Remembrance Sunday

If you travel across many parts of East Anglia, if you look deep enough, you can see the scars of war all over the landscape. A pillbox in a field, overgrown with grass; an abandoned run-way, cracked by the weeds. We still show the effects of recent war in our daily life in parts of the diocese too. Just think of all the military and air force bases, and our local Royal Anglian Regiment, which are not relics, but a living testament to the reality of war, especially in these violent days we live in.

Today, like many others around the country and the whole world, we gathered to pray for the souls of those killed in war. During our celebration of Mass here in Oscott, we heard a list of all the Oscotians who were killed in the First World War, and laid a wreath of poppies underneath the plaque in the Chapel on which their names are engraved for posterity. Every day in our Chapel, we are reminded of the dreadful effects of war in a window dedicated to a former student of the 19th century, who died during the Crimean War as a military chaplain. All of those Oscotians, though they are long dead, are our brothers. They walked in these corridors, our rooms were once their rooms.

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

All of those who died in wars, and continue to do so, are our brothers and sisters, and so we pray for their souls, who were tragically taken away in such a dreadful manner, and remember and help those left behind in grief and sorrow. Next to our window, is the XIVth Station of Cross, showing the dead Christ being laid in his tomb, his mother watching over in pain, like a sword had pierced her heart.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord

And let perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in peace.

Amen.