Thurifer considers remembrance

 

In July 1919 a temporary monument had been commissioned by the government for a victory parade or peace march, as one newspaper put it, pending a decision about the form and character of a permanent national War Memorial. Edwin Lutyens designed a simple cenotaph as “a monument … to the dead who are buried elsewhere.” It bore three words THE GLORIOUS DEAD. King George V took the salute of his troops, those of the Dominions, contingents from the Allies, from a pavilion erected at the base of the Queen Victoria monument opposite Buckingham Palace. As they marched down Whitehall and passed the Cenotaph, a column on either side, the bands ceased playing, eyes turned towards the monument, officers saluted. At the base stood four Guardsmen, with bowed heads and reversed arms. Only marching feet sounded in the silence. The following year on 11th November 1920 the King unveiled the Cenotaph we see today, gleaming white, sombre and moving in its noble simplicity as part of the ceremonies for the Burial of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.

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The national commemoration for the 75th Anniversary of the end of Word War II fell victim to Covid-19. However, the centrepiece could not have been more appropriate. HM The Queen addressed the nation at the same hour her father King George VI had done in 1945. She reflected that “The War had been a total war; it had affected everyone, and no one was immune from its impact. Whether it be the men and women called up to serve; families separated from each other; or people asked to take up new roles and skills to support the war effort, all had a part to play.  At the start, the outlook seemed bleak, the end distant, the outcome uncertain. But we kept faith that the cause was right – and this belief, as my father noted in his broadcast, carried us through.” Her comments had contemporary resonances. We were asked to show similar resilience in different but dangerous circumstances. She emphasised the nature and imperative of sacrifice then, and by implication now, “Many people laid down their lives in that terrible conflict. They fought so we could live in peace, at home and abroad. They died so we could live as free people in a world of free nations. They risked all so our families and neighbourhoods could be safe.”

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Earlier in 1945 saw the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. There were many  camps but this stands as a tragic symbol and warning that humanity is as capable of great evil as of great good: that humankind can sink to levels of depravity and moral nihilism that go beyond words. Words are not enough. I remember hearing a recording (which I have been unable to locate) of a Jewish Cantor intoning the Mourning Kadesh in Auschwitz shortly after its liberation. Although the words are powerful enough: “In the world which will be renewed and where He will give life to the dead and raise them to eternal life, and rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and complete his Temple there.” it is the rise and fall of the ululating incantation that touches the heart. 

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Listen also to the Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen. Written in 1941 in a German Prisoner of War Camp, scored for the makeshift instruments available to him; clarinet, violin, cello, piano and first played in the camp. The final section is prefaced, Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus : Praise to the immortality of Jesus. It is a moving eulogy to Jesus Christ, the Man: Ecce Homo. The Word made flesh. The sacrifice of love, the immortality of that love, undying, eternal. The music charts the ascent of the individual human being to God, the child of God supplicating to the Father, the human made divine, the earthly kingdom to Paradise.

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“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Shelley’s formulation was not new  when he wrote “A Defence of Poetry” in 1820. Its expression is found in classical writers, during the Renaissance and the Augustan Age. Its peak may have been with the Romantics until Yeats wrote its epitaph, “[poets] have no gift to set a statesman right.” The World War I poets, however, still exert some exemplary moral power. The War poets, whom we now know so well, were not read, at least not widely, during the War or some of their lifetimes. Wilfred Owen killed days before the Armistice. Yet they have legislated our understanding and response, formed our consciousness. First introduced to them when I was 13, they tempered an adolescent conception of war as a glorious adventure, a supremely moral act. But here War was not “dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori,” not glorious, it was morally compromised. Yet despite moral ambiguities, war gives rise to acts of bravery, sacrifice, comradeship. A paradox we face in annual remembrance. 

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A prayer found in Ravensbruck concentration camp after its liberation: O Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember the fruits we bought, thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of this; and, when they come to judgement, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness. Amen