Sunday 12th Nov 2006 - Remembrance

On 12 November we will be keeping Remembrance Sunday. For so many of you who will be with us on this occasion, the music and the readings and the organisations with their banners will bring back many memories. Some of these memories will be very painful and very personal, the memory of families and friends and colleagues in arms who gave their lives for the freedom of us all.

But for younger generations the urge to keep Remembrance seems less real. How can such an observance help us? Would it not be better for us if this day were not kept at all? Would it not be better if we concentrated more on reconciliation than on past conflict? It is doubtless the case that as the years pass and those who lived through the two wars grow fewer, the momentum of this day dwindles. But I would suggest especially to those of my own generation that we should do our best to keep this important day going, for our sake and that of our children.

Why? Well, for one thing, we have as a nation lost people in conflict very recently. And the pain of loss is compounded by the nagging questions about how worthwhile the conflict has been. It is a mistake to think that war, even for our own nation is a thing of the past. It is a mistake to forget this fact or to forget just how real the price of war is. Then again, remembrance is a highly important theme for the Christian even when the persons remembered lived many generations before. Central to Christian spirituality is remembrance, the remembrance of Jesus Christ. When we read his words in the gospels, when we pray through him to our Father, and when we meet together in Christian fellowship, we are remembering him. We need reminding here that our word ‘remember’ hardly does justice to the Greek which it translates: ‘anamnesis’ means far more than remembrance in the cold and isolated way that we sometimes use it. The word means remembering in such a way as to make the person remembered present among us.

This is the sense of the word when it is used by Jesus at the Last Supper (Luke 22:19 = 1Cor 11: 24,25). Jesus commands us to do the Eucharist in remembrance of him until he returns. And in this supreme act of Christian Remembrance Jesus is made present for us in a real and mysterious way. He is present in priest and people, he is present in their prayers, he is present in the proclamation of his word; but most importantly of all, he is present in the bread and wine offered on his altar. Our worship.

But the main point I wish to draw from this parallel between Remembrance Sunday and the Eucharist is this: none of us who gathers at the Lord’s Table week by week or day by day can remember Jesus in the way that many older people can remember those who died in the Wars. But this distance of time does not hinder our remembering Jesus in the Christian sense of the term, making him present in our worship and giving thanks for his supreme sacrifice and for his example. This parallel should teach people of my generation that far from forgetting those who died for us, we should actively call them to mind year by year. We should continue to use the evocative prayers and hymns which are so moving to our elders, those things which somehow make present the pain and sadness of past years. And if we do this faithfully, maybe, just maybe, the supreme price paid by those we remember will not go for nothing. Maybe we will learn from the mistakes of past generations and live in a world of freedom and peace.

The way to this new world will not be found by forgetting our past, but rather by getting to grips with it, being thankful for it, and learning from it.

May we all have a meaningful Remembrance Sunday!

Fr P