I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ (Psalm 122:1)

We’ve been in the cathedral a fair bit since term started. I want to start with a question for you to think about, whether you’re new here or whether you’ve been around for a while: How many different ways into the cathedral do you think there are?

When you came in this morning, you had a choice of two doorways – the two west corners at the back. On the first day of term, for a bit of pomp and ceremony, we opened the main west doors to allow a procession in and out. There are other ways in through the gift shop; or through the north or south transepts. All the way up at the east end there’s a door that leads from Edith Cavell’s grave outside to the inside of the military chapel. There used to be a suspended walkway from upstairs in the Bishop’s Palace across to the first floor level in here to save the bishop getting rained on. I’m actually not sure myself how many ways into Norwich Cathedral there are now. If you know the answer – or if at some point you have a spare ten minutes to walk round the building counting the doorways – perhaps you could let me know.

Many years ago, before I lived and worked in Norwich, before I was even a priest, I visited Norwich Cathedral with a group of year 6 children from South London. They were in Norfolk on their week-long school journey to experience something different to their usual. I don’t remember which door we came in that day. But I do remember that I was a bit concerned about one of the pupils in the group. His name was Daniel. He was the naughty one. I was worried he was going to find the cathedral boring and start messing around. As it turned out, I was completely wrong.

We started our tour in the cloisters – the outdoors space on the south side surrounded by walkways and pillars. Our guide was a retired teacher who guessed that, before we saw the stained glass windows or the bishop’s cathedra, we might like to see a game played by the monks who originally lived here. It was a very simple game – the monks would stand on the ledges in the cloisters and swing round the pillars like apes. (We know that they did this because their feet wore grooves into the stone that you can still see today.) Our guide had already spotted Daniel, and he asked him to demonstrate swinging round the pillars. Sure enough, Daniel’s feet naturally fitted into the grooves as he moved. From that moment, he was fascinated. I think partly because he simply wasn’t expecting there to be fun in the cathedral. But with the help of the guide, Daniel found his own way into this place.

Later we were shown some hidden medieval graffiti. Right in the middle of it we happened to find Daniel’s initials, carved by someone centuries ago. It was wonderful to watch Daniel feeling like he belonged here.

However many literal doorways there are, I hope you can all find your own figurative way into this cathedral. If you have some kind of a maths brain, the physics and the proportions around us are extraordinary. A while ago Dr Leeder gave an assembly on how many Smarties you can fit in this space. Let the numbers inspire you. If you’re someone who likes Art and Design, there’s no shortage of craftmanship in here that you can get up close to. It’s not all in the past; even today you might see a modern stonemason winching a block of stone up the scaffolding outside to repair centuries of rain and wind erosion. Be inspired by the necessary work of people who are really good at 3D Design. If you’ve just started a course in Psychology, ask yourself why human beings are motivated to begin buildings like this in the first place. The first ever Bishop of Norwich, buried at the east end, was consumed by shame and guilt; he began the construction of this cathedral as a penance.

Just about everything we teach is represented: languages, like Latin and a little Anglo-Norman; or poetry, written on the walls; or music, of course; or history, in bucketloads. It’s all here, waiting for you to spot something that catches your interest, and which will take you further in. What is generally true in education is true here: there are many ways in. Just choose your doorway.

I want to close by reading part of an email that I got from an ON recently. This is someone who has been away from Norwich School for two decades and now lives in Australia; these are his recollections.

Looking back, it is quite remarkable that a load of teenagers meet in the cathedral in the morning… I barely noticed how unusual this was at the time, but the very act of starting the day within an enormous, time-tested cathedral and singing together has by itself a very unifying and edifying effect.

When catching up with my peers occasionally, one repeated theme that emerges is how we miss the sense of the transcendent that pervaded school life in the cathedral close. It's so easy to become busied up with urban life and work… longing for meaning and fullness and forgetting where it comes from.

You may know that on this date 25 years ago – the 11th September 2001, or 9/11 – there was an attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington which sent shock waves around the globe. We keep this anniversary in mind as we come to our prayer for this morning, which is the Benedictine Prayer for Peace.

Benedictine prayer for peace

We would like to be people of peace; to walk the paths of peace our whole life long, and to lead others into the ways of peace.

May there be peace in our hearts, peace in our homes, peace in our sorely troubled world.

May we be peace-makers, ready to take the first step in ending bitterness, being the first to hold out our hands in friendship and forgiveness.

May peace, grace and love permeate our daily living.

In the fullness of time, may we know the reward of being peacemakers.