Thursday of Week 30 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
Ephesians 6:10-20 | Psalm 143:1-2,9-10 | Luke 13:31-35
The militaristic tone that St. Paul adopts in today’s reading reminds me of our visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland, at the start of our UK Catholic tour. There, I was introduced to the tradition of memorialising war heroes, with numerous monuments to officers who fell in battle, and combat unit flags flown high, deliberately left to degrade and unravel over time in homage to the regiments of old soldiers who “never die, they just fade away”.
But as modern man tired of worldwide conflict, a different monument sprang up within the cathedral to offset the glorification of war: the Tree of Remembrance.
Monuments to heroes, flags of regimental honour…and a stripped steel tree to remind us of the cost of secular war.
As the official cathedral website describes the juxtaposition:
Many of the monuments in the building represent those whose families have paid to have their relative remembered. These monuments represent a time when war was often glamorised and death through conflict described as “glorious.”
Today, St. Patrick’s Cathedral takes a very different view of remembrance. Death in wartime is solemnly remembered as a tragic loss of life. Remembrance must be inclusive rather than exclusive. All those who have been affected by violence or conflict are today remembered in the Cathedral.
The Tree of Remembrance was erected in the North Transept of the Cathedral. The monument uses a simple, neutral symbol of nature – the tree. However, the tree has been broken and destroyed by war and is made, not from natural materials, but from steel. This is intended to reflect modern industrial warfare. The base of the tree is surrounded by barbed wire, a universal symbol of conflict.
Visitors to the space are invited to remember a loved one who has been affected by conflict by filling out a small leave shaped tag and tying it to the barbed wire. Over time, the barbed wire will be covered with messages of hope.
(If you’re wondering where all the messages went, they make up the green and white “mat” at the foot of the tree.)
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Of course, St. Paul actually referred to spiritual warfare, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral commemorates that too, with a truncated version of that famous incantation that is St. Patrick’s Breastplate:
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Now, it’s easy to see and love the Christ we face in the people we love.
It’s a lot harder to see and love the Christ we face in the people we don’t like, the ones who make our lives miserable.
And it’s almost impossible to remember that our quarrel is not with them, but with the Evil One that prods them with empty promises.
St. Paul understood that all too well, and reminds us that:
it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the Sovereignties and the Powers who originate the darkness in this world, the spiritual army of evil in the heavens. (Ephesians 6:12)
So let us gird for war with Satan and his minions, fortified with daily prayer and fervent love as children of the Almighty.
And since we need competent leadership in our daily struggle, let us invoke the help of God’s commanding general:
Saint Michael Archangel,
defend us in battle,
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil;
may God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God, cast into hell
Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.