Martinmas: remembering our dead on the Feast of the soldier-saint on Remembrance Day 2008

We shall remember them...

The British tribal rite of honouring the war dead is still second to none and captures exactly the feeling that ought to be experienced when we consider all those who gave their lives in war - especially those young lives cut off in their prime.

This is one thing the BBC still does well:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7718227.stm

I can never help but think of the young lives lost in the First World War - that useless, pointless war brought about by the enemies of civilisation, of peace and - above all - of Christianity. Having started the war, the enemies of Christianity then did their level best to prevent it ending until every Christian nation had either toppled (like Austria-Hungary) or else had been bled half to death.

I think of young men like 19-year-old Roland Leighton, the poet and fiancee of Vera Brittain, who died of wounds on the Western Front.

"Goodnight, though life and all take flight, never goodbye..."
Inscription on the grave of Roland Leighton, the 19-year-old English poet.

AT A CALVARY NEAR THE ANCRE
(Wilfred Owen)

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ's denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

St Martin of Tours, pray for our noble dead!


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