ANZAC DAY
Readings:
Wisdom 3:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 12:23-28
Reflection:
Anzac Day – mass and memories in the morning, two-up and footy in the afternoon. Tears and laughter. Perhaps a quintessentially Australian approach to grief, loss, gratitude and admiration. Staying with the memories can be just too hard. Laughter without the memories too shallow!
Many of us whose grandfathers, fathers and uncles fought in World War 2 are familiar with the silence of so many of them ever to talk about their experiences. Many of us lived with the post-traumatic reality that the husbands and fathers who went to war were not the same men who returned.
Our freedoms with their possibilities were won for us at such huge human cost. So often we have seen the epitaph on memorials and in museums “Never Again”.
Never again we hoped. Never again we swore. Never again, we prayed, and pray, on days such as this.
And yet……!
Fr Tom McDonough CP the Parish Priest and Community Leader at St.Paul’s, Glen Osmond, SA