Sermon preached by the Rt Revd Trevor Williams, Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe at the Remembrance Day Service at St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin. 8th November 2009-11-09
Blessed be the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Matthew 5 verse 9
May I speak in the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
One of the strangest things about a Remembrance Service is the awesome Silence during the act of Remembrance,. We are so unused to Silence. It seems many of us deliberately avoid it. Walking in the countryside, far away from civilization, we can still choose to be plugged in and switched on with our MP3 player.
But silence is not empty. It can be filled with meaning..
Six weeks ago our President, her Excellency Mrs Mary McAleese, came to Killarney and unveiled a memorial to the men of the town who died in the First World War.
It was a moving occasion and particularly poignant for members of the family of those who died.
One mother’s words were quoted at the ceremony. When the First World War broke out, her son had joined the army and was sent to the front.
However the fateful telegraph was delivered to this mother’s door, to tell her that her son was missing presumed dead. Many years later, as she told her story to friends, she said that the most painful thing was the terrible loss of her son, but what made that pain so much worse, was never being able to mention his name; never being about to say how he died, or where or when he died and why he died.
She was confined to a deathly silence. The grief she so badly needed to talk about, at that time in Ireland, was something that could not be talked about. ?Six and a half weeks ago in Killarney, there was a sense of relief and healing as something that was taboo could now be acknowledged openly.
In that short act of remembrance there was a sense that that the denying, alienating and hostile silence was replaced by a silence that itself spoke of presence, compassion and inclusive community. Thankfully, here in Ireland we are beginning to overcome the division between US and THEM and to recognise the common vulnerability of our human condition.
So in this service we keep a respectful silence. As we face the horror of war, the depth of personal, communal and national suffering, there are no words to be said. Respectful silence can express what must be expressed, much more eloquently.
Our remembrance is not just of the past. We call to mind that the suffering of war goes on. The First World War was not the war to end all wars, as many had hoped and prayed.
A contemporary historian has said “the 20th century was the most murderous in recorded history.
The total number of deaths caused by or associated with its wars has been estimated at 187 million, the equivalent of more than one in ten of the world’s population in 1913”
And the wars go on. And we know why. It is so easy to resort to violence. We know that impulse when we fly off the handle in a rage.
We have seen it played out in Northern Ireland for decades, violence breeds violence. People in Northern Ireland have said to me, we didn’t know what else to do. The impulsive reaction to violence will most likely suck you into that vortex of escalating violence.
This Remembrance service offers us the opportunity to reflect on violence and its consequences, in calm silence, and to recommit ourselves to the way of peace.
We call to mind the horror and futility of war. We remember the countless multitudes who have suffered in the past, and the continuing suffering in our own day; for some of us the memories will be much more personal, of loved ones lost or whose lives were permanently affected through injury or disability of body and mind.
To reflect on such realities today can change our life.
Ray Davey was a prisoner of war in Germany during the Second World War. He was being held on a castle over looking a city. Other prisoners of war were held in the city and he was allowed visit them from time to time.
One day he hadn’t completed his list of visits and he pleaded with his German guard to let him stay the night to finish his work in the morning. But his guard refused and he was returned to his prison. That night he heard the drone of planes, wave after wave. He went to his window and saw Dresken in flames a massive incendiary attack engulfed the entire city; horrific stories tell how the inferno was so vicious that those near the edge who ran to escape were sucked back into its flames.
Ray Davey returned to Northern Ireland and decided to use that memory of Dresden positively.
He founded the Corrymeela community 44 years ago, and this community of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, is still working for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and throughout the world. We meet not to glorify war, but in our remembrance of war to strengthen our commitment to peace.
In our first reading we heard of a vision where God would sit in judgment among the nations and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Those who engage in peace building are doing God’s business.
Peace and Reconciliation is the project which God has committed himself to, and he calls us to commit ourselves to working for peace.
And so we remember today with thanksgiving, the Irish defense forces who have been engaged in United Nations Peace Keeping duties in Central America, Russia, the former Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Namibia, Western Sahara, Liberia and East Timor. And we remember those who have given their lives in that cause of peace.
But we also recognise that God calls each one of us to work for justice and peace in the world which we touch and influence.In our families, our work places, our communities, our country and our world.
Jesus said, “Blessed be the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”
May each of us play our part.
AMEN.
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