Good Friday 6th April 1917
This is the
third Good Friday spent at War. This
fact is not lost on a lot of the men here at the Front. It is also a source of poignant regret to the
men of the cloth who minister to the forces – Church of England padres,
Methodist ministers, Roman Catholic priests. These men counsel the frightened,
comfort the wounded and attend to the dying. They carry no weapon save for the
spiritual weapons of their calling, a communion or mass kit and belief.
Speaking with
a padre today he drew the obvious comparison between the suffering of Christ on
the Cross and the suffering of the men at the Front, the civilians driven from
their homes, wounded, raped and killed by enemy soldiers and those in England
who wait in hope for their own loved one to return. After nearly nineteen hundred
years that Supreme Sacrifice has brought no end to war which still demands
supreme sacrifices from ordinary men and women. At the end of our discussion he
gave me a sad, but determined smile, and reminded me that that Supreme
Sacrifice still took place and still works to take away our sins, when we care
to acknowledge them and to regret them.
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