"A Journey of Reconciliation" is an organisation that has been established to commemorate all those from Ireland, men and women, who served, fought, and died during the World Wars, and to promote peace and reconciliation between all the people of the island of Ireland. The reason I refer to it in these notes for Remembrance Sunday is that the organisation's Peace Park at Messines, Flanders, Belgium, will be open next Wednesday. Well sponsored by our Government, the memorial, with its fitting symbolism, will be a further step that builds on the restoration of the fine War Memorial park at Islandbridge in Dublin.
Herewith a little story that shows how a visit to a war memorial can be of immense benefit. After many years in far-off America a man decided to pay a visit to the village in England where he had lived before the family emigrated. He was excited. Would the place have changed beyond recognition? Would there be anyone left there who might remember him, or his family? He was not disappointed. Not only had the little village been preserved in all its natural beauty and atmosphere, but there were some elderly residents who remembered him, and in particular his adored grandfather, who had been killed when on active service in the war. He was supremely satisfied that the decent, honourable, people of the village had placed his grandfather's name on their war memorial.
In the Book of Common Prayer we find words that are a real help to us in observing the spirit of Remembrance Day. They enlarge our minds when praying to include the faithful members of the church in heaven with those serving God today on earth: "O God, we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that thou didst in their days, and in the old time before them."
On Remembrance Day we join with millions of people around the world in honouring the noble sacrifices of those who died, or still suffer, saying Laurence Binyon's words:
They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Believers in Christ rejoice that He wanted us to remember him when he commanded us to "Do this in remembrance of me."
The well known prayer attributed to St Francis of Assisi provides a positive and helpful inspiration for use on Remembrance Day - a day when we not only give thanks for all who have given their lives and sufferings for freedom, but also for those who are determined to play their part in building for peace:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred let me sow love,
where there is injury, let me sow pardon,
where there is doubt let me sow faith,
where there is despair let me give hope,
where there is darkness let me give light,
where there is sadness let me give joy.
O divine master, grant that I may not try to be comforted but to comfort,
not try to be understood but to understand,
not try to be loved but to love.
Because it is in giving that we receive,
it is in forgiving that we are forgiven,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
W.W.