Here’s a pastoral prayer for Remembrance Day
(November 11) from Gord Waldie’s Worship
Offerings website. November 11 is
observed as Remembrance Day,
Veterans Day, Armistice Day, or Poppy Day, depending where you live.
Remembrance
Day Prayer
God of peace and love, on this 11th day of the 11th
month we once again gather to remember. We remember that in Jesus of Nazareth
you have called us to be people of peace saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers”
and reminding us that we are to love our neighbour and our enemy as we love
ourselves.
But we also acknowledge that there are times when we
as a global community fail to live out those words, times when young men and
women hear the call to don the uniforms of their country and serve under their
flag.
Today we give thanks for all who have chosen to
serve their country. We give thanks for their bravery, their commitment, and
their love.
But we know that when armies meet on the field there
are always some who don’t come home. And so we pause in the memory of those who
went and did not return to mothers and wives and children left behind.
We remember battles at Ypres, and Passchendale, and Vimy Ridge in the war we were told would end all wars, battles where the blood of enemies mingled in the mud and water of France and Belgium.
We remember battles at Ypres, and Passchendale, and Vimy Ridge in the war we were told would end all wars, battles where the blood of enemies mingled in the mud and water of France and Belgium.
And we remember those who fell in the war that came
a scarce generation later. And again young men died in places like Hong Kong,
and Ortona, and Dieppe, and Juno Beach, and in the Netherlands.
We remember all who fell and were buried far from
home, or who sank to a watery grave in the cold Atlantic.
Then as the years past the roles changed and we sent our best to help keep the peace in places like Cyprus, and the Golan Heights, and Cambodia. And still some died and were buried.
Then as the years past the roles changed and we sent our best to help keep the peace in places like Cyprus, and the Golan Heights, and Cambodia. And still some died and were buried.
And now, in these last years we find that our young
have returned to the battlefield, only to have some of them return in a coffin
carried solemnly to a waiting aircraft.
God, whose hope for the world is peace, on this day we not only remember the fallen who lie buried under a military tombstone. We remember also the fallen of Germany, and Japan, and France, and Australia. Or Italians, and native Afghanis, and English. This day we honour all who die as a result of humanity’s common failing to live in the peace you have hoped for all these millennia.
God, we pray too for those who returned from battle forever changed by what they had seen. For those who bore, and still bear, wounds of body and soul. In particular we remember those from within this community who have died since the last time we gathered in this way….
And now, God of love, as we have remembered and honoured, we prepare to go back into our everyday lives. May the remembering we have done here today reawaken and strengthen our commitment to work for peace, true peace. Help us to remember that peace will never truly come from a gun barrel but from the depths of our hearts. Help us remember our calling to be peacemakers at home and abroad, in the big things and in the small. And may we never forget the cost that has already been paid.
God of peace that surpasses all understanding, we pray our remembrances and our hopes in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace, who taught his friends to pray by saying together:
Our Father, who art in heaven…
God, whose hope for the world is peace, on this day we not only remember the fallen who lie buried under a military tombstone. We remember also the fallen of Germany, and Japan, and France, and Australia. Or Italians, and native Afghanis, and English. This day we honour all who die as a result of humanity’s common failing to live in the peace you have hoped for all these millennia.
God, we pray too for those who returned from battle forever changed by what they had seen. For those who bore, and still bear, wounds of body and soul. In particular we remember those from within this community who have died since the last time we gathered in this way….
And now, God of love, as we have remembered and honoured, we prepare to go back into our everyday lives. May the remembering we have done here today reawaken and strengthen our commitment to work for peace, true peace. Help us to remember that peace will never truly come from a gun barrel but from the depths of our hearts. Help us remember our calling to be peacemakers at home and abroad, in the big things and in the small. And may we never forget the cost that has already been paid.
God of peace that surpasses all understanding, we pray our remembrances and our hopes in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace, who taught his friends to pray by saying together:
Our Father, who art in heaven…
~ written by Rev. Gord
Waldie (edited slightly) and posted on Worship Offerings. http://worshipofferings.blogspot.ca/2008/01/prayer-for-remembrance-day.html
