Remembrance Sunday – 13th November 2022

Twitch Stream Facebook Stream YouTube Stream

ORDER OF SERVICE

You can click to expand or minimize the order of service below.

All are requested to join in wherever the text is GREEN or when instructed by Fr. David.

All are encouraged to make the sign of the cross at the appropriate time.

All are encouraged to strike their breast with a closed hand following the actions of Fr. David.

All are encouraged to tap their breast with an open hand following the actions of Fr. David.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home;

Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Response:
And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever. Amen

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Penitential Kyrie:

Lord, you promise a place in paradise to all who call to you in penitence and faith.

Lord, have mercy.

All   Lord, have mercy.

Lord, you bring comfort to those who mourn and have suffered loss.

Christ, have mercy.

All   Christ, have mercy.

Lord, you speak your word of peace in times of conflict and calm our fears.

Lord, have mercy.

All   Lord, have mercy.

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us.

Almighty Father, whose will is to restore all things in your beloved Son, the King of all: govern the hearts and minds of those in authority, and bring the families of the nations, divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin, to be subject to his just and gentle rule; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.

A Reading from the Book of Micah:

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills.  Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’  For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.  He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.  For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

The Psalm is now said by the congregation

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;
3 Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
The holy dwelling places of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
6 The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered;
He raised His voice, the earth melted.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,
[i]Who has wrought desolations in the earth.
9 He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariots with fire.
10 Cease striving and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

A Reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

What then are we to say about these things?  If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?  Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.  Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

All stand for the Gospel reading.

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

No one has greater love than this,

To lay down one’s life for one’s friends!

Alleluia!

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John:

Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.  ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.  You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.  I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is our Homily, delivered 13th November, Remembrance Sunday:
Erasmus was a philosopher – A passionate defender of peace, he entitled one essay, “War Is Sweet to Those Who Have Not Tried It.”
Today it is time for remembrance. Remembrance Sunday draws human beings together in a way is almost unique.
For the very young, it is the only real opportunity they have to ask questions about things which they should have no understanding of in their innocence.
Some who gather in this place bring new or not-so-new memories of active service.
Many of us will be stretching our imaginations to try to grasp what those people must be feeling today.
I have no personal experience with armed conflict. When I was 22, I did attempt to enlist but was rejected following a medical check.
By contrast, my paternal grandfather served with the British Expeditionary Force as part of the King’s Own, in the Royal Armoured Corp; being ultimately rescued as a wounded and broken young man from the beaches of Dunkirk. He did not speak about it very often.
My maternal grandmother by contrast often told quite horrific stories from her time surviving as the Blitz rained down upon the London Docks and the East End of London. Both fought the same and different wars of their own.
Bombed people breathe in the dust of ruin and death. It becomes part of who they are.
In my own professional life I was privileged for 5 years to have worked with Refugees, and in particular, victims of torture; ‘survivors of torture’, I prefer; who were lucky enough to have lived and ultimately travelled to somewhere safe from all manner of different conflicts around the globe; their stories each and all were traumatising even when heard second hand.
It has been based on personal relationships and observing the faces of those who have experienced the horror of war first-hand that I have learned most about remembrance.
So, I have the notion from personal accounts given to me and of course from movies which have served to illustrate the reality of war to me. Not all of them are about heroics, some of the most memorable are about loss and pain, dirt and suffering.
These movies have helped me too realise what remembrance is all about. It is not the story that mattered.
For me remembrance is all about the tragedy; the bloody waste of it all.
For those who have been there, they will relive and replay those memories, the injuries and deaths they witnessed over in their minds a million times.
That too is the sacrifice of remembrance. But in all his remembering we need to say very little.
Silence is the only language that can somehow do justice to some feelings, memories, and the imagination. So silence is the true language of remembrance. But there are two kinds of silence. One is because no one wants to communicate.
This is the frosty, thick, awkward, hostile, silence which is an outward expression of irreconcilable hostility.
Such silence is a form of shouting. And it is often a prelude to violence. A failure to communicate, the most tragic failure of any civilized society in my mind.
The other sort of silence is calm and mutual, it is the recognition that what matters is so much more than we can ever say that we might as well honour that fact by shutting up for a bit.
The silence of Armistice Day – the silence of Remembrance Sunday – is this sort of silence.
To do justice to the cost of war we need to be silent together. We need to recognise that sometimes the most important thing we can do is hold our tongue.
One of the things that we notice when we are silent is the sound of our own breathing.
It is something we don’t listen to or think about often enough. We all breathe the same air; in and out it goes, in and out of each and every one of us. This is true for us in today’s community of remembrance here.
It is the same for those engaging in conflict. The British and German trenches in the First World War were filled with the same rotten air, the same rancid smells.
Those who breathed their last on either side had the same stench in their nostrils. And again in the Second World War, or the Falklands War, those who died on either side, would have died breathing the same air.
In Afghanistan, those on active service breathed hot and sandy air, finding it all the harder to catch their breath.
Now, in Ukraine where we are told 3,000 British soldiers are fighting against the Russian invaders alongside an unknown number of US veterans, all not knowing what is going to happen next or who is going to make it through and come home.
Memory and silence, sense of smell, sound of breathing: we must not forget these basic ingredients of our humanity. For of such are fellowship and community made and with it empathy and understanding. The forebearers of Peace.
Peace that surpasses all understanding for all people on Earth is a terrifyingly ambitious hope – and we know that in our search for it there will be many sadness’s and tragedies.
But we know too that the power of remembrance is that while it connects us with sadness it also inspires us in hope.
We remember not to allow the past to capture us in its worst moments but to build us up for the future.
Jesus knew the power of remembrance when he took a loaf of bread, blessed it and gave it to his friends saying, ‘this is my body’ and gave them wine to drink saying, ‘this is my blood and told them to remember him in this way.
For of such simple things is the kingdom of God – the long hoped-for future of justice and peace, mercy and truth – made.
And of such remembrance comes the forgiveness of sins, the cleansing of our hearts and souls of our faults and failures and the all-too-painful realities that accuse us when we think on the qualities of others, and judge ourselves by the sacrifice made by those who cannot be here because they have given their all.
It is our duty this day to ensure that those who in the cause of peace have given, and continue to give, of their life, are honoured and remembered.
But in our remembering we must also vow to give of ourselves for the good of humanity and for peace, especially of the generations yet to come; who will themselves one day stand in silent remembrance and grow in hope as we do today.
Amen.

Intercessions:

On this Remembrance Sunday, let us bring before the God of peace our prayers for the world, the church and all His people.

Let us pray for the peace of the world:
for statesmen and rulers, that they may have wisdom to know and courage to do what is right …

for all who work to improve international relationships, that they may find the true way to reconcile people of different race, colour, and creed …

and for men and women the world over, that they may have justice and freedom, and live in security and peace …

Here follows a short silence.

Lord, in your mercy
Hear our prayer.

Most gracious God and Father,
in whose will is our peace:
turn our hearts and the hearts of all to yourself,
that by the power of your Spirit
the peace which is founded on righteousness
may be established throughout the whole world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us pray for all who suffer as a result of war:

for the injured and the disabled,
for the mentally distressed,
and for those whose faith in God and man has been
weakened or destroyed …

for the homeless and refugees,
for those who are hungry,
and for all who have lost their livelihood and security …

for those who mourn their dead,
those who have lost husband or wife,
children or parents,
and especially for those who have no hope in Christ
to sustain them in their grief …

Here follows a short silence.

Lord, in your mercy
Hear our prayer.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
infinite in wisdom, love, and power:
have compassion on those for whom we pray;
and help us to use all suffering
in the cause of your kingdom;
through him who gave himself for us on the cross,
Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord. Amen.

Let us remember before God,
and commend to his sure keeping
those who have died for their country in war;
those whom we knew, and whose memory we treasure;
and all who have lived and died
in the service of mankind.

Here follows The Silence.

Then the minister says

Almighty and eternal God,
from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted,
either by death or life:
hear our prayers and thanksgivings
for all whom we remember this day;
fulfil in them the purpose of your love;
and bring us all, with them, to your eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Almighty God, who has promised to hear our prayers.

Grant that what we have asked in faith we may by your grace receive, though Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

NOTE All who are able, are requested to stand for the Act of Remembrance.

Let us remember before God,
and commend to his sure keeping
those who have died for their country in war;
those whom we knew, and whose memory we treasure;
and all who have lived and died
in the service of mankind.

Here follows The Silence.

After the conclusion of the 2-minute silence, the priest will say:

They shall not grow old, as we who 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

We will remember them.

As part of this Remembrance Sunday, Members of the British Legion (and others) are invited now to lay their wreaths.

THE PEACE:

The congregation stands.

We are the Body of Christ.

His Spirit is with us.

 

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

And also with you.

Please greet each other with a sign of peace using a traditional Thai ‘Wai’.

Judge eternal, throned in splendour,
Lord of lords and King of kings,
With thy living fire of judgement
Purge this realm of bitter things:
Solace all its wide dominion
With the healing of thy wings.

Still the weary folk are pining
For the hour that brings release:
And the city’s crowded clangour
Cries aloud for sin to cease;
And the homesteads and the woodlands
Plead in silence for their peace.

Crown, O God, thine own endeavour;
Cleave our darkness with thy sword;
Feed the faithless and the hungry
With the riches of thy word:
Cleanse the body of this nation
Through the glory of the Lord.

THE OFFERTORY

Blessed are you, God of all creation.  Through your goodness we have these gifts to share. Accept and use our offerings for your glory and the service of your kingdom.

Blessed be God forever.

Let us pray

We do not presume to come to your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies.  We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.  Amen.

The Lord be with you.

and also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give thanks and praise.

Father, we give you thanks and praise through your beloved Son Jesus Christ, your living Word, through whom you have created all things; who was sent by you in your great goodness to be our Saviour.

By the power of the Holy Spirit he took flesh; as your Son, born of the blessed Virgin, he lived on earth and went about among us; he opened wide his arms for us on the cross; he put an end to death by dying for us; and revealed the resurrection by rising to new life; so he fulfilled your will and won for you a holy people.

Proper Preface

Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we proclaim your great and glorious name, for ever praising you and saying:

Holy, holy, holy Lord God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.

Lord, you are holy indeed, the source of all holiness; grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit, and according to your holy will, these gifts of bread and wine may be to us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; who, in the same night that he was betrayed, took bread and gave you thanks; he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way, after supper he took the cup and gave you thanks; he gave it to them, saying: Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant,

which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it,

in remembrance of me.

Great is the mystery of faith:

Christ has died:

Christ is risen:

Christ will come again.

And so, Father, calling to mind his death on the cross, his perfect sacrifice, made once for the sins of the whole world; rejoicing in his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming in glory, we celebrate this memorial of our redemption.

As we offer you this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, we bring before you this bread and this cup and we thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you. Send the Holy Spirit on your people and gather into one in your kingdom all who share this one bread and one cup, so that we, in the company of [N and] all the saints, may praise and glorify you for ever, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, and in whom, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honour and glory be yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Let us pray with confidence to the Father, as our Saviour has taught us:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.

Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.

This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world;

Happy are those who are called to his supper.

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

 After Communion the celebrant and the congregation say

Let us pray.

Father of all we give you thanks and praise that when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home. Dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory. May we who share Christ’s body live his risen life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world. 

Keep us in this hope that we have grasped; so we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your name.

Father, we offer ourselves to you as a living sacrifice through Jesus Christ our Lord. Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord: and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be amongst you and remain with you always.

Amen.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord:

In the name of Christ.  Amen.

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love:
The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there’s another country, I’ve hear of long go,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by souls and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.

NOTE: The introductory music is ‘Nimrod’ from the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar.

Music

Here is the music for this week’s hymns, if you would like to practice beforehand.

Performed by Fr. David Price