Family Communion for the third Sunday before Advent (Remembrance Sunday)
- Occurring
- for 1 hour, 15 mins
- Venue
- Kidbrooke, St Nicholas
- Address Whetstone Road Kidbrooke London, SE3 8PX, United Kingdom
Family Communion for Remembrance Day: celebrant the Revd Tola Badejo.
First reading: 2 Thessalonians 2. 1–5, 13–17
Gospel: Luke 20. 27–38
At the end of this service we shall take part in the national Act of Remembrance. While this formal commemoration began in the aftermath of the Great War of 1914–18, we think also of those who suffered and are suffering in subsequent wars and reflect on our own responsibilities towards future peace and justice. This year, in particular, we pray that the fragile peace in Gaza will hold and that just resolutions will be found to the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan.
In the National Gallery's exhibition of early-Renaissance Sienese art earlier this year, one of the many moving exhibits was a broken Head of Christ, all that remains of a crucifix carved by Lando di Pietro in 1337 and destroyed as collateral damage in 1944 (image below). Inside the shattered carving was found a parchment containing a prayer from the artist and the following message:
‘In the year of Our Lord 1337 was completed this figure in the likeness of the crucified Jesus Christ, living and true Son of God. And one must worship him and not this wood.’
The destruction of a precious work of art is of course a terrible thing, but it is as nothing compared to the damage and destruction of men, women and children, also made in the likeness of the living God. The fate of Lando's broken carving underlines the very point he intended to make, that Christ stands alongside us in our suffering.
