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Fr. Allen led the Prayer for the World at the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Oak Bay cenotaph.

From 28:13 in the video recording:

Someone dear to me told me, “I’m not sure I believe in God, but I pray,” which kind of makes sense. In this space, we voice and ideal or reflect on where we want to go. In that spirit, I’ll intersperse my prayer with St Francis’ famous prayer for peace.

God most high and God closer than our breath,

God beyond our understanding and God of our understanding,

make us instruments of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon.

We recognize that those we remember today paid the ultimate cost because there has been too much hatred in our world.

We recognize in ourselves the pride and entitlement that lead to injury.

Free us from hatred which imprisons us.

Give us the courage to sow love in our families and amongst our neighbours.

We pray these words for those who serve in our armed forces, that there may be healing of grief and trauma.

We pray that partners and all those who are related to those who serve may know the strengthening of bonds, even while separated on tours of duty.

As our nation seeks to make our military a juster, more inclusive institution, and as we debate whether to enlarge and strengthen our fighting and peacekeeping capacity, we pray that intentions would be met with actions.

O divine master, grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.

As we continue with Francis’ words, we pray that our world and its nations may grow in their courage, not just to fight, but to understand one another, that the common good may flourish.

Give to this nation and all nations the resilience to stand against authoritarian tendencies against the wiles of those who would use the earth as their plaything and whipping-shed. Help us to have room in our hearts, and exercise this room through the collective pocketbook, that the refugee might be consoled and the downtrodden of the our world lifted up .

Give us the creative power to build a world for everyone, for our kids and grandkids, for those who see things differently than we do, and for those for whom we would give our lives gladly, for

it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we receive eternal life.

Together we pray that those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, whether in war, peacekeeping, or in peace time, will not have done so in vain. For their sake and ours, help us to give, that we might yet receive the strength we need to serve the cause of your loving justice, a peace for all.

As Francis reminds us, we can have hope that in your inexhaustible life and love, even in our dying, we have not reached an end, but a new beginning. In that spirit, may all of us commit to our common task: to honour, to remember, to begin again.

Amen.

Main image from https://www.lumeraevents.com/oakbayremembers

Header image  Tim Hill from Pixabay. Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/poppies-field-yorkshire-sun-rays-4291702/