many of them were well past the age of retirement and yet this series really took the hearts of the nation at that time those who had been unnoticed again 1965 on this day the author j.k rowling was born now how famous she has become mostly through the series of harry potter books but at the same time here is someone who was not expecting in any way to be a famous author and who who wrote in spare time and was attempting i won't go through the all the details of her life but you will probably know them fairly well attempting to make enough for herself and her baby and uh at the same time teaching and writing in her spare time and see what came of that from just imagining and and discovering great creative gifts within her and the creative gifts she awakened in children was the ability to sit down and read not just read but devour a book again and enjoy the stories and be imaginative in their own way and hopefully awaken creative gifts within themselves and then in 1944 and this is something that we went into a quite a lot last year when we were reading the petty pass on this day in 1944 antoine de santi zuperi died his his plane went missing off the french coast and there's a a plaque to him a lovely colored plaque at cassie where we would normally go at this time of year which certainly shall be going this year but normally we would look out at the glittering sea the mediterranean and that lovely scene and there's the plaque recording the death of san and antoine de saint-exupery we've told his story many times over the last uh 14 months but at the same time we note this morning that he was intensely disabled in in many ways and yet continued to fly and serve the nation because he believed in the freedom of europe after the war it wasn't a freedom he would see on this day his plane vanished into the blue on a reconnaissance mission and lastly but this is a date that i shall mention this morning but take up much more tomorrow in 1556 sint ignatius loyola died and saint ignatius loyola is one of the saints who had an enormous influence on the church and those who follow not only as members of the society of jesus but all those who have discovered the ignatian way of meditating reflecting shaping their lives in so many different ways and i i want to to think about ignatius but the only thing i want to say about him this morning is that he himself having been born in loyola in the castle there to an aristocratic family and was going off to be a soldier full of power was so badly wounded at pamplona and his leg shattered and was mended badly and his life was was given up at one point but he survived and was carried home to loyola and then in all that convalescence and his decision to have the leg mended again which must have been agonizing and then what he went through afterwards became a pilgrimage of vocation which we will look at tomorrow with great gratitude but this is the day 31st of july that he died and perhaps he's best known for his prayer that is a prayer i love to say and many of you will know it by heart you can say it in the singular but normally we say it in the plural teach us good lord to serve thee as our deserves to give and not to count the cost to fight and not to heed the wounds to toil and not to seek for rest to labor and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do thy will a life that was given up and then just recovered itself and went on to that great vocation but we will come back to that tomorrow i want to introduce our guests and some of them you've met before but you will also have met beryl whom is who is sitting here with me today and to whom we're immensely grateful and we are going to introduce the three baby hedgehogs that you saw before and uh beryl is uh now here and is able to say good morning to us and uh thank you for coming again this morning daryl is a a magistrate and has had um a fairly hard night so i i i i thank you for being here um my pleasure two hours sleep and our magistrate is still serving with us in a very different capacity and the day after your birthday so happy birthday for yesterday thank you very much now we've got here the friends whom we saw some little time ago and now you notice that we're we're wearing protective gloves here is one of the baby hedgehogs not so baby anymore and remember as we said before um he's biting my glove quite furiously remember as we said before the fox knows many secrets and has many tricks the hedgehog knows one big secret and uh tell us about how they've been since we saw them last and growing up here the the three here that we hear we saw last time the tiny babies have been actually amazing they were so ill that um that we just couldn't believe that they would survive anyhow and after the first week they've done everything so well they've weaned well thank you to farley's rusk they are eating them with their own food easily and they've been very very good we have one that is very bad tempered but um is that that one they they are excellent and they are we take the lesson they are doing so well um they're learning the amazing thing is they've learned as you can see by this one um he's learned to um the reflexes of curling up because i'm handling him with gloves on and he's learned that without the care of a wild mother he's learnt it as a natural instinct and i think one of the things we enjoy is watching them do things through natural instinct not from being taught absolutely and um i mean he's i don't know where he gets his from because he's chewing everything a child um they are wonderful we could notice how the prickles are crisscrossing now and this one's hurting aren't they and well this one's not doing that this actually is he's because he's biting the glove and and sucking on to it this is the bad tempered one and now he's doing it he's all the all the prickles crisscross and they go into a little prickly ball but these are wonderful friends to the garden uh and yet they are also um in enormous danger danger from traffic danger from badgers danger from all kinds of predators and danger for of their habitat disappearing now happily our own garden with its walls and no badges and it's many many areas of foliage because they tend to be nighttime creatures don't they going around and trundling around in the garden this year they haven't been because they are dehydrated there's been so little water around because of the weather and they have suffered badly we're having a lot of adults in so they need much more water than they ever had before put down for them in the garden and people have been in the gardens more because of the covid restrictions and they have suffered because of it all right okay we we love having them around here and our orchard and the water that is there a great beer they they they do nothing but good for the garden and uh to to have them here they they eat uh the the slugs which destroy the the the vegetables and and so the more we can have the better and these three little chaps i think might be coming here at some stage soon yes yes and then they'll have a protected life and an enjoyable one we hope in the society of other hedgehogs as well and the creatures around where there are no natural predators for them in this particular garden and it's walled all the way around so they won't get out to meet traffic which is one of their biggest dangers but the saving of hedgehogs now we started with the the boy pigs in the in the garden in many nations and languages these are called hedge pigs and uh so they're they're little creatures of of a wonderful distinction and this year this week we've looked at beatrix potter because of an anniversary and of course mrs tiggy winkle is known to children but here is the original mrs tiggy winkle uh the hedgehog himself or herself here and we're going to put these back in because we've something else also to show you let's put them back quite gently there we are okay now this we won't need to so much coming back to the beginning again as we said for galilee earlier on and this time we're back with baby hedgehogs tiny baby hedgehogs there we are so beautiful this is how you saw those other three not too long ago how long ago was that better now about six weeks six weeks or so on a saturday morning in the same way and see how they've grown and these are still having to be hand fed but they are protected again now we've all in our reflections looked at those who unexpectedly sometimes as within ignatius loyal life was given up and so many of them have out of adversity created a wonderful life but they've needed help and encouragement and we can give that and on this morning let these be symbols of this because these two also will grow up when they and and uh be as instinctive about the secrets which their little bodies contain already as almost a gift of the creator in in the way in which they will begin to behave at the moment they're quite happy in our hands simply because they're used to you handling them and so there's no thought of them setting their prickles in a defensive mode but the secret of doing it is innate within them just as the secret of of uh making themselves smell in exactly the same way as the surround that they're in so that there is a defensive uh smell because nature is clothing them with the the the surrounding scent and they they know all these things without even a natural mother telling them so we want to say thank you for looking after so many things in the middle of an exceptionally busy life as a magistrate uh and at the same time looking after so many rescue creatures certainly not all hedgehogs because birds and all sorts of things that are brought to you we'll put these back into the warm so as we settle the little hedgehogs back into their warmth let's say our prayers together wherever you are in the world and uh bring your own concerns we mentioned some of them in terms of wildfire and danger earlier on in turkey and the western parts of of the united states and canada but you will know and have read of so many other things and also we hold in our hearts the people of japan as they host the olympic games i shall use the collect for this week for the last time we have a new one tomorrow almighty lord and everlasting god we beseech you to direct sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of your laws and the works of your commandments that through your most mighty protection both here and ever we may be preserved in body and soul through our lord and savior jesus christ amen so in whatever language you like to use and whatever style you choose to say it we say that the prayer our savior 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 your own prayers please 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 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 well we're immensely grateful to beryl for coming to be with us this morning and to bring our little guests who've been here before and maybe we should say that that all the hedgehogs that we've seen this morning were rescue hedgehogs and they will now be returned to the a wild habitat hedgehogs are wild creatures who belong to no one and uh so i think that's good advice for people really yes they don't belong to people they are wildlife but we're here to look after them and protect them because they they will leave us before long it's going to be another 10 years if we don't protect them but we must be careful and not treat them as uh toys or friends they've got to be in the garden i mean at night a hedgehog will go um ten uh ten how ten houses or two and a half miles that's what they're known to travel yes so the need to travel from garden to garden and they need a wild area not the the new patio areas these are the ones that are stopping the hedgehogs and if you've got a problem with a hedgehog then you call it the vet because they know people like myself what what to do and we talk the situation over yeah we are so devoted to these creatures and they are so much part of our life here in england if you've won in your garden uh and it's getting on well then then leave it alone and give thanks for it uh and otherwise do as barrel says and and call a vet if if you find that a hedgehog's being killed and there are baby hedgehogs around um i think we have to look after them so many many thanks today and we hope you get more sleep tonight but uh once again happy birthday and we wish all of you well as this this day proceeds bye bye the hedgehogs at the moment are self-levitating this is a factor that they do just to get the smell off the towel they're on which is not the one they're usually on at home at the moment and because of that they're trying to get the smell transmitted from the towel onto their bodies so that if they were in the wild the nature would bring the same smell and it isn't that of an enemy amazing um it makes a mess because that what they're doing is licking the back of their bodies and turning their head down and it gets sort of pink whitey foam on it um and then once they think there's enough of the smell on their bodies they'll stop and go back it really is wonderful to think of all these defense mechanisms going on and the way that they naturally do it even though they're so young and they haven't been taught by a wild mother they've been with us as the you know for so long since they were two weeks old and this is just coming as automatic instinctive within them yes really amazing