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The moat of the Tower of London is filling with poppies, ceramic poppies, one for each of the 888,246 British and colonial service men and women who died in the First World War. The visual effect is overwhelming, it resembles a rising tide, a surge of colour, a stark reminder of the heavy cost of war. In this centenary year, the promise to remember them seems to have added poignancy and urgency. Today marks the anniversary of the death of a man marked by one of those poppies, the poet Wilfred Owen; he died just one week before the end of the war. He was decorated for his courage in the heat of battle. But his poetry speaks of the horrors experienced in the trenches – the wailing of shells, the monstrous anger of the guns and the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle. And also the separating of lovers, the holy glimmers of goodbyes and each slow dusk the drawing-down of blinds.

The consolations of religion meant little to Wilfred Owen. Its prayers and rituals seemed to him so hollow. That echoes my own experience at the very beginning of my ministry. Whenever I’d visit the geriatric men’s ward of our local hospital, I’d be greeted by a chorus of baleful comments from a small handful of veterans of the First World War who, the minute they saw my clerical collar, erupted against me. War empties life of meaning; it robs men and women of their humanity. We must surely resolve to work for the day when swords will be beaten into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and peace prevails.

Dear Lord, make me a channel of your peace; where there is hatred let me bring your love. For Christ’s sake. Amen.