Remembrance Sunday celebrates and explores - both personally and communally - issues of war and peace, loss and sacrifice, memory and forgetting. It is an opportunity for us to remember our own dead (family, friends, or colleagues), who may have perished in war and to hold the dead of all wars in the presence of God, the all-merciful Father. We should also pray, in the words of the Good Friday liturgy that God may rid the world forever of famine, war, and disease.
Scripture texts for Meditation
God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble.
Psalm 46.1
I lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121.1,2
This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning.
Lamentations 3.21-22
Prayer and Commitment
Before God, we commit ourselves to work in penitence and faith
for reconciliation, that all may dwell in freedom, justice, and peace.
We pray for all who in bereavement, disability, and pain
continue to suffer the consequences of fighting and terror.
We remember with thanksgiving and sorrow all,
in world wars and conflicts past and present, whose lives have been given and taken away.
Remembering
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.
Silent Prayer
Prayer
Ever-living God,
we remember those whom you have gathered from the storm of war
into the peace of your presence;
may that same peace calm our fears,
bring justice to all peoples
and establish harmony among the nations,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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