Remembrance Sunday was a very different occasion from other years but still remarkably poignant, perhaps even more so this year.   So many people across the world have died from the Covid pandemic, yet families, friends and communities are unable to come together to seek mutual support and comfort.  I watched the televised ceremony from the Cenotaph (or empty tomb) in Whitehall, and was struck by the solitary figure of The Queen as she gazed solemnly upon the scaled-down occasion.  It reminded me of all that she has witnessed in a long life devoted to public service, and how her strong personal faith has supported her through 90 years of change and challenge.

We heard the traditional music this year played by a single military band with reduced numbers attending the memorial.  The familiar haunting melodies of Dido’s Lament (When I am laid in earth) and David of the White Rock reminded me of the power of music to communicate emotions which cannot be put into words. 

But I also noticed the curious emptiness in the silence between the evocative music and the peremptory shout of military commands.  This allowed us unexpectedly to hear the singing of the birds along a normally busy street in central London, even on this awesome occasion of great solemnity.  The birdsong gave me hope: just as nature continues to flourish through the most difficult of times, so we will find a way through this challenge of disease, social distancing, isolation and the disruption to normal life if we entrust ourselves to God’s everlasting care for us.  One of the verses in the traditional Remembrance Sunday hymn, O God our help in ages past, affirms this sense of God’s changelessness:

Before the hills in order stood, or earth received her frame, 

From everlasting thou art God, to endless years the same.

None of us could possibly have imagined at Remembrance-tide last year how our world would have changed one year on.  But the importance of recalling what happened in the past has never seemed more relevant, both in terms of thanking those who made great sacrifices, and in encouraging us to seek a new way of doing things. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’, were the words of the writer George Santayana nearly a century ago and they are a timely reminder in our current world of uncertainty and fragility.

The short service at the Cenotaph included the prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola.  This seems particularly appropriate to pray for all who serve, whether in military engagement during two world wars and subsequently, or working as critical care workers in our hospitals this year.  Remembrance Sunday is an opportunity both to look back with thanks and to look forward with renewed commitment to whatever God calls us to face.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your will.

Sarah Bourne, Chaplain for the Arts – 11^th November 2020             sarahbourne@banburystmary.org.uk